"Holy cow!" "Man. What a bird!" These remarks were typical of the comments voiced by some of us pilots on June of 1944 when we first obtained a close-up view of the airplane that we would learn to fly---the Boeing 4-engine B-29 "Super Fortress" bomber. It was the largest, newest and most sophisticated American bomber ever built at that time which would ultimately carry the first atomic bombs ever dropped on Japan. I was a 26 year old First Lieutenant. We were all experienced multi-engine pilots stationed at Great Falls, Montana and assigned to the Ferrying Division of the Air Transport Command. About 6 of us had been selected to go to the Boeing plant at Wichita, Kansas to receive check-out training on the B-29 and become rated first pilots on the aircraft. We would then be qualified to deliver them worldwide wherever needed. Later on, I delivered one to India. Upon arrival at the Boeing plant the military operations officer gave us a briefing that I'll never forget. He said, "We don't have a formal school here, ground instructors, or any written tests. You guys are going to fly these things so it behooves each one of you to learn all you can about them. They make them just the other side of that door so get out there and look them over carefully. And over there along the wall are all the technical orders and reference material that will answer all your questions. Day after tomorrow we'll start flying them". That's it! No school, no ground instruction! Nothing! So the 6 of us spent a considerable amount of time in the factory looking, talking to the workers and crawling all over the B-29s which were in various stages of completion. We carefully examined everything such as the engines, cockpit, flight controls, landing gear, and bomb bays, etc... One warning: "not to be in the tunnel (over the bomb bays) when pressurized at altitude unless absolutely necessary" especially impressed us. If either end suddenly lost all pressure you would immediately behave like a bullet and be shot out towards the end that lost its pressure! I enjoyed wandering around the factory, examining everything, seeing how they made an airplane, and learning all about the specifications... As a result, I honestly believe that the 6 of us learned more about the B-29 in this unorthodox manner than the average B-29 pilot. Learning to fly the B-29 was a little difficult for me at first. For one thing, unlike other multi-engine aircraft, [...] the throttles and most of the other controls were reversed. So in the B-29, a pilot now flew and throttled with the opposite hands he was used to. In addition, the nose of the B-29 consisted of several thick panes of glass. And during landing, you looked through a different pane as the nose came up. Each pane had its own different perspective and distortion, which took some getting used to. To further complicate matters, you had to look through a block of glass about 2 by 3 feet rectangular, mounted directly in front of both the pilot and co-pilot for protection against flack. That also distorted your vision a little bit. And finally, the flight controls on the B-29 required almost twice the travel of say a B-17, so you had to do a lot more pushing, pulling, wheel turning, and rudder kicking. One day a full Colonel came into our lounge looking for a volunteer co-pilot to fly with him in a B-29 to New Mexico on a practice bombing mission and I volunteered. Sometime during the flight he asked me how I was doing learning to fly the B-29. I told him I was pretty much getting the hang of it except that I was having trouble making good crosswind landings. "How come?" He asked. "Well", I replied. "In the B-17, I made excellent crosswind landings by using the crab and wing-low technique. On final approach, I would crab into the wind to counter my drift and when I flared out for landing I would kick the nose around with the rudder to point straight down the runway and drop my up-wind wing to kill my drift. But I can't do that with the B-29." "Why not?" "Because the nose of the B-29 just doesn't come around when I apply rudder to straighten her out", I replied. "And applying up-wind engine power to straighten out makes for a risky and sloppy landing". "Don't worry about that, Lieutenant", he smiled. "I'll show you how it's done when we get back to Wichita. At Wichita, the Colonel got permission from the control tower to land on a crosswind runway. On final approach with gear and flaps down he crabbed into the wind just like I did. He was still in his crab position when he flared out for landing and let the plane settle on the runway without straightening out! Amazingly, the instant the wheels touched the ground the plane immediately straightened herself out and went straight down the runway! Wonderful! After we parked and got out the Colonel pointed to the massive undercarriage and said, "Look. This gear is so strong you can land sideways and not hurt a thing". I was elated. Now I was master of this beautiful bird. As the Colonel turned to walk away, I looked up admiringly at the huge nose, smiled and kicked the nose wheel. "Gotcha now", I said. This story was edited slightly for clarity and brevity... -L.Y. |