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B-29 Fifi help needed

Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:27 am

I would like to make a model of B-29 FIFI. But I quite fancy the idea of doing it as was during the filming of "The Right Stuff".

Has anybody got any good quality pictures of the aircraft from this period including close up pictures of the filming nose art. I'm sorry if this info is out there but I'm not US based and my www searches to date have turned up very little information.

Any help is hugely appreciated :-)

Kindest Regards

Re: B-29 Fifi help needed

Sun Jan 31, 2016 9:28 am

Image

Remember the name FIFI was not on the plane while filming.

Re: B-29 Fifi help needed

Fri Feb 05, 2016 5:41 am

Many thanks for the picture. I'm now thinking perhaps a model featuring both bits of nose art as in your picture. Decisions.

Re: B-29 Fifi help needed

Sat Feb 06, 2016 1:16 am

I find it hilarious that FIFI was the fill-in for Fertile Myrtle in 1982. :wink:

Re: B-29 Fifi help needed

Tue Feb 09, 2016 12:41 pm

I just watched that film with my kids the other day! they were amazed that Yeager was the old guy in the bar. . . It also made me chuckle that a plain jane F-104 filled in for the NF-104 - BUT I realize I am getting rather picky about a trivial point.

Tom P.

Re: B-29 Fifi help needed

Tue Feb 09, 2016 3:40 pm

The Right Stuff movie bears little resemblance to the book. I saw the movie in theaters when it was new but only read the book a couple of years ago. I now consider the movie the way I do the movie, "Starship Troopers" where the movie is so different from the book that it should be viewed as a dark comedy instead and one should ignore the book totally when watching it.
wendovertom wrote:I just watched that film with my kids the other day! they were amazed that Yeager was the old guy in the bar. . . It also made me chuckle that a plain jane F-104 filled in for the NF-104 - BUT I realize I am getting rather picky about a trivial point.
The producers were lucky that anyone was still flying any F-104s in the US at that point. My understanding is that the 104 in the movie was a Luftwaffe one but I have never found who actually few it (I assume a USAF instructor pilot?).

Re: B-29 Fifi help needed

Wed Feb 10, 2016 12:29 pm

Not a high quality pic....but....

Image

Re: B-29 Fifi help needed

Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:00 pm

I assume she had the CAF writing covered during the filming? For all the time she spent on the set, you don't see much of her being used in the finished movie as much of the B-29 in the air footage was stock film or model work...

Re: B-29 Fifi help needed

Wed Feb 10, 2016 4:29 pm

The writing along the fuselage during this period said "UNITED STATES AIR FORCE", she did not wear the "CONFEDERATE AIR FORCE" legend while in the movie paint.

Sorry my pics from those years are not much good either:

Image

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When doing the model note the inaccurate USAF insignia with much too large white bars. This seems to have been inherited from the similarly inaccurate insignia sported by the aircraft in the immediately prior years:.

Image

August
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