B-29 — The Superfortress Survivors

Shortly after WWII, a small number of Texas veterans purchased surplus WWII aircraft, often for little more than their scrap value, and used them as weekend aerial hot-rods. As a joke, one of these Texans painted the words "Confederate Air Force" on the fuselage of a friends surplus fighter aircraft. The joke turned into a club, and the club soon had the idea to preserve, in flying condition, one example of every US aircraft type to serve in WWII. As time passed, Confederate Air Force badly wanted a B-29 bomber. Without it, the collection could never be considered to be complete.

As the CAF members looked around, they found that only a very few B-29s still existed after they were retired following the Korean conflict. The two atomic bombers still existed, Enola Gay and Bock's Car, plus one or two more were in storage for museums. Just when it looked like finding a B-29 would be impossible, fate brought a remarkable discovery. CAF member Roger Baker spotted what looked like a group of B-29 airframes on the bombing range at China Lake, a highly secret US Navy weapons testing base in the California dessert.

The CAF contacted the US Navy, who replied that they did in fact have no B-29 aircraft. The disconnect is classic military red tape. The US Air Force gave the "government issued property - aircraft" to the US Navy in 1954. The US Navy accepted "government issued property - static ordinance testing devices". So, the Navy was right after all, they didn't have any old USAF airplanes. Once the red tape was sorted out, it was confirmed that upwards of 50 Superfortress airframes has been sent to China Lake. Some were destroyed, some blown up, some were cut up, but a surprising number were still in good condition.

               

The CAF was granted the right to pick the first aircraft. They picked S/N 44-62070, spent several weeks cleaning it up, and then flew it out of China Lake in 1971. Fifi remains the only active B-29 today. Another 30 Superfortress sections were brought out of China Lake, resulting in the vast majority of the B-29s that are now on display at air museums across the US. Some of these museum aircraft are composites of sections from as many as two or three airframes. The last B-29 was pulled out of China Lake in the late 1990's. She is Doc, one of the B-29s painted up as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Doc is currently in Wichita, Kansas, being restored to flight status. It is hoped that she will be the second airworthy Superfortress before the end of the decade.

The USAAF built the B-32 Dominator as a backup to the B-29 in the event that the B-29 project failed. The B-32 resulted in only a handful of aircraft, all of which were scrapped after WWII. It is frightening to think that one of the most important aircraft types ever produced, the B-29 Stratofortress, might be similarly extinct today had it not been for this cache of bombing targets that were long forgotten in the high dessert.