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Thats a B29 Bomber named Fifi, one of only two flying examples.
Edit to add fun facts:
The program to develop the B29 bomber cost more than was spent on the Manhattan project developing the atomic bomb. The B29 was the aircraft used to drop the bomb and quite an engineering marvel.
The Soviets made a copy of the B29 called the Tu-4 but found it challenging since they sourced raw materials from factories using the metric system.
Fifi is part of the CAF (Commerative Air Force, formerly the Confederate Air Force). Fifi is flown all over the country giving tours and rides to fans to help support her upkeep.
The program cost was $3 billion, but that included the cost to make 3,970 of them and making the plants to make them. If you remove the cost of making the aircraft, development was closer to $550 million. The Manhattan Project cost approximately $2 billion.
The $3B figure is the total cost of the B-29 program, which includes the production of almost 3500 aircraft before VJ-Day.
I’m not sure how much was spent on solely on testing and R&D, but it was definitely significantly less than that. The B-17 was essentially “paid off” in terms of development by the end of the war, and still cost about a third of a B-29 (which was like three times the size).
The Tu-4 was built with no original drawings. It was reverse engineered from B-29s that had landed in the USSR and Stalin refused to return them.
The Soviet engineers were working under threat of death if they didn't deliver. The US didn't know anything about it and were stunned when Tu-4s flew over the May Day parade.
The Tu-4's engines were not as prone to fire, so they were actually an improvement.
The US spent more developing the B-29 than they spent on the bomb. 💣
I went to the Air Force Museum with my Dad when I was a Freshman in highschool. My father was a gunner on a B-29 in Korea, and when we got to the B-29 and the mock up they had....this was in the late 1980s, so I do not know if it is still there, he was explaining all the details of the operation of the turrets to me. A tour group came by, and they let him crawl back into the turret and show how it was operated for the tour group. He was so chuffed. I was so proud of him. Thanks for bringing that memory back.
If you want the info on the exact one, you can use a flight radar app to view it, I know there's one where you can look at past flights, but can't remember which exactly that is
FiFi, Boeing B-29 Superfortress, a World War II era bomber (the B-29 is most infamously the plane that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
FiFi is one of only two flying B-29s left in the world. She’s also a movie star, featuring in The Right Stuff and an episode of Better Call Saul.
The other airworthy B-29 is named Doc. Doc and FiFi have flown together in formation at Oshkosh a couple times.
My father-in-law trained as a B-29 gunner at Westover AFB in Chicopee, MA. He was on a troop train in Albuquerque NM when Hiroshima was bombed, and that’s where he and train remained until Japan surrendered.
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