USMCFLYR

September 4, 2011 - Fifi - the last B-29 that still flies, pays a visit to the largest aviation event in the world. David Oliver, age 29 shows his great enthusiasm for flight, and lands the big bird at Oshkosh - under the watchful eyes of senior pilots.

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Good job David Oliver.
I'm amazed at the amount of control movement in close to landing.
He wasn't kidding when he talked about the heavy controls!
Personally I loved it when the Mustangs showed up in formation and joined on the bomber.

USMCFLYR

jsfBoat

B-29 is one of my favorite bombers, kinda partial to it. Before my grand father passed away, he had a photo of his brother in his navigator's seat (taken probably a few weeks before he was shot down) and 2 of me in the Navigator's seat of FiFi, (as a toddler and as a teenager.) I would love the chance to be able to fly it one day.

UAL T38 Phlyer

I grew up in the SFO Bay Area (East Bay). When I was a senior in High School through most of my college years, there were three flying B-29s: FiFi, It's Hawg Wild (that was flown across the Atlantic around 1984-ish to the Imperial museum in England!]), and one based at North Field in Oakland named Fertile Myrtle. I think Hawg Wild was also based at North OAK.

Myrtle had been used at Edwards for some X-plane drops (you can see a picture of it on Wikipedia with a Bell X-1A underneath). It flew regularly in the 1977-1983 time frame, and I would see it on final to Rwy 29 at OAK from my parents' house.

About the time that FiFi was discovered to have corrosion problems in the wings, same thing with Myrtle. She was flown to Travis AFB and sat in the museum there, but I have learned it has since been moved. The nose is on display; the rest is in a hangar for storage.

Those were the days....

jsfBoat

Too bad Fertile Myrtle and Doc cant be brought back to flying condition and those along with FiFi could do some formation flying. That would be a sight. Just wish Kermit Weeks would get Myrtle back up flying, but he has so many other projects piled up.

UAL T38 Phlyer

This thread got me curious, and I did some research on Hawg Wild. Found this really cool link---the poster was a teenager (then) and flew along on its trip from Tuscon to Duxford. Fascinating; lots of cool pics from the restoration.

B-29 44-61748 Hawg Wild

ExAF

That was a very cool video. Gave me chills when the P-51s joined. My dad was a gunner.

SenecaII

Awesome!!! I have so many fond memories through EAA...

AZFlyer

I would love to see a massed formation fly over of all flyable WWII ETO aircraft. I just want to get a sense of the magnitude of the power and might of these airplanes as they were seen in their war days.

tomgoodman

Here's a look at B-29 news as it happened:

*Super-Fort - 13 April 1945 - XX Bomber Command - CBI Theater of World War II

biigD

Very cool video - that kid reminds me a bit of Quentin Tarantino in how he talks. Seems like a bright guy.