Warbird Information Exchange

hi all,

Just wondering.........Is there the possiblity that Fifi will never fly again? If and when she gets back to flying I mean how many times will she be flown? Seeing how the upkeep of keeping something like that flying costs a lot of money. Will she be able to fly many times a year or will it have to be a selected few flights out of the year?

As for Doc. I don't know. I used to be a member but lost some interest in it due to the restoration kinda going down on it. I am guessing its sure bet Doc will never fly. I hope she does but every year that passes is one year less to try and get her back to the air. It seems like a great effort was made. At lest people tried.

-Nate

Nate:
Unless something dramatic occurs, we are planning on flying FIFI again. As a squadron we have set this as our goal. We currently have five engines in process of being built up. When those have been returned, as well as other work is completed, FIFI will return to the air. Our goal (as of October) was in one year, however that depends on the initial test runs of engines. Hopefully Dave M. will give us an engine update in the near future.

EDIT I was remiss in the first posting to not mention that John Agather, son of Vic, posted a good update in our January newsletter at http://www.cafb29b24.org/a/Newsletter.htm

As far as how much will we fly her? That is hard to tell, costs to operate and insure her have increased dramatically, but we will fly as much as we can afford to.

As far as DOC goes, I can not offer any insight, but I would love to see her in the air alongside FIFI one day.

Chris
B-29/B-24 PIO

Boy Gary sure ain't gonna like that question even though he's retired!

Well Ober, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with that post.

Nathan, OF COURSE FIFI WILL FLY AGAIN!!!

Gary

I am sorry Gary I hope no offense was taken. I just wasn't sure due to a few comments made in various threads about FIFI.

Patience, Grasshoppa, patience.

Let's see here....which is Gary and which one is Nathan

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Don't touch my junk!!

I would disagree that its unlikely that Doc will not fly. Its only been 10 years since Doc was recovered, and it takes alot of time to completely restore to flying condition such a large aircraft. If you look at her now, compared to 10 years ago ALOT of progress has been made. These things just take time (and money).

I'll do a little digging on that issue and get back to you.

Scott

They were still working on Doc when I visited 10 months ago. And there were plans for Boeing to make a few more wing parts for them. Also they had recently tried power on the electrics. Slow progress, as has already been said.

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"They done it, they done it, damned if they ain't flew." December 17, 1903

Hey Chris, don't forget about the further update from Dave in the February newsletter.

Then again, since everyone here obviously reads his updates in the FiFi thread (which I'm sure will soon be put up as a "sticky"), they're up to date on what Dave has to say on the progress..... :):):)

Yeah, I don't see how anyone could get the idea that FIFI will never fly again, will all of the hard work and activity on the new engines. The sole point of the hybrid engine project is to ensure that she CONTINUES to fly for a long time to come.

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Sure, Charles Lindbergh flew the plane... but Tom Rutledge built the engine!

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