The airplane's components had been transported to the center earlier this year over a period of weeks in 12 truckloads from the museum's storage and preservation facility in Suitland, Md. The airplane's forward and aft fuselage sections, wings, landing gear, engines, propellers and vertical stabilizer were brought together for the first time since 1960 in an arduous operation this spring and summer in the Udvar-Hazy (pronounced OOD-var HAH-zee) Center's aviation hangar. Restoration work on the Enola Gay began in 1984 and involved a total of some 300,000 staff hours. Udvar-Hazy Center, the museum's new companion facility in Northern Virginia, which opens to the public Dec. The airplane, which received the most extensive restoration in the museum's history, will be on display at the Steven F. 18) unveiled the newly reassembled Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress used to drop the first atomic bomb in combat. "This airplane is part of our history and part of who we are," he said.Monday, Aug| 12:00am Media Inquiries Claire Brown 20 Public InquiriesĢ0 More information The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum today (Aug. The exhibit focuses on the restoration process and the technical advances of the B-29 bomber in its time.ĭaso said it's important for Americans to see the plane and realize its importance. Visitors won't be allowed inside the aircraft, but the plane has been photographed from 144 angles, allowing the Smithsonian to create a virtual tour of the interior. Visitors will see the outside of the Enola Gay, which will be propped 8 feet off the ground to leave room to display other aircraft under its 141-foot wingspan, Dailey said.
The museum in Washington holds only about 10 percent of the Air and Space collection, he said. The center will house 200 aircraft and 135 large space artifacts that can't be displayed at the Air And Space Museum in Washington because of their size, museum director Gen. The museum's interest in avoiding the subject is understandable, he said, because the U.S. "Japanese survivors want to focus attention more to the damage of the atomic bomb," he said. Hideki Yui of Japan Broadcasting Corp., one of many Japanese media members attending Monday's event, said there is a lot of interest in Japan in the new exhibit. Museum officials avoided the controversy that grounded a 1995 exhibit, which discussed the effects of the bomb on the Japanese people. 15, when the Udvar-Hazy Center opens near Washington Dulles International Airport. The plane will be available for public viewing on Dec. Curators restored each part to the way it looked on "mission day," down to particular radio tubes used at the time, Daso said. But because components are so old it, wouldn't be flight worthy. The Enola Gay has been restored so completely that it would probably start if fueled, officials said. Over the years, some parts of the Enola Gay were replaced in normal use and others were lost or taken by collectors, said Dik Daso, the Smithsonian's curator of modern military aircraft.
6, 1945 when it dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The restoration, the result of 300,000 hours of work over nearly 20 years, made the B-29 bomber look as it did on Aug. The Smithsonian Institution unveiled a restored Enola Gay on Monday, making the B-29 bomber that helped end World War II the centerpiece of the new annex to the Air and Space Museum.