You Can Ride in a B-17 Flying Fortress in Cedar Rapids

History will be flying into the Eastern Iowa Airport for the weekend of October 23 through 25, and you can take a historic flight.

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) will be bringing a "beautifully restored B-17 Flying Fortress, Aluminum Overcast" to Cedar Rapids for a 3-day stay.

The B-17 Flying Fortress was made by Boeing, and the entire process of design to the plane's first flight took less than a year. When one of the planes took its first flight in 1935, Boeing called it "Model 299." Richard Smith, a Seattle Times reporter, covered that flight and called it a "Flying Fortress." Obviously impressed, Boeing began to use the name and even trademarked it. It was the U.S. Army Air Corps that attached 'B-17.'

In 1941, the B-17 Flying Fortress would make its first flight in World War II. Just how important to the U.S. World War II effort were B-17's? General Carl Spaatz, the American air commander in Europe, told Boeing, "Without the B-17 we may have lost the war."

Nearly 13,000 B-17's were built in total, but today less than 15 are still airworthy, according to the Experimental Aircraft Association.

You can learn more on the B-17 Flying Fortress, Aluminum Overcast tour stop in Cedar Rapids HERE. Flights will be hourly from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. each day, October 23 through October 25. You can book a flight HERE or call 800-359-6217 for more information. Ground tours will not be available.

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