The Gun Counter

Doc, the B-29, has undergone taxi tests prior to first flight. First time it's moved under its own power since 1956. Video at the link:

http://www.b-29doc.com/2016/05/11/video ... taxi-test/

Doc's story:

http://www.b-29doc.com/docs-story/

More vid at that link. Beautiful plane, too cool!

The FAA just granted the airworthiness certificate as well. A huge accomplishment of thousands of hours of work, no doubt.

JustinR wrote:The FAA just granted the airworthiness certificate as well. A huge accomplishment of thousands of hours of work, no doubt.

Cubic money and man hours. Rule 1 of checking out warbirds on the flight line at an air show... Never admit to having an A&P. In my case, I was just trying to save the guy from having to explain stuff I already knew, and I wound up getting the full spiel about how great it would be to come work on some guy's warbird for free. I get that nobody is making any money at it, it's a labor of love on the part of everybody involved, and if we want to have flying warbirds, that's just the way it has to be. All the same, if I had enough excess free time to consider doing that sort of thing, I'd rather volunteer on the local air museum's stuff, even if none of it ever flies again.

My hat is off to the people who can take on a project like "Doc" and see it through to completion. It's an incredibly daunting task, as evidenced by the fact that when finished, it will be one of only two flying B-29s in the world. One other point to consider, is although aircraft maintenance is labor intensive to begin with, the WWII era birds are doubly so, because they simply weren't built to last. Wartime survival rates being what they were, little to no attention was paid to things like corrosion control. Plus nearly all of the spare B-29 parts were melted down for scrap long ago.

Doc is deemed airworthy, first flight is said to be imminent:

http://www.b-29doc.com/2016/05/20/faa-d ... -imminent/

That is some awesome stuff.

Doc achieved its first flight since restoration this morning. There are now two operable B-29s in the world. Here's the present youtube link, it's a live feed, don't know what it will turn into. There will doubtless be additional vids posted. Hooray!

https://youtu.be/VNckztvXU3I

Beautiful bird.