China Lake B-29s - 1975

[jalfrezi]

Posting these for a friend, if there's interest I'll see if he'll let me post more! Copyright Kevin Lawler.

Boeing B-29A 44-62222 China Lake 13.10.75 by Nick Jennings, on Flickr

Boeing B-29(T) 42-65281 China Lake 13.10.75 by Nick Jennings, on Flickr

Boeing B-29A China Lake 13.10.75 by Nick Jennings, on Flickr

Boeing B-29 44-70102 China Lake 13.10.75 by Nick Jennings, on Flickr

[Nighthawke]

Well it's a "more please" from me anyway! I love these older photos - they give a real flavour of the times and mix of airframe status. Hopefully I'm not alone and also that Kevin will allow more postings.

[Thunder]

Great stuff, you even managed to throw in the rear end and wing of a F-89, if only these places still existed like that today.

Keep them coming

[eLaReF]

Jealous!
We had an invite to get a tour during our '74 trip, but when we turned up, the relevant officer was unavailable!!!

[Amp]

Were there 7 B-29s present on that trip? As above, more please, when possible.

[dragonchaser]

Definitely more from me too, what a great insight into what was lying around even as recent as the 1970’s, super post again!

[paddyboy]

Look at the quality of those beauties

We need some more, please

Thanks for posting

Paddyboy

[jalfrezi]

OK, I've had some feedback from Kevin:

'Thanks very much for the positive comments and I'm glad they have proved of interest. The pictures were taken during a self guided tour of the range at the NWC Open Day on 13.10.75. Four of us simply wandered out onto the range and helped ourselves!

We logged 15 B-29s, along with several F-89s and 4 ex Ecuadorian AF P-80s in this part of the complex.


Photos of the restoration wonders worked on some of these are waiting in the pipeline.'

I'll try and get the post restoration pics up in the next few days......

[Yammer]

Can I see the example flown into Duxford among these, pics 1 and 3 have a similar scheme to it when it arrived

[JONLITE06]

Great Pics!!

[jalfrezi]

Can I see the example flown into Duxford among these, pics 1 and 3 have a similar scheme to it when it arrived

No, the Duxford example isn't in the photos above, however, it did also come from the China Lake boneyard. The two flying examples - Doc and Fifi were also from here.

[chymron]

In response to the comment “if only these places still existed like that today” two of us who were with Kevin on the 1975 trip also did the March 2017 China Lake Open Day and what a different story! We logged over 150 US military at the 1975 show and just over half that in 2017 (ok, security was not quite as strict in days of yore).

What was so different was the sheer variety and number of types back then. These days of course we have a predominance of multirole aircraft, so in 2017 it was wall-to-wall Hornets/Growlers (yup, I do acknowledge that you will not have much chance of seeing VX-9 or VX-31 birds anywhere else) compared to 1975 which offered an amazing array of A-4s, A-6s, A-7s, B-47s, RF-84s, F-86s, QT-33s, F-9s, F-80s, F-89s to name but a few, both at the show itself, hangars and the various ranges if you were prepared for the desert hike with plenty of water and sunblock!

By the way in answer to one or two of the other questions posted yes indeed we ended up logging 15 B-29s in total, most of which were in Area R Explosives Test Facility along with the F-89s which were primarily Iowa and Oregon ANG.

[MR TERRY GREEN]

You can almost smell the history there.

[Seahawk 11]

I really like these, just great, many thanks for posting them, I have always liked the B-29,

Rob

[Punkrunner62]

Top class post, more please sir, when you have time.
Cheers.

[jalfrezi]

As a follow up - here's a few of the B-29s that have been restored. Copyright Kevin Lawler.

Boeing B-29(T) 42-65281 Travis AFB 11.8.97 on Flickr

Boeing B-29(T) 42-65281 (2) on Flickr

Boeing B-29 44-70064 Castle AFB 10.8.97 on Flickr

Boeing B-29 44-70064 (2) on Flickr

Boeing B-29A(S) 44-61699 March AFB 7-8-97 on Flickr

[Nighthawke]

Now they really are fabulous!

[Arty]

Superb photos indeed! There's an interesting site that some may not be aware of that has a vast collection of China Lake photos taken through the ages:
http://www.chinalakealumni.org/index.htm

In particular, this covers the B-29s:
http://www.chinalakealumni.org/B-29/B29mo.htm#thumb

Robin