‘Enola Gay’ pilot’s grandson to fly B-29 ‘Doc’

The grandson of the Enola Gay pilot will be in Wichita on Friday to take the controls of the B-29 Bomber, “Doc.”

McConnell Air Force Base said in a news release Tuesday Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets IV will fly Doc from the right seat when the Wichita-built and restored Boeing Superfortress travels to Whiteman Air Force Base for the Wings Over Whiteman Airshow on Saturday and Sunday.

Tibbets IV is the grandson of Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets Jr., who was commander of the B-29 Enola Gay on its mission to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945.

Tibbets IV also is commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman, and a B-2 stealth bomber pilot.

He was at Spirit AeroSystems last week to celebrate Spirit’s partnership with Northrop Grumman on the manufacture of the Air Force’s new B-21 Raider long-range strike bomber.

This story was originally published June 6, 2017 at 10:24 AM with the headline "‘Enola Gay’ pilot’s grandson to fly B-29 ‘Doc’."