“The XB-29: From Chaos to Victory” – An Excerpt from The Global Twentieth, by Bob Robbins

A special supplement to AVweb's profile of Bob Robbins.

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At 12:26 PM on the 18th day of February 1943, the fortunes of the B-29program disastrously hit rock bottom. At that instant, Boeing research testpilot Eddie Allen, his crew and the heavily instrumented #2 XB-29 were destroyedin a crash. That story is told in "Eddie Allen and the B-29."

This is the story about the painful aftermath, the road to recovery, theultimate success of the XB-29 flight test program, and some of my involvementtherein.

After Eddie’s accident, of course all of the XB-29 pre-crash problemsremained and now there were a lot of new ones. Eddie Allen, his crew and the #2XB-29 were gone. The cause or causes for Eddie’s accident had somehow to befound from the meager remains in all the devastation — and they had to be fixedbefore the #1 XB-29 or any other B-29 flew again. And every effort had to alsobe made at the same time to fix the many problems that had plagued Eddie. Theremaining XB-29 and presumably the B-29s filling the production lines were toodangerous to fly without major modifications.

Boeing flight test was decimated, devastated, demoralized. In less than eightyears Boeing had lost three chief test pilots and three big experimentalairplanes and crews: Al Reed, Eddie’s Chief of Flight Test and chief pilot wasnow the only man alive who had ever piloted a B-29. To the best of my knowledge,Al never flew again after Eddie’s accident. Al Reed left Boeing a few weeksafter Eddie’s death and dropped from sight.

The end of March a man by the name of N.D. Showalter became the new Chief ofFlight Test. He had been Boeing Chief Military Projects Engineer and deeplyinvolved in both the B-17 and B-29 programs. He had flown with Eddie Allen onthe testing of the #2 Stratoliner after Julius Barr had been killed in the 1939crash of the first one. N.D. was a good pilot but had not pursued that as aprofession and did not have much opportunity to fly. When he could he would flyoccasionally with some of us as copilot. Under N.D.’s skillful guidance moraleimproved and flight test gradually got back on its feet.

In the meantime a very comprehensive investigation into the cause of causesof Eddie’s crash was underway. Witnesses were interviewed, fallen bits andpieces along the flight path were collected and studied, debris from the crashsite was sifted through for all the evidence that could be found, the remains ofengines and propellers were disassembled and examined and many, many groundtests and engineering analyses were run.

Extensive airplane modifications resulted. Possible conditions which couldcause fuel leaks were eliminated. Fuel filler necks were relocated, fire stopbulkheads were installed, better sealing in some places and better ventilationin other places was provided. Dams and overboard drains were also provided toget rid of any fuel the might leak. These and many other improvements wereincorporated in the #1 and #3 XB-29s and all production airplanes.

Bob Robbins
Bob in #1 XB-29, Nov. 1944

Shortly after Eddie’s accident, Brigadier General K.B. Wolfe was directed byGeneral Arnold to take over all aspects of the B-29 program. One of hisdirectives was that the Army Air Corps would take over the entire B-29 flighttest program and the #1 XB-29 flight test program would be done at Wichita whereconditions were much more favorable. The weather was better, runways were longerand wider, approaches were clearer and good alternate fields were relativelyclose. The Boeing Wichita plant would provide support. The #1 XB-29 pilot andcopilot would be Air Corps officers. Other than that the airplane would beoperated and maintained in accordance with Boeing flight test procedures and byBoeing people who were familiar with the large amount of highly specializedinstrumentation. I was asked to be the primary interface between the Air Corpspilots and the Boeing test crews — essentially to be the Flight Test ProjectPilot but without any piloting duties. Unresolved was any consideration ofwhether I would ever be allowed to fly the airplane.

On August 30, 1943 the #1 XB-29 was flown from Seattle to Wichita by Col.Olson. Since the loss of the #2 XB-29, this was the only heavily instrumentedB-29 in existence — a very valuable airplane from which a lot of data wasneeded in a hurry. Col. H.S. Estes was the copilot. The very generously signedme on also as a copilot and let me fly for a couple of hours on the way toWichita. In Wichita they arranged for me to get some transition time. My firstflight there was with Major Sullivan on September 3, 1943 from Wichita to Salinain the brand new YB-29 service test airplane #41-36963. Major Sullivan gave mefour flights, five takeoffs and six landings on the 3rd and 4th of September atSmoky Hill and Walker in "Sixty Three."

In the weeks of #1 XB-29 flight testing that followed, I was allowed to flyas copilot on every flight and given the opportunity to get as much experiencewith the airplane as our test requirements permitted. On October 8th Col. Esteschecked me out as Aircraft Commander and Ed Martin as my copilot, and, Exceptfor a few additional flights with us over the following two weeks, turned the #1XB-29 flight test program over to us in its entirety. After October 21 the #1XB-29 flight test program was a total, 100% Boeing responsibility once again.

By October 28, 1943 we had finished the initial testing with the #1 XB-29.The airplane and testing had gone extremely well. In five and a half weeks wehad made 24 flights in 72 hours of flying. There had been no engine failures andno significant problems. We had gotten large amounts of crucial performance andengine cooling data and make takeoffs up to 130,000 pounds. We flew a 3,000mile, 14-hour simulated bombing mission with a 10,000 pound simulated bomb load.There was no longer any doubt that the B-29 was going to be a fine airplane. Andthe severe trauma suffered by the Boeing Flight Test Organization from EddieAllen’s February 18th crash was largely healed. N.D. Showalter, the superbBoeing manager and Chief of Flight Test, had restored the Flight TestOrganization to the superb team that Eddie Allen had built. He had also earnedthe respect of K.B. Wolfe and the Air Corps. N.D. had stayed in Wichita duringthe entire time the #1 XB-29was there to do everything possible to help achievethe huge successes that had been realized. It was time to take the #1 XB-29 backto Seattle for configuration and instrumentation changes so we could get on withthe next series of tests and to explore new ideas and potential improvements tomake the B-29 fleet as safe and combat effective as possible. It was a triumphalreturn.

In December we flew 37:25 more and still had no engine failures. Things weregoing great — a far cry from the fierce problems Eddie Allen had been fightinga year before.

Bob Robbins
CAF’s B-29 "FIFI"

The #1 XB-29 had earned the right to a name. After careful consideration andin view of its past and probable future of experimentation and exploration, itseemed right to name her "The Flying Guinea Pig." To the end, it wasan appropriate name.

On August 15, 1945 when the war ended, there had been 9,062 B-29s ordered ofwhich 3,970 were completed. After the war ended we continued the #1 XB-29 flighttesting at a somewhat slower pace.

The last time I ever flew "The Flying Guinea Pig" was on May 9,1947 when we used it as a landing simulator for the XB-47 Stratojet on which Iwas to make the first flight that December.

On May 11, 1948 the #1 XB-29 was scrapped. It had a total of 576 hours on it.Eddie Allen had flown it 27 hours. I ad been on board a total of 545 hours andhad been pilot in command for 496 of those hours. From October 21, 1943 to theend of the war on August 15, 1945, I had been the Project Test Pilot andaircraft commander on every #1 XB-29 flight — 312 flights totalling 458 hoursin 22 months.

There is a picture that shows "The Flying Guinea Pig" in the scrapyard fading away. After four years of very close association and being almost myentire life’s work for two of those years, it is saddening to see something thatserved mankind so well just be left in solitude, ignored, to face away alone.She started as an incorrigible; developed to serve mankind well; was fun to fly.And while she has physically passed into oblivion, her memories continue on.I’ll never forget the #1 XB-29 program.

However, I was fortunate that my next program, the XB-47 Stratojet, was evenmore fun to fly and even more exhilarating. Also it was the biggest peacetimebomber program ever. Over 2,000 B-47s were built.

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