b29 frozen in time

[Offroadfabworks]

I loved that program. It was a long time ago I saw that one.. but it was excellent nonetheless.

And it was a tough one to watch.

 

[CdnH1]

Well as a long time warbird community member and participant, I guess I should say a few things. Among the community, this topic has been discussed in many of the warbird forums since the incident.

I guess I will start by saying, no one ever hears from him anymore, nor do I think that he will ever show up at airshows either. The term "well funded" was not the case by anymeans. It was a shoestring attempt and it failed. Yes the APU tank was Jury rigged and a strap broke spilling fuel on the hot exhaust of the running APU. The APU under normal flight conditions is supposed to be running until after take off. But at this time, no take off was attempted, just taxi tests but the apu is still required to run. At the start of the fire, you can see in the footage, the nose gear fully extend and the tires leave the ice. As the fire broke out, no one was in the tail at the time and being that the B-29 was built with a large percentage of Magnesium. To put out the fire was impossible.

The sad part was that nothing was salvaged!! It was left there to fall through the ice in the spring. A good friend was asked by the team if they could borrow his serviceable B-29 prop parts that he had in his private collection. All he has now is a piece of paper stating from the team that it is his prop and another from Hamilton Standard saying that the value was $28,000!!!!!
Currently there is a B-29 being resored to fly that needs engines!!!! the R3350-29's are a problem child and are very EXPENSIVE to overhaul ( Just ask the CAF and why there B-29 has not flown in almost 3 yrs!!!) Well there are 4 LOW time fresh overhauled engines on Kee Bird when she burned. They now sit at the bottom of the lake because they did not bother to spend any more money and salvage the remainder.

In my personal feeling.............the guy is a dirtbag, and if I ever see him at a show, I will tell him so.

Sorry for the rant!

No need to appologize, I appreciate your insight on this topic. Thanks for sharing. Could'nt those engines be brought up from the bottom of that lake, or is it not cost effective? You would think they would be salvaged as I'm sure they are very rare.

 

[ARMYMAN30YearsPlus]

If they were burned they probably are not worth more than scrap value. I saw lots of burned out engines, transmissions and other critically short components that were just scrapped in Iraq. The bottom line I know is shortcuts often lead to short lives.

 

[m35a2kevin]

the engines wernt damaged in the fire,
i think they could be considered a total loss sitting in water all these years
kevin