Inside the Freya

Vanessa was expecting a tight cockpit, but what she found was a disproportionate room that looked more like in belonged on a spaceship then a WWII style bomber. She stood there for the first becoming aware of the entire ambiguity of the entire aircraft. Michele stood calmly by her, a look of pleasure on her face as they surveyed the flight deck.

            “What kind of plane is this.” Vanessa asked in awe.

            Michelle laughed. Vanessa shot her a look. Michelle stopped and grinned back and shrugged.

            “The Freya started life as a B-17G “Flying Fortress” Bomber. She was actually a prototype model so they dropped the G from the B-17 part and gave her a variety of names and code names. She saw action over German back in World War II and my father flew her at that time. He named her the Freya whom he thought was the name of one of the Valkyries. There was some confusion and the name stuck mostly since no one like Brunhilde as it sounded uncomfortably Germanic. When the war was over, my dad left the Air Force but never forgot the plane.”

            “Oh. Then how did you come by it?”

            “Well my father could not let the Freya go, so over the next 10 years he tried everything he could to track the plane which saw little action following VE- Victory in Europe. Boeing- that’s who made her, took her back to use her as a prototype for making a bigger more powerful plane. Dad always suspected that Boeing wanted to get it to carry Fat Boy but he never got a straight answer.”

            “Fat Boy?” Vanessa looked at Flynt who sat in a chair that was now turned towards them. He just shrugged.

            “It was the name for one of the first Nukes, I don’t remember which. The idea was scrapped and the Freya was sent to the Airplane graveyards out west. Dad eventually tracked her down and then with a bunch of markers and favors and money he managed to get her. By that point she had been stripped down to her bolts. But that didn’t deter Dad. He brought her back to Ulysses and begin rebuilding her.”

            “Ulysses?”

            “Think of the smallest town you can imagine and then halve that-“ Flynt interjected, “Drop it in the middle of Kansas way out of the way and you might find it.”

            Vanessa laughed.

            “Okay it was a bit small.” Michelle said as she made a face mostly tongue at Flynt.

            “It was so small that it took me and Vhurress an entire week to find it.” Flynt said.

            “Maybe that dragon should have gotten a GPS.” Michelle shot back.

            “Wait- did you say dragon?” Vanessa interrupted “In Kansas?”

this a a B-17 Flying Fortress (the Freya started out looking like the this