Restoring a beautiful machine!

Sure started my day on a high note!!! Thanks for sharing.

Great story, thank you for posting it

That was cool.

Nice - Thanks for posting. Good to see it in the air again.

I wish they would have showed more pics of inside the plane. A true treasure there.

As an air and space geek that was pretty awesome!

Jerry

Thank you for posting.  What a great story.  As Trains magazine put it, "When we had it all together".

I’d been following the progress of this Superfortress for a very long time now.

Until very recently, the CAF had the only flyable B-29 in the world. I took this shot as they made a less-than-perfect landing into serious headwinds at the Olympia, WA airport. They landed in the final third of the runway, which required the pilot to stand on the brakes. He popped at least 2 tires in the process (and then showed colossal attitude online, denying it ever happened, and at the show, having been seriously embarrassed by some very poor flying skills). I was actually going to pay to fly on this bird in Seattle the following week (so I could say I’ve flown on a B-17, B-24 and a B-29 in my lifetime, the B-29 being the only 4-engine type I’m lacking), but I backed out due to their horrible attitude to the public. Seriously, it got downright comical. My living history group was so angered by their attitude that we made a point not to spend any money on tours or at their sales table (something that we normally spend money on in such cases). One guy in our group was also a CAF member, and he renounced his membership to their people, handing them his card and advising they’ll never see another dime of his. Really, they were THAT bad.

SO, I’m doubly happy to see that not only is ‘Doc’ airworthy, but this group did a much better restoration and now have a much more accurate representation of a B-29 than the CAF ever had.

But though I’m very unimpressed with the CAF’s B-29 crew (but not the entire group, as there’s a B-17 crew out of Arizona that is filled with really good folks), I’m looking forward to the inevitable formation flight of two B-29s, something which hasn’t happened in decades.

P51, I 100% agree with you.  I actually got to take a pretty close look at the CAF B-29 in Odessa, TX quite a few years back. The museum folks could not have been nicer, the aircraft crew could not have carried any less. I was not impressed. I am an Aircraft Inspector by trade and was under impressed by the "restoration." The DOC however, looks amazing. I love in the video that members of the "Greatest Generation" were included. There are not many World War 2 vets left. I was at the Udvar Hazy center in 2014 and was lucky enough to hear a WW2 vet do a walk around of the Enola Gay. It was an hour and a half long and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Sure made my day. My Dad was a WW2 navy veteran. God bless the worlds greatest generation.

That was great! Thanks for posting most of us "train buffs" are WII "war plane buffs" too..........

and if not for some serious bad decisions...there would be three flying B-29s....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u4YBwjQTds

Super! I love the 29.

Goshawk posted:

P51, I 100% agree with you.  I actually got to take a pretty close look at the CAF B-29 in Odessa, TX quite a few years back. The museum folks could not have been nicer, the aircraft crew could not have carried any less. I was not impressed. I am an Aircraft Inspector by trade and was under impressed by the "restoration."

I know a guy who’s an A&P inspector for the FAA and he was in that plane after this landing incident and started asking questions after ID’ing himself officially. He was told that if he had a ‘problem’ with everything, to set up some sort of official inspection, and was told to leave the plane.

The pathetic thing was even after this news story ran, they STILL denied that it happened at all (it was more than one tire, by the way, as they were laid next to the plane the entire weekend of the show so therefore impossible to miss, all the while they still denied anything happened). I posted the photos above of the bad landing, and was ordered by the pilot himself to remove them. I told him where to stick it.

On a warbird forum, I was told I was wrong because the CAF denied everything and to this day, the brainwashed fools on that forum still believe the CAF lies that nothing happened that day.

That'll end my rant about the CAF, sorry to be a downer on this thread...

I had watched "Frozen in Time" years ago, and sure was happy to see "Doc" in the air! The other things I liked about "Doc" was how she looked after restoring, better than new! And just as terrific, a real live "Rosie" who put some of "Doc's" original rivets in part of the airplane. Awesome.

Ed

Thanks for sharing. That was a great  and happy event to see.  Being a pilot, I also have love for planes as well as trains!

Ed Mullan posted:

I had watched "Frozen in Time" years ago, and sure was happy to see "Doc" in the air!

That whole debacle was one of the most tragic things to hit the Warbird movement in a generation. A guy got sick while out on that ice and later died, and then they taxied the plane around with a ‘put-put’ APU fueled from a gas can hanging from a stringer with not one person back there to keep an eye on it. One guy with a fire extinguisher back there, and the fire would never have happened. Worse, they left all 4 four of the good LOANED engines in place and abandoned everything salvageable at the site.

Many people doubt that the B-29 would have gotten airborne given the comical condition of the ‘runway’ they’d made for the ‘Kee Bird’.

It’s all a moot point as one thing people didn’t know at the time was the USAF was never going to let them fly it out of Thule if they’d gotten if off the ground and landed there. I know an aide for the Base Commander at that time and he’s adamant that they’d have placed so many restrictions on that B-29 flying out of there, it’d never left. No way could that expedition have afforded the demands the USAF already had in writing to allow the plane to fly out on its own wings. An almost complete restoration would have been required, something they were in no way ready to accomplish.

When that NOVA special came out, several friends of mine were livid at me for not letting them know ahead of time what was going to happen. My response to each was, “Hey, I was shocked and disappointed when it happened, so now it was your turn!”

I might go to the CAF Airsho at Midland-Odessa later this year.  I'll make a point of noting the attitude of Fifi's crew.

Within the CAF, they are big shots, being the crew of the signature aircraft.  But I always think it is good to be polite to other people, even if you have some sort of elevated or celebrity status.  It really does make an impression.  Pearl Bailey sat at a table with my wife and knitted, chit-chatting between tunes as her husband, Louie Belson's big band played at Disneyland.  That's the right attitude.

I have been visiting over at the WMSR for quite a number of years, going on twenty or so, I suppose. And I have met and talked to many of the crew, most of whom are no longer around. But Kevin Rice, now the CMO at the Scenic, has ran 734 one time or another all of those years. I have never, ever heard Kevin give a "short" answer to even the most common or silly questions. In my book, it's fellas like him that make it pleasant for fans, trains or airplanes. 1309 is, I think, in very good hands. And it looks as if "Doc" is as well.

Ed

p51 posted:

Ed Mullan posted:

I had watched "Frozen in Time" years ago, and sure was happy to see "Doc" in the air!

That whole debacle was one of the most tragic things to hit the Warbird movement in a generation. A guy got sick while out on that ice and later died, and then they taxied the plane around with a ‘put-put’ APU fueled from a gas can hanging from a stringer with not one person back there to keep an eye on it. One guy with a fire extinguisher back there, and the fire would never have happened. Worse, they left all 4 four of the good LOANED engines in place and abandoned everything salvageable at the site.

Many people doubt that the B-29 would have gotten airborne given the comical condition of the ‘runway’ they’d made for the ‘Kee Bird’.

It’s all a moot point as one thing people didn’t know at the time was the USAF was never going to let them fly it out of Thule if they’d gotten if off the ground and landed there. I know an aide for the Base Commander at that time and he’s adamant that they’d have placed so many restrictions on that B-29 flying out of there, it’d never left. No way could that expedition have afforded the demands the USAF already had in writing to allow the plane to fly out on its own wings. An almost complete restoration would have been required, something they were in no way ready to accomplish.

When that NOVA special came out, several friends of mine were livid at me for not letting them know ahead of time what was going to happen. My response to each was, “Hey, I was shocked and disappointed when it happened, so now it was your turn!”

One of the saddest things i have ever watched.

I saw this B-29 story when it was originally broadcast on the CBS Sunday Morning show. It's a great story. The Sunday morning show is also a great show, for those (apparently including those above) who aren't familiar with it.

I saw this B-29 story when it was originally broadcast on the CBS Sunday Morning show. It's a great story. CBS Sunday Morning is also a great show, for those (apparently including those above) who aren't familiar with it.

My dad was in Texas during the war with the training command - taught pilots how to fly (he was in maintenance and they wanted him to become a pilot).  The stories he told whew!

thanks Ed, for posting this story.

When I was working in Wichita in the winter of 2005/2006 I found out that one of the hangers adjacent to my office had Doc in it under restoration.  I was privileged to get aluminum polish under my fingernails a number of times that winter.  I was very pleased to read that the restoration had completed recently and the FAA has further upgraded their ticket to allow expanded flying.

There is another B-29 in near flyable condition at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.  T square 54 was under restoration for a number of years in the old Plant 2 buildings and is now cocooned outside the museum.   I was able to tour the aircraft several times and have long talks with the restoration crew numerous times from 2007 to 2011.

Rolland

RLaHaie posted:

There is another B-29 in near flyable condition at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.  T square 54 was under restoration for a number of years in the old Plant 2 buildings and is now cocooned outside the museum.   I was able to tour the aircraft several times and have long talks with the restoration crew numerous times from 2007 to 2011.

 

That B-29 is nowhere near flyable condition. They did a great restoration, but cosmetic only. It was also a gunnery target as Fifi and Doc were. It was at Lowery AFB's museum until that closed. Now, their B-17 was flyable as the needed to move it around a bit during the final restoration.

But not their B-29...

Ed, thank you for sharing. Great to see such a positive story.

Great story.  "Doc" looks like the day he rolled out of the plant for the first time.  Spotless, meticulous work.  Amazing.

Scott Griggs, Louisville, KY