Nose Section of B-29 Superfortress
Serial Number 42-65401
The History
This is the forward pressure compartment, or cockpit, of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress. According to her history card, this B-29 was built at the Martin Omaha plant in Nebraska and was accepted by the Army Air Force on March 30, 1945. She was sent to the Third Air Force and was assigned to the 326th AAF Base Unit at Macdill Air Force Base in Florida. On November 27th, 1945 she was transferred to the 4105 th Base Unit of the Air Technical Service Command at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona for Storage. She was stricken off the record on June 23, 1951.
Supposedly this B-29 was used by the Army Air Forces Motion Picture Unit for training films on the B-29. She then was used by the movie studios for war films that needed a B-29. She was a star in the movie Above and Beyond, Wild Blue Yonder and made her last film debut as the Enola Gay with Patrick Duffy in 1988. She languished in the back lot of Universal Studios and was going to be scrapped if it weren't for a kind hearted studio worker who told the Museum of Flight about her fate. The Museum was given permission to remove the nose section in the form of "get it out of here or we will cut it up for scrap".
The Museum of flight decided that it was excess to their needs and struck a trade deal with the famous aviation author and historian, Nick Veronico. Vintage Aircraft entered into the trade with Mr. Veronico and acquired the B-29 nose.
Since its acquisition we have collected many of the original components to complete the interior. She was almost completely stripped out when she was at Universal by souvenir hunters and she also donated many major parts to the B-29 at the Travis Air Force Base Museum in California.
The nose is perfect for studio work as the sides, and rear bulkhead are removable for diverse camera angles.
The Gallery
Here is the nose section as it appeared while still on the Universal Studio lot. The gentleman with his head out of the pilots side is George Korade. George received permission to remove parts from the nose for the B-29 at Travis AFB.
Some photos of the nose section after we delivered it to our shop.
Here is Dutch Van Kirk who was the Navigator of the Enola Gay when she dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Dutch was kind enough to give a talk to the WWII Warbird Group here in our hangar. The two cuties are my little girls who aren't so little any more!
This is our B-29 tail section which is also awaiting restoration. Since we have (update: had) the nose and the tail we hope to fill in the middle some day.
This is our operating B-29 CFC turret system. Click here for more information on this.
The Conclusion
Unfortunately, we do not have this B-29 Nose section anymore. It was sold many years ago, and its current whereabouts or condition is unknown, but we will update this page if that changes. Thank you so much for reading about this small piece of history.