I was at an airshow several years ago with a B-29 being there. At a distance of at least 200 yards from it, when all four of its radial engines were running, you could almost sense the feeling of the ground rumbling. What it was like during World War II on those small Pacific islands with hundreds of them running at once? A sensory experience unlike any before or since.

watching the flight and maintenance videos for the B24, B17 its amazing how much more complicated the B29 was in so short a time, to match its increased complexity and capability.

this video is 9 years old now, it feels like you're back in the 1950's as a B-29 trainee learning the basics.

Had to taxi a b29 off the runawaym glad to find this video

As a "plane-pusher" on both the USS Constellation, and the USS Bennington, I know a few things about signalling pilots: more, apparently, than the army guy who directed the B29 in the documentary. You don't give a "come hither" gesture: often the pilot cannot discern it. The signal for "come forward" consists of spreading your hands to about two and a half feet to above and to the side of your head an then bringing them toward the sides of your head about a foot each. You repeat this signal (not at a rapid speed) until the aircraft is at the point where you want it to either stop or turn.

It's hard to comprehend just how amazing this aircraft was back when it came out, nothing like the size, the amount of bombs, the offensive machine guns all around, it's still impressive, back then it must've been shocking to the enemy. Thank God for all who serve.🇺🇸🙏

There was some great footage of the Cletrack M2 Tug, a High-Speed Tractor (HST) manufactured by the Cleveland Tractor Company.

After the H.H. Arnold Special B29 was to go on it's maiden flight from Seattle to St. Louis ( if I remember correctly ), my uncle, the pilot, decided not to fly the airplane because of an oil leak in one of the engines. The authorities on the ground told my uncle to fly the plane with the oil leak, but my uncle said that he'd fly the plane after they fixed the oil leak. They fixed the oil leak. In it's maiden flight, somebody flipped on the cabin lights, which shorted out all the instruments on the instrument panel. They had to find an airport to land, and somehow they found an air port with a landing strip long enough. The electrical problem was fixed, and they successfully continued on their flight.

WOW!! I'm 53. I have watched a lot of documentary on WW2(my dad was in the war,not a pilot. United States Army ground forces in Europe) More people should know how much Hard work and training they did in WW2 to Get Things Right.

Almost 30 years on the ramp in Okla. We get wind and serious storms. No way your leaving two foot slack in a tiedown rope. Some ac had to tie down the noses or they would leave. Still was a cool video, Love them warbirds. Thank you Periscope!

This is an incorrect and ignorant comment. The Tupolev Tu-4 (NATO reporting name: Bull) was a reverse-engineered copy of the U.S.-made Boeing B-29 Superfortress. It did not debut until 1949 -- four years after the B-29!

Those guys have some cool ass jackets!!!

Funny how the synced up the narrator's voice with the pilots at 2:54

Okay I’m ready now!

While I never worked around aircraft, I find it difficult to imagine that the close calls during taxing would be acceptable.

Another great historic film. Good to see the Cletrac (no 'K'), but the hotshot driver is questionable.

The proper care and maintenance of your B-29...

The lack of nose wheel steering ,puts excessive strain on the main undercarriage, tyres and forward radius rods. Constant brake application to control direction during taxiing increases wear of brake shoe bags and tyre treads. It is odd Boeing and Bendix did not design and engineer a suitable nose wheel steering system until 1946-47 when the B-50 Superfort Two 'SportPack' Model entered USAF service with Bendix or Goodrich multi-disc brakes and powered nose wheel steering, just like your ,71 Chevy Chevelle.

@11:39, the clamps on the cable. One is on correctly and one is not. I know which one is correct, do you? BTW these aren't correct in this fashion.

VERY 😎

A truly dreadful yet fabulous piece of machinery . . . & the sexiest nose leg in aviation.

Was this filmed in Pratt Kansas?

На земле они опасно маневрировали.

Getting sand in the bomb bay isn't a problem?

Bummer the 29's didn't have steerable nose wheels.

They used football terminology to make it easier to understand for 1940s era civilians but it makes it more confusing for me in modern times since no young people watch football.

back in the time when we had one bathroom for men and one bathroom for women.

Shame the footage was ruined with that huge banner in the centre of the screen 🙄👎🏼

Wow, Ground Handling made hard the USAAF way, ok, I know all Airforces have their own way of doing things and that large aircraft like the B-29 have their own peculiarities, but in this case the hand signals used whilst marshalling, towing and see of procedures (I know they didn’t do the see off) were unclear and done like it was just to much effort. When grounding or ungrounding an aircraft it’s attach to Mother Earth first (especially after a flight) then attach to aircraft, the opposite for ungrounding prior to towing or flight. During towing operations the brakeman should have his feet on the footbrakes at all times, so that if, for any reason, any of the towing team calls (screams like hell and everyone else involved does too) “brakes” there isn’t a delay while the brakeman stops picking his nose or dreaming of winning the world series (incidentally, why is it called the World Series? Only the USA and Canada, I believe, play in it, so why?) to react, thus avoiding an accidental collision of aircraft with Hangar, light stantion, other aircraft, boundary fences, ground support equipment (GSE) etc etc etc, and on most types the brakeman keeps his hand on the parking brake as well so that as soon as the footbrakes have been applied the parking brake can be applied to a) allow the brakeman to release his foot pressure on the brake pedals (easily get cramp or some other problem causing them to release their physical pressure and the aircraft could roll away, and yes I have seen it happen, more than once), and b) the parking brake, once applied, maintains constant and equal effect whilst not using up accumulator pressure. It only takes a fraction of a second for an accident to occur, but avoiding one also takes a fraction of a second as well. I was in every position on towing teams in my 24 years service with the RAF, from lowly chock Walker (if the aircraft started to runaway and the brakeman was still trying to get his finger out...of his nose, the chock man was supposed to throw, or should I say place the chocks in front of the wheels to stop it.....yeah right) all the way to team leader (plane captain I think you call it in the USA), and in all those years, and goodness knows how many aircraft moves, big, medium, and small, I was never part of or in control of a team that had a collision, luck? Yes, teamwork? Yes, Training? Yes, experience? Yes, but these USAAF/USAF ground-crew were PANTS, and before long it could easily turn to FUBAR. Thanks for sharing this interesting and informative training film, 0/10 for the ground-crew, 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍/10 for P.F. 😀🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

NNN

We always attached ground to earth 1st then to the bird.

You should have gotten the volume up on this video before you decided to view it. Didn't anyone double check this before authorizing this film to be sent out? I would have had someone, or had myself personally view this first, and I definitely would have sent it back to have the volume cranked up, because it is far too low in my opinion!