NOVA #2303: B-29 Frozen in Time/Broadcast Transcript PBS Airdate: July 29, 1997

ANNOUNCER: Tonight on NOVA, a two-hour adventure to recover therelics of wars long past. First, in Greenland, a deserted but intact B-29bomber has been waiting for rescue for more than fifty years. Can thisteam fly the Kee Bird home?

VERNON RICH: Just like new again.

RICHARD CRENNA: A C-141 lifts off from Thule Air Force Base. Oncea vital staging post for the nuclear bomber fleet, Thule is now a relic ofthe Cold War. While its radar domes still probe the horizon, it is eerilyquiet and almost deserted. One of the most remote and isolatedoutposts of the United States Air Force, it lies on the inhospitablebarren shore of northwest Greenland, deep inside the Arctic Circle.The climate is harsh and unforgiving. Even in summer, when the sunnever sets, it remains so cold that the sea is littered with icebergs.Inland, a vast unbroken icecap stretches for eight hundred miles. Theweather changes hourly, from bright sun to dark, menacing stormclouds with gale-force winds. Two hundred and fifty miles north ofThule lies another relic of the Cold War, an almost-intact B-29bomber. This plane, nicknamed the Kee Bird, became lost andcrash-landed while on a secret mission. The crew was rescued, butthe Kee Bird would lie here abandoned for almost fifty years. When theB-29 first flew in 1942, it could go higher and farther than any otherbomber. In the war against Japan, it traversed the Pacific and crestedthe Himalayas. The culmination of the B-29's military service waswhen the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, endingthe war. Nearly four thousand of these planes were built, but now lessthan a handful remain. If the Kee Bird could be recovered from thisArctic wilderness, it would be a unique treasure of aviation history,probably worth a great deal of money. Darryl Greenamyer, a formertest pilot, has been working on a bold plan to rescue the B-29 and fly itback home. Darryl has flown higher and faster than most other livingpilots. He had once been a test pilot on the U-2 spy plane and itsreplacement, the SR-71 Blackbird. In the seventies, he built his ownStarfighter jet from spare parts to gain a low-altitude speed record,which he still holds. An accomplished pilot and engineer used totaking risks, if anyone could pull this off, it was Darryl.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: It really is a unique opportunity. It may be the only airplane in the world that I can think of that's been sitting somewhere for fifty years that you could actually get in and potentially fly. It's just, you know, a far-away place. That's the reason it's available.RICHARD CRENNA: But getting the Kee Bird into the air requiresmore than skill and boldness. The bulk of the heavy supplies andmachinery that Darryl would need has to be carried to Thule on theannual supply ship. A five-ton bulldozer will be needed to build arunway for the B-29. Bulky new tires and propellers are also required,along with four massive, reconditioned radial engines. All of thisequipment has to be carried north over the two hundred and fifty milesof desolate Arctic landscape that separates Thule from the bomber.Darryl's solution is a 1962 Caribou, another of his salvaged wonders.RICK KRIEGE: It's basically a short-field -- You know, a short landingand take-off -- airplane, and it's made for unimproved fields. Theyused it in Vietnam a lot, and it's a pretty rugged airplane. It's ideal forthis sort of thing, flying these engines in, and it'll carry a pretty goodload.

RICHARD CRENNA: Rick Kriege, who had been Darryl's chiefengineer for over seven years, is responsible for making his planswork. With the Caribou's arrival in mid-July, Darryl's team is complete.Cecilio Grande has been Rick's assistant for three years, learning onthe job. Vernon Rich is a toolmaker and machinist, and BobVanderveen, as well as being another pair of hands, is going to do thecooking. Roger von Grote, a retired airline pilot and a distant relative ofBaron von Richtofen, will fly the Caribou. Darryl and the others take offfrom Thule. Their flight takes them over uncharted mountains andglaciers, two hundred and fifty miles north. It is a risky journey into theunknown, where the chances of rescue are slim. Finally, they come tothe valley where the B-29 came to rest. They fly low over the valleyfloor. Roger lowers the wheels and makes a brief touchdown to testhow firm the surface is. It seems fine, so they go around and come into make a landing. If anything goes wrong now, the consequencescould be fatal. But they make it.

TEAM MEMBER: Fantastico! Fantastico!

RICHARD CRENNA: The relieve and euphoria spills out as theyexamine their landing strip.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Fantastic, huh?

ROGER VON GROTE: If we can get the thing turned around in this softdirt, you know. . .

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Oh, yeah, we can. And, in fact, I felt this is the first really soft stuff we hit. Look back here.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah. Do you like our veer-off approach?

RICHARD CRENNA: The team begins to set up camp, as behindthem, the B-29 gleams like new in the chill Arctic sunshine, a timecapsule preserved in this remote valley. All around is evidence of theremarkable story of the Kee Bird's last crew. For them, landing herehad been nothing to celebrate. It had been the start of a frighteningthree days.

RUSSELL S. JORDAN: I honestly didn't think we was going to get out. I had made up my mind on the way down that, you know, this is nodream. This is reality. Face it and accept it.

JOHN G. LESMAN: And then we realized once we were out, the planewas not on fire. That was the main concern. Arnett made a hell of agood landing, and the airplane was intact.

RICHARD CRENNA: Nobody was hurt in the crash landing, but theywere stranded in a deadly climate miles from anywhere, not knowingif they would be rescued.

JOHN G. LESMAN: My biggest concern, I was too busy, frankly,wanting to get a position in to the search airplanes, so somebodywould know where we were. That was the big thing, establishing ourposition and finding out where in the hell we are so we could berescued.

RUSSELL S. JORDAN: Our spirits were high. We knew we were goingto get out. We just -- There wasn't one guy didn't feel like we weren'tgoing to make it. But, I remember the cold and no place to go to getwarm. That's the thing that I remember mostly about it.

RICHARD CRENNA: On the second day, an Air Force plane found theKee Bird.

JOHN G. LESMAN: The greatest we felt when that plane flewoverheard with the supplies and they knew where we -- They actuallyphysically spotted us. That was the greatest feeling.

RICHARD CRENNA: A day later, a plane landed beside them and flewthem out to safety. Now, at last, the Kee Bird was going to be rescuedas well.

JOHN G. LESMAN: I've got torn feelings. Everybody's excited aboutgetting it out and they're going to make a lot of money out of it,apparently, and everybody's going to look at this airplane. It's greatand all that. But, somehow, it's something like going into an Indiangrave, as far as I'm concerned. I kind of feel like it belongs up there.

RICHARD CRENNA: No longer claimed by the Air Force, the Kee Birdwas now available to anyone who could fly her out. Darryl and histeam go to work.

RICK KRIEGE: Kee Bird, Kee Bird. Over.

RICHARD CRENNA: The radio link to Thule is established, the tentsset up, and Bob starts work on recovering the damaged rudder, which,despite the aluminum construction of the B-29, had been covered infabric. Then, as the Caribou taxies to return to Thule, their precarioussituation is brought home to them.

RICK KRIEGE: Darryl was trying to taxi around and I was out watchingit, and he got going a little bit, and then, the nose wheel just went allthe way, ninety. Both tires rolled off the rim and lost all their air. Ithought we were stuck here.

RICHARD CRENNA: It takes hours to dig the wheels out of the stickymud. Rick's idea to use propane gas from the camp stove allows theCaribou to return to Thule, even though the wheels could explode ifthey get too hot. The plane takes off, leaving Rick, Bob, and Ceciliobehind. Once at Thule, they refill the tires.

VERNON RICH: Don't make any sparks. Just don't make any sparks.

RICHARD CRENNA: It is vital to get the bulldozer up to the B-29 andimprovise a runway, but the Caribou will be seriously overloaded, andas Darryl inches the bulldozer onto the plane, Roger is concerned.

ROGER VON GROTE: It's a little bit higher risk than I really thought itwould be, because Darryl maxes everything to the limit. If bothengines run, it'll get off the ground. But if one engine quits, we're justgoing to have to crash straight ahead, because one engine's notgoing to carry the load.

RICHARD CRENNA: The Caribou, slow and cumbersome, returns tothe B-29. Rick lights a bonfire so that Roger knows the wind directionfor his landing. As the dangerously overloaded Caribou comes in toland, people on the ground do not realize that something has goneseriously wrong. The flaps had failed, and Roger had nearly lostcontrol.

ROGER VON GROTE: We came in a no-flapper. I came -- I came --

RICK KRIEGE: I knew you were coming.

ROGER VON GROTE: Well, at ninety knots, I stalled, and I was in thisshaker at ninety, and Darryl said we can't do it without any flaps. Ithought, oh, shit. I don't want to go all the way back. We're getting lowon fuel.

RICHARD CRENNA: The Caribou has plowed into the soft earth.Another inch, and the propellers would have smashed into theground. Disaster had been narrowly averted. Darryl puts the bulldozerto work on the B-29, immediately proving its worth. The Kee Bird isback on dry land for the first time in half a century. When the giant B-29crashed in 1947, the bomb bay doors suffered the most obviousdamage. They will be taken off to be replaced later.

RICK KRIEGE: Well, the snow really cushioned it real well. It built upunder the bomb bays, and the bomb bay doors took all the load andabout ninety percent of the damage. There's a little bit of damage onthe fuselage and on the flaps, but that's it.

RICHARD CRENNA: The propellers were badly buckled by the crash,and the main engine bearings were twisted. New ones will be put intheir place.

CECILIO GRANDE: The key elements were the engines, but we've gotfour new engines. We ran two of them on the test stand. They all ran.They ran great. We need to get these engines on and tidied up andready to run and then hang propellers.

RICHARD CRENNA: They take an inventory of the work necessary toget the plane air worthy.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: The tires, they look good, but they're rayon, and rayon doesn't age well, so we brought up some nylon tires tochange them out. The rudder and the elevators are going to bechanged out. Coming on over here to the ailerons, the controlsurfaces were fabric, and they have to be changed. They werepaper-thin; you could put your finger right through them.

RICHARD CRENNA: The summer here is very short, so time is of theessence, and Darryl has a limited budget. He planned to make around trip in the Caribou every two days to fly in the engines and partsfrom Thule. The weather so far has prevented this. Darryl hoped thewhole project could be finished in a month, but two weeks havepassed and he has yet to fly a single new engine out of Thule. CaptainDougan, the base manager, asks him about the schedule.

CAPT. DOUGAN: . . .when you got here, that, you know, were trying to plan to have people in here.

ROGER VON GROTE: That's assuming we could fly straight through,and we haven't been able to.

CAPT. DOUGAN: And I told him, I said, "The weather up here is notlike -- It may be summer, but it's not summer like you think of it in theUnited States."

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah, that's right. Talk to the man upstairsand do something with this weather, will you?

CAPT. DOUGAN: Well, to get it the same at both sites would beunique, also.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah.

CAPT. DOUGAN: Yeah.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Actually, the weather up there the last fewdays has been nice.

CAPT. DOUGAN: Well, that's what I heard. I was going to say, it's good up there, and it has been good here. I mean --

DARRYL GREENAMYER: In fact, it's hot.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah, it gets actually hot sometimes, like fiftydegrees.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: And no wind.

RICHARD CRENNA: Back at the B-29, Rick, Cecilio, and Bob continueworking, stripping off the old twisted propellers. Rick designed thehoist from old photos of B-29s being field-maintained during theSecond World War. Darryl and Roger return with a new engine, andthe old ones are slowly eased off.

RICK KRIEGE: Idle it down, just real easy. Go forward.

RICHARD CRENNA: Before the new engines can be installed, a lot ofcomponents need to be stripped from the old ones.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, how do you want to dismantle thisthing?

RICK KRIEGE: Well, first you've got to take the carburetors, take all this stuff off. Then we've got to take the injection pumps off, then we've got to take the carburetor off.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: OK.

RICK KRIEGE: Then we take the motor mount off.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: All right.

RICHARD CRENNA: Eventually, a small production line is set up, asold engines are dismantled to be taken back to Thule and the newones are made ready to be hoisted back into place on the old enginemountings. The engines themselves are massive eighteen-cylinderradials, the most powerful ever built. Changing these huge engines ina warm hangar is difficult enough. Doing it in the middle of the Arcticwill be a back-breaking task. Rick is tireless, and his workload isn'tonly confined to the B-29. The Caribou also presents problems. TheCaribou takes off on its third trip to Thule. It circles and returns to land.Roger thinks there may be an engine fire.

ROGER VON GROTE: As soon as I went to cruise power, the lightcame on and it was flashing. And I went back and looked at theengine. I didn't see any smoke or anything, but I was reading in a bookwhere they said you can get some fires internally with no smokeevidence, so -- Well, we thought it was prudent to come back wherethe maintenance is.

RICHARD CRENNA: Rick discovers that the fire indicator on theengine is faulty. The aborted flight has cost Darryl more time.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: It's really disappointing. What can I say? Imean, here we've got two beautiful days of weather coming up, andwe've got plenty of work to do, but it's just going to -- If we can't take offon Monday, then we are behind. We're going to have people sitting ontheir hands doing nothing.

RICHARD CRENNA: Then the weather causes more delay. A monthhas passed, and it is now the second week of August. Snow isbeginning to settle ominously on the surrounding hills. Rick andCecilio keep working even in the rain, hammering on the exhaustcowlings.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, that was easy.

RICK KRIEGE: Whose side are you on?

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Have you heard a report from the CASA on the tops of the clouds? And also, is it scattered or broken back atThule?

THULE RADIO: It's broken back here. It's scattered 1.7.

RICHARD CRENNA: Darryl is desperate to keep the shuttle flightsgoing and feels that he has to risk flying in bad weather.

THULE RADIO: So don't bother going that direction.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: OK. I guess we'll give it a shot. We'll comearound and then we'll try and come in under it.

RICK KRIEGE: OK. Come down with it. Let's go ahead and back upwith it again. Can you keep turning it on and off? Turn it on again.

RICHARD CRENNA: The work is physically demanding. Removing theold tires takes hours, even using the bulldozer to separate them fromthe rim. Rick is beginning to show the strain of this hard work andlooks exhausted. Mealtimes bring some respite and are anopportunity to tell stories of old exploits, like the time Darryl tried totake off in Panama without using the runway.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: They wanted me to take off on the ramp sothey didn't have to open up the fence to get on Panama property to usethe runway. So, I said, "Well, no problem." But then, they wanted me totake off a little bit downwind because if I went the other way, I'd beflying over the general's house. And so, I said, "Well, OK. I think so." Itwas a downhill run and then a slight turn about sixty knots, and thendown the ramp.

ROGER VON GROTE: How much runway do you have, all told?

DARRYL GREENAMYER: I don't remember. But, what happened was, I went down the little hill and made the right turn, and then it startedbouncing, and all of a sudden, the nose wheel steering kicked out,and I tried to hold it, and the -- I was too close to the fence, and so itkind of lifted off and then squatted right down on the fence. But I didn'tgive up just then. I kept going.

BOB VANDERVEEN: Working on the wing in that snowstorm, it wastoo hot, and it was coming loose because of that.

ROGER VON GROTE: Oh, really?

RICHARD CRENNA: Bob has finished recovering the rudder withfabric, and he and Roger are now putting the finishing touches to it.Vernon has had to make many of the small components for the ruddercables and control surfaces from scratch. Without blueprints, it is noteasy.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: And then put the other one with the flange in its place and then drill this one out and stick it in the other end, sowe'll have the same configuration you're getting.

VERNON RICH: Just like we made the other two.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, you do -- Yeah, except that -- No, no. We'll go to this size bolt.

VERNON RICH: Right. Right.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah.

VERNON RICH: So, we're going up.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Right.

BOB VANDERVEEN: Just like new again.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yup. It'll fly.

BOB VANDERVEEN: This is the real recovery work here.

ROGER VON GROTE: It'll fly.

BOB VANDERVEEN: You bet it'll fly.

RICHARD CRENNA: By the time the rudder is ready to be hoistedback into place, the project has taken five weeks, far longer thanDarryl's original forecast. But the sun is now back, and people's spiritshave lifted again.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Stick a bolt in there and I'll wiggle it around. Can you tap it in?

ROGER VON GROTE: That's what I'm going to try to do now.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Now, you see the flange in front? It's got to be straight with this.

ROGER VON GROTE: I see the flange in front very well.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: I mean, in back. In back. In the back of theflange. See, it's a flat spot?

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah, I see the flat spot.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, it isn't lined up.

ROGER VON GROTE: Oh, it isn't.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: It's going.

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah, it is.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Hold it right there.

ROGER VON GROTE: That's it.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Well, it fell in.

VERNON RICH: Are you crying? Are you so happy? Are those tears ofjoy? You got it.

RICHARD CRENNA: The weeks of work are paying off. The ruder hasbeen fitted and four new engines are in place. The last major job isthe propellers.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: The propellers came out of a prop shop inTucson, and they've been overhauled, but they haven't beenfinal-assembled yet. We'll put those together and hand them on. But Idon't anticipate any problem with that. I've done that before and theyusually go together pretty easy. These are awful big propellers,though, the biggest I've ever dealt with.

RICHARD CRENNA: Carefully balanced in a workshop back home,they have to be assembled in the right sequence, or they'll rip theengines apart.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Oh, Vernon, I stepped right on your foot.

VERNON RICH: That's all right.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: OK. Go on in.

VERNON RICH: Oop, oop. The ring fell off.

ROGER VON GROTE: This way?

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah. Put it on the --

VERNON RICH: Shit.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: The thing needs to be wiped off. It's probably got sand all over it now. Set it down here. Set it down. Here, let me have it.

CECILIO GRANDE: Right.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Up. OK. You got it. All right, here we go. Let's go. Hup. OK. Set it down.

CECILIO GRANDE: Damn! Look at that!

DARRYL GREENAMYER: See, that's what happens when you have thefirst team in.

ROGER VON GROTE: Oh, that's right.

RICHARD CRENNA: Sixteen feet across and weighing almost a ton,they're difficult to maneuver.

VERNON RICH: OK. That looks good. Whoa, whoa.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: We're going to have to come down about an inch and a half first.

RICK KRIEGE: How's the frame, Vern?

VERNON RICH: OK.

RICK KRIEGE: A little bit more. OK. Hold it.

VERNON RICH: OK. That's it.

RICK KRIEGE: OK. Now, you should be able to rock it.

RICHARD CRENNA: Now it's time to start an engine. It's the first realtest of weeks of exhausting work, and the engine refuses to start. Rickthinks he knows what's wrong.

RICK KRIEGE: Would you get me a pair of tin snips? No, no. It takespressure. The carburetor doesn't want to work.

RICHARD CRENNA: The carburetor needs adjusting.

RICK KRIEGE: Yay! Yippee!

RICHARD CRENNA: Everyone is jubilant, but still, only one enginehas been tested. Time is running out fast, and Vernon is still workingon the other three.

VERNON RICH: We've got to hook everything up to them to make surethat they work. We've got to put the magnetos on, the generators, allthe fuel system, the oil system. It probably takes twelve, fourteenhours after the time you stick it on there, per motor, to actually getthem going. And that's in a nice heated hangar with all the tools thatyou need. So, when it's blowing, blowing snow sideways, it takes alittle bit longer. And we'll fix it; we'll get it going.

RICHARD CRENNA: The last major hurdle is a runway. Darryl usesthe bulldozer to level the ground, but the heavy rain has left the tundrawaterlogged, with shallow lakes dotting the surface. Normally, a B-29will use a runway of over five thousand feet, but the most Darryl canhope for is two thousand feet of dry earth to take off in.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: This is the worst spot of all, right here, andit's really at a critical distance.

ROGER VON GROTE: Well, you know, like you were saying two daysago, there was no water here, so hopefully, with three or four gooddays --

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah.

ROGER VON GROTE: -- just like this, this water won't even be here.

RICHARD CRENNA: It's August the 22nd, and the first sunset atmidnight signals the approach of the polar winter. Finally, all fourengines have their controls and fuel systems connected and areready to be tested. Darryl climbs into the cockpit and the first engine isturned over.

VERNON RICH: It's a beautiful sight!

CECILIO GRANDE: Incredible, yes!

RICHARD CRENNA: The engines will have to run perfectly to lift thegiant bomber from such a short runway. Rick knows that everythingneeds to be double-checked.

RICK KRIEGE: Why don't you stand off on that side and look downthere and see if you can see any oil leaks. I'm going to go around hereand see if I can find anything.

RICHARD CRENNA: Work continues on the engines, eliminating oilleaks and making sure that everything will work as it should.

RICK KRIEGE: This one's got an oil leak. That one's got a loose pushrod tube.

RICHARD CRENNA: It seems that the flight of the Kee Bird will be only a few days away. The Caribou departs for Thule to pick up more fuelfor the bomber, but just as success seems within reach, Rick hasbecome ill. For several weeks, he's been taking painkillers for whathe's insisted is a badly twisted back. Most days, he's faced thegrueling schedule in great pain. He has now collapsed and can nolonger do any work. Then the Caribou returns with a seriousmechanical problem, one that puts everybody's safety in jeopardy.

ROGER VON GROTE: We lost partial power on the right engine of theCaribou, and we thought it was probably a cylinder problem, and thenwhen we arrived, we found that we had a stuck exhaust valve, and itwas hitting the top of the piston, and we need a cylinder to get out ofhere with any kind of safety at all.

RICHARD CRENNA: The winter finally hits, bringing gale-force windsand freezing rain. The temperature plummets. Soon, life here will beimpossible. If they don't get out now, they never will. The first of thewinter snow is settling on the camp. After two months, time hasbeaten Darryl. Work on the Kee Bird stops, as everyone's attentionfocusses on the Caribou. The Caribou is their lifeline, and Vernon andCecilio struggle to fit a spare cylinder. Despite inadequate tools andfreezing fingers, they manage to do it, but the engine still has aserious oil leak, and there's no guarantee it won't give out altogetheras they fly over the glacier back to Thule.

CECILIO GRANDE: You fly this now?

ROGER VON GROTE: Yeah. If we could put oil in the engine whilewe're flying, then we have absolutely no problem at all.

RICHARD CRENNA: Every flight of the Caribou is a flirtation withdeath. This is ever more so. As ice is knocked off the Caribou's wing,Darryl faces up to the fact that he can go no further.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: I'm just going to have to sit down and take a long thinking session about what we're going to do. I haven't given up.We've got too much -- We're too close. The airplane is essentiallyready to fly. We never did get a runway suitable to take off this year.The winter caught us. Rick is sicker than a dog; we've got to get himout of here, and probably to a hospital. And so, things are coming to ascreeching halt.

RICHARD CRENNA: At last, they're ready to pull out, leaving the KeeBird where it has been for nearly fifty years. Halfway through the flight,the Caribou's right engine loses power, but they manage to struggleon one engine into Thule. Rick is carried off into an ambulance.Suffering from internal bleeding, he is flown to a hospital in Canada,and rushed to surgery. Two weeks later, this kind and gentle man, aresourceful and highly-skilled engineer, died of a blood clot. Darrylcould barely come to terms with Rick's death, but having come so far,he was not prepared to give up his struggle to recover the B-29. Itwould mean bitter disappointment and financial disaster. Ninemonths later, with the Caribou still out of action at Thule, Darryl returnsto the Kee Bird in a chartered Twin Otter. He has enlarged the teamwith the inclusion of Matt Jackson and John Cater, both specialists inradial engines, an old friend Al Hansen, and Thad Dulin, a qualifiedB-29 flight engineer. The temperature never rises above twenty-fourdegrees Fahrenheit. The cold makes the work far more difficult, butDarryl's plan is to use the surface of the frozen lake as a runway.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: We were trying to get here as late aspossible before the ice melted so that we could use the lake for therunway, and yet not have miserable cold weather.

RICHARD CRENNA: The lake is covered in snowdrifts, but Darryl'smain concern is how long it will remain frozen.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: I'd say two weeks, we've got to get on thatlake or we're in trouble.

RICHARD CRENNA: The snow has piled up around the Kee Bird, andthe engines need to be thoroughly checked after the winter. The newteam is all business. The biting cold is a spur to their determination toget the job done. Darryl is concerned about the effect the cold will haveon the engines and takes his time warming them up.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: She's running at low RPM until the oiltemperature gets up.

TEAM MEMBER: How long will that take?

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Ten minutes.

RICHARD CRENNA: They discover a number of oil leaks.

MATT JACKSON: We're fighting little gremlins right now because ofthe weather. You know, moisture and cold really wreaks havoc on anairplane. You can bring a brand-new airplane up here and let it sit fora week, and you'll have the same kind of problems.

RICHARD CRENNA: The engine cowlings have to be taken off andreplaced every time something needs fixing in the engines. And everytime an engine stops, great care has to be taken before it can berestarted. After a week of work, the engines are running smoothly, andthe oil leaks have been eliminated. The flight of the Kee Bird isapproaching, and Darryl turns his thoughts to the runway.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: What I'm concerned about is the drifts on the lake. I tried to flatten them out with the bulldozer and the grater thatwe've got, but I may have created more problem than I cured, becauseit left little mounds. The problem with the B-29 is there's no nosewheel steering, and so, when I hit one of these mounds with the rightgear, it's going to pull right. It's a problem. We're just going to have toget out and try it.

RICHARD CRENNA: The engines cool quickly in this climate, and anoil-burning heater pipes hot air under the cowlings to keep them closeto working temperature. Preparations get underway for the first flight.Darryl must be ready as soon as the conditions are right.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Today is a good day. It's warmer, and whatwe'll do is, we'll start at one end. We're preheating one engine now,and we'll start it. Then we'll start the next one, and then get to the thirdone. By the time we get to the third one, we'll probably go back and runthe first one and then get -- So, we get them all up to temperature atthe same time. And then, once we get them up there, we've got tokeep them there. That's why it's so critical to, once we get everythingwarmed up and ready to go, that we don't dally: we go. Otherwise,we've got to start the whole process again, and that's burning fuel,which is a precious commodity up here. You know, when the enginesare running and there's a surge of adrenaline, I want to get in it andgo. And I think it'll make it.

RICHARD CRENNA: Darryl strides to the cockpit. The dream that hasobsessed him for three years is just hours from being realized. Thadsits at the flight engineer's console to start all four engines.Instruments that have remained dormant for fifty years once againregister life in the machine. The giant radial engines can deliver overtwo thousand horsepower each. Thad makes last-minuteadjustments to the oil pressure and the carburetors to get the enginesrunning sweetly.

THAD DULIN: I don't have much in the way of nose oil pressure onthree, Darryl, but it's coming up now. The manifold pressure gaugejust came loose. There she comes.

RICHARD CRENNA: As the propellers shimmer in the sunlight, Darrylputs the coordinates for Thule into the newly-installed satellitenavigation system. The plane has frozen into the mud and snow, andit takes maximum power to break the wheels free. The nose wheelcan't be controlled, and at slow speeds, Darryl has to adjust theengine power to steer the plane. Finally, it is moving in a wide circle,out onto the lake, on its way toward the end of the runway. The planeis bounced and shaken by the frozen snowdrifts. Suddenly, smokecan be seen pouring from the windows in the cockpit. The auxiliarypower unit, a stand-by generator, was thrown from its mounting in therear fuselage, and caught fire.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Get another fire extinguisher!

RICHARD CRENNA: Fortunately, the crew managed to jump clear.Darryl shouts for more extinguishers, but it's too late. The fire hasalready swept through the plane. He can do nothing but stand andwatch as this irreplaceable piece of aviation history is consumed byfire. With it go the years of planning and hard work by so many people.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: It's gonna burn to the ground. Apparently, the APU was left running in the tail, and the fuel tank broke loose anddumped fuel on the APU and started the fire in the tail. That's wherethe fire extinguisher was, but we couldn't get to it. I don't think it wouldhave made a difference which way we took off. It would have beenairborne a third of the way across the lake.

MATT JACKSON: Well, I almost threw my bag in before you pulled out, because I figured we were gonna go. So I just put my tools in.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Where are they, up front?

MATT JACKSON: No. They were in the tail where the fire was.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Oh, shit.

MATT JACKSON: They're (expletive deleted) gone.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: My tools are up front.

MATT JACKSON: Well, it wasn't because you didn't try.

DARRYL GREENAMYER: Yeah. It was ready to go. That's the realtragedy of it. I mean, we were so close. Success was right there. Itwas right there. But, this is my game, and I'd do it again.

RICHARD CRENNA: Darryl had faith that the B-29 would fly onceagain, with him at the controls, but instead, it remains on the frozensurface. When the ice melts, what's left of the Kee Bird, the newengines and propellers, will sink and come to rest on the dark bottomof the lake, forever.