banndit wrote:
So...as an outsider who might like to help, I'd be curious and as what's the holdup on FiFi? Is it just money? Lack of parts? Politics? all the above?
The short story is that there are essentially none of the original B-29 engines left. But to make up for it, the few that are left that are still reasonable cores cost unreasonable amounts of money to get overhauled. For example, our last overhaul was in the $185,000.00 range, with our parts (since we're essentially the only ones that have servicable ones). The engines are extremely unreliable and our most recent one out of the shop from warranty work lasted a whopping 6.6 hours before it became full of metal. Now, the freshly overhauled one is still okay...for now. Who knows when it would crater? And how will we be able to afford it since the shop that overhauled them refuses to honor their warranty anymore (don't EVEN get me started on that one).
Something else to consider is that even though we could scrounge around and possibly find enough money and parts to overhaul the three engines on the airplane that are currently making metal, it would be a HUGE gamble, as the engines might last 800 hours or they might last 8 hours. I love the Wright R-3350, but the 3350's that were installed on the B-29 are the sorriest firewall forward I've ever worked on...period. Now, on the flip side of that...the 3350's that we are including in our re-engine program are from two of the latest and most reliable varients that Wright ever made and are fantastic engines. They are the -95 and the -26WD (engines from an AC-119 Gunship and the Douglas Skyraider). We are forced to make our own "hybrid" engines in order for them to fit and work properly on the B-29, with little or no visual difference with the aircraft (other than us not having to see us work on them every time it lands). This, of course, is just a very basic description of what we're going to be doing with the re-engine program, just to give you an idea.
We will also take this down time to remove the R/H outer wing panel to repair some corrosion. We have caught this corrosion before it has become a huge issue and it should be a relatively easy fix (in theory). I don't know if y'all recall, but the airplane (just prior to it's most recent engine woes) just went through 19 months of maintenance that included roughly 15,000 hours of our labor to accomplish. The list of what we did to it is lenghthy, so I won't bore you with it right now. I'll just put it like this...if I'd been doing a daily post of updates on WIX for the work we'd done on the B-29, the thread would likely contain at least twice the number of pages that the B-24 thread has been so far.
My point is that we are close to getting the airplane to where it needs to be. Sure, we're going to encounter some unforseen problems along the way, but this engine program is essential to the future of flight for our B-29. But we need everyone that wants to see FIFI to fly again to know that we've explored every avenue that we could think of and that we're doing what we think to be the best thing for the airplane. I can assure you that there is not another person on the planet that wants to see that airplane back in the air more than me.......and I intend to make it happen!
Gary
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