How cool that is thanks Rob Any body how much gas that thing drinks per hour

A LOT!!! Probably enough fuel to supply us regular flyers for a couple of years.

What an awesome plane! It's a shame it's the only one flying. The engines on the originals had to be replaced EVERY 75 HOURS! Of course, they don't operate this one with the full load of fuel and bombs, so they probably throttle back and greatly increase the life.

The other factoid that always stuck in my mind is that the B-29 development costs were so huge that it was the only war effort that actually cost more than developing the A-bomb.

A good read about the development and deployment of the B-29 is "Whirlwind" by Barrett Tillman.

I believe that it will be at KIXD this weekend and since I am only about 13 air miles from there I am excited to see it with my own eyes.

Pat

Great story about the B-29.

When the airplane first went into service Army Air Corp pilots were in awe of it's size and complexity. Indeed many of the pilots set up for training were actually "afraid" of the airplane.

In response to their fear.....Col. Paul Tibbets, of Enola Gay fame.... trained an all female crew of WASP pilots to fly the airplane. He then sent the cute little ladies around to all the B-29 training bases and had the gals show the "men" how it was done. After that no Air Corp pilot alive was ever going to openly admit his fear of the giant airplane.

Then true to the chauvinism of the time....after the WASPs completed their demo tour.... Col. Tibbets grounded the ladies and never let them fly the B-29 again. A recounting of this story can be found in Tibbet's autobiography.

And by the way....those WASP gals did one hell of a job during the war....ferrying everything flown by the military..... and were treated shamefully after the war was over. I used to fly with a flight attendant whose mother and father were the only known married couple having both flown P-47s during WW-2. She as a WASP pilot and he as an Army Air Corp pilot. Neat heritage huh?

Bob

P.S. My buddy use to fly Fifi for the CAF. He says that she would lumber along at around 400 gallons per hour in "normal" cruise. Not too bad really.