Vintage bomber draws crowds to DuPage Airport
Jim McWethy couldn’t help but think of his father Saturday as he circled a vintage B-29 bomber at DuPage Airport with two cameras in tow.
“I’m kind of reliving some of the stories my father told me at the dinner table as a kid,” the Downers Grove man said, snapping away under a light rain. “I want in the worst way to take a flight, but today’s not the day to do it.”
Dozens of families turned out to see the 95,000-pound Boeing Superfortress — the last known still capable of flying — for the West Chicago airfield’s Community Days event, which continues from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
For McWethy, the display offered a chance to get up close and personal with the same kind of aircraft that carried his father, an Army Air Force meteorologist, on World War II missions in Guam.
McWethy, 67, said he’d visited two other Superfortresses at museums — including the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima — but never before saw one that still flew.
“This has tremendous sentimental value to me,” he said. “And I get to experience some of the feelings (my father) must have had taking off.”
Manufactured in the early 1940s, the Superfortress was the first warplane to be fully pressurized and equipped with computerized remote-controlled gun sights.
While boasting a 114-foot wing span and a 20,000-pound bombing capacity, the steel giant also is celebrated for its high-altitude and long-range bombing capabilities.
“A lot of people are tied in with family members who’ve flown it or known it,” said Col. Jim Neill of the Texas-based Commemorative Air Force organization, which tours the bomber across the U.S. “It makes it a good feeling for them to know they got to be a part of it, and see where their loved ones have been.”
St. Charles veterans Gerry Miller, 81, and Dennis Casey, 82, were among those eager to get a closer look and a few photos on Saturday.
Casey and Miller, who served at different points during the Korean War, said they agreed the Superfortress holds “great historic value” and should continue to be preserved.
“This is the plane that ended the war,” Miller said. “There’s the nostalgia of it, the public interest, and it represents a time in America that doesn’t exist today. There was patriotism. We were fighting for our existence.”
The bomber will be on display and open for cockpit tours throughout Sunday. Neill said scheduled flights Sunday are already sold out, but a few seats remain for two additional flights Monday, after Community Days ends.
For more information, call (432) 413-4100 or visit rideb29.com.