CoastieJohn wrote:
Wow! A historic set of photo's. Mucho Gracias for posting those!!!!
General curiosity question that may have been addressed before. Is (or could it be) the EG in some sort of semi-airworthy condition?
She is in amazing condition so anything is possible. I was joking around with Bernie that I was bringing basic tools, a 24 volt battery and a pre oiler so we could fire up the old gal. Okay so maybe I wasn't joking...and we had a wrestling match in the parking lot...and i had to leave the battery and pre-oiler in the car...
The reality is she will never fly and is a national treasure especially to have been restored as beautifully as she has. True restoration by cleaning and preserving what mostly was there. An outstanding job for sure.
There is a photo of Walter Soplata sticking his head out of the Enola Gay with all 4 engines running presumably at Andrews AFB. He was likely the last guy to have seen/made her operational.
I believe that she was worked over pretty good by souvenir hunters while at Andrews and other outside locations, so NASM and other individuals have replaced the missing gear during her restoration and to some degree it is still going on.
Mike Hans donated radar and radio gear from his collection and other sources to replace the missing components. He also made sure that the tubes inside of the radar and radio gear were of the proper date for the August 6th mission. Very cool mike.
As with any of these well preserved aircraft , yes they could come alive again with the resources and talent to do so safely. This is what we did with the Harpoon. Tim Savage did it with his A-26. EAA recently did it with the NA-64 and countless others have and will do the same. Sometimes you can do all that you can and still have a main bearing failure on an original Ford built R2800-31 engine from 1945 or have the same bearing fail on a new one a week out of overhaul. All flying is about risk management.
AFWhite wrote:
which marking was it wearing when it dropped the bomb?
The Enola Gay carried a lot of different markings throughout her career. Bernie Poppert has done quite a lot of research on her as well as spending decades of his life restoring her. Here is a slide from his powerpoint of her paint scheme for August 5th, 1945:
Here is the plate from August 14th with the circle arrow
The photos below look like crossroads markings which were apparently removed before she went into storage afterwards. Bernie mentioned finding remnants of these markings and they were indeed yellow and black.
Here is Bernies plate from April to July of 1946 for Crossroads with the bands.
sandiego89 wrote:
Is the "blue box" on the radio operators table? Starboard side aft the flight engineers station?
Yes the blue box, and presumably the original control box, were mounted above the normal location for the ART-13 liaison transmitter which was just aft of the flight engineers stand and forward of the radio operator. Incidentally a second ART-13 was mounted on the floor under the radio operators table as a Silverplate mod. It looks like they used the same shock mount too for the special equipment box as for the ART-13 which was a slide type of rack.
As for the side blisters being blanked off...
Old SAR pilot wrote:
They were blanked off to reduce any extreme flash effects produced by the nuclear explosion and protect the scanners, most likely.
I wondered about this but then the nose structure and tail turret glass would have provided just the same exposure if not more. As I recall the crew were issued the variable density goggles for eye protection but removing the blisters for reduced exposure seems unlikely.
APG85 wrote:
From what I have read, the planes were stripped of almost all of their armament (except the tail gun) and the blisters. The reason for this was to make them slightly faster. At the altitudes they were flying and at that stage in the war, armament was something they thought they would not need. The flash had nothing to do with removing the blisters as they all wore welders googles during the drop...
This seems like the best reason to me. Those blisters would present additional drag and speed and performance was paramount to them.
I would sure like to see some good documentation as to why they were blanked off.
lucky52 wrote:
Taigh, what percentage of the interior is original (a guess would be fine).Thanks.
My pure guesswork would be 80-90% original insulation material and 60-80% equipment is original. All of the wiring and fittings look spot on and original to me. I am guessing that the souvenir hunters took easily removeable parts. I am sure that NASM has quite a file of photos of what they started with. I am curious too.
Remember that there were a lot of mods done to her in the years post August 6th for Crossroads and other reasons. The idea at NASM was to restore her (as I recall) to the time period within one hour of her arrival back at Tinian after the Hiroshima mission. Not an easy task in itself considering how you have to piece together all of the photos and information and create a timeline. Another great example of the hard work and dedication of those at NASM.
On a side note one cool/frustrating thing was when I was visiting Gary Austin at the CAF in Midland I found some of the bullet resistant glass that mounted above the pilots and copilots instrument panels. This stuff is uber rare and to date no B-29 had this put back in place except the ones I put in the B-29 at Pima 30+ plus years ago. Thanks to Gary I was able to get a set for the Enola Gay.
There was a debate with one of the not so great NASM curators (now thankfully long gone) who said that they would not have used the glass so he didn't want it. It was his opinion, not based on research or fact, that it didn't belong in the Enola Gay. As a result Gary never received a thank you letter from them before he died. Burns me up. later the idiot curator was presented with photos showing the glass installed on the August 6th mission and it has since been restored and put in place.
It looks like the glass that was used to replace the ones in the armored glass above the instrument panels was standard plate glass that looks green especially when it is thick or layered. One of the nose glass pieces looks like it too. There is a truly clear glass that should have been used to avoid this tinting issue. Oh, well next time...
The above photo was shamelessly stolen from here:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/fc/93/df/fc93dfff5d27ad5d98cd125de41b341d.jpgEnough rambling for now...
_________________
To donate to the PV-2D project via PayPal click here
http://www.twinbeech.com/84062restoration.htmWe brought her from:
to this in 3 months:
Help us get her all the way back
All donations are tax deductible as the Stockton Field Aviation Museum is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Tell a friend as the Harpoon needs all the help she can get.
Thank you!
Taigh Ramey
Vintage Aircraft, Stockton, California
http://www.twinbeech.com'KEEP ‘EM FLYING…FOR HISTORY!'