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B-29 "DOC" Restoration Project |
B-29 Crewmen - Bob Robbins |
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Bob Robbins, B-29 test pilot, was the only person to pilot the first and
last Flying (FIFI) B-29. Bob was later the B52 Program Manager at
Boeing-Wichita.
Dale Felix, a visitor on this day, was an Experimental Test Pilot at Boeing –Wichita from 1957 to 1978 flying all of the airplanes in the Wichita Flight Test inventory at that time. Dale was Chief of Boeing-Wichita Flight Test from 1966 to 1978. Dale and Bob were good friends. |
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Bob Robbins (top center), several DOC Volunteers, |
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| Bob Robbins, Boeing Wichita B29 Flight Test Pilot | |
Former Test Pilot Views 'DOC' Restorationby Ronald G. Bliss He is one of a dying breed of pioneers who used brawn and brain to usher in a new era in aviation. Bob Robbins, who was a Boeing engineering/experimental test pilot on the B-29, made a stop in Kansas last week. He attended the dedication of the B-29 All Veterans Memorial in Pratt May 24 that honored World War II military troops and civilian workers. He later toured the effort underway at Boeing Wichita's Northwest Hangar to restore "DOC", the B-29 Superfortress, the earliest version of the B-29, and the last flying B-29, "Fifi." His flying was mostly on the specially and heavily instrumented No. 1SB-29 as a civilian Boeing engineering/experimental test pilot. It was a project historians say, that would lead to some of the most important test flying in aviation history. During the last 22 months of World War II, Robbins was the No. 1 XB-29 aircraft commander and project test pilot on each of its 312 test flights. He had been assigned to the No. 1 XB-29 program after the legendary Boeing test pilot Eddie Allen, was killed in the crash of the No. 2 XB-29 in February of 1943 after 31 trouble plagued flights. He had no experience on the B-29 and his prompt action to extinguish an engine fire, aviation historians say, lead to a solution to a problem that had destroyed at least 19 B-29s in the air. Robbins got a warm response from B-29 volunteers and Boeing employees in the Northwest Hangar and got a close up view of the restoration effort. He shared stories of his colorful past and described what it was like to pilot an experimental aircraft that was appropriately named "The Flying Guinea Pig." He said engine modifications were often made after flights. "I guess I never really feared for my life," he said. "You are young and you don't think of those things. You have procedures and you follow those when unexpected things happen." Robbins, who flew many flights in Seattle as well as Wichita, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1938 and went to work for Pan American Airways. He earned his aircraft and power plant mechanics license and became a flight engineer on board Pan Am's ocean-spanning Boeing 314 flying boats. In 26 transatlantic crossings, he logged more than 900 flying hours. In 1941, he said, he jumped at the chance to work for Eddie Allen at Boeing. The decision led to his becoming Boeing's primary test pilot though he had little actual experience flying the B-29. Somehow, he said, he survived engine and O-ring problems and fixed other mechanical failures "on the fly." He felt it was an opportunity few others would have. He said restoring "DOC" to flying status today - more than half a century since he flew the B-29 - is important for today's young people. "The restoration of 'DOC' shows today's youth what their grandfathers and their fathers did, and what it took to maintain our freedom," he said. "Today's kids have no concept of what it has taken to remain free. 'DOC' creates a catalyst in getting people interested in history and in understanding the price it takes in development and energy and also in lost lives," Robbins said.
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