UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH FIFI

摘要

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is forever associated with the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But there's much more to this World War Two aircraft than that - when you get to view the B-29 in person - as I did in August - you discover all kinds of 73-year-old technical innovations that make your jaw drop. Unfortunately, of the nearly 4,000 B-29 Superfortress aircraft built in the 1940s, only two are airworthy today. One of them is the Commemorative Air Force's 44-62070 FIFI (NX529B), and the other is Doc's Friends' 44-69972 Doc (N69972). Part of a restored World War Two fleet operated by the CAF - a Texas-based non-profit group that preserves and shows historic aircraft at airshows - 44-62070 was delivered to the US Army Air Force in 1945. She never saw combat; serving instead for a short time as a support aircraft before going into temporary storage.