Greatest Dream
According to Hagen, the restoration of the plane was their greatest dream. “Because for some reason it captured the imagination of people from around the world…” he told South California Public Radio. The B-17E was appropriately nicknamed the Flying Fortress.
According to local legend, the plane’s nickname was given to the aircraft after a Seattle Times journalist saw the plane during a test flight back in 1935 and remarked that it looked like a flying fortress. Even more amazing than the find and the restoration of the plane is its backstory and just how exactly the plane came to be located half-submerged in the far-off swamp.