Hi everybody,
With all of the talk recently about recovering B-29's out of China Lake, etc., I thought I would post this little blurb that was e-mailed to me by friend (and fellow Fairchild PT restorer) Al Wise. Some of you may know Al, (I know Rob Rohr does), he visits this site once in a while.
Well anyway, Al is doing something that is pretty exciting. He is single handedly taking on the Park Service to try to gain custody of the Lake Mead B-29. And after talking to him today a little more about it, we decided to "go public" with that fact, in the hopes that this great body of Warbird enthusiasts known as "The WIX" might be able to put our respective shoulders to the task and help him out in any way that we can, whether that be petition signing, letter writing to our politicians, etc. I think Al would love our help.
I was suprised to find out that the dive restrictions have expired and that there has been so much vandalism to her under the Park Service's "protection".
I wish Al all the luck in the world in this endeavor!
"On 1/22/05 I made a dive to the B-29, 45-21847, in the Overton Arm of Lake Mead. The diving restriction, in place virtually uninterrupted
since 2002, expired on midnight of 1/21/05. Current water depth to the
bottom in the vicinity of the B-29 is 165ft. As per my usual method, I
lowered a small anchor off to the aft port side of the wreck. Visibility
was poor, approximately 15ft, due to runoff from recent storms. Upon
descent, the first thing to come into view was the vertical stabilizer of
the tail. It appears to have greatly increased corrosion taking place
on it, as the numbers were more difficult to define than they were in
the summer of 2002. Moving around the tail, I was shocked to find severe
damage to the right horizontal stabilizer, which had been in near
pristine condition in 2002 upon our last dive to the wreck. The fabric skin
on the control surfaces is punctured through in multiple places, and
the inboard control surface, which I believe is a trim tab, is now broken
off on its right side and hanging down at a 45 degree angle, barely
hanging by its left strut. Moving forward along the starboard side of the
aircraft there are now several punctures into the skin, where it appears
that anchors may have been dragged into the wreck. The cockpit appears
to be intact, but the fire extinguisher, hanging behind the pilots
station, has been tampered with. Without direct photographic comparison it is difficult to determine if cockpit data plates are missing, but I
have a suspicion that some may have been taken. Moving to the port wing I was very upset to discover that someone has pried off the propeller data plate from the outboard side of the engine #1 propeller hub. This plate was in perfect condition and we have plenty of footage showing it's location and condition. It did not give any information unique to this particular B-29, only to the propeller, manufactured by Curtiss
Wright of New Jersey.
There may also be some damage to the propeller itself, as if a line
had been attached to it. Again without further photo comparisons, it is
difficult to determine. The liferaft compartment, on the port side of
the top of the fuselage, has the appearance that it has been pried on.
Overall, the B-29 is not nearly in as good condition as it was left
by our team in August of 2002. Under NPS ???stewardship???, the wreck
has been damaged and significant and unique objects removed directly from the wreck"
Al can be contacted via e-mail at
aljr@sdgalv.com if you have any comments or questions that you would like to throw at him off board.
Good Luck Al!
Steve
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