menards wrote:
sandiego89 wrote:
Perhaps some musing by someone seeing a B-29 without main turrets, thinking it was Silverplate?
This. From the exterior. without turrets....Doc and Enola Gay look very similar.
When the CAF had the pick of the litter at China Lake in the early 70s...were there any surviving silverplate airframes parked there?
I do not believe so. I think only the ENOLA GAY and BOCKSCAR are the only silverplate survivors. Happy to be corrected.
44-86408 now at the Hill AFB museum was Martin Omaha built and is now painted as "straight flush" of the WWII 509th, and is without turrets, but is NOT the original Straight Flush from the 509th. Used for air sampling in atomic tests, but I do not think she was a Silverplate. The hulk was recovered from Dugway Utah. The other survivors from China Lake seem to be a mix of regular B-29s, a few with a war history, but not Silverplates. By deduction you can rule out the Boeing Renton built survivors as Silverplates.