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Restored B-29

My wife's grandfather, N.D. Showalter was deeply involved in the B29's development and delivery to the Army Air Corp. The B29 program cost 3 billion dollars. In 1945 that was a pile of money! I'm so glad the restoration was successful. Ron
 
Actually you can fudge this a little bit. After three idiot crews dropped off their B-29 bombers to the Russians, the ruskies reverse engineered them and built the TU-4 Bomber. They took the planes totally apart and even used the original castings as patterns for the sand castings. All of 5he lettering and all. The russians even figured out how to cure the engine heating problem.
stealing the B29
 
They've come a LONG way on "Doc." That plane sat out in the desert for man years. I think it was actually supposed to get scrapped after the war. Then they used it for target practice but missed for the most part and was left to sit.
 
NEAT STORY!!!! I got a lump in my throat watching the video. THANK YOU AGAIN TO THE GREATEST GENERATION....God Bless America!!!----Tee
a153284.jpg
 
If you are interested in a good B-29 story read Wars End by Charles Sweeney. It is the story of the Silver Plate B-29s, the ones made special for the atomic missions. And the story of the two missions that finally ended the war. A "can't put it down book".

Also I worked for the company that made the new control cables for Doc. Loos and Co., a wire and cable company in Pomfret CT. I was the mechanic in the department that made cable assemblies. All the technicians got Doc T shirts, hats and a few other things. I got one of the "extra" ones. Still have it. That had to be 10 years ago or more.
 
When I was about 10 years old we went to visit my aunt and her husband, who was in the army and stationed at Sandia in New Mexico. They were living in base housing and one of the things my mother noticed, and asked her sister about, was the shelving inside the cabinets. They had little firring (sp) strips on the edges of all the shelves. It was explained that when they were flying the B-29's the dishes would shake out of the cabinets without them.
 
Great video. Thanks for posting.

My neighbor across the road was a flight engineer on a B-29 in Korea.

He flew his missions, came home, raised five good kids and sent all of them to college.

He's now in a nursing home where I occasionally visit.

Good man.

Dean
 
Training for landing on aircraft carriers, during WW2, was conducted in Lake Michigan. Someone decided to attempt to recover the lost planes. One of them is the only "Birdcage" corsair (?) known to still exist. The mussels were damaging the planes so badly that they thought in another 10 years, the planes would not be salvageable. How old that program was, I do not know. It is fantastic that someone with money will do this for the public.
 
I wish my dad were alive to see the video. He was a gunner in the 29s during the Korean war, flying out of Japan. He had the top sighting bubble in front of the wings. He was drafted at age 30 and made a career out of the Air Force. Retired in 1962 and died at age 100.
 
In August of 73 Marilyn and I were in Colorado Springs on our honeymoon. We stayed with her aunt and uncle for a week. One day during that week they had an air show at the airbase and waves of big old planes like the B29 were flying over. The ground was shaking and windows rattling. I've never experienced anything like it since. I'll bet in 1973 a lot of the pilots were Korean war vets and maybe a few WW2 vets.
 
SIR, I RESENT YOU CALLING 3 SEPARATE PLANE CREWS OF U.S. ARMY AIR CORPS. IDIOTS. THEY WERE PATRIOTS, DOING A DEADLY JOB...AND I WAS NOT AIR FORCE...BE BLESSED, GRATEFUL, PREPARED, NIK, VIET VET, FLYIN 55 YRS...
 
WAS BLESSED TO FLY IN CAF B-29 FIFI, WITH CARTER MCGREGOR, COMMAND PILOT, WHO FLEW THE FIRST AND LAST B-29 MISSIONS TO JAPAN...HAVE BEEN GREATLY BLESSED, IN AVIATION...
 
I went into the USAF in 1954 and became a jet bomber mechanic, My permanent assignment was with a B-47 outfit just getting organized at Pinecastle AFB near Orlando. There were several old B-29 guys in our outfit and they said the first B-29's had more troubles than a Nazi in a synagogue and it took a while to get them "ironed out" but they learned to,love their "Superforts". (Not all of them liked the B-47 even though they didn't usually get near as many flight write-ups as their old B-Two-Niners did). B-47's had no where as much room in the pressurized cabin as the B-29 did and some of the old guys got claustrafobia when they flew in the big jets to get their flight pay.
 
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Dennis K (WA)
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