Boeing B-29-60 Superfortress ‘T Square 54’ was rescued from the brink after life on the range. Chris Gilson travelled to Seattle’s Museum of Flight to see a grand work in progress.
When old military aircraft reach the end of their working lives they normally have three final destinations. The majority are ignominiously scrapped and sent to the smelter, with the valuable aluminium and other metals comprising their fabric recycled for a variety of purposes. Alternatively, a select and lucky few are sent to museums for preservation and a possible return to flight, although most of these will spend the remainder of their days on the ground – critiqued by the curious and visited by the nostalgic. Thirdly, there are the airframes that are chosen to perform one last valuable service for their country such as being used as training aids in fire schools, shot at and re-patched for battledamage repair training or taken to a desolate gunnery range and used as static targets for other pilots in newer aircraft to practise their firing skills.
<
