Saving the Flying Fortress

Atlanta (CNN) -- A winged piece of history sits parked at a small airport.

It's 70 years old, and in a few minutes, I'll know firsthand if this old warbird can still fly.

In all, nearly 13,000 B-17 Flying Fortresses rolled off the assembly lines. Now, only about a dozen flying B-17s remain -- in the entire world.

These are the famous bombers that helped the Allies win World War II. Every year planes like these are retired to aviation junkyards, destined for a rusty demise.

But there's a group out there working to preserve the precious legacy of these planes by keeping them flying.

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I went to many air shows with my aunt growing up. It was always one of my favorite things to do with her besides run trot lines at 4:30 AM on Caddo Lake looking at all the eyeballs up on the river bank glaring at us. Every summer we would go to GGG for the Air Show. The B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-29 Superfortress were always the planes I loved to explore. I remember sitting in the gunner seats and looking through the portholes with my hands on the guns acting like I was in a dogfight with Pappy and the Black Sheep Squadron. Such good memories there. I'm glad that people still have the love for these old birds and want to keep them in the public eye.