I Spent $1500 On A B29 Superfortress Flight - Was it Worth It?

Doc's permanent home is a hangar at Wichita's Eisenhower Regional Airport. When not on tour it as on display at its hanger and is available for tours. It took 10 years to restore by volunteers from Boeing employees and retirees. Doc was built here is Wichita and it was great to watch the progress of the restoration.

Noel: But was it worth it? Me: Shut up and take my money!

Very special video for me Noel as my dad was a B-29 Flight Engineer who flew 38 combat missions out of Tinian in the south Pacific over Japan and came back to tell about it. Dad passed at 95 years old 7 years ago but I have all of his medals and even an original leather flight jacket. We donated many things of his to the New England Air & Space Museum before moving to Florida, but the thing I will remember most is having the opportunity to fly on Fifi with my dad. The things he and the other young men and women endured during WWII are a testament to what has made our country great. Thanks for this Noel very special !

$1500 seems like an absolute bargin for an experience like this!!! Awesome video as always mate.

1500 for the flight but the amazing experience, priceless. What a treat, and we get to experience it vicariously through you. You were like a big kid with that massive grin of yours throughout the flight. What a privilege to be on something so historical and fantastic and that they allow the public to experience it. More than worth the price tag in my opinion, especially being up the front. Thank you again for another wonderful video!

Fifi is a reconstructed B29. The B29s were put in a “graveyard” & none were in flying condition, so they scavenged the planes for parts & built her from them. She was the ONLY flying B29 when they made the movie “The Enola Gay.” She was built by & for the CAF in Harlingen, Tx, but that collection was later moved (over huge outcry) somewhere else in Texas. Doc was found in 1987, but Fifi is older. I ❤ Fifi & saw her many times in Harlingen.

The R-3350's used in the B-29's were quite temperamental, and almost as many B-29's were lost to accidents as enemy action (usually engine fires). The Commemorative Air Force's contribution to keeping the B-29's flying was obtaining FAA approval for exchanging parts on the engines with parts from 1950's airliners that were powered by later, much more reliable variants of the Wright R-3350. Doc has benefitted from this, as has the CAF's own B-29, FiFi.

Hello Noel, here is one for you, not B29 but B17 related. My Great Grandfather killed by B17 that crash landed near Great Ashfield USAF base in Suffolk in 1944. USAF paid my Great Grandmother a pension from 1944 until 1983. I managed to get a copy of the accident report via a guy that worked on the Saturn rocket from USAF records held in San Francisco, what a story !

I’ve flown on that as a kid! Someone donated a flight to me and it was awesome. Then I joined the Air Force as a Loadmaster years later.

When I was a kid, used to build plastic models of these old planes and peek out the windows of the half built fuselage, to imagine how it looked to be on board the real thing.

Few years ago, I was home for the weekend from college and they happened to have a B-25 there giving rides. One of my favorite experiences ever. Really put things into perspective how fortunate we are that I got to do that for fun as a 22 year-old kid, where as 70 years earlier, people my age were in the exact same plane over the Pacific, praying not to get shot down during their mission.

I got to visit FiFi. My grandfather flew 14 missions as a gunner. They let me check out everything - but, I was only a couple of weeks out of surgery and was having trouble getting around. But I still got to sit where my grandfather would've sat in his B-29, to include a great picture taken from outside the plane and I'm inside, looking out bubble window for the left gunner holding up a picture of my grandfather. Great video!

That is the best seat in the house for sure. The other one, FiFi is here in Dallas and flies out of Dallas Executive occasionally. My office is under the final and when she flies overhead the entire building shakes and rumbles. I like to pull up foreflight when they're doing maneuvers and run out to catch them passing overhead. Hope I get to fly on one someday

The Super Guppy that crossed the path on this flight is in a way the "grand child" of the B-29. The B-29 was developed into a Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter/Boeing 337 Stratocruiser which was the base aircraft in which the Guppies were developed.

The engines on Doc apparently have been swapped out for lower power units with easier replaceable parts according to the crew I met when it visited my local airport. They are not super or turbocharged and are suffient for the low level flight Doc takes to tour the US. I’m sure with the big power engines it originally had takeoff would have been a cinch.

You flew right over my house! Thanks for taking this journey for us, what an incredible experience. Its always a thrill during EAA to hear the rumbles of those piston engines and see that silver bird flying right overhead!

As a 60s born kid, I had Airfix models hanging from my ceiling with catgut. My Dad used to build them and paint them. Lancaster, Mosquito, Flying Fortress, Super Fortress, Pam Am Chinook, Mustang & a Spitfire. As only a few miles from RAF Cosford I’ve seen all but Super Fortress fly over. Great video 👍🏻

A bucket list item if ever there was one. How cool!!!! You are cool, Noel.

I was able to take my Grandfather (ex B-17 pilot) on the Yankee lady before he died. It was like 50 years of aging, just melted off the man! It was incredible and soooo worth it!!

This is the coolest thing I have watched on utube in a while. I have seen these older planes in museum but I had no idea that there was any that could still fly.