B-24 Understudy Fills Big Shoes

Just two weeks ago, the Commemorative Air Force returned its B-29 Superfortress, Fifi, to flight after six years of down time while the airplane was fitted with customized engines (maintainers had found metal shavings in the engine oil). The CAF planned to re-launch Fifi as the signature aircraft for its “Red, White & Loud Tour,” [...]

FIFI in flight. (Photo: CAF/ Nigel Hitchman)
Just two weeks ago, the Commemorative Air Force returned its B-29 Superfortress, Fifi, to flight after six years of down time while the airplane was fitted with customized engines (maintainers had found metal shavings in the engine oil). The CAF planned to re-launch Fifi as the signature aircraft for its “Red, White & Loud Tour,” co-starring country music artist Aaron Tippin, who flies a Stearman, a J-3 Cub, and Helio Courier in his spare time.
Enter the gremlins, and scratch one B-29—for the nonce. “Due to mechanical issues discovered during flight-testing over the weekend…Fifi will not take flight to Denver for the first show of the tour,” the CAF said in a Music City News press release yesterday. “A distributor malfunction in one of her engines resulted in pre-ignition, damaging some of the cylinders.” The CAF will ...