FIFI - Supposedly the Last Flying B-29

[pdub]

I HAD HEARD IT WAS AIRWORTHY BUT HAD NOT SEEN PICTURES OF IT FLYING. SPECIAL PLANE, WHEN YOU REALIZE 3970 WERE BUILT BETWEEN 1943 - 1946 AND NOW ONLY ONE IS IN FLYABLE CONDITION.

To our friends who may not understand the passion we feel for planes and particularly planes from WWII, this is Fifi. It is the only flying B-29 Strato Fortress in the world. This is one of the combat airplanes that flew from Iwo Jima, Saipan, Tinian islands to bomb Japan and help win the war. It was usually escorted by P-51 Mustangs to protect her from enemy fighters but many thousands of planes and aircrews were lost fighting for our country.

This happened at a time in history before we had long range missiles and electronics. These planes were flown by men from our farms and cities who left their families at home and risked their lives in high altitude gun fights. It was up close, brutal and extremely dangerous but they risked it all to protect our country. Many never came home again. We love, respect and honor all of our veterans. But we also have a love affair with the planes. It is a permanent addiction for us so we preserve these wonderful aircraft so you can see and experience the marvelous machines that preserved our freedom.

We have completely rebuilt this aircraft and those powerful prop engines to bring Fifi back to life. It took years to accomplish, many thousands of donated dollars and thousands of hours of work by many unpaid volunteers to make this happen so that everyone can share this important part of our history. This is a unique flying museum.

If you get a chance to see her at an airshow, don't pass up the chance. You are watching history and she is the only one left out of thousands. This is truly a rare aircraft. Enjoy the video.

Col. Tom Leo
Golden Gate Wing
Someone did a nice job of filming Fifi, the last flying B-29.
Click on the ink below and then make it full screen:

http://vimeo.com/17388627

[Cyclone03]

FiFi was here at our base open house a few years ago.
All I can say is for a gear head,look at those planes then think about what it must have been like to spend 12+hours in one,those 2000hp engines just outside the thin skin.....

BTW there is a group trying to rebuild another one in Wichita Ks. They let me crawl all through it and it's flat incredable.

When time becomes a little freer I plan on letting some of my 30 years of Air Force Avionics work get me working on an old war bird.

[boosted buick]

Smokey Yunick flew bombers in WWII, his autobiography has some great stories in it. But don't let your kids read it, he didn't censor his book. And in case you didn't know, he liked women...

[studemax]

I believe "Sentimental Journey" is still flying.
Here in Wichita another B-29 is being rebuilt, basically waiting on engines right now.
Hopefully "Doc" will soon be taking wing at an airshow near you.

[Cyclone03]

Is Doc the one at the Wichita air museum over by McConnell?

[Barry Donovan]

FiFi was here at our base open house a few years ago.
All I can say is for a gear head,look at those planes then think about what it must have been like to spend 12+hours in one,those 2000hp engines just outside the thin skin.....

BTW there is a group trying to rebuild another one in Wichita Ks. They let me crawl all through it and it's flat incredable.

When time becomes a little freer I plan on letting some of my 30 years of Air Force Avionics work get me working on an old war bird.

dream job. old plane.

the 707 (717 kc135e) I was assigned to went to the junk yard. My dad turned 60 today, and the plane was new he was only 6. I fall for the old plane stories. this was a good one. My own is the last of SAC with tankers.. the plane had to be mytholigical...it was forced to.

the aurora that goes with the old stuff.. it can only be kept going by old stuff. I see in the comments at vimeo it is emotionally binding. I used to care..
took awhile to get over the specialty...asked to die for something that needed extraordinary skills.. and to be never needed again if you made it home.

[66PAPR W8]

I've seen a booth up at Oshkosh where they were raising money for Doc. And I remember seeing FiFi many years back, before they rebuilt it. My favorite warbird is still the P-38.

[studemax]

Is Doc the one at the Wichita air museum over by McConnell?

For now. The owner will be moving it soon....

[JOES66FURY]

There is an airworthy fully restored B29 here in the Pima Air and Space Museum....it is inside a hanger, the hanger was built around the airplane...because technically the USAF still owns it and the museum didn't want them to be able to take it back. I helped refurb it about 17 years go...mostly grunt work, polishing and cleaning and crap like that...

[Huskinhano]

I love the old planes from WWII. Those guys who flew them are real heros. When ever I see an old vet who was in the army air force I stop and chat. The last guy was a ball turret gunner. Suddenly he was 19 again.

I watched the documentary on the Kiwi a few years back, I just about cried when it caught fire as it was taxiing. I heard a B29 cost as much to build as a destroyer.

They use to have air shows at the Scranton Wilkes Barre air port years ago with all the old and new planes. Saw the Blue Angles there a few times. What a show. I sure do miss the shows now. They stopped after 9-11.

Thanks peewee.

[HEMI]

O.K.,I've posted this info.awhile back.My unckel Jack was a B 17,and a B 29 pilot.His license is B29CAPT.He was stopped at a
at a crosswalk onetime and a man stopped in front of his car,looked at the lic.plate and snapped into a salute and continued on.
Just thought that was cool thing to do.

[Scott Liggett]

I have a thread around of a bunch of pics my grandfather took during Army Air Corps career from 1933- 1945 flying mostly B-17's. He was stationed at Hickam when the Japanese attacked Pearl. Then he was training bomber drivers in New York before going to England himself. After flying missions, he was sent to the RAF command school before becoming the logistics commander for a flight group, including the 388th.

[milner351]

If you ever have the chance to get to the willow run "yankee air" museum - you won't regret it - every summer there's an air show and last year was the largest gathering of WW2 bombers in post war history. Really something to see - and HEAR - those big old radials have a song all their own.

[mike343sharpstick]

Ok, I live hear Oshkosh and have never been to the big EAA Airventure event,

http://www.airventure.org/news/2011/110519_nasoshkosh.html

I think I need to get there this year!

Edit: Looks like FIFI will be there too! Look at this list of confirmed aircraft.

http://www.airventure.org/attractions/aircraft.html

[pdub]

Thanks peewee.

My "glad."

My own dad was at such an age that he trained as a tail gunner on the B-52 (since he admittedly flunked out of pilot school during recruitment). That went on, and then as the theater of war changed to the Pacific, he was moved to the B-29 as a gunner. But he never saw any combat, and the War got over.

I've read a lot of books on the subject, written by guys who were in it, and then by psychologists who later tried to analyze it...

The guys who went to the Big war and survived to come back, well, that WAS their life in a nutshell, nothing else ever compared or measured up. As bad and horrific as that was, THAT was what they re-live and remember. Not strangely, the most vivid thing.

My dad, though he never saw flight combat, talked for hours about how scary it was to fly back then. The pilot was typically 23 years old, so they called him "Old Man." And the nice formations they flew on missions as well as for airshows, where they were wing-to-wing? It looked graceful from the ground, but with turbulence and the relative inexperience of the pilots, they were about to collide and crash any second.

And the "training." Those planes were not pressurized or heated. 40 below zero up there. During "training" they'd take them all up and intentionally make them pass out from lack of oxygen, as a part of the training, to let them experience what that was like, if you lost oxygen at altitude.

Like everybody else who wishes they had another chance, I'd love to have another chance to talk to my dad. He was so full of stories, but back when he was willing and able to tell them, I was too young and uninterested to listen. There were so many more.

And he was not a war hero. He only trained to be one for a while. Gosh, so many stories from back then.