FIFI, the B Twenty-Nine Superfortress the Confederate Air Force Pulled Off a Desert Missile Range and the Twenty Million Dollar Rebuild That Kept Her Flying

For roughly 40 years, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress named FIFI was the only B-29 flying anywhere on Earth. The Confederate Air Force (today the Commemorative Air Force) rescued her from a California desert missile range in 1971, and after a multi-year, multimillion-dollar rebuild, she returned to the sky in 2010 with custom-built engines. Today she is one of just two airworthy B-29s in existence.

Why the B-29 Superfortress Mattered

In the early 1940s, the B-29 was the most complicated and most expensive machine America had ever built - more expensive to develop than the Manhattan Project. The bomb got the headlines, but the airplane that carried it cost more.

It was pressurized when almost nothing was. It carried remote-controlled gun turrets aimed by an analog computer, letting a gunner slew guns across the entire airplane from a comfortable blister. It flew higher, farther, and faster than any four-engine aircraft had a right to.

The B-29 was the airplane that ended the war in the Pacific. Enola Gay and Bockscar were both B-29s, and thousands of others flew the long, cold, dangerous missions to Japan and back over open ocean. Boeing and its partners built nearly 4,000 of them.

What Happened to Nearly Every B-29

By 1960, almost every one was gone - scrapped and melted down. The most advanced bomber of the war was chopped up like scrap fence within about 15 years of the war’s end.

That is the pattern with aircraft: the extraordinary becomes ordinary, and the ordinary gets thrown away. Saving even one required someone with the foresight, or the stubbornness, to say not that one.

How FIFI Was Rescued from the Desert

In 1971, the Confederate Air Force - a group of Texas pilots and mechanics who had already gathered Mustangs, Bearcats, and other fighters - went looking for a heavy bomber. Word came that the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake, California, still had a handful of Superfortresses being used as targets on its missile range.

The airplane the crew chose wasn’t the prettiest one out there. It was the one that looked most likely to fly out under its own power rather than leave on a truck in pieces.

A crew went into the desert to wake up an airplane that had been sitting for years. They faced four Wright R-3350 radial engines - 18 cylinders each, in two rows - full of dust and neglect. They pulled cylinders, un-pickled systems, and coaxed fuel through lines that hadn’t seen fuel in a long time. Over weeks, they brought all four engines back to life, flew her out of China Lake, and took her home to Texas.

Where the Name FIFI Comes From

The airplane is named for the wife of one of the men who helped raise the money to keep the project going. It isn’t a fierce combat name or snarling nose art - it’s simply FIFI, fitting for an airplane that got a second life because people loved her, not because of a glorious mission record.

For decades afterward, FIFI toured as the star of every airshow, because she was the only one. Anyone who saw a flying B-29 between the early 1970s and the mid-2000s saw FIFI. Actual wartime B-29 crewmen came out to touch her, knowing she was the last one turning props.

Why FIFI Was Grounded in 2006

The trouble was always those Wright R-3350 engines. In their day they were a marvel, but they earned a reputation for running hot and catching fire. In the early part of the war, more B-29s were lost to engine fires and failures than to enemy fighters. The magnesium in the engines could ignite, and once burning, water only made it worse - fires could burn through the wing spar before a crew could get down.

Decades later, FIFI’s caretakers were fighting the same demons. Parts grew scarce, and every flight meant nursing cylinder-head temperatures on four cranky antiques. By around 2006, the engines were simply worn out, with no shelf of good replacements anywhere in the world. FIFI was grounded, and the last flying B-29 could have become a silent museum piece.

The Multimillion-Dollar Rebuild That Saved Her

The Commemorative Air Force launched a multi-year, multimillion-dollar rebuild - and made a bold choice. Instead of scrounging more worn-out wartime engines, they had a set of custom hybrid engines built: the R-3350 reworked with modern components, better cooling, and better cylinders to finally shed the heat that plagued the original design.

The work went far beyond engines. Tearing into a 70-year-old airplane meant brittle wiring, spent fuel bladders, and corrosion hidden in the wing. Volunteers and paid specialists together put in tens of thousands of hours. Engine and firewall-forward work alone ran around $2 to $3 million, with the full restoration stretching well beyond that.

The money came from donations - small and large - including a major benefactor who pushed the engine project over the line. It was, in the truest sense, the airplane the public paid to save twice: once out of the desert in 1971, and again in the shop.

FIFI Flies Again - and Gets Company

In 2010, FIFI flew again. Those who were there describe the same scene: she rolled down the runway smooth, the new engines ran cool and steady in a way the old radials never did, and veterans who had spent years with wrenches in their hands stood on the ramp and wept. The gamble had worked.

There’s a final twist. For years, everyone assumed FIFI would always be the only flyer. But not long after her return, a second B-29 named Doc, out of Kansas - another desert survivor rebuilt over the better part of two decades - joined her in the sky.

So out of nearly 4,000 B-29s built, exactly two now fly. When they’ve flown together, wingtip to wingtip, the crowd understands how close the count came to zero.

Key Takeaways

FIFI was rescued from the China Lake missile range in 1971 by the Confederate Air Force (now the Commemorative Air Force) and flown out under her own power.
She was the only flying B-29 in the world for roughly 40 years, from the early 1970s until her 2006 grounding.
The B-29 cost more to develop than the Manhattan Project and numbered nearly 4,000 aircraft, yet almost all were scrapped by 1960.
Worn-out Wright R-3350 engines grounded FIFI in 2006; a multimillion-dollar rebuild with custom hybrid engines returned her to flight in 2010.
Today FIFI and Doc are the only two airworthy B-29s in existence.