July 26--It took a few minutes for Staff Sgt. Oliver Hantak, 92, and First Lt. Jack Jerred, 90, to climb into the world's only flying Boeing B-29 Superfortress on Thursday afternoon at Wisconsin Aviation.
It had been 67 years since either of the World War II veterans and Madison residents had been on the same type of aircraft that released the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to the end of the war.
"With winds like this, we sure will jump off the ground," said Jerred before the plane, powered by four 2,200 horsepower engines and a 141-foot wingspan, took off from the tarmac.
While both of the veterans on board said it brought back a lot of memories, their 25-minute flight around Madison didn't quite resonate with their experiences during wartime.
Then, Hantak said, bullets ripped through his aircraft several times on tours over India and China.
"It wasn't quite the same experience," Hantak, who served as an aerial photographer aboard a converted B-24 from 1941 to 1945, said after Thursday's flight. "But boy was that fun."
Jerred, who was stationed stateside in Denver from 1943 to 1945 as a B-24 pilot instructor, said the flight was nostalgic, but "it felt strange because you build a mental image over time and this was different from what I remember."
After putting in 1,800 flying hours in a B-24, Jerred was transferred to B-29 pilot training and attained 15 hours of flight time before the war ended.
During the war, the B-29 bomber "flew far, high and carried heavy volume," said Jerred, who stood in the cockpit of the plane, nicknamed Fifi, behind the pilots throughout the flight. Now, only 25 B-29's remain.
Mark Novak, who piloted the plane Thursday, said most of the aircraft sit in museums because they're expensive to maintain, let alone fly. Fifi requires 60-75 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight and runs through 400 gallons of fuel every hour.
"She's a treasure," said Novak, one of a six-member volunteer Commemorative Air Force (CAF) crew that flies Fifi. "We can tell a story and teach history by bringing the airplane to people and flying it instead of letting it collect dust."
Fifi joins 11 other World War II aircraft this weekend for the CAF's AirPower History Tour stop at Wisconsin Aviation -- the largest collection of World War II aircraft there since the airport served as an airbase during the war.
Rides and tours of the aircraft will be offered throughout the weekend before the plane is flown to Oshkosh for the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual Airventure show from July 29 to Aug. 4.
"It never ceases to be exciting when you're in it," said Duane Moreland, lead scanner for the aircraft. "It just feels alive. Our pulse gets up when we're on this one."
Copyright 2013 - The Wisconsin State Journal
