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TOP STORY OF THE DAY: Though without battle scars, B-25 bomber ‘a blast’
TERRE HAUTE — Ask any experienced pilot or veteran who has flown one, and they could say that the North American B-25 Mitchell was built to its time and need.
It is spartan, loud and heavy on the controls. This was all relative, though, to the crews who flew them in every theater of World War II.
The B-25 is famed for the Doolittle Raid, in which 16 of them bombed Tokyo and other areas on the island of Honshu in April 1942. Being a one-way mission, 15 of them were lost in crash landings or after their crews bailed, while the last one was confiscated after landing in the then-Japan-neutral Soviet Union.
The Experimental Aircraft Association’s B-25 displayed at Terre Haute Regional Airport over the weekend did not see combat. Having entered the U.S. Army Air Forces in December 1943, it stayed stateside as a squadron hack but was modded as a trainer at one point.
The aircraft was sold as surplus shortly after the war’s end, and it changed hands many times in the following two decades. It was heavily modified as a corporate transport and used by F. W. Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton and her husband, Dominican diplomat and playboy Porfirio Rubirosa.
But then the aircraft, along with 17 other B-25s, flew as the Berlin Express in the 1970 satirical war film “Catch-22,” logging more than 1,500 hours of flying time. While it originally had a solid nose with its two 50-caliber machine guns and 75-millimeter cannon, it was fitted with a greenhouse canopy for the film.
It was then sold to air race pilot William Sherman Cooper in May 1971. However, it was donated to the EAA Aviation Foundation after Cooper died in a crash while practicing.
The EAA undertook a restoration of the aircraft in 1975 and removed its “Catch-22” livery. It then flew as the City of Burlington for some time, until it was damaged during a landing in which a gear failure occurred.
The aircraft then sat on display until an extensive restoration as the Berlin Express was completed in 2019. It has since been paired on tours with Aluminum Overcast, the EAA’s Boing B-17 Flying Fortress.
Also as a longtime commercial pilot for Alaska Airlines out of Seattle, Wash., Matt Cooper has flown the B-25 since it came out of restoration. For him, flying in general becomes natural, like learning how to ride a bike. The B-25, though, is just decidedly different.
“Compared to modern aircraft, it’s (the B-25) much more hands-on; it’s much less comfortable; it’s heavier on the controls,” Cooper said.
He provided that the B-25 is the second-loudest aircraft he has flown, the top distinction belonging to a Curtiss C-46 Commando. The B-25, though, is a close second. The tips of the spinning propellers are only about a foot from the cockpit. Even with noise-canceling headsets, it can wear down a pilot by the end of a day of flying.
Because the controls are manual, he explained, what the pilot does with them is physically transmitted to those in the wings and the tail.
The B-25 is a medium bomber, meaning it could haul a bomb payload of about 4,000 pounds up to 2,000 miles. The maximum gross weight for civilian operation is 34,000 pounds, with it being much heavier in a wartime capacity. Depending on the variant, they would have been manned by crews of five or six.
Out of the nearly 9,820 that were produced, it has been estimated that 45 existing B-25s are airworthy.
“It’s awesome,” Cooper said ultimately about the Berlin Express. “It’s a lovely airplane to fly in, and it’s a blast to fly.”