A gorgeous large-format Kodachrome color transparency of B-29 nose art caught my eye many years ago when Tom Cole and members of the Boeing public relations team gave me access to some of the company’s largely-forgotten photo treasures.
The airplane was nicknamed “Noah’s Arc — Hi Altitude Electrical Lab” and mission symbols were applied to its silver nose. But the history of this B-29 remained a mystery.
The clamor for producing aircraft to win World War II stilled quickly with the end of fighting in the Pacific in August 1945. Contracts were cut, and the Army Air Forces suddenly had a glut of the aircraft with which the war had just been prosecuted.
The surfeit of aircraft enabled the use of B-29 Superfortresses for research to improve the coming generations of Air Force machines.
From research compiled by Robert A. Mann in “The B-29 Superfortress: A Comprehensive Registry of the Planes and Their Missions,” the B-29 that was to become “Noah’s Arc” was built under contract by Martin Aircraft near Omaha, Nebraska, and delivered in April 1945. This B-29 was assigned to experimental duties.
Serendipity is a bonus during sometimes-tedious archival search sessions, and in 2016 while researching different topics at the Air Force Historical Research Agency, I found an article in a Boeing publication from June 1947 that illuminated the story of “Noah’s Arc.”
That vintage Kodachrome copy came to life. A series of repeating and complex mission symbols on this B-29 now made sense.
The Boeing news article explained how “Noah’s Arc” climbed above 40,000 feet on many occasions for test purposes. Each time, a mission symbol depicting a homesick angel, holding a harp and standing on a cloud marked 40,000, was added to the bomber’s nose.
Top speed of a B-29 is listed as around 358 miles per hour at 25,000 feet or 400 miles per hour at 30,000 feet for a converted KB-29P tanker variant. On its stratospheric jaunts, “Noah’s Arc” sometimes found conditions favorable to post speeds as high as 472 mph, setting an unofficial large aircraft speed record from Seattle to Salt Lake City that averaged 424 mph.
“Noah’s Arc” was off the Air Force inventory by late August 1954. It may have finished its service at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
Another B-29 entered the post-war test and evaluation world with a nickname and artwork inspired by the experimental engine nacelles it sported. Special cowlings with a setback lower portion for relocated oil coolers and intercoolers reminded some of the contemporary chinless comic strip character Andy Gump. So Andy Gump it was, complete with cartoon caricature.
The B-29 “Andy Gump” incorporated a much taller vertical tail, something that entered production on the B-50. The Andy Gump nacelles were fitted to a small number of B-29s and C-97s, but did not become standard.
I don’t know if the B-29 that was assigned to General Electric and was flown by Pan American Airways crews was named or not, but that’s an interesting story of testing their jet engines and developing the radar controls guns.