B-25 Yellow Rose flight, and C-47 That’s All, Brother tour, and planespotting at Centennial Airport, Denver, Colorado 083124

We were so lucky to take this once-in-a-lifetime flight on the B-25 Yellow Rose, which served as a trainer in WWII, and to tour and see the C-47 That’s All Brother take flight, which led the formation of 800 C-47s into France on D-Day to deliver paratroopers in the invasion force. Great fact: the name “That’s All, Brother” was a shot right at Hitler, telling him with the lead plane that he and his forces wouldn’t be long for this world.

I took a flight by myself years ago in the B-17 Liberty Belle, but wanted to share this memory on the Yellow Rose with LeeAndra. We sat in waist gunner seats, and took a 25 minute flight from Centennial Airport (APA), west to C-470 and north along the hogbacks and the Morrison Formation  to the north end of Golden, and circled back from there, with views of Red Rocks and the Denver skyline, as well as the foothills and western suburbs like Littleton, Lakewood, Arvada and Golden.

We could only crawl backwards to the tail gun position because the bomb bay on the B-25 is covered over and we couldn’t shuffle that many passengers over it easily, but the nose gunner / bombardier position on the B-17 and the free reign on that larger plane’s flight with the open radioman’s hatch in the quiet spot behind the top turret were magical. Before our flight, we saw a display of a 1944 Willys and a transport vehicle, and then we went back the next morning to catch the planes on startup and takeoff for the next day’s scheduled flights. Planespotting is kind of fun!

Fitting captions around the pics below is a pain, but the B-25 is the twin-tail with the fantastic nose art (the bra was only added in 2003 to make the plane G-rated for air shows), and the That’s All Brother is the single tail and is accurate to its D-Day appearance and paint scheme with its black and white invasion stripes. An overview of Red Rocks is the first aerial pic, below.

Watch the airshows and get connected each season with flights like this through organizations like our Wings Over The Rockies museum. It is worth the cost, if you can swing it. Bring your camera, and be ready to be overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and history of the plane you are touring or flying in. If you can make it happen, book a seat in the nose (probably called the Nose Gunner, depending on the plane), and invest in a GoPro 360 to get a magical video of the pilot operations.