When asked what it costs to keep a 70-year-old bomber flying, owner Larry Kelley just shakes his head. He doesn’t want to know. “I can tell you what it takes in hours, though. This year we’ll be about 400-to-1 maintenance hours to flight hours.” Kelley, owner of the Delaware Aviation Museum Foundation, which owns B-25 Panchito and a host of other interesting airplanes and World War II gear, is quick to credit a small army of volunteers who toil endlessly on the beautifully polished bomber.

Based at Delaware Coastal Airport in Georgetown, Delaware, Panchito is tasked with helping to keep alive the contributions of the Greatest Generation, those men and women who, as Kelley puts it, helped create a world ruled by democracy when it could have been tyranny.

In admiring Panchito, 84-year-old Sid Ellner, who flew B-25s in the 1950s, declared, “We never had them when they looked as shiny as this.” Ellner fulfilled a bucket-list item in early May when he took an orientation flight in the bomber, likely one of the same airplanes he flew during multiengine training in 1955 in Oklahoma.

The museum uses funds from flight training in the B-25 to help pay expenses for maintaining it. Orientation flights, type ratings, and second-in-command type ratings are among the options for those looking to experience the heavy warbird. The museum campaigns the bomber to dozens of events each flying season, helping to educate the public about World War II and the role that aviation played in shaping the future.

I recently met up with Panchito to renew currency for the SIC type rating I earned 20 months earlier. While Ellner flew in the jump seat, I lurched the B-25 down the taxiway, trying mightily not to use the expensive and finicky brakes, which have very little travel until they engage—and then asymmetrically. “Brakes are a four-letter word around here,” remarked instructor Calvin Peacock. Differential power is the best weapon for keeping the warbird going kind of straight, but occasionally one must tap a brake pedal to stay out of the grass.

Landings are equally challenging. Peacock had coached us profusely in advance about the need for steep landing approaches. Come in flat and you run out of kinetic energy, plunking the airplane onto the runway in a way that may break it. Come in steep and then allow the energy to bleed off slowly in the flare, touching down on the mains and then gently flying the nosegear down.

I made two takeoffs and landings before switching with Ellner for his first time at the controls in a B-25 in 61 years. He handled it with aplomb. We later switched again for me to get my third takeoff and landing to satisfy the SIC renewal.

As with my first flights in Panchito, I was humbled by the chance to fly such a machine, one so cared for and that represents such an important part of aviation history. “It’s part of the mission,” said Peacock, “letting people experience the airplane, both young and old.” Nodding to Ellner, he continued, “Particularly people who have been there and done that—to let them put their hands on it again, we’re especially happy to be able to do that.”

For more on how you can interact with Panchito, see the website.