The Bomber with a Poodles name – Fifi

Some people go all stupid around money.

Others go stupid over a pretty girl or a good-looking guy.

Or put them around a celebrity or a well-known politician and they get all tongue tied.

With me, put me around an Old War Bird and I hold my breath. My eyes pop out of their sockets, my pulse races, and I just want to feel the metal against my hands, trace the lines of the plane with my eyes, and climb up into it and imagine what it would be like to soar into the sky in it.

I’d been looking forward to this visit to the Cheyenne Regional Airport ever since I’d read that one of the last flying B-29s in the world was coming in for a visit. The aircraft was named Fifi and I’d seen her once before. That was years ago at an airshow in Topeka Kansas, and it did a flyover while being escorted by an AT-6 Texan (probably the same plane that accompanied it on this visit), an F6F Hellcat and a P-47 Thunderbolt. I remembered the collection of radial engines beat out a song of power that hit you square in the chest.

On a nice August day, my buddy Craig Carlson and I drove up to Cheyenne from Greeley where we could tour the aircraft. Cheyenne is a rather easy town to get around in and has a host of beautiful small homes and historic looking business buildings. I really want to spend a few days exploring it.

But after a little confusion, we found out way over to where the airplanes were parked.

The last time I’d checked out the aircraft flown by the Commemorative Air Force, it had been a B-25 Mitchell up at the Loveland airport. That had been a cold rainy day when I checked her out. This was the exact opposite. The sun was hot, and the tarmac was dry under our feet.

A man was seated at a table at the gate. We paid our admission and walked out into a roped off area where we gawked like children at the behemoth of metal that glinted in the sun. Overhead, an airplane flew over, its engine beckoning us to follow it into the sky. The T-6 Texan flashed by, it’s metal bright against the achingly blue Wyoming sky and was one of the aircraft that was part of this tour.

“If I had four hundred dollars that wasn’t doing anything,” I said to Craig, “I’d go up in that thing.”

“How much for the B-29?”

“A seat starts at eight hundred,” I said.

People who had the money to fly aboard it were loading up into it. I snapped pictures of the aircraft like someone might a celebrity on the red carpet.

After a few minutes, we walked around. The RC-45J Expediter that was part of this tour was sitting on the tarmac. Used for small cargo, some troops, and VIP transport, the aircraft wasn’t nearly as flashy as the B-29 or the Texan. It was a work-a-day aircraft that in the real world would have shuttled from point A to B without a whole lot of fanfare. But I had to wonder who had been aboard that aircraft. This would have been the kind of airplane a general or admiral might have flown aboard to an important meeting. Maybe some senator or congressman or cabinet member had sat in its cramped seats waiting to go someplace.

Soon, Fifi was boarded, and it was time to take off. I got up right next to the rope, wanting to get some good pictures of it. They started the engines far away from us and began working closer to us. The thunder of the Wright radial engines was overwhelming. Once four got turning and everything was ready, the brakes were released, and the bomber slowly began rolling towards the runway.

As it was doing that, the Texan came in for landing. I found myself alternating between the two airplanes as I took pictures and recorded video.

Things quieted down for a little while, and event I found surprising. Except for the whine of arrived small jets, a Blackhawk landing, and the occasional small plane taking off, the airport was quiet. I’d have expected the world to have been filled with sound of the B-29s engines, but the Plains soaked up the sound. The silver bomber disappeared to the end of the runway, masked from view by several hangers. it both surprised me but then should have been expected that the pilot would use every inch of the runway he could get. While the airport was used by large C-130s on a regular basis, they were signed to take off on almost nothing. The B-29, and this high up, was a different proposition. but soon, we saw it coming down the runway. I zoomed in best I could and set my camera to record. I wanted to get footage of it as it lifted off into the sky. it came closer and I began to hear its engines and then it lifted, flashed past and vanished.

Craig and I spent several minutes talking, and soon the B-29 came back, it flew overhead and then came in for landing. I recorded the landing, but it wasn’t until I was looking at the footage that I could see the smoke from the tires as it landed. That was the instant it transitioned from a creature of the air to something that moved on the ground.

It rolled up, its engines causing the air to shake, and when they shut them down, I wanted to clap like a great orchestra had just finished an amazing performance.

After parking, and discharging its passengers, they began preparing the airplane for us to tour. Guide ropes were set up and after a few minutes a man came over and said we’d start touring the aircraft. then he started asking for Veterans, starting with WW II vets. A single old man stepped out. He wore a ballcap that identified him as a veteran of D-Day. I wished I could have sat down with that man, bought him a cup of coffee and listened wide eyed to his stories.

All I could do was shake his hand and thank him. This still tall standing, but shuffling along, hard of hearing man was a legend. Talk about being star struck!

“How about Korea?” One more.

“Nam?”

A few more. One was a man in a Wheelchair I’d talk to later. He said he’d been one of the Commando the Air force had based out of Thailand.

“Iraq and Afghanistan?”

“Yooo,” I said, shooting my hand up.

“Come on up?”

I pointed at Craig. “Can my buddy come out with me?”

“Sure,”

There was a round of applause and shouts of “thanks for your service.” I walked through the small roped off area towards the aircraft.

Big as the B-29 seemed, it seemed incredibly small as we got closer to it. We entered through the bomb bay. A man wearing the polo shirt of the Commemorative Air Force was saying that they could load different sized bombs into the bomb bay. The bombardier had a set of controls that allowed him to release which bombs when he wanted.

I spoke with him a little and as I got to enter into the cockpit, I said, “It must suck to have your job.”

“Well,” he said. “It doesn’t pay much but at least we’re not getting shot at like the guys who used to fly these things.”

I entered the B-29 through a rather large hatch. The downside of it was you still needed some handhelds to grab hold of to get into the cockpit proper. In this case, they’d added a metal banister that they could be erected and remove when needed. I pulled myself into the plane and pulled the banister up and out of its footing.

“Let me fix that,” a man inside said. reaching out for the bar.

“Leave it to me to destroy one of the last flying B-29s,” I said. with a laugh as he did so.

Now, there’s a legacy you don’t want.

We were in the forward nose section, and this is where part of the crew would have worked.

“Remember that story I was telling you about my friend with the Mig,” I said to Craig.

“Yeah?”

“That’s the window he’d have given it the finger from.”

While James was on a B-50 (Think of a B-29 on steroids), the layout would have been the same.

There was an incredibly small desk in front of a chair where he’d have sat. I was pretty sure my desk in the first grade was bigger and I wonder how he placed his charts on it.

“What’s this about a Mig?” the Flight Engineer asked.

I had to tell the story.

But as I stood in the small cockpit, I imagined with five or six men working up front, the place would have gotten very crowded indeed. Just the three of us made it tight.

“They also used the 29 for those weather missions,” the man told me. “And some of the first aerial tankers were modified B-29s.”

I remembered seeing pictures of B-29s refueling older jet fighters. And I’d known they been used for recon purposes, Search and Rescue, and as Hurricane Hunters.

“But you are right. That is where the navigator sat. And this is the flight engineers’ station,” the man said. He was sitting at a station loaded with gauges and switches. “From here, I can monitor how the engines, hydraulics, and other systems are working.” It was a far cry from the iPad technology we see in some systems today.

“And every gauge still works!”

Now there’s something to cheer about.

He also showed us the old radio system (which still works) but explained that everything it can do has been reduced to a small box which is used today.

We exited through the nose and stepped out to examine the massive engines and propellers.

It was there I spoke to the ‘Nam vet I mentioned earlier. He wasn’t all that much older than me but was in wheelchair. Was it simply age that put him there? Or was it something else, maybe an injury in the jungles of Vietnam?

I didn’t know and it was a little impolite to ask since I didn’t even know his name. I decided right then and there that I needed to start keeping my notebook with me and my business cards. I could have got his number, a way to contact him, and he could have gotten hold of me easily. At least, we could have opened a dialogue.

I’d heard of the Commandos the Air Force had and read of some of their missions. Much of what they did is still classified. But I’d never met one those guys. Just like the D-Day Vet, I wish I could have sat down with this guy for a couple of hours. He told me he’d gone in and been the door gunner on a Huey but went over to the Commandos.

The stories he could have told!

I shook his hand and said it was an honor to meet him. We then walked over to check out the Expeditor. It was loading to take a flight, and I stuck my head in through the rear door to take a picture of the inside. I expected it to be cramped and figured someone my size would have fun getting aboard.

We then walked over the check out the T-6, a sleek mono-wing plane that the parents were handing their children up to the pilot to explore. I figured I was going to wait my chance to check out the plane. and when it came my turn, I asked, “You got room up there for a guy who thinks he’s still a kid.”

The guy was friendly and told me where to grab to get up on the aircraft. We stood on a narrow black strip as he gestured at the cockpit.

“Aside from new radios and navigation equipment, this is the same plane as it was back in the 40s.”

“The cockpit looks a little cramped.”

“It’s not too bad. You’d fit comfortably in it,” he said. “Now it swallowed up my mom.”

“Your mother flies this plane?”

“No, my mother flew this very aircraft back in 1943.”

“She was a WASP?”

“Yeah. I’m the youngest of her children and the only one of my siblings to become a pilot. Funny, but it wasn’t until I’d grown up that I learned not every kid had a mother who had flown during the war.”

“Really, what did she do?”

“Well, she flew ferries of course. Later, she qualified pilots so they could solo.”

I looked over the old controls and the seat where countless pilots had sat. “I always wanted to learn to fly,” I said.

“What’s stopping you?”

“I’m a little old,” I said.

The pilot laughed. “I know an 84-year-old granny who just soloed.”

I nodded. “I’ll add that to the bucket list,” I said. Compared to the “Granny,” I’m still a kid.

We had to get down because the mechanic had to do some work on the plane. It was starting to get late in the day, and Craig and I went to leave. Before leaving, we stopped at the souvenir stand. They didn’t have a hat pen of the B-29 (sold out), so I got a B-17 hat pin to add to the B-25 on my MP ball cap. Then I purchased Julie a pink ball cap that proclaimed her to be the wife of a US Army Soldier.

But before leaving, I got to hear a conversation that caught my interest.

“My Grandfather flew the B-29,” a man was telling one of the people behind the counter.

“Really?”

“Yeah, he passed away a few years ago. But the year before that, we bought him a ride on this plane. It was tough getting him aboard, but we got him in, and he flew with you.

“After he landed, we went out for lunch. And for the first time ever, he told us some of his stories.”

I hope they’re recorded someplace.