So Much Great Work Went Into This.

May 20th, 2016 was a very tear jerking day for a few special people in Wichita, Kansas. After 16 years of tireless work put into restoration, the team at Doc’s Friends finally got handed airworthy status by the FAA. She is now the second airworthy B-29 aside from Fifi.

photo credit:b-29doc.com

This great story began back in March of 1945 when she was built. Delivered to the U.S. Army, she didn’t see any action as the war ended before that was possible. By ’51, she was assigned to a squadron known as the Seven Dwarfs and towed targets before becoming a target herself.

Beat up, Doc rested on the desert floor for another 42 years before a man by the name of Tony Mazzolini recovered her in 1987. Assembling a team that would later become Doc’s Friends, it took him almost 12 years to get her from the Mojave Desert to Wichita, Kansas where her restoration began.

Through countless hours of volunteer work and donated money, she is now certified to fly after 16 years of chipping away. The crew still need to submit a request to the USAF and the Pentagon to be able to use McConnell Air Force Base runway, but they say “the first flight in imminent.”

Now Watch Doc Start Up Those Monster Engines