“FiFi’s” fire-control system wasn’t restored… The turrets are not in the aircraft, just the domes with fabricated gun barrels…
There
B-29 Tinker AFB, OK
B-29 & KC-97 at Whiteman, AFB
KB-50 at McDill AFB, FL
A a wrecked KB-50 WB-29 sunk in a pond at Eilison AFB, near Fairbanks, AK
B-29 At China Lake NAS, CA.
KC-97 at Dyess AFB, TX
KC-97 at General William J Fox airfield at Lancaster, CA
Owen
A a wrecked KB-50 sunk in a pond at Eilison AFB, near Fairbanks, AK
That would be the"Lady of the Lake" which is actually a WB-29 at Eielson AFB, Alaska, outside of Fairbanks. It was towed out there to be used as a fire trainer in approximately 1956, and just settled into the mud and gravel.
What is a WB-29? A weather ship?
Hey I was towed out in 1956 and have been sitting in the mud ever since…
If we go GB. I’ve got a whole slew of Academy kits. A while ago I was asked to build all of the R4360 ships. I have most of the kits. A really nice KB-97. I also have a bunch of piccies of a/c on the ramp at Goose Bay, and a lot of those have the big Boeings. Dig em up this weekend.
richs26 thanks for the correction, I guess my brain cells are starting to short out[8-)]
Owen
You might find this interesting… Especially if you’re into OD/NG B-29s…
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/B-29.html
Take note of the starboard waist blister early on during the walk-around… If you miss that detail, a Rivet Counter will getcha…
Also, if you do a dio or display with groundwork, pay attention to the wheel chocks position… RC’s will getcha there, too…
Oughta be a bounty on 'em…
I wish she could be pulled out and restored, even to static. We can never have too many B-29s (as well as other warbirds) in museums.
It’s all about money, Numbers (Sorry, dunno your name)… "FiFi"s recovery and restoration in the 70s cost around 11 million in today’s dollars, and didn’t have to be pulled out of a lake (Although, she WAS in China Lake, lol). And she was flown back to Texas under her own power, rather than being crated-up in pieces and flown in another aircraft. The Navy wouldn’t allow us any return flights to that area for more parts (there were about 16 B-29s there, on a missle-target range, so she had evey B-29 spare part that could be crammed into her (there were engines in the bomb-bays), along with two other CAF transports crammed fulla “B-29 stuff”, including engines.
So pulling that bird outta the water (if it’s even feasible) is gonna cost big bucks… I’m sure that there is SOMEone somewhere that wants to dod it, but raising money for these kind of projects ain’t easy… And if the plan was to only restore her to static condition and make her a gate-guard somewhere, while cheaper, that would draw a much smaller crowd of investors than another flying Superfort project would. But there’s no guarantee that’s even possible…
Heh, reminds me… A couple years after “FiFi” was recovered, the Navy gave us (The CAF) some 16mm film that they’d taken of "FiFi"s take-off from the China Lake… CAF Founder, COL Lloyd Nolen, asked them, “We didn’t know you did that. What made y’all come out and film the take-off?” The US Navy rep replied, “We didn’t come out to film the take-off. We went out there to film the crash…”.
Lloyd Nolen… there’s a name I remember. My pop worked with a guy by that name in flight performance engineering at UAL, would not be surprised if it was the same guy/ his son in the CAF. Pop and Boeing go way way back; when he retired they gave him a personalized A2.
Anyhow I asked him in an email, I’ll see what he remembers.
As I mentioned, I recently bought a big set of well preserved Air Enthusiast magazines form a guy and have been looking through them. This morning I read a story about the Tom-Tom program to attach parasite fighters to bomber. There was a B-29 test bed that crashed along with an RF-84 during the program. Lot’s of good pictures of it in flight.
Lloyd was unable to enter military aviation during WW2 due to a vision problem, but was a civilian flight instructor for the USAAF, having been a licensed pilot since before graduating from high-school. He worked as and then formed his own crop-dusting company after WW2, in the Mercedes, Texas area… One of the things he hated the most was that he was never going to get to fly the fighters that he teaching cadets to shoot for.
He bought his first Warbird, a P-40 in 1951, at the exorbent price of of $300.00. He and a group of four other guys, a couple who had flown fighters in the war (Billy Drawe & C.W. Butler, and crop dusters Bill Turnbull and Royce Norman) , formed a loose organization to share the expenses of flying the Warhawk…
The second fighter bought was the P-51 “Ol’ Red Nose”, in 1957. Early one morning shorty after the P-51 had been aquired, Lioyd walked out to the flightline and noticed that the words “Confederate Ar Force” had been spray-painted on the sides of the Mustang… The name stuck (At least until 2002, when the frikkin’ PC clowns took over at CAF GHQ) and a legendary organzation, one I’m proud to be a Life Member of, was born…
After the aquisition of the Mustang, Lefty Gardner joined the group, in 1958. That’s also the year they aquired the F8F Bearcat (which is a hoot of a story in itself), and three more Warbirds had been added, a P-38, FG-1D, and a B-25. The CAF P-38 was "Scatter-Brain Kid, not Lefty Gardner’s personally-owned P-38, "White Lightning, although Lefty kept it painted in the original CAF scheme of Overall White with red & blue stripes. CAF aircraft didn’t start getting the “Authentic” military paint schemes until the mid-eighties…
I first met Lloyd & Lefty (They were joined at the hip at times) in '87, and ran into him on several occasions at CAF functions while I was still at Ft Hood (At that time, I was part of the CAF CenTex Wing at San Marcos), but never met any of his kids, so I dunno what they did, Bondo… Lloyd died a couple years after I first “joined up” in the CAF, in 1991.
"FiFi"s flight to Harlingen from Chio was one I wish I woulda had a shot at, but it was way before my time, in the mid-70s. The guys spent 16 weeks living on a desert bomb.missle range putting her into airworthy (?)shape. “FiFi” has finally returned to full flight-status after being grounded for almost four years, with her third and final FAA-required test flight being completed on 25 SEP, and she’s been performing this week for AIRSHO since Thursday and through today. And I’m not there, dammit… Sniffle… Ain’t missing next year… Gonna go down the week before and camp in the hangar or under wings if I have to…
Here’s her last required test-flight T/O.
Have you all got the formatting problem I do on this post, where it’s running super wide? Leaving aside my general feelings abt this forum format, this particular post is hard as heck to read.
Orro, I think it may be the pond pictures that you stuck up. They are really big files and are WIIIIIIIIIDE.
Try unsticking them and maybe compressing them, or substitute the URL for your photo sharing site.
Thanks Bud.