Re: Doc, (B29) took his first flight this morning.

John,
Fifi busted at least 2 tires on a botched landing into 20+ MPH headwinds in Olympia (way past halfway down the runway) and was down for the entire 2014 airshow for tire changes. I posted photos of the landing online and - I still don't know how they knew me by sight as I posted no photos of myself on that thread - but three members of the crew (including the pilot that day) looked me up the next day, demanding I take down the posts because it didn't happen. Meanwhile, there's a B-29 with popped tires sitting less than 50 feet away. Normally I think fast and react to people being insane, but I was so taken aback at two guys within a minute of each other pulling this, I had no time to react and frankly, thought the guys in my group were pulling a prank on me, because it never occurred to me that would really happen in real life.
Here's the photos I posted. The plane never came back from the far end of the runway while I was there, but the next morning it was sitting on the ramp with at least two wheels yanked off.




I belong to a WW2 living history group that puts on a big display there each year and the CAF crew yelled at our guys simply trying to get photos of themselves in uniform in front of the bird. They said a lot of rude stuff to us. We all vowed not to pay one penny to them, so they lost all the money for plane tours and t-shirts and such we normally would have spent money on. Heck, I was going to pay for a flight out of Seattle at the next stop (as I've flown on B-17s, 24, 25s, among others) but that didn't happen because of this. For sure this cost them into 4 figures from us as another guy in my group was going to pay for a ride in Seattle and changed his mind from how the crew was acting toward... well, everyone.
One guy came back for more and found that surprising me when I wasn't ready for a retort was one thing, but after I'd had time to think was a whole other thing. Also, a guy in my group almost stomped the living... poop out of him. To his credit, that guy actually came back and apologized to me. Neither of the other two did.
One guy accosted me as I was leaving the second day (of a three day event) about that post, and he'd have worn my size-11 boot far up where the sun doesn't shine if he hadn't been so ancient. And I told him exactly that, that the only reason I wasn't making life painful for him was his advanced age.
Worse still, the crew kept posting on the same warplane forum that it never happened, all my stuff got deleted and before it was locked, the thread said I was wrong about the whole thing when in fact I wasn't.
All because they had a B-29.
When I encountered the Arizona (B-17 'Sentimental Journey') CAF guys that fall, I told them what had happened. They rolled their eyes and one said, "Yeah, don't judge us all by one group," and made no attempt to make it sound less than it was. It was clear they weren't surprised at all. That, to me, spoke volumes.

-Lee

Flickr photo set of my On30 layout