FiFi came to our small town air show many years ago when she had just been restored and was starting her tours. Into the bombay and up into forward part of the plane. I never expected to have that experience.! A Korean war vet was at the air show and was in tears when he saw her. He crewed on one back then and was seeing an old friend 60+ years on.
In the WW2 Pacific, my father worked on B-29 and B-17. Afterward, he worked on B-52. He was a veteran of WW2, Korea and Vietnam (2.5 tours). He retired after 30 years, 1944-1973. He died in 2009 age 82 (edit age error). Both the Army and USAF sent members to bury him with a 21 gun salute. He never said a harsh word against the Japanese or Vietnamese. He said they are people just like us. And they should be treated like us, our neighbors, and our families, with love and respect, because they were doing what we would do in their circumstances.
I saw "Fifi" back in 2010 locally here in SoCal at the Long Beach Airport during a small airshow. Just like here, it flew in while we were there. I didn't get the opportunity to board her but in retrospect, I wish I had worked that out ahead of time. I really missed something special. While this was a good-sized plane and the largest in its day, it seemed almost diminutive compared to today's jumbo jets. It's a fraction of the size of a C-5 which by any measure is truly huge! Regardless, I've been a B-29 fan since a grade-school youngster when I first got interested in airplanes. It's history is legendary and that is not an overstatement.
Look on my channel, I fully toured this aircraft at Louisville, Ky a couple years ago. It was awesome to climb “everywhere” in her. And yes, I spent 8 years as a loadmaster on the C-5 and get the size difference. Lol
