Glass House

Back-blipped

This is the flight deck of FIFI, the only WWII B-29 Superfortress bomber still flying. Here's an outside view.

Owned and operated by the Commemorative Air Force (CAF), a nonprofit organization, FIFI is currently at Paine Field, Everett, on a tour of the West Coast. Mr. Mole and I were given an opportunity to view FIFI on Monday by Dale, a CAF volunteer and colleague from our working days at the Lazy B.

While we were standing outside the B-29 I noticed a very large airplane on landing approach to the adjacent runway. I grabbed my camera and caught a couple of shots of a Dreamlifter making a fairly hard landing. The Dreamlifter is an extensively modified 747 built to ferry 787 ( aka Dreamliner -- I hate that name) wings and fuselages from manufacturers in Japan and Italy, respectively, to the Everett assembly line.

Mole and I also visited the Paul Allen Flying Heritage Collection. The planes are all impeccably restored to better than original new condition, and are flown on a regular basis. I couldn't help wishing that they looked more their age.

It was easy for me to choose my favorite plane from the collection, the Spitfire, arguably the most well-known WWII fighter airplane -- certainly in the UK.

P.S. I forgot to mention that that it was a B-29 that carried the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I couldn't help thinking about that while I was on board.