The Collings Foundation’s Freedom Tour, a travelling band of World War II warbirds, made a stop in Worcester, Massachusetts recently.  Included in the tour was their B-24 Liberator “Witchcraft”, the TF-51 “Toulouse Nuts”, and the B-25 Mitchell “Tondelayo”. The Foundation’s B-17 Flying Fortress “Nine-O-Nine” couldn’t make the trip, as it was having an engine changed in Burlington VT.

What was a special treat for many warbird lovers was that the Foundation has a hangar at Worcester, and a quintet of seldom-seen or relatively inactive aircraft joined the Tour’s stop. The A-36 Apache “Baby Carmen”, the P-40B Tomahawk “284”, the F4U-5NL Corsair “NP-5” Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX  “BR601″ , and A-1E Skyraider ” GD-700″ were arrayed on the static line too!

Although the day was rather gloomy, hundreds of people showed up on Sunday to watch the B-25 and TF-51 take passengers on their once-in-a-lifetime flying experiences, or just crawl through the bombers.

Here’s some history about the assembled aircraft for you, there was quite an assortment of engines to hear and see….  Both the A-36 and P-40 are powered by Allison V-1710 engines, actually the same model, but different versions with different horsepower output. The Curtiss Tomahawk has a -33 engine while the North American Apache uses a later -87 engine version. The TF-51 was powered by a Rolls Royce/Packard Merlin V-1650. Of course, the Spitfire is powered by a Rolls Royce Merlin, the forerunner of the licence built Packard Merlin found in later Mustangs.

The B-24 was powered by Pratt and Whitney R-1830s, the B-25 by Wright 2600s, the Corsair by a Pratt and Whitney R-2800, the Skyraider by a Wright R-3350.