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Re: UPDATES - Re: Great, then crap part II Posted by Landjet [Email] (#16) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Landjet) on Sun, 11 Jun 2017 16:45:44 In Reply to: Re: UPDATES - Re: Great, then crap part II, RS [Profile/Gallery] , Sat, 10 Jun 2017 19:52:35 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Check your email - sent you a photo of a plate from "Doc" the Boeing guys gave me. They had to deskin quite a bit of the aircraft, then made plates with notes on it about the restoration.
"Doc" is going to be at Oshkosh this year with Fifi, the first time in decades that two B29s are going to be side by side post flight with hot oil.
Doc is like a new or better than new airplane. It was just stunning to see the forward cabin with the attention to detail. All NEW wire looms, they had the plywood pegboards to do the complete wiring in the entire aircraft as it was restored across the street from where many were built. The interior sheet metal was new, not pulled apart, straightened, and painted. Fabricated from raw material using drawings from the 40s. Somewhat redefines what zero time is........
After I left the Boeing Company in 1983, I worked for an outfit that supplied parts to manufacturers of aircraft and parts all over the world. I was at Sweringen in San Antonio, spending time with an old engineer looking at some parts that they needed to redesign. Outside the window, was a B29 with no props. It was in 1984, the older fellow when I asked about the aircraft, lack of props, etc, paused for quite a while after my question........then said that they were in Midland on the way back. He kept staring at the airplane, so I asked him if he knew much about it. His answer was he was a crew member on the aircraft while in the Army Air Corps, was later named Fifi. He knew it by serial number not the civilian N designation.
Wish I was going to Oshkosh, but I hear Bonneville beckoning.....which is next door to where the 509th was stationed, the place Tibbets hand picked for the B29 training for the atomic bomb drop. The pit for the bomb load mockup is still there. Some buildings are restored, but it's a long way from being a Smithsonian, like never.
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