Looking to contact a B-29 crew

Skip Miller

Skip Miller

Final Approach
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I have an author friend who needs input from a B-29 pilot or co-pilot for technical assistance. Wartime experience a plus. Please let me know how to contact these men.

Thanks in advance.

-Skip
 
Email/contact the Commemorative Air Force in Midland Texas.. They have a B29 that is intermittently in flyable condition. They may have contacts for former wartime crew members.
 
Skip we've got a Combat B-29 captain in our CAF wing here. give me an email address and I will try to get a phone number to you.
 
Bump!

Tony, thanks again for the link to the B-29 pilot. He was - like most of us pilots, I guess - very eager to talk about his flying experiences and very helpful.

Now my friend the author would like to contact a P-51 mustang pilot, again, preferably one with wartime experience. Any leads will be greatly appreciated!

-Skip
 
I'll mention it to the author, but he specifically requested a 'stang pilot.

-Skip
 
There is one in the Portland, Or. area I met him once at a WWII pilots get together. I don't know how to reach him though.
 
nope. the guy here flew "Goin Jesse" and was in the 9th Bomb Group. 51 missions...and he loves to tell the stories. We had 50 home schooled kids down to the hangar last week along with a local NBC news camera.
 
*Bump!*

The book is finished. "Born to Soar" by Welles Brandriff is available on Amazon.com.

This engaging book is a quick read, tracking the life of a WASP as she moves military aircraft around, including B-17s, B-29s, P-51s and others. Kelly Rossiter, the heroine, is the daughter of a prominent defense contractor, falls in love with an Aide to General Hap Arnold, and gets a series of plum assignments through these connections. Her meteoric rise and fabulous experiences are a bit unbelievable but in wartime and with those connections, they are not totally implausible.

At the same time the book deals effectively with the issues of prejudice and segregation rampant in our society at that time: both black-white and male-female.

There are a lot of flying scenes in the book and Welles, a non-pilot, has worked very hard to depict them as accurately as possible. In the acknowledgements, it says

I am indebted to a friend, Skip Miller, who through his membership in a pilot's roundtable, was able to help me make contact with Charles Chauncey, another B-29 Pilot. Charles "Chuck" Chauncey, who flew 35 missions over Japan, and is now associated with the Commemorative Air Force, was good enough to check my final draft.....
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The pilot's roundtable Welles refers to is you guys... Pilots of America. A big thanks from Welles and from me.

Tony, I think you were the one who offered the CAF lead. If you will PM me your snailmail address, I will mail you the book. For the rest of you, Born to Soar is on Amazon.com.

Thanks again!

-Skip
 
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glad that Chauncey could help out, he's a great guy.
 
That is really cool Skip. It is ashame time is catching up with so many of our WWII vets. :(
 
jesse said:
My great great uncle (Johnny Vasey)was a B-29 pilot - but he passed at 90 something years old quite awhile back.

Talked about a little in this article:
http://www.avweb.com/news/profiles/182964-1.html

Wish I had knew him better.
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Hey Jesse, Have you seen the picture of your gg uncle standing behind a Rose Parrakeet, with his airshow buddies in Fla in 1949? It's in an article in 'The Parrakeet Pilot' from May 2006. h
 
jesse is that the uncle who fell out of the stearman?
 
Howard Wilson said:
Hey Jesse, Have you seen the picture of your gg uncle standing behind a Rose Parrakeet, with his airshow buddies in Fla in 1949? It's in an article in 'The Parrakeet Pilot' from May 2006. h
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No. But I would love to. Do you have it?
 
ah, gotcha. still was all i could think of when i was getting an aerobatic ride in a stearman
 
tonycondon said:
ah, gotcha. still was all i could think of when i was getting an aerobatic ride in a stearman
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Yeah. If you're going to go negative..you might want to make sure you've strapped your silly ass in.
 
jesse said:
No. But I would love to. Do you have it?
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Yup,
Will try to attach it here: I had to get permission from the editor.... sounds like you beat me to it:rolleyes: Photo courtesy of Barry Taylor, editor of 'The Parrakeet Pilot'. This pic was taken around the time that Johnny Vasey came in 2nd to Bevo Howard in the National Aerobatics competition, flying a 450 Stearman. Circa 1949. h
 

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tonycondon said:
Being strapped into a parachute makes you feel like you're strapped into an airplane.
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I understand Tony, but wouldn't you think something was missing if you didn't hook up your seat restraints when you got in the plane? It is the first thing I do, and I just can't imagine forgetting that. It is a conditioned response to me sitting in the plane.

It's helpfull for when I roll the Tiger with the canopy open.



:D
 
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