The Collings Foundation Warbirds — Scottsdale, AZ 2008
The Collings Foundation from Stow, Massachusetts annually visits over 150 locations nationwide with their vintage Warbirds helping promote aviation's living history.
Collings’ Wings of Freedom Tour, which includes three authentically restored WWII bombers (B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator and B-25J Mitchell), kicked off its 19th season in 2008. The tour typically begins in Texas before stopping in Arizona and heading to the west coast.
Wings of Freedom Tours offer the opportunity to see vintage WWII bombers up close and tour through the authentically restored aircraft or experience a once-in-a-lifetime flight aboard the Warbird for the ultimate immersion into history.
This gallery was shot in April 2008 at Scottsdale Airport (SDL) located in Scottsdale, Arizona. The airport is a general aviation reliever facility and one of the busiest single-runway facilities in the nation. During WWII, the airfield was used by the United States Army Air Force Army Air Forces Training Command as "Thunderbird Field #2", a contract pilot training center. Today, the airfield is typically bustling with corporate and private jet aircraft, especially during the winter tourist season.
This Wings of Freedom Tour included Collings’ B-17 Flying Fortress “Nine-O-Nine”, B-24 Liberator “Witchcraft” and B-25J Mitchell “Tondelayo.” The tour spent several days at various Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona airports. I had the opportunity to walk-through the B-17 and B-24 bombers. The B-25J Mitchell was not open for walk-throughs.
Essentially, this gallery is a photo essay of the B-24 and B-17 walk-throughs along with static exterior photos of all three WWII bombers. All photos were taken hand-held under ambient light.
The gallery is currently in progress, with lots more to come, so don’t forget to checkout my other Warbird galleries or varied and wide-ranging array of non-aircraft photos.
Thanks for visiting.....I hope you enjoy the photos.