The B-29 Doc, the Sixteen-Year Volunteer Restoration in Wichita, and the Superfortress That Flew Again After Half a Century in the Mojave Desert

On July 17, 2016, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress lifted off from McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas - the same city where she had been built 72 years earlier. Her name was Doc, and she had spent decades absorbing weapons fire in the California desert before a team of volunteers devoted sixteen years to bringing her back. Today, Doc is one of only two airworthy B-29s surviving from a production run of more than 3,900 aircraft.

What Made the B-29 Different from Every Bomber Before It

Boeing designed the Superfortress to a 1941 Army Air Forces specification that was nearly impossible for its era: a bomber capable of carrying a massive bomb load more than 5,000 miles, at high altitude, inside a pressurized cabin. Nothing like it had ever been built.

The powerplant was the Wright R-3350 Duplex Cyclone - an 18-cylinder, two-row radial producing more power than any aircraft engine the United States had put into production. In the early program, these engines ran dangerously hot. At altitude, with the pressurization system running, in-flight fires were common enough that crews called the airplane a “flaming coffin.”

Boeing resolved the problems under wartime urgency. By the height of the Pacific campaign, the B-29 was delivering General LeMay’s low-level incendiary raids against Japan’s cities. In August 1945, two Superfortresses - Enola Gay and Bockscar - ended the war.

Where Doc Was Built and How She Got Her Name

Boeing manufactured the Superfortress at multiple facilities. Bell operated a plant in Marietta, Georgia. Martin ran a line in Omaha, Nebraska. Boeing’s second major production site was in Wichita, Kansas, where workers at what they called the Little Giant Plant were completing one B-29 every single day at peak output.

Serial number 44-69972 rolled off that Wichita line in late 1944. A crew somewhere along the way painted a name on her nose: Doc - one of Snow White’s seven dwarfs. Grumpy and Happy were out there too, on other airframes, all built by the same Wichita workforce.

Doc flew missions against Japan in the closing months of the war. When Japan surrendered in the summer of 1945, she came home.

How Doc Became a Weapons-Range Target

Out of more than 3,900 B-29s produced, only a handful survived the postwar surplus. The United States had more aircraft than it could ever use again, and thousands were melted down in the years following the armistice. Doc avoided the smelter - but barely.

She was assigned to the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in California’s Mojave Desert, where she served as a live ordnance target. For decades, the Navy tested weapons systems against her: strafing runs, bombing passes, new munitions evaluated against a real aircraft-sized structure. She was shot through with holes and sun-baked to chalk.

Paradoxically, the same dry desert air that bleached her aluminum skin preserved her airframe. The Mojave is hard on paint and soft on metal. Doc’s basic structure outlasted the weapons.

The Discovery, the Negotiation, and the One-Dollar Transfer

In 1987, a Wichita businessman named Tony Mazzolini made a trip to China Lake. He was not a pilot, but he recognized what was sitting on that range - a Wichita-built airplane that had survived the war, survived decades of weapons testing, and was still largely intact.

Securing Doc’s release required years of negotiation through the right channels. China Lake did not release Superfortresses on request. In the mid-1990s, an agreement was reached: Doc would transfer to civilian hands for one dollar.

Moving her required disassembly and a flatbed convoy across the interstate. Doc arrived in Wichita in 2000 - in pieces, and in need of everything.

The Sixteen-Year Restoration

Mazzolini and a core group of volunteers established a nonprofit called Doc’s Friends. What followed was one of the most ambitious warbird restorations ever attempted.

The team was extraordinary. Retired Boeing engineers who had worked on B-29s in the 1940s and ’50s. Airframe and powerplant mechanics who donated weekends year after year. Veterans who had flown the type. Sheet metal workers and engine specialists who drove hours each way to spend a Saturday inside that old bomber.

The technical challenges were severe:

The pressurization system required specialized knowledge that had nearly vanished from the workforce
Each of the four Wright R-3350 engines - 18 cylinders apiece - had to be rebuilt to airworthy standard
Parts not manufactured in 60 years had to be fabricated from scratch or sourced from surviving museum airframes
Electrical systems, hydraulics, and fuel systems required complete overhaul
Decades of weapons-range damage - some visible, some hidden - had to be systematically found and repaired

The restoration took sixteen years. Some volunteers who started weren’t there at the end. The core team was.

“Restored to airworthy condition” is easy to say. In practice, it means every person aboard is trusting every bolt tightened and every weld laid down by volunteers working in a Wichita hangar because they believed the airplane was worth saving.

Doc’s Return to Flight

On July 17, 2016, Doc flew for the first time in more than half a century. She lifted off from McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, and her four Wright Cyclone engines found their voice again above the Kansas plains. Volunteers who had given sixteen years of weekends stood on the ramp and watched her climb out.

Footage exists of that moment - shot from the ground and from inside the airplane. The faces of the people watching her wheels leave the concrete explain everything about why someone spends sixteen years on a project like this.

Doc is now based at Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita, operated by the Doc’s Friends Foundation as a flying museum. She carries passengers on flight experiences, attends airshows, and flies. At the time of her first post-restoration flight, she joined Fifi - operated by the Commemorative Air Force in Midland, Texas - as one of only two airworthy B-29s on earth.

Why Warbird Preservation Matters to the Aviation Community

Aircraft like Doc represent something no textbook or museum display can replicate: a living, flying connection to the engineering and human decisions that shaped aviation’s most consequential era. When Doc fires up those four radials and takes a runway, pilots and passengers aren’t observers of history - they’re inside it.

The full history of Doc’s restoration is documented by the Doc’s Friends Foundation at docsfriends.com.

Key Takeaways

Doc (serial number 44-69972) is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress built at the Boeing Wichita plant in late 1944, restored to flight after a 16-year volunteer effort led by the Doc’s Friends Foundation
She spent decades as a live-fire weapons target at China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station before businessman Tony Mazzolini initiated her recovery in 1987
Doc transferred to civilian hands for one dollar in the mid-1990s and arrived in Wichita in pieces in 2000
Her first post-restoration flight took place on July 17, 2016, at McConnell Air Force Base, Wichita - the city where she was built
Only two B-29s are currently airworthy: Doc and Fifi (Commemorative Air Force, Midland, Texas), from a production run of more than 3,900 aircraft