Shortly after WWII a guy named Art
Lacey went to Kansas to buy a surplus B-17. His idea was to fly it back to
Oregon , jack it up in the air and make a gas station out of it. He paid $15,000
for it. He asked which one was his and they said take whichever you want because
there were miles of them. He didn't know how to fly a 4-engine airplane so he
read the manual while he taxied around by himself. They said he couldn't take
off alone so he put a mannequin in the co-
pilot's seat and off he went.
He
flew around a bit to get the feel of it and when he went to land he realized he
needed a copilot to lower the landing gear. He crashed and totaled his plane and
another on the ground. They wrote them both off as "wind damaged" and told him
to pick out another. He talked a friend into being his copilot and off they
went.
They
flew to Palm Springs where Lacey wrote a hot check for gas. Then they headed for
Oregon. They hit a snow storm and couldn't find their way, so they went down
below 1,000 feet and followed the railroad tracks. His partner sat in the nose
section and would yell, "TUNNEL" when he saw one and Lacey would climb over the
mountain
They
landed safely, he made good the hot check he wrote, and they started getting
permits to move a B-17 on the state highway. The highway department repeatedly
denied his permit and fought him tooth and nail for a long time, so late one
Saturday night, he just moved it himself. He got a $10 ticket from the police
for having too wide a load.
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