What’s Up These Days?

Posted on March 25th, 2008 10:24am by Adam McGill
Filed under Transportation

Apologies for my belated blogging on this matter, but seems to me there’s been some increased and unusual air traffic of late. On Saturday around noon, wife and I noticed the MetLife blimp hovering over the Fair Park area. I couldn’t think of any major event it’d be in town for — no football game at the Cotton Bowl or golf tourney somewheres south. That mystery is now solved. But the other one lingers: Why were there old-looking, loud-flying military planes heading westward late last week and over the weekend? I assume there was some air show, but I couldn’t find an online reference for it. (Granted, I didn’t look very far.) Anyone know anything?

11 comments

  1. http://www.flightmuseum.com/docs/fofm_2008collingswebposter.pdf

    Hitch a ride in a historic aircraft to benefit charity.

    @ 10:35 am on March 25, 2008

  2. Thank god Matt found that … I thought I was going to have to reference WFAA’s Why Guy, who did a piece on it already.

    @ 10:37 am on March 25, 2008

  3. The 3 planes are in town once a year or so from the Collings foundation
    The B24 is the only flying example and was built by Consolidated in Ft Worth, now Lockheed Martin. The B 17 and B25 visit often. To the Love Field Museum, this time, or to the really cool Addison airport Museum, The Cavanaugh flight museum. flying stuff that is collected by the dude who owns Jannaclean.

    @ 10:42 am on March 25, 2008

  4. more info on our friendly blimp …

    http://airshippilot.blogspot.com/

    @ 11:16 am on March 25, 2008

  5. “The B24 is the only flying example…”

    beg to differ, but the CAF also has a B-24 that is in flying condition. Originally an export model LB-40 it has been returned to B-24A status

    http://www.commemorativeairforce.org/news/news_details.php?newsid=80

    http://www.missingaircrew.com/images/b24osh/index.asp

    Now I suspect that what Collings meant to say is that they have the only flying example of that particular model ;-)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commemorative_Air_Force

    http://www.commemorativeairforce.org/

    http://www.collingsfoundation.org/menu.htm

    @ 11:16 am on March 25, 2008

  6. With video:

    http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2008/mar/21/world-war-ii-bombers-fly-love-field/

    @ 11:54 am on March 25, 2008

  7. oops that is correct and I thought it was a navy model. In any case its nice to see i am not the only person who cares. Even if everybody thinks we are dorks ;)
    also thanks for putting up the links to these fine orgs that do things now that we and the future will have to appreciate!

    @ 11:57 am on March 25, 2008

  8. Maybe I’m denser than helium, but that blimp story didn’t say WHY the airship was in town. It mentioned the 140th anniversary of MetLife, but why would that bring the ship to Dallas? There’s no Dallas connection.
    So, is it in town just because it can be in town?

    @ 12:09 pm on March 25, 2008

  9. I live in East Dallas and enjoy these old birds flying overhead. My grandfather and my great grandmother (a Rosie the Riveter) built the B-24 in San Diego, first for England then the US after we entered the war. My wife and I intend to pay for a ride on one someday.

    @ 12:36 pm on March 25, 2008

  10. It’snotpersonal

    you sound frustrated. here’s the link that explains it again. along with some lovely pictures it took.

    http://airshippilot.blogspot.com/

    @ 12:54 pm on March 25, 2008

  11. I too live in Old East Dallas and have enjoyed the aircraft. I went to the CAF (Confederate Air Force) shows as a kid and my late Army Air Force Daddy had a friend up near Paris who owned several of these planes.

    We were having a little champagne porch party late Friday afternoon and the B-17 made a spectacular appearance over Junius Heights. Fortunately I am fast with the Glenn Miller and we all went back in time for a bit in our historic neighborhood.

    @ 5:54 pm on March 25, 2008