Every thing went well until it was time to land the plane. The landing gear failed to deploy and Art Lacey had to land the aircraft on its belly. Luckily for Lacey, the bill of sale had not been signed yet and the base commander took pity on him telling him that it was "the worse case of wind damage he had ever seen" and offered Lacey another B-17 that had only accumulated 50 hours flight time so it was in much better shape.
Not wanting to make the same mistake again, Lacey convinced two of his friends, one of whom had flown B-17s during the war, to come to Oklahoma and help fly the plane back to Oregon. After a refueling stop in Palm Springs, California, the plane took off on the final leg of its journey to Troutdale-Portland Airport.
After landing, the aircraft was taken apart and loaded onto flatbed trucks for transport to his gas station in Milwaukee, Oregon. The problem was that loads needed to be shorter and not as high to permit the journey.
Knowing that he would not be able to obtain a license to do it, Lacey hired a motorcycle escort usually used for funerals and set off for Milwaukee.
--GreGen
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