Posted by Doc Dave [70.192.194.89] on Saturday, June 08, 2013 at 06:55:57 :
In Reply to: Re: OT. B-29 Ride Wednesady posted by JohnD [71.125.161.193] on Saturday, June 08, 2013 at 05:49:18 :
The link would not "work" for me, I get "not found" when I try to get it to play. Is there another link for it?
Is the plane still around the Bay area, if so I would like to see it! I am in southern Maryland.
My father in law was trained as a tail gunner on a 29.
He told me that the B29 was the most advanced airplane in the American Air Corps in WW2 in many ways. Pressurized cabin, fire control station (centralized control of several guns), and other innovations. He also related a very interesting way they selected gunners. IN training, they looked at whether a man could learn to shoot skeet, basically. Those that could not learn how to lead the clay targets washed out. Those that did went on to gunnery school. He also said that the tail gunners had a new technology concerning control of their guns, a primitive CRT screen from the gun camera where he centered the target . He then would squeezed his gun triggers when the target was inside the "cursors". The guns were down below him and he did not have direct manual control of them like in previous bombers.
There is a great book written a few years ago about the B-29, "Bringing the Thunder", written by a pilot with 25 missions over Japan.
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