b29 costruction video

[earnie]

dont know if this has been posted but i think it is pretty cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcS3TCI4SBw

[RareBear]

It appears that this was filmed at the Bell Plant in Marietta, GA. Can anyone confirm this?

Walt

[Kyleb]

It looks like Bell/Marietta, but who knows. I can tell you that the shot from the landing sequence at 13:45 or so looks like an approach into Dobbins from the West. The runway configuration is correct, the ramp configuration is correct, there is (possibly) a RR track off the West end of the runway and (the key for me), there is a lake to the North of the near end of the runway. And then I factor in all of the pine trees, which are a give-away for this part of the country.

Here's an overhead view:


http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=dob ... CBcQ_AUoAg


What I didn't see was either of my grandfathers (both in production) or my great aunt (a messenger girl on rollerskates) in any of the pictures. That would have confirmed it.

[Pat Carry]

A very good video. What happens to all the machinery when it is no longer needed such as at the end of the war. Can it be retooled to produce something else?

[RareBear]

Any machinery that was not aircraft-specific would have been re-used. Aircraft-specific machinery was probably stored outside for a period of time, then scrapped. There are currently what appear to be a number of pieces of the tooling for the C-141 and the C-5 stored outside at Lockheed.

Kyleb, I'll agree the airfield was the Marietta AAF, now Dobbins ARB. I was originally fooled by the short length of runway 11-29. I recall that it was not lengthened to 10,000 ft until the 50's.

Walt

[Cubs]

It's true! They said that the weight of the blueprints was 50 tons. So...." the weight of the paperwork does have to be the same as the weight of the airplane before it can fly."

By the way, that was NOT a politically correct introduction speech.