NASM Announces National Tour For Enola
Gay
Famous Airplane Will Fly Again, Thanks To Extensive, Secret Renovation
The National Air and Space Museum made a surprising announcement
Thursday. In honor of the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII, the NASM
staff has been secretly preparing the B-29 Enola Gay to make her
airworthy for a commemorative flight across the United States. The tour
will begin in June and run through August. After the tour, the plane
will be disassembled into large pieces that will be shipped by a special
train from the final tour stop back to the Udvar-Hazy Center, which is
at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC. The announcement is being made to
enable the warbird community as a whole to modify the airshow schedule
so that other WWII aircraft will be able to participate in the historic
event.
This will be a one-way trip that will
be long-remembered by the warbird and historical community.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt and
NASM Director Gen. John R. Dailey, USMC (Ret),made the surprise joint
announcement at a news conference at the Udvar-Hazy Center Thursday. The
media release indicated Dailey would be talking about the building of
another hangar at the Center to house more aerospace artifacts, such as
the famous Memphis Belle. That B-17F was recently “recalled” by the USAF
Museum from its previous home on Mud Island in Memphis, TN. But instead
the media were surprised with the Enola Gay announcement.
The itinerary will take the famous
B-29 to some thirteen airports from one coast to the other. Since the
B-29 will not be carrying bombs (or an A-bomb like she did in August,
1945), she will be able to make trips of several hundred miles at a time
as she works her way across the Nation. Some of the stops are at
unlikely places, but because the time of the flight will correspond with
part of the summer airshow season, towns that are not on the airshow
circuit become logical choices for stops on the tour. The Enola Gay will
spend between two and four days at each stop, depending upon the size of
the crowds expected, and to give the crew time to rest and maybe do a
little fine-tuning and/or tinkering with the B-29.
The stop at Omaha, NE will be special,
because the Enola Gay, while designed by Boeing, was one of the 531 B-29
Superfortresses manufactured by the Glenn Martin Aircraft Company in
Omaha. Col. Paul Tibbets, her chief pilot, picked her off the assembly
line himself, and named her “Enola Gay,” in honor of his mother.
The stop at Salt Lake City, UT will
include a special recognition of the crew of the Enola Gay, and every
other B-29 crew in the 509th Composite Bomb Group. B-29 pilots trained
for their top-secret bombing mission at Wendover Air Force Base (now
closed), about 60 miles from Salt Lake City.
The anniversary tour was conceived
when the Enola Gay was undergoing a complete restoration that began in
the 1980s. Under the orders of the NASM administrators, everything on
the Enola Gay was restored to airworthy condition. Wright R-3350 radial
engines were test-run in the Garber facility one at a time in 2001, and
NASM personnel explained to curious neighbors that the racket the whole
neighborhood had heard a few nights in a row was caused by blown
mufflers on a rented auxiliary generator that they had to use during a
“wiring problem”. In all, the restoration crew kept the actual condition
of the Enola Gay secret for over ten years.
Exxon Mobil and AeroShell will sponsor
the national tour. Exxon has donated all of the fuel and AeroShell will
donate the oil, and Enola Gay will need lots of both. "We're proud to be
able to give America one more chance to see this flying piece of
history," Dailey said. "If it wasn't for this airplane, America might
not be the country she is today."
Itinerary:
Andrews Air Force Base in DC
Philadelphia, PA
Richmond, VA
Indianapolis, IN
Lawrence, KS.
Ft. Leavenworth, KS
Omaha, NE
Odessa, TX
Longmont, CO
Salt Lake City, UT
Davis/Woodland/ Winters, CA
Astoria, OR
Yakima, WA
FMI: www.enolagaytour2010.aero
