Official B-29 Doc Restoration Thread

[Iclo]

from what I see, they would be lucky to fly before the end of the year. It has been this long, no need to rush at the end.

I never heard about a restoration finisihed before the first expected deadline.
From the simplest personnal project to this kind of ultimate restoration, there is always a batch of unexpected things to fix or sort.

In our little project of restoring a 1928 car, we firstly estimated the duration for one year, we needed 3 years. So, It's will be ready when it's ready

[APG85]

I'm not sure why they posted the prop install picture on FB as if it just happened the other day. According to what can been seen from the older pictures, the props have been installed for a couple of months. The latest milestone seems to be the installation of the flaps. Either way, this is an awesome project and I can't wait to see it finished...

[Jeremy S]

The suspense is killing me. Any word on Doc? Engine start ups? First flight?

[Gtjensen]

Doc is coming along nicely. She still has a lot of work to be done, but currently we are wiring in the avionics (won't be seen during airshows, gotta love technology), the interior is still being restored, floorboards are being installed and whatnot. The bomb bay doors are completed and have been painted. The tops of the wings are about to be painted starting soon. Tail-gun fairing has been built ans looks AMAZING considering we are going off pictures for that. Initial first flight planning stage is in progress. Engines are still being worked on and coming along great. Power has been put on the plane multiple times without incident. Flaps installed, but not ready for testing. All in all the progress is going great. I cannot comment nor will I make any confirmation or commitment on first flight. We are doing everything very safe and by the book because we want this beautiful bird to fly for a long time in the future.

Geoffery Jensen
B-29 "Doc" Deputy Program Manager

[JANDMBEAR1109]

taking your time and being safe is the only way to go. Look forward to seeing all your hard work pay off!

[B-29 Watcher]

Gtjensen; It is good to hear from you, been a while since we heard anything! JANDMBEAR1109 is right, take all the time you need, we've waited this long. What's a few more months? Keep us up dated when you can.

[APG85]

There's a nice update with pictures on the Doc Facebook page. Looks like some finish work on the engines, lots of wiring in the flight deck and they are polishing the upper surfaces of the wings...

[Gtjensen]

We are polishing the trailing edge of the upper wing surfaces as well as the majority of the lower wing surfaces. It' difficult to explain in words, so I am posting this picture to show the same paint scheme. The paint will basically go halfway through the roundel, without actually going over it of course.

[Gtjensen]

Here are a few pictures of Doc I took a couple of days ago. I know we don't update this site all that much, but I will do what I can to update and answer any questions y'all have.










Bottom of the wing paint job

[phil65]

Nice work, keep it up...

Thanks,
Phil

[C VEICH]

[quote="Gtjensen"]Here are a few pictures of Doc I took a couple of days ago. I know we don't update this site all that much, but I will do what I can to update and answer any questions y'all have./quote]

We will take whatever we can get Gtjensen, much appreciated!

[Gtjensen]

A couple more pictures of Doc. One shows the paint scheme on top of the wings, as best as I could get. We have a paper walkway right now so that we don't get boot prints all over the new paint. The other is just one that I thought looked cool. I'll update again later this week. It's gonna be a slow week due to the holiday, but we will still get a few things done.

<Edit> So Flickr is being a pain in my butt right now. I am talking to the admins to try and allow me uploading rights on this thread so that I can keep everyone updated. More to follow>

[C VEICH]

Gtjensen,

If the troubles persist I would be more than happy to host your pics on my Photobucket account and post them here for you.

[Gtjensen]

Here are the two pictures I was trying to post last night. Thank you to C Veich for reminding me about Photobucket.

[Gtjensen]

I took this picture a month or so ago and when I showed it to my wife she said it looked like Doc had a "soul".