My apologies for a lack of posts, and the B-29 bomber Fifi.

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First of all, I'd like to apologize for the lack of posts, I've been pretty uninspired, my Darkroom is out of order, and I've been more focused on building an IT career.

One of my off and on interests has been military history and military aviation. A few years ago, the Commemorative Air Force's B-29 bomber Fifi, one of only two flight worthy B-29's, visited the Seattle area, for the first time since the 1980's. Fifi was built at Boeing's Renton Factory, which now produces 737 airliners. My dad and I were able to visit her while she was at Boeing Field and the Museum of Flight.
 Fifi

Fifi's Nose
The B-29 was innovative as one of the first pressurized bombers, for increased comfort for the crew, and to enable her to function as a very high altitude bomber aircraft.

The cockpit
The pilots, navigator, and flight engineer all share the nose of the aircraft with the bombardier, unlike in previous bombers such as the B-17 and B-24.

The Navigator's position
The navigator's position, situated behind the pilot.

The Flight Engineer's position
This is the Flight engineer's position, situated behind the co-pilot.

The tunnel to the gunner's position
The B-29 is equipped with several remote controlled machine gun positions and a manned tail gun position. This tunnel runs above the bomb bay to the gunner's compartments.

Fifi's Bomb bay
The bomb bay, the reason for the aircraft's existence, of course. However, there were also variants for other roles as well, including search and rescue, for which the aircraft carried a life boat, and as a pioneer in the development of air refueling.

One of the prop hubs
The prop pitch motor, which controls the angle of the propeller blades, is hidden under the prop hub.

A Prop and Engine
One of the massive four bladed props and engines, there are four of these engines and propellers.

An improved version, with bigger engines, and later supplemented with jet engines, was the B-50, which also served as aerial tankers, before finally being replaced by jet powered bombers such as the B-52 and jet powered tanker aircraft such as the KC-135. Thanks for looking, and as always, feel free to comment!

Comments

  1. Derrick RFebruary 13, 2017 at 6:30 PM

    Beautiful plane.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 15, 2017 at 6:33 AM

    No problem David, that's completely understandble.

    Those remote control guns probably saved a lot of effort over the B-17s manual guns.

    ReplyDelete

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