South Dakota, Sioux Falls - Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - Sioux Falls Regional Airport

This was a beautiful day to get out on the bike.  Our first stop was the Sioux Falls Regional Airport.  They had some WWII airplanes on display there today.  They are trying to raise enough money to buy an airplane to refurbish to be on permanent display at the airport.  Last night they had a fund raiser and some planes from the national Commemorative Air Force group came in to help.

This is an L-5B Sentinel.  They were used for delivering personnel and supplies to the front line.  They allowed commanders to observe the battlefield.  There are 150 of them flying today.  They flew in WWII and Korea.  It’s a small plane weighing only 2000# fully loaded.

The pilot came out while we were looking at the plane and showed us something that he said the general public wouldn’t be able to see.  He opened up two of the panels on the side of the plane to show the area where they could transport one wounded person.

 

The next plane we looked at was a B-17 bomber named “Diamond Lil”.

 

 

I found it interesting that the tail gunner would sit in this sling on a moving airplane and try to hit enemy fighter planes coming at them from all directions.  I’m amazed they were able to hit anything.

 

They had a replica camp set up.  The three garbage cans held water heaters, we assumed for washing dishes. 

 

 

 

Don’t you wonder if the bread was baked in this stove?

 

Greg was in the Air Force Reserves, he tells me bombs were transported the same way in Viet Nam.

 

This P-51 fighter plane would have been one of the planes that escorted the larger bombers.

 

They were offering rides on this plane, note the price $1,995 – we didn’t participate.

 

The “Fifi” is a B-29 Superfortress bomber.  It saw service in WWII and Korea.  It entered service in April, 1944.  It was retired in the 1960’s.  Approximately four thousand were produced during WWII, 25 remain today with only one being airworthy (we assumed it is this one).

 

These planes could only carry twelve bombs, so a lot of planes were needed to make an impact. 

 

This is the tunnel that runs above the bombs for the crew to move from the front of the plane to the back.

 

This is a shot of the cockpit.  See where the guy is sitting to the right – he is the engineer.  Right in front of where I am standing to take this picture there is a hole in the bottom of the plane to exit by a very steep narrow ladder.  The engineer said you could get a good picture of his gauges by standing on the first rung of the ladder and resting your butt up against the opposite side of the hole.  Notice that there are no pictures of all his gauges.

 

This was a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend the morning.  I’ve never seen old warplanes that up close – very interesting, especially since Greg was able to tell me about what I was seeing.
From the airport we went to pick up our mail at Alternative Resources.  We had a part coming in for our Sirius radio hook up.  The people at Alternative Resources have been helping us get through the process of establishing our South Dakota residency.  We needed to get a recommendation from them for an attorney to see to talk to about our Indiana wills.  Need to know if we need to change them to South Dakota since that is now our state of domicile.  We did receive our invitation to our great grandson's first birthday party.  Hard to imagine he is that old already.

 

Red Lobster was our lunch stop – it will be chef salads for supper tonight!

We went by a World Market the last time we were out.  I mentioned that I like to go there just to look around, so we stopped in today.  Of all the exotic and different things we could have bought there, we bought a skillet.  I did look for some good vanilla, but they didn’t have what I wanted.

Back home, I’ve started on the recipe scanning project.  I have a lot of recipes, this may take until the end of the year.