Camarillo : B-29 Grounded by Engine Failure

Another engine failure Friday grounded the only B-29 Superfortress still capable of flying, possibly ending chances that the historic plane would make a West Coast tour that included Camarillo.

Fifi, a World War II-era bomber, was taking off from Midland, Tex., Friday when it “swallowed a piston,” said Jerri Fleishman, a member of the Confederate Air Force, the aircraft aficionados who restored the plane.

The plane will be grounded for at least a month while the engine is rebuilt, and it may not be airworthy in time for the 50th anniversary of the B-29, scheduled for late August in Seattle, Fleishman said.

The plane was 600 feet in the air when the oil pressure dropped in one the engines.

“Best we can figure is that one of the pistons gave way and cracked,” Fleishman said.

The plane had just been repaired for a cracked cylinder in another engine.

Confederate Air Force members were able to replace the ruined cylinder in the vintage Curtiss-Wright 3350 engine, but Friday’s mishap damaged an entire engine, which must be rebuilt because it cannot be replaced, Fleishman said.

“You can’t exactly pull those things off the shelf,” he said.