World War II plane returns to action for hurricane aid
Commemorative Air Force unit helps Harvey victims.
DOUBLE DUTY: WWII PLANE AIDS HARVEY VICTIMS
A 73-year-old World War II plane came out of semiretirement in Central Texas to deliver supplies to Hurricane Harvey victims.
The Bluebonnet Belle — a twin-propeller C-47 cargo plane built in 1944 — flew six missions on Labor Day weekend to deliver water, food, cleaning supplies and even dog food to people and their pets in Beaumont and Orange.
Volunteers from the Highland Lakes Squadron, a Burnet-based unit of the Commemorative Air Force, loaded 24,000 pounds of supplies on the plane, flying as far away as New Orleans to pick up the goods, they said. The plane had no mechanical trouble, said Rick Kelley, one of the pilots. It flew about 2,500 miles.
“She didn’t miss a lick,” said Kelley, a 54-year-old United Airlines pilot. The Commemorative Air Force is a nonprofit group based in Dallas that is committed to preserving U.S. combat airplanes.
The Highland Lakes Squadron owns the Bluebonnet Belle and usually only flies it about 30 hours per year in air shows, along with its other three vintage World War II airplanes, said Mark Davis, the 50-year-old squadron leader.
But when Hurricane Harvey hit, members of the squadron decided they wanted to help.
“We knew we could help out in ways other people couldn’t because we could haul a lot more cargo than other civilian airplanes,” said Davis, who also sells chemicals to the semiconductor industry.
Chris Dowell, 54, another of the pilots, said he volunteered because he lives in the Houston area and could see all the devastation around him. He knew he could get a closer view of the flooding because the Bluebonnet Belle has no air pressurization, so has to fly at lower altitudes where oxygen isn’t a problem, said Dowell, who is a pilot instructor
The first mission for the Bluebonnet Belle was Sept. 1, when it flew from its home base at the Burnet Municipal Airport to Georgetown to pick up supplies from a disaster relief organization, Sky Hope Network.
“Seeing it taxi out to do what it was made to do for the first time