With a little help from a friend 

The B-29 stretches its wings 

As told by Paul Tibbets 

(Editor's Note: Colonel Paul Tibbets is best known as the aircraft commander of the Enola Gay - the aircraft which flew the first atomic mission against Hiroshima. Much less known is the fact that Paul was assigned to the B-29 flight test and development project from its earliest days. He did much of the test flying of the new B-29's and helped to set up the programs which later trained the combat crews to man the revolutionary new bombers. This is the story I asked Paul to share with readers of Fifi's Diary. He graciously agreed and asked me where he should begin. I asked him to start the story at the beginning, before he ever saw a B-29 and this is how he told it.) 

Long days and the smell of hot oil 

  I had been flying combat in North Africa and had finished my combat tour and been assigned into the Twelfth Air Force Headquarters. That was Jimmy Doolittle's headquarters in North Africa. My title was Bombardment Expert for the Operations section of the 12th Air Force. 
  In February of 1943, General Doolittle got a request from Hap Arnold to send his most experienced bombardment officer of field grade rank, back to the United States, (I was a Lt. Colonel at that time) the purpose being to apply that experience to the development of this new bomber - the B-29. So Jimmy Doolittle said, "I tagged you and you're going home for that purpose." 
  When I got back to the United States, right around the first part of March, I learned that Eddie Allen had crashed with, I believe it was the Number 2 "X" model B-29. Eddie Allen and six others perished in that thing and this was Boeing's total experience really on the B-20. 
  Now, they'd had numerous problems and I guess most of them were related to engine fires. So much so that the management of Boeing took the position that this was not a good airplane and they didn't want to build it. 
  Well, obviously this didn't suit the Air Corps at all, because they needed this airplane and needed it badly. So numerous meetings were held and the final outcome of those meetings resulted in Boeing relinquishing control of the manufacture of that airplane to Air Corps people. That group was headed by K. B. Wolf. 
  Now what did this mean? This meant that Boeing would actually run the plants and hire the people - they would do all these types of things, but they would not accept responsibility for any decisions made regarding the airplane, or component parts of the airplane. 
  Well, this put a group of us in a rather new and unique type of a position, I guess you could call it. The military involved there got to be some 60 or 70 people, at least that I was acquainted with. 
  My part of it, since I had been assigned to that project, was flying airplanes. That's all I knew. I was not an engineer. So I started out with the other "X" airplane - the only one left...and I think that airplane was the Number 1 "X". I started flying it in a continuation of engine test work. 
  Now, a certain number, and I think the number was 13, if my memory serves me correctly, of B-29's were on the production line at Wichita, Kansas, when Boeing decided to quit. They had left 13 airplanes there in various stages of development. 
The go-ahead for the Air Corps to operate this thing, that production line, was re-established and so we started getting YB-29's off of the production line. 
  Obviously, these YB's, as they came out, had different configurations in the equipment that was either mounted in them or mounted on them - different Mod numbers on engines, different carburetors, different ignition harnesses; some of them had some armament inside and some of them had none. Some of them had hydraulic operated bomb doors on them and some had the electrical doors. Needless to say, we had a conglomerate there and the object was really to fly these airplanes as hard as we could fly-em and go ahead and develop the airplane, so that a production model could be put out. 
  I wouldn't bore you with all the details of the things that we went through, but I could assure you that from the time we started - which was, as I remember, about the latter part of March or the first part of April of '43, we had nothing but hectic times and days and nights in getting this production line going...up until the time they got the 58th Wing established. 
  Now, concurrently with the development of the airplane, we had to get instructor crews trained. We had to develop modification center, because the airplane was being built not only in Wichita, Kansas, but at Seattle, at Renton, at Marietta, Georgia and Omaha, Nebraska, and they even had a Mod-Center out at Cheyenne, Wyoming and another at Birmingham, Alabama. I got involved in that one, and I was continually going from one place to another in problem-solving trips. 
  I got mighty well acquainted with that airplane in the early stages of it. I guess I had close to a thousand hours in the airplane before the first tactical organization was developed. This period too, me up to about the last of '43 and the start of '44. 
  We never did get what you would call a standard production item. The whole problem was to get production lines started so we could put out airplanes. So that's what they did. They built airplanes that flew right from the factory to a modification center. There they were modified and brought up to date with what had been learned from the time that airplane was started down the production line. 
  Boeing, Lockheed at Marietta, Martin at Omaha, Douglas at Tulsa...nobody made the same type of an airplane. Actually, all parts were not interchangeable. If something was made by Wichita, it necessarily wouldn't fit something made at Omaha, Nebraska. 
  The airplanes were rolling out because they had to get the production lines going and they had to train the people to make'em. I remember a situation at Marietta, Georgia. It resulted in an incident that was probably never heard of before or since. The first 33 airplanes that came off that production line were classified Class 26 - non-flyable. Those airplanes were allocated to allow that particular group of factory workers to learn how to build an airplane. 
  I sat on a board that put the death knell on those first 33 airplanes. Now they were actually flown out of Marietta and they went to good use. They went out to mechanics schools and all kinds of places where people could be trained on them, but they were not flown. 
  Now, the "Battle of Kansas" came along after they went to the Mod Centers. "The Battle of Kansas" was to bring'em up specifically on the armament systems used. We had an awful problem trying to resolve and develop and standardize on one armament system to go into the airplane. So, the last minute changes were made to airplanes, engines and armaments in the so-called "Battle of Kansas" to push the airplanes through there and get them out to the 58th Wing. 
  By that time, most of the real bad engine fire problems were licked, but we still had some hot engines. As we learned later on, we had oversize cowl flaps on'em and what you did there, you opened the cowl flaps to cool the engines, but you actually created more drag, so you had to get more power out of the engine and consequently the engine got hotter. They came along later out in the Marianas and developed a fix for that by cutting the cowl flaps short and reducting what they called orange peel and redirecting the air to flow around the cylinders. 
  The outfit that I commanded - the 509th, was the only one to remove some of the armament in the interest of gaining more performance. If it hadn't been for the fact that I had the authority to do what I wanted with my own airplanes, this wouldn't have happened. Because the first time that some of the people higher up the line heard that we'd stripped the airplanes, they wanted to have me run through a psychiatric evaluation. 
  But you see, I was actually one step ahead of them due to the fact that I was assigned to the A-Bomb Project while I was working with Dr. E. J. Workman, of the physics department of the University of New Mexico, specifically testing the vulnerability of a B-29 to fighter attack. 
  One day, we did not have our normal B-29, which was fully equipped with armament. We didn't have that airplane available to fly tests. Well, it was so important that we do a certain amount of flying, that we had to use another airplane. BY coincidence, that B-29 was stripped down and had been brought in from Nebraska with me when I went down there. It was just a flying machine, no armament, no nothing on it. So in the interest of keeping the tests going, I took this machine and went up. Inadvertently, I discovered that at those altitudes of 30,000 feet and up, I could out maneuver and out perform the fighters. 
  So, when I found that little gem, I put it in the back of my mind and I said, boy, I'm going to remember that. Where do I get safety? And when I got the bomb project to go over to Japan, I knew I couldn't get fighter escort, so I decided I'd get my protection by being able to fly higher than they could with the Zero. 
  We took all of the armament out except the tail guns. We left the tail guns in because there was always the possibility they could come on up there and get around behind you and I wanted something to deter'em. They couldn't get above me and they couldn't get in front of me and make a fighter pass and come back again, I knew that. So, the only place I felt that I had any vulnerability was closing in on my tail cone. 
  You know, looking back now, that airplane created a sensation when it came out. I remember when they were new and on occasion, I'd have to fly around and go from one place to another, people stood there with their mouths open looking at it. 
The B-29 was really a highly advanced design for its time. It was on a whole new level of sophistication. Much of this proved to be the forerunner of later developments in commercial transport aircraft. 
  Probably the thing that was appreciated most by everybody was the fact that I had reversible pitch propellers on my airplane and we successfully operated the airplanes with this feature for the first time. This led the airlines immediately after the war to require all airplanes to have reverse pitch props. 
  Pressurization and particularly how you could mold plastic to withstand the pressures - those two things were very important. In another vein, the environmental systems for air conditioning and heating were advanced. Obviously engine check technology was advanced greatly and horsepower tripled in that length of time. 
  All of the systems became much more sophisticated and much more reliable. The war really developed the reliability of aircraft and aircraft components. But would you believe I had one B-29 that was not pressurized and had all manually controlled and operated gun turrets like a B-17? That was at Eglin Field, Florida during a certain phase of my test work. They considered building manual systems as a back up system in case they couldn't get the G.E. or Emerson remote controlled gun systems working. 
  At one time, nobody could get those new systems to do anything that they were supposed to do. They were really nightmares. But, finally, with the effort that was put into it, it finally worked out alright. 
  I remember what a problem those plastic bubbles were, particularly for the navigator and the window gunners. Initially, those things flew out right and left. 
  But, you know, an interesting thing happened when the B-29's started coming onto the flight lines. Actually, the B-29 scared people. It scared them because of the fact that it did have engine fires and a lot of airplanes were crashed for one reason or another. Had more been understood about the airplane, many of those crashes wouldn't have taken place. 
  Another thing that happened to me, that I'll always get the biggest kick in the world out of was - while I was so busy doing all of this test work and flying B-29's every day and half of the night, the Air Corps had started out there at Alamogordoa B-29 Flight Instructors School. This instructors school was given some B-29's and they were supposed to train people who would go out to what they used to call CCTS - Combat Crew Training outfits, to teach ordinary pilots how to fly B-29's.   
  One day, I got a call from General Barney Giles to come and see him in Washington. So   I went out there to see him and he said: "Look, we got this school out there and they're not getting any utilization at all out of these airplanes..." They were getting something like an hour a day and back then you figured more like three hours a day was what you aimed for. He said, "I don't understand it, do you?"  Well, I said I didn't understand it either, but I agreed to look into the matter and try to find out. So, off I Went on a special deal and I trotted down there and started talking to operations people. 
I heard stories to the effect that this airplane is really a dangerous airplane to fly. If you lose an engine it's going to crash and so on. Well, obviously, it didn't take long to figure out they had a psychological fear of that airplane. 

One a day in Tampa Bay 

  So I said to Barney Giles, you know one time I had a unique experience and I think it might work in this case. He asked what that was. I said, well I always heard the story on B-26's about "One a day in Tampa Bay." I said I never could quite figure out why you had to have one of those a day go in Tampa Bay. But I had never been near a B-26 so I couldn't say anything about'em. 
  One day I'd been out to the west coast to Consolidated to look at that B-32. Coming back from the west coast I had to stop at Pueblo, Colorado to take on some gas to keep on coming east. While I was parked there in front of Operations, as they used to do when you were a transient, waiting for the fuel truck to come up. Here comes a B-26 taxiing right straight up and stops right there in front of me. 
  I'm curious and I had nothin' better to do, so I'm looking and all of a sudden I see somebody get out of that thing with a blue jump suit on. I thought what the heck is that? So I asked this guy who was running the refueling truck, I said what's that? It had long hair and he said, "...that's one of those WASP pilots...one of these women." And I said what? I wasn't familiar with that program. 
  Anyway, I looked at this probably 110 pound brunette flying that B-26 and I thought to myself, now, if she can fly that airplane, what's so bad about it? Well, I couldn't rest until I got into a position where I could fly a B-26. I had to know what it is...why are we crashing them, but yet this little girl could fly that thing. 
  To make a long story short, I did. I found me a B-26 when I was at Marietta, Georgia one time. They had about 20 of them parked there and I just went down to base operations and told a guy I wanted to fly it. He said alright, go ahead. So I got myself a Corporal who wound out the war with em and who was an assistant crew chief on one of 'em. I said what do you know about it and he said, I'm assistant crew chief and I know how to start the engines. I said, well, if you know that, then we'll fly it. 
  Alright, we took off and we flew that thing and gosh I never was so amazed in my life. I strictly liked the airplane. Well, I wound up taking that airplane and keeping it as a liaison airplane to get around in and I must have flown that same airplane about 500 hours. I thought it was a great airplane. 
  Aerodynamically, the problem was...well, hell, I'm getting off of the story here. Anyway, I told General Giles, I said, look, General, I saw a woman fly that airplane. Let me train two girls to fly the B-29. He said, do you think you can do it and I said yup. He said okay. 
So he set everything up and I got two WASP girls. I took'em to Birmingham, Alabama, to the modification center where we had plenty of airplanes to fly so we'd always have one available. Boy, we started a transition that you've never seen the like of before. 
  I had a Flight Engineer that had been flying with me (and was with me on the bomb run, too). He was a little skeptical at first, but we worked with these girls for about a week and got them to where they could handle that airplane like nobody's business. My Flight Engineer said, "What are you going to do with'em?" and I said I'm going to send them down to Alamogordo to that school. He said, "I'll go with'em and be the Flight Engineer." 
The girl that I had sitting in the left seat, was Dora Doherty and the other girl was DeeDee Morman. Dora, especially, I really had a great regard for because she was a natural pilot. She could just fly like nobody's business. Today, she is Dr. Struther, head of the humanics department at Bell Helicopter in Forth Worth. Dora was one of these people that you show her something one time and she had it. 
  I got the girls to flyin' the airplane. We manipulated the fuel load a little bit and then got four instructor pilots and the Director of Operations in the B-29 down there. The girls took on off and right after the airplane broke ground, they feathered one engine. As soon as the wheels and flaps were up, they feathered the other one right beside it and Dora flew right on out on two engines. 
50 percent power...the hard way 
  Oh gosh, you never saw such a hurang in your life. It raised so much hell and people got so indignant and insulted by these girls showing them up, that the morale problem reversed. So we had to take them out of the B-29 and not let'em fly anymore. But I'll guarantee you that, after that, utilization on B-29's went up. 
  You know it was quite an experience to go up on the flight deck of Fifi after all those years since I had been in a B-29. The only airplane that I've been used to in recent years is the Lear Jet. I've been flying those almost regularly if not extensively, and I do know the airplane and I love it. 
  If I had to make a comparison (and I kind of hate to use it), getting out of the Lear Jet and into Fifi and flying that airplane would be just about like Cale Yarborough getting out of his racer and getting into a Mack truck to haul coal. It's the same principle. 
  But, you know, there's a certain emotionalism there that is just unparalleled. I hadn't been in a B-29 for 27 years when I climbed into Fifi a couple of years ago. In my mind, I remembered what a B-29 looked like, but when I got back in it, I didn't remember things being just exactly like I say them in that airplane initially. I had to stop and take another look. Somebody would say 'unlock the controls,' and I'd have to think now where do I get the control lock. 
  Within the first hour, it is amazing how my mind began to resurrect everything, and how things began to come back to me. Now I don't mean the first hour I was back inside the airplane because I spent the first hour riding behind Ray Kirkpatrick. 
  But when I got my hands on the controls things really started to come back. For instance, how do I see the runway if I'm making an approach and how do I see things out of my forward vision and side vision and sense what this airplane id doing? 
I was apprehensive on my first touch and go landing and I wondered if I was going to bounce the thing, but I didn't make too bad a landing and the second one wasn't too bad either. I had the feel of the airplane again by the time I'd made my second touch and go. It just came back as natural as could be. 
  Of course, I was back muscling controls around, where for all of these years in the interim I'd been flying hydraulically boosted controls. I found out that I didn't have quite the muscle power that I used to have. But the airplane began to feel natural and I began to feel at home in it. I truthfully surprised myself. 
  But you know when you start flying a big, complicated airplane like Fifi, you sort of get interested in the maintenance problems. You know that airplane is going to need a lot of tender loving care. It's the only one of its type still in the air. 
  People really need to know what that airplane is, what it was and what it did and the only way that message can be given to the people of the country is for them to be able to see it. Well, obviously, if we're going to fly this airplane around the country, it's going to cost money and it's going to take a lot of time and effort. Probably more time and effort than money. We've already got a group of people who are more than willing to devote time and effort, now we've got to find the people who are willing to devote a little bit of money to it. 
  It seems like a long road from my first flights in the old XB-29 to my recent air show flights in Fifi. But when you get right down to it, it's all part of the same story. I hope we can keep that story alive and well for a long time to come. 
+++ 
(Editor's P.S. - One thing I noticed when I wrote this story off from the tape recording is that I forgot to go back and ask Paul what that aerodynamic problem was that caused all the grief for the B-26...I've wondered about Tampa Bay, too. Now, that's going to bug me until I can talk to him again. When I find out, you can be sure I'll pass the word along to you in a future issue of Fifi's Diary.)