Bucket List Item ……. Flight Around the World
I (John Billings) have long dreamed of taking off and taking up an Easterly course crossing all of the meridians. The first part of the trip would retrace my B-24’s route from NYC to Italy in the fall of 1944. (The rest of the trip would remain north of the equator)
I know the airplane I would like to use, but I know I can not afford it ! It should be a Pilatus PC-12, or a Cessna Denali. It should be equipped with satellite internet so that Nevin could upload photos and keep our website updated while en route. Either one of these Airplanes would require many Sponsors….. of which could decorate the plane as they wish…. as long as there is room left for the Angel Flight Logo.
Here is the ferry flight route I took in 1944 in the B-24:
August 21st……. Mitchell Field, NY to Bangor, ME
August 25th……. Bangor ME to Gander, Newfoundland
September 8th……. Gander, Newfoundland to Lajes, Terceira Island, Azores (Where we had an Engine Change)
September 15th……. Lajes, Terceira Island, Azores to Marrakesh, Morocco
September 16th……. Marrakesh, Morocco to Tunis, Tunisia
September 17th……. Tunis, Tunisia to Gioia, Italy
Some of these airports no longer exist, so a near by field would be used….. as an example, Farmingdale would substitute for Mitchell Field.
It might be nice to land on or near each of the Basses to which I was assigned. The first was the 825th squadron of the 484th Bomb Group which was named Torretta Field, (I suspect that was the farmers name who owned the acreage we used). It was near Cherignola.
The second was Brendisi, an OSS base, referred to as the 885th HSSQ. We were not to use the term OSS out loud…. Later the 885th moved to Rossignano, which was closer to the front lines.
The longest OSS mission was to Prague. It would be nice if there exists survivors of the partisan unit we served, and we could set up a meeting……
The rest of our eastbound trip is up for grabs…..
