I was working at a TV station in Reno, Nevada back in April of '94 when I got the call... I was to join another photographer for a drive to McClellan AFB near Sacramento, California. There, each of us would catch a flight back home for some air-to-air shooting aboard one of the Collings Foundations two restored World War II aircraft. I picked the B-17, my buddy took the B-24. To this day, that flight is the highlight of my time in the sky.

It was certainly interesting to fly aboard a machine made for war. Open windows in the unpressurized fuselage... walking from rib to rib with only a thin sheet of aluminum between you and the outside... the thundering sound from those 1200 horsepower radials all made for an experience I'll never forget. I could imagine what it must have been like 50 years earlier in an airplane just like this one, on a long mission with a full bomb bay with heavy flak or enemy fighters to contend with. It gave me a much greater appreciation for the service of our veterans.

Our flight from Sacramento to Reno took both aircraft side by side, just skimming over the peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Much too soon, the shores of Lake Tahoe came into view. What a sight it must have been for boaters to see a B-17 and B-24 no more than 50 feet above the water, almost dancing together towards the north shore. From where I stood, I thought this must be how God sees His world.

We left the mountains behind us and started our descent into Washoe valley. I had a phenomenal 360 degree view from my vantage point in the top forward gun position. We spent the next twenty minutes circling downtown Reno. By the time we made our turn onto final for runway 16 right, the crowd on the road at the end of the runway had completely shut down street traffic. Our pilot advanced the throttles, pumped some oil into the exhaust, and we strafed the length of the runway trailing billowing clouds of white smoke.

Our arrival in Reno was anything but unnoticed. We taxied to a stop not far from the RF-4 Phantom jets on the ramp of the Nevada Air National Guard... and they thought their aircraft were old. With the mission complete, I looked back at the 50 year-old aircraft sitting quietly on the tarmac... Now I understood what Mr. McGee must have felt when he wrote "I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings... and while with silent lifting mind I trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand and touched the face of God."