Whiskey 7 leaves Geneseo for Normandy, France
It was a send off the crew of five from Whiskey 7 will never forget.
A very large crowd cheered as Whiskey 7, a restored Douglas C-47 based at the National Warplane Museum in Geneseo, left the grass runway for Normandy, France to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day.
The crew, made up of three pilots and two flight engineers, will make seven stops before reaching Normandy for festivities that will begin June 4.
The longest stretch will have the crew in the air for six hours.
Whiskey 7 will deploy paratroopers just as it did 70 years ago. The Liberty Jump team will be deployed from the C-47 over original drop zones in towns that have not seen a parachute drop since D-Day.
Whiskey 7 is one of a very few airworthy C-47's that served on D-Day that remain active. She was the lead aircraft of the second wave of Allied troops.
The Geneseo Warplane Museum C-47 is the only known civilian aircraft making the journey from the United States to France.
The trip will use about 8,000 gallons of fuel round-trip.
The crew will fly at about 10,000 feet. It will take about 25 hours of flying time to reach the United Kingdom.
The trip was made possible by donations that were collected since the fall of last year.
About $200,000 of the groups $250,000 fundraising goal was reached.
Anyone still wishing to support the project can visit rtn2014.org.
