Article updated: 8/7/2012 11:38 AM

DuPage Airport to showcase a piece of history at Community Days Weekend

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Attendees of the DuPage Port Authority's Community Days Weekend will get the chance to tour and take flights in FIFI, a B-29 Superfortress.

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David Bird, executive director of the DuPage Port Authority, said Community Days Weekend is a way to open the DuPage Airport facility to the public. ""People are interested in aviation," he said. "We definitely feel like it's beneficial to us to help promote aviation to the public."

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David Oliver, a pilot with the Commemorative Air Force, said it's important to pass on the stories of past wars to new generations. "We're losing a face of history," he said. "If we don't preserve the story, the history will pass away."

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Sitting in the cockpit of FIFI, a B-29 Superfortress aircraft, David Oliver sometimes looks around him and realizes he's sitting in a piece of history, and the overwhelming feeling of responsibility that comes with that realization hits him all at once. And part of that responsibility requires Oliver to travel the country and show people inside the only model that remains flying, take them up for rides and educate them about what he calls the greatest generation.