"FI-FI" Calling! Last Flying B-29 now ham operational

[Jeff K1NSS]

AMer and aviation buffs may already know, but just to pass it on, the last flying B-29 Superfortress AKA "FIFI" is now operational on the ham bands. Her "Smith-Irwin Memorial Radio Position" renovated by Rockwell Collins ARC hams was dedicated June 30th in Addison TX at FIFI's Commermorative Air Force home base.

Lots more info, history, pictures,links and continuing updates can be found at http://www.6sj7.com/B29%20Pages/indexB29.html. I've been helping Lawrence Robinson, Curator of the Rockwell Collins Museum create and edit these pages -- parked on one of my domains for my easy access and to be moved sooner than later to the RC ARC site.

Recently at the Reading PA airshow, under the wing of a family B-29 vet whose story is included on the site, I was graciously invited aboard for a little radio seat time (off air), shown here happy as a six year old plopped down in a fire engine.

It's been a privilege and a thrill as the team's "Graphics Grunt," especially since becoming a Collins engineer was one of my later childhood fantasies, up there with cowboy, astronaut and Robin Hood's right hand man or something equally realistic, given my erratic grades and attention span. I think I may have paid a little more attention if I understood then just how cool was the genius of Art Collins and company and all the balls-out American technical romance of which the S-Line was only the iceberg tip.

BTW, waiting on pictures from Addison dedication, will post on the FIFI pages when I get 'em. Wondering if anybody up here heard anything - most action on 40 meters, I think maybe a little on 20. I couldn't listen Saturday, because of an attendance not optional family function.

FiFi radio.jpg