In the Danish Air Force we used to call the SAAB 35 Draken “The Flying Throwel”.

(Just hope my translation is correct. Is a throwel a triangular bricklaying tool?)

Anyway sounds better in Danish :p

Regarding the location of survivors:

There is 1 at the Russian air force museum in Morino, Russia.

There should be 2 in China, both at China Aviation Museum in Datangshan.

They made almost 1000 of them, so I’m pretty sure there are one, or two, somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Maybe a Russian “China lake”.

I have no idea about parts interchangability, but i really doubt it.

Always good to know, that other aircraft can be made airworthy.

I guess there are not many groups (or persons) that can finance a B-29 operation. why arent Bill Gates a warbird buff :p

I can’t remember seeing any oficial US memorial flight, but does the US government give any support to FiFi, or other warbird operations?

Why would they do that? Makes no sense.
Unless, they’re concernbed about liability…and having the original engines so if something happened they coould say it was USAAF/USAF “approved”.
But even that doen’t make much sense.

Need a new corporate sponsor…how about Northrop-Grumman/EADS? I hear they’ve got a huge new contract. :rolleyes:

I found the place where i got the info:

Posted by Retroaviation (who seems well connected with CAF FiFi) on WIX.

“But if you remember correctly, b29driver, I personally spoke with Tony Mazzolini about them going in with us on the re-engine project we’re working on, and he said that he was bound to an agreement with Boeing to build Doc as “completely original as possible.” There will be a few odds and ends that won’t be original, but he said that he and the Boeing folks had no interest in what we were doing regarding FIFI’s engines.

I think it would be a great thing to see both airplanes in the air, but something’s got to change in the Doc camp for that to happen. Getting FIFI back in the air is a big enough challenge, but it WILL happen. I hope the Doc crew can work out the situation they’re currently in and get back to work on it again someday soon. “

How come Doc wasn’t put back in the air? I appears to have had a very thorough rebuild for a static museum display aircraft.

It seems Scorpion89 knows a bit more about this than I, so maybe he could answer a bit deeper.

What i have heard is:

1. Coorporate restructure in Boeing, left the project without a hangar.

2. One of the primary owners died. Estate is being settled, and maybe the recievers don’t really care too much for warbirds (just a guess).

3. They failed to locate outside sponsors.

4. They were unable to locate a suitable airport for the project. Hangar space with full workshop facilities at an airport/appron/hangar that can take the weight of B-29 operations are not cheap.

It was rebuild to fly, and I really hope all the work put into “Doc” are not wasted. Those guys must have busted their A*** to get where they are now. Leaving it too long to continue, and they will have to do a part of it over again.

I remember seeing them a while back…..and assumed they were some form of decoy…..or decoy trial?

Wasn’t Phantom XV499 there for decoy use also?

I remeber seeing a program once (awhile back) about using decoys. At that time, with the weapon systems available, an attacking pilot was just as likely to fire at the mere shadow of an aircraft. The combination of speed and decision-time made the target selection hard.

I’m not sure how much this decoy type was used, but they sure looked into it.

Thats my guess anyway – Decoys.

The Phantoms never came under SALT. SALT in relation to aircraft was heavy strategic bombers. RAF Phantoms came under CFE (Conventional Armed Forces in Europe). The Russians withdrew from CFE last year.

http://www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/4781.htm

I don’t want to hijack the thread, but in connection with the above post, its only fair to mention, that Russia withdrew from CFE due to the new NATO structures failure to adapt the treaty fully.

In particular the baltic states, who originally signed the threaty as part of the Soviet Union. The Baltic states have not signed the treaty as NATO members.

Russia simply wanted all NATO states to sign the treaty and gave them 150 day period to do so.

In particular now that Doc has been put out in the cold:

http://www.b-29doc.com/

That was such a promising project, a great shame to see it fail…….:(