Flying Heritage Collection adds a perfect B-25

Published 12:51 pm Thursday, June 30, 2011

EVERETT — Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection at Paine Field, already firmly established as the world’s most authentically restored display of flyable historic aircraft, has added a B-25J Mitchell bomber to its fleet.

After 12 years of painstaking restoration in Chino, Calif., the b

omber flew into Everett June 10, bristling with machine guns and sporting the distinctive 490th Bomb Squadron’s famous skull and wings nose art.

“This B-25J is the most accurately restored bomber of its kind,” said FHC Executive Director Adrian Hunt. “Everything has been restored to perfection, just as it was when it was built in 1944. It’s accurate right down to its cup holders and working bomb bay mechanisms.”

Even the rows of yellow bombs on its nose, one for each bombing mission in Burma, are two different colors of yellow, Hunt said, “because that’s what the original looked like when it was flown in the China-Burma theaters during World War II.”

Although it’s a large twin-engine bomber in a hangar of historic fighter planes, it fits in well, Hunt said.

“It’s tall enough to allow other planes to be displayed underneath its wings and fuselage,” he said. “And with so much glass in the canopies, you can see much of the detail inside. All of our collection’s planes have immaculate, detailed cockpits but you can’t see them because we can’t let people just climb all over them. So the B-25 allows much more visibility for inside detail.”

The FHC’s B-25J has a glass nose that shows off the bombsight and nose guns; Side guns and the tail gunner’s position are also clearly visible. Since B-25s were often used for ground strafing missions in the Pacific, many of the “J” model planes were equipped with additional machine guns mounted on the sides of the nose, like this model.

Nose art for all of the B-25s in the 490th Bomb Squadron featured the “winged skull” — a fierce looking skull atop a set of Army Air Corps pilot’s wings — even though it was never an emblem officially adopted by the military. The squadron was tagged as the Burma Bridge Busters for their wartime efforts.

One of the members of the squadron was Tech. Sgt. Arnold Spielberg, father of famed movie producer Steven Spielberg, although the elder Spielberg was not a crew member on any of the bombers, Hunt said.

“Because Paul Allen is a friend of Steven Spielberg, he decided to paint this plane in the colors of the 490th Bomb Squadron in his honor but also to honor all of the pilots and crews of the 490th’s B-25s that flew in the war,” he said during a private tour of the restored bomber. “We hope to have Arnold up here at some point to see the plane. The plane is restored with the accuracy and detail that Paul is noted for.”

According to Aero Vintage Books, there were 43 operational B-25s at the end of 2009, including Historic Flight Foundation’s “Grumpy” B-25D, also based at Paine Field. Another four bombers were under restoration to operational flying mode at that time, including the FHC’s just delivered B-25J. Another 60 B-25s were on static display, with three more in restoration for nonflying roles.

Although most of the B-25s that flew in World War II became scrap metal after the conflict, the FHC’s B-25 was one of those that continued to fly for many years, first with the Air National Guard and then with civilian operators. It was one of 117 B-25s modified by Hughes Tool Co. in California for use as fighter radar control trainers.

In the early 1960s, the plane was bought by Cascade Drilling Co. of Calgary, Alberta, and became the first B-25 to be converted into a fire-fighting water bomber. By 1995 the plane, painted bright yellow at that time, had ended up at the Arlington Airport’s historic Naval Air Station hangar that dated back to World War II, when the military used the airfield for training.

In 1999, Allen acquired the B-25J and sent it to Aero Trader in Chico, Calif., home of the world’s top-ranked restorer of B-25s. There the bomber was rebuilt to its original state, which included searching out original B-25 gun turrets, radios, crew equipment and a variety of other parts from the bombsight to cockpit control panels, flight control systems and bomb-handling mechanisms.

The bomber is now displayed with a variety of WWII planes that shared the skies during the war years, from P-47 Thunderbolts to Japanese and German fighters, all of them restored with perfection to their original condition, making the Flying Heritage Collection the most authentic display of historic aircraft in the world.

Watch the B-25J fly this summer

The Flying Heritage Collection’s new B-25J Mitchell will fly for public view twice this year.

On Saturday, July 16, the bomber debuts with its first flight for the FHC’s 2011 Fly Days, a series of summer flights of historic aircraft that always attracts crowds. Visitors are able to see the planes rev up their engines, take to the air and return, all from a close viewing point at the FHC hangar.

Learn more about FHC’s summer Fly Days schedule and the aircraft involved at www.flyingheritage.org.

On Sept. 24, the FHC’s last Fly Day of 2011, the B-25J will fly over Paine Field in formation with John Sessions’ B-25D “Grumpy” from his Historic Flight Foundation, across the runway from the FHC collection.

Although attendance at the Fly Days events is free, the FHC’s collection is open to the public in the FHC hangar for nominal fees.