B-29 Access

[Silverplate]

Quote "From what I could find Gen Tibbets was the last surviving member from the Enola Gay"

"Dutch" Van Kirk wil be disappointed with your findings.

http://www.enolagay509th.com/vankirk.htm

[Second Air Force]

I got my first class medical renewed today by Dr. Charlie Smith, M.D. He flew B-29's on the opening day of Korea. He had a wooden model of a B-29 signed by Paul Tibbets in his examining room.
He told me that when Col. Tibbets was training his men a few of them were complaining about the rigors and difficulty of the training. So COl Tibbets trained a couple of female pilots and let them demonstrate the B-29 to the male pilots. End of complaining pilots!

Ellen and I attended a talk that General Tibbets gave in Dallas a number of years ago, and Dora Dougherty gave a little talk as well. His description of the Ladybird project was great to listen to--he took some pride in those two women showing the guys how to do it! His matter-of-fact telling didn't take long, but you could just imagine how the big bad AAF airmen felt when two petite girls dropped out of the nosegear well. If memory serves, they flew demos at Alamogordo, Clovis and one other Pilot Transition station before higher H.Q. shut down the program.


Here is a link to the story: http://www.wallawalla.edu/westwind/arch ... r/b29.html

[Green Goggles]

I sat in the cockpit of the B-29 at the Strategic Air and Space Museum near Omaha. All I did was ask.

I also crawled around inside their B-36, the B-17, and several other planes.



Here is one picture I took inside the B-36.
That thing is crazy big!

[Robbie Roberts]

Usually a couple of the B-29 Navigators, and one from Enola Gay or Bock's Car show up at Reading, and are parked in the hangar. The year before last,I delighted one of them with then contents of my WWII Navigator's briefcase- he enjoyed seeing all the old tools of the trade, and we spoke at length about navigation, etc. Very nice guy, but his name escapes me!

Robbie

[Second Air Force]

Ellen and I spent most of a day in the SAC Museum B-36 in 1978 or so. The curator opened it up and gave us the run of the airplane. Back then it looked just about as it did on its last flight twenty years before, including some of the paperwork still in place. At that time there was zero damage (other than sunbaking) to the interior--we didn't see anything broken or missing throughout the forward or aft crew areas. It is nice to see her inside--the magnesium on the exterior was looking tough even thirty years ago.

Scott