Museum of Aviation’s B-17 expected to arrive Thursday morning

WARNER ROBINS -- The B-17 bomber called “Miss Liberty Belle” should be rolling through Middle Georgia on Thursday.

The plane’s fuselage originally was scheduled to arrive last Friday, but permitting issues delayed the trip. Wednesday, the fuselage of the plane already was en route, said Museum of Aviation curator Mike Rowland.

Due to Atlanta’s rush hour traffic, the truck hauling it won’t enter that city’s perimeter until after 9 a.m., so it should arrive in Macon sometime late Thursday morning if all goes as planned.

It won’t be coming with quite the fanfare that had been planned last week, but the arrival should still make for a bit of a spectacle traveling down the road. The fuselage is an oversized load and won’t be covered, so it will stand out.

The plane will go down Interstate 75 to Russell Parkway and go straight to the museum. It probably won’t have a police escort, and it won’t be paraded through town as had been planned last week, Rowland said.

While the fuselage is the main part of the aircraft, some other important pieces arrived Wednesday. One of those is the ball turret, which attaches to the belly of the plane. It was a small space and typically the shortest man on the crew would sit in it, said Bob Denison, a museum volunteer who is leading the restoration.

Denison said anyone manning the turret might be crammed in there for hours as they scanned for enemy aircraft.

“I have heard stories that they would have to literally get them out of there, lay them on the ground and stretch them out because they are just frozen in that position,” he said.

He and other volunteers already are busily working on the plane. On Wednesday they were trying to free up the propellers, which are locked from the plane having been in the weather for 54 years.

For updates on the arrival of the fuselage, check www.macon.com and the Telegraph’s Facebook and Twitter feeds.

To contact writer Wayne Crenshaw, call 256-9725.

This story was originally published August 26, 2015 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Museum of Aviation’s B-17 expected to arrive Thursday morning ."