Visitors heigh-ho on to Superfortress at St. George aviation museum

Written by Chris Reed
September 8, 2023

ST. GEORGE — There’s history on the ground at St. George Regional Airport.

Inside the cockpit of the “Doc” B-29 Superfortress plane during its visit to the Western Sky Aviation Warbird Museum, St. George, Utah, Sept. 8, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

One historic plane that landed Thursday afternoon is one of only two B-29s still flying. Another — the C-47 “That’s All … Brother” that is expected to arrive early Saturday — was the lead plane that dropped American paratroopers near Utah Beach in the twilight just before the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France in World War II.  

Visitors can go inside both planes and even fly in them as part of a special weekend from Friday to Sunday at the Western Sky Aviation Warbird Museum. Officials at the museum said the $275 to $1,500 seats for flights on either plane this weekend are nearly gone but the $10 to $20 tickets for ground and cockpit tours of the plane are plentiful.

On display Friday was the B-29 Superfortress named “Doc.” The Enola Gay, also a B-29, carried out the first atomic attack on Hiroshima, while another B-29 took up the X-1 with Chuck Yeager to break the sound barrier. 

According to the aircraft’s restorers, Doc didn’t have as strong a place in history but does hold the distinction as a survivor. Finished in December 1944 in Wichita, Kansas, it was too late to play a part in World War II but joined a fleet of eight other planes named for Snow White, the Wicked Witch and the other dwarfs as a radar calibration squadron. 

But later in life, Doc and the rest of the Snow White Cast were left in the 1950s to be target practice at the China Lake bombing range in the Southern California desert. Somehow, Doc survived according to Greg Jamis, a volunteer with the B-29 Doc Hangar Education and Visitors Center in Wichita, which is Doc’s permanent home when not touring to places like St. George. 

“So one day, the range master went out and it had about four bullet holes in it. So he felt sorry for it because they’d missed it,” Jamis, on hand this weekend at the museum in St. George, said. “Under his authority, he had them move from the firing range over to the radar range where they would just see it on their radar scopes. And that’s where it sat until it was rescued in 1998.”

The “Doc” B-29 Superfortress plane parked for its weekend visit to the Western Sky Aviation Warbird Museum, St. George, Utah, Sept. 8, 2023 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Also on hand at the local airport is Doc’s chief pilot Mark Novak, who said he is one of only eight pilots currently qualified to fly a B-29 and has also flown Fifi – the other surviving B-29 still airworthy. 

Novak said he never takes for granted that he’s flying living history, but flying it does have its rough moments. 

“I tell everybody it’s like a pickup truck on a gravel road. It’s just a little squirrely,” Novak said. “She’s a big plane, 80,000 pounds. When you get her slow and you start to make a turn, she sort of walls a little bit. But once you get it up above about 180 knots it flies very nice, very tight.”

Below is a photo gallery of the ins and outs of Doc, which will leave the museum after Sunday, and a video at the top of the story. There’s also a peek into the ongoing restoration work of the museum’s permanent C-54 Skymaster candy bomber, which took its last flight to the airport last year. 

Photo Gallery


Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Reed serves as a reporter for St. George News, where he has been honored with several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for his work, including first-place accolades. He started his journalism career as a sports reporter and editor in Southern California where he once compared shoe sizes with Shaquille O'Neal and exchanged mix tapes with members of the Los Angeles Kings. After growing up in the San Fernando Valley learning karate skills from Mr. Miyagi and spending a decade in Las Vegas mostly avoiding the casinos, he came to St. George for love and married his soulmate, a lifetime Southern Utah resident. He is the proud father of two boys, his youngest a champion against both autism and Type 1 diabetes.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @STGNews

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