It is an eerie space, about 30 feet long and 6 feet high, the waiting room of the Atomic Age. Mikesh leads the way into a large opening in the bottom of the plane: the bomb bay. ``You'll be able to take a hair dryer, heat the finish, and scrape it off, down to the original layer,'' says Robert Mikesh, curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian. The plane will then be waxed, and repainted to make it look as if it had just rolled off the assembly line. After the wings and tail are plugged back into the fuselage, acrylic sealer will be applied over the entire aircraft to preserve its battered paint. If they want to, they will also be able to see the Enola Gay's original finish. ``We're not only preserving the history of the airplane, but the technology as well, so that 300 years from now people will know how the plane flew,'' Mr. Not only will seats be restuffed and switch covers made immaculate, but engine timing will be authentically reset. When the plane is finished, it will be 90 percent flyable, they say.
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His partner on the Enola Gay project, Rick Horigan, is a 15-year Smithsonian veteran. Peterson, who majored in English in college to ``balance my motorhead tendencies,'' is a relative newcomer to restoration work. He points inside a newly opened panel, to a signature scrawled on the fuselage wall: ``Elizabeth Yunas, Clarksville Penn., Box 378, April 3, 1945.'' ``She must have worked on the production line,'' says David Peterson, one of the two men working on the restoration. While stripping the interior they have yet to turn up any historic souveniers, such as pilots' gloves or 1946 matchbooks, but they have found out about Elizabeth Yunas.
#ENOLA GAY CREW NOSE ART FULL#
Two men labor on the plane full time, in a hanger-like building filled with old planes and metal-bending machinery. Work is already progressing on the fuselage, a giant silver sausage that now occupies half of a Smithsonian hanger. For more than 20 years, pieces of the plane have been gathering dust in various Smithsonian buildings. Mothballed back in the United States, it made its last flight in 1953, en route to the Smithsonian storage and restoration facility here in Silver Hill. It remained in active service for only 13 months, from June 1945 to July 1946. Paul Tibbets) was plucked from the Boeing B-29 assembly line in Omaha, Neb., especially for the atomic mission. The Enola Gay (named for the mother of its pilot, Col. When it's over, Smithsonian officials hope the Enola Gay will be the centerpiece of a new aerospace museum at Washington's Dulles International Airport. The job will take five years and will be the biggest airplane restoration ever.
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Last year, the Smithsonian Institution began restoring the historic bomber. The Enola Gay, measured against these modern weapons, seems a museum piece. After Hiroshima have come ICBMs, Trident submarines, and state-of-the-art B-1 bombers. Nuclear warheads now threaten with a destructive power that was unimaginable before 1945. The two bombs that ended World War II began a new era in history. Three days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and on Aug. local time, it dropped on that city the world's first atomic bomb. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay's target was Hiroshima. ``He then looked out and down, toward the target.''įorty years ago, on Aug. ``The bombadier would sit here,'' says Robert Mikesh, Smithsonian aerospace curator, pointing to the open nose of the aircraft.
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The black block letters under the cockpit window are still distinct: ENOLA GAY. A thousand B-29 bombers took part in the war against Japan, but this one helped deliver one of the final blows. Once a powerful weapon, it now looks defenseless.
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Stripped of its wings and tail, the primary artifact of the Atomic Age lies immobile in a relic-filled warehouse.