B29 Frozen in Time, Kee Bird

tonight on nova a b-29 flying a cold war spy mission crash-landed in the arctic her crew was rescued but the keyboard was left behind nearly half a century later a new team wants to bring her home just like new again you bet it will fly but conditions are harsh the work exhausting their shared dream becomes a life and death drama as they struggle to free the b-29 frozen in time a c-141 lifts off from thule air force base once a vital staging post for the nuclear bomber fleet tully is now a relic of the cold war while its radar dome still probe the horizon it is eerily quiet and almost deserted one of the most remote and isolated outposts of the united states air force it lies on the inhospitable barren shore of northwest greenland deep inside the arctic circle the climate is harsh and unforgiving even in summer when the sun never sets it remains so cold that the sea is littered with icebergs inland a vast unbroken ice cap stretches for 800 miles the weather changes hourly from bright sun to dark menacing storm clouds with gale force winds 250 miles north of thule lies another relic of the cold war an almost intact b-29 bomber this plane nicknamed the key bird became lost and crash-landed while on a secret mission the crew was rescued but the keyboard would lie here abandoned for almost 50 years when the b-29 first flew in 1942 it could go higher and farther than any other bomber in the war against japan it traversed the pacific and crested the himalayas the culmination of the b-29s military service was when the enola gay dropped the atomic bomb on hiroshima ending the war nearly 4 000 of these planes were built but now less than a handful remain if the key bird could be recovered from this arctic wilderness it would be a unique treasure of aviation history probably worth a great deal of money daryl grinemeyer a former test pilot has been working on a bold plan to rescue the b-29 and fly it back home daryl has flown higher and faster than most other living pilots he had once been a test pilot on the u-2 spy plane and its replacement the sr-71 blackbird in the 70s he built his own starfighter jet from spare parts to gain a low altitude speed record which he still holds an accomplished pilot and engineer used to taking risks if anyone could pull this off it was daryl it really is a unique opportunity it may be the only airplane in the world that i can think of that's been sitting somewhere for 50 years that you could actually get in and potentially fly it's just in a far away place that's that's the reason it's available but getting the keyboard into the air requires more than skill and boldness the bulk of the heavy supplies and machinery that darrell would need has to be carried to thule on the annual supply ship a five-ton bulldozer will be needed to build a runway for the b-29 bulky new tires and propellers are also required along with four massive reconditioned radial engines all of this equipment has to be carried north over the 250 miles of desolate arctic landscape that separates thule from the bomber daryl's solution is a 1962 caribou another of his salvaged wonders it's basically a short field you know short landing to take off airplane and it's made for unimproved fields they use it in vietnam a lot and it's it's pretty rugged airplane it's ideal for this sort of thing flying these engines in and it'll carry a pretty good load rick kriege who had been daryl's chief engineer for over seven years is responsible for making his plans work with the caribou's arrival in mid-july daryl's team is complete cecilia grandy has been rick's assistant for three years learning on the job dirt doesn't go through the filter vernon rich is a tool maker and machinist and bob vanderveen as well as being another pair of hands is going to do the cooking roger von grote a retired airline pilot and the distant relative of baron von richthofen will fly the caribou daryl and the others take off from tully uh their flight takes them over uncharted mountains and glaciers 250 miles north it is a risky journey into the unknown where the chances of rescue are slim finally they come to the valley where the b-29 came to rest they fly low over the valley floor roger lowers the wheels and makes a brief touchdown to test how firm the surface is it seems fine so they go around and come in to make a landing if anything goes wrong now the consequences could be fatal but they make it the relief and euphoria spills out as they examine their landing strip fantastic guys get the thing turned around in this soft dirt you know oh yeah we can in fact with this i felt this is the first really soft stuff we hit look back the team begins to set up camp as behind them the b-29 gleams like new in the chill arctic sunshine a time capsule preserved in this remote valley all around is evidence of the remarkable story of the key bird's last crew for them landing here had been nothing to celebrate it had been the start of a frightening three days i honestly didn't think was going to get out of it i i had made up my mind on the way down that this is no dream this is a reality face it and accept it then we realized once we're out the the plane was not on fire that was the main concern arnett made a hell of a good landing and the the airplane was intact nobody was hurt in the crash landing but they were stranded in a deadly climate miles from anywhere not knowing if they would be rescued my biggest concern i was too busy frankly wanting to get a position in to the search airplane so some of you would know where we were that was a big thing establishing our position and find out where the hell we are so we could be rescued our spirits are high we knew we were going to get out we just it wasn't one guy didn't feel like we weren't going to make it but i remember the cold and no place to go to get warm that's the thing that i remember mostly about it on the second day an air force plane found the key bird the greatest we felt was when they when that plane flew overhead with the supplies they knew where we they actually physically spotted us that's with the greatest feeling a day later a plane landed beside them and flew them out to safety now at last the keyboard was going to be rescued as well i've got torn feelings and everybody's excited by getting it out and i can make a lot of money on it apparently and everything look at this airplane it's great and all that but somehow it's something like going into an indian grave as far as i'm concerned i kind of feel like it belongs up there no longer claimed by the air force the key bird was now available to anyone who could fly her out daryl and his team go to work the radio link to thule is established the tent set up and bob starts work on recovering the damaged rudder which despite the aluminum construction of the b-29 had been covered in fabric then as the caribou taxis to return to thule their precarious situation is brought home to them daryl was trying to taxi around i was out watching and he got going a little bit and then nose wheel just went all the way 90. both tires rolled up you know roll off the rim lost all their air i thought we're stuck there it takes hours to dig the wheels out of the sticky mud rick's idea to use propane gas from the camp stove allows the caribou to return to thule even though the wheels could explode if they get too hot the plane takes off leaving rick bob and cecilia behind once a thule they refill the tires it is vital to get the bulldozer up to the b-29 and improvise a runway but the caribou will be seriously overloaded and as daryl inches the bulldozer onto the plane roger is concerned it's a little bit higher risk than i really thought it would be because daryl can access everything for the limit if the both engines run it'll get off the ground but if one engine quits uh we're just gonna have to crash straight ahead because one engine is not gonna carry the load the caribou slow and cumbersome returns to the b-29 rick lights a bonfire so that roger knows the wind direction for his landing as the dangerously overloaded caribou comes into land people on the ground do not realize that something has gone seriously wrong the flaps had failed and roger had nearly lost control we came in uh no flapper i came i came out i knew you were coming well 90 knots i was stalling i was in this shaker at 90. and uh daryl said we can't do it with how he flaps that oh and i don't want to go all the way back to it we're getting low on fuel the caribou has plowed into the soft earth another inch and the propellers would have smashed into the ground disaster had been narrowly averted daryl puts the bulldozer to work on the b-29 immediately proving it's worth the keyboard is back on dry land for the first time in half a century when the giant b-29 crashed in 1947 the bombay doors suffer the most obvious damage they will be taken off to be replaced later well the snow really cushioned it real well it it built up under the bomb bays and the bombay doors took all the load and about 90 percent of the damage there's a little bit of damage on the out fuselage but that and on the flaps but that's it the propellers were badly buckled by the crash and the main engine bearings were twisted new ones will be put in their place the key elements were the engines but uh we've got four new engines we ran two of them on the test stand they all ran they ran great we need to get these engines on and tidied up and ready to run and then hang propellers they take an inventory of the work necessary to get the plane air worthy the tires they look good but they're rayon and rayon doesn't age well so we brought up some nylon tires to change them out the rudder and the elevators are going to be changed out coming on over here to the uh the ailerons the control surfaces were fabric and the uh they have to be changed they were paper thin you could put your finger right through them the summer here is very short so time is of the essence and daryl has a limited budget he planned to make a round trip in the cariboo every two days to fly in the engines and parts from thule the weather so far has prevented this darrell hoped the whole project could be finished in a month but two weeks have passed and he has yet to fly a single new engine out of tule captain dugan the base manager asks him about the schedule when you got here that you know trying to plan to have people in here and we could fly straight through and we haven't been able to and i told him i said the weather up here is not like it may be summer and but it's not summer like you think of it in the united states that's right talk to the man upstairs and do something with this weather well to get it the same as both sites would be unique also yeah yeah yeah actually the weather up there in the last few days has been nice well that's what i heard i can say it's good up there and it hasn't been good here it's hot yeah it gets actually hot sometimes like 50 degrees no wind back at the b-29 rick cecilia and bob continue working stripping off the old twisted propellers rick designed the hoist from old photos of b-29s being field maintained during the second world war daryl and roger return with a new engine and the old ones are slowly eased off before the new engines can be installed a lot of components need to be stripped from the old ones well how do you want to dismantle this thing well first you gotta take the carburetor to take all this stuff off then we gotta take the injection pumps off and we gotta take the carburetor off okay and then we take the motor mount off all right eventually a small production line is set up as old engines are dismantled to be taken back to thule and the new ones are made ready to be hoisted back into place on the old engine mountings the engines themselves are massive 18-cylinder radials the most powerful ever built changing these huge engines in a warm hanger is difficult enough doing it in the middle of the arctic will be a backbreaking task rick is tireless and his workload isn't only confined to the b-29 the caribou also presents problems the caribou takes off on its third trip to thule it circles and returns to land roger thinks there may be an engine fire as soon as i went to cruise power the light came on and it was flashing and i went back and looked at the engine you know i didn't see any smoke or anything but you know i was reading in a book where they said you can get some fires internally with no smoke evidence so all we thought was prudent to come back where the maintenance is rick discovers that the fire indicator on the engine is faulty the abortive flight has cost daryl more time it's really disappointing what can i say i mean it's uh here we got two beautiful days of weather coming up and we got plenty of work to do but it's it's just gonna you know if if we can't take off on monday then we are behind we're going to have people sitting on their hands doing nothing then the weather causes more delay a month has passed and it is now the second week of august snow is beginning to settle ominously on the surrounding hills rick and cecilia keep working even in the rain hammering on the exhaust cowlings whose side are you on uh have you heard a report from the casa on the tops of the clouds and also is it scattered or broken back uh tully daryl is desperate to keep the shuttle flights going and feels that he has to risk flying in bad weather okay i guess we'll uh we'll give it a shot we'll come around and then we'll try and come in under it okay come down with it let's go ahead and go back up with it again the work is physically demanding removing the old tires takes hours even using the bulldozer to separate them from the rim hey bob i spawn rick is beginning to show the strain of this hard work and looks exhausted now meal times bring some respite and are an opportunity to tell stories of old exploits like the time daryl tried to take off in panama without using the runway they wanted me to take off on the ramp so they didn't have to open up the fence to get on panama property to use the runway so i said well no problem but then they wanted me to take off a little bit downwind because if i went the other way i'd be flying over the general's house okay and so i said well okay i think so it was a downhill run and then a slight turn about 60 knots and then down the ramp how much runway do you have all told i don't remember but what happened was i went down the little hill and made the right turn and then it started bouncing and all of a sudden the nose will stirring kicked out and i tried to hold it and the i was too close to the fence and so it it kind of lifted off and then squatted right down on the fence but i didn't give up just then i kept going under the wing of that snow storm it was too hot it was coming loose because of that oh really bob has finished recovering the rudder with fabric and he and roger are now putting the finishing touches to it vernon has had to make many of the small components for the rudder cables and control surfaces from scratch without blueprints it is not easy drill this one out and stick it in the other end so we'll have the same configuration just like we made the other two well you do uh yeah i accept it no no we'll go to this this size bowl right right yeah so we're going up all right just like new again yeah this is the real recovery work here it'll fly you bet it'll fly by the time the rudder is ready to be hoisted back into place the project has taken five weeks far longer than daryl's original forecast why don't you give me that is that the correct one up there but the sun is now back can people's spirits have lifted again all right stick a bolt in there and i'll wiggle it around all right just can you tap it in well you see the flange in front it's got to be straight with this i mean in back in back in the back of the flange see it's a flat spot yeah well it isn't lined up it's going yeah it is right there that's it well it fell in are you crying are you so happy on those tears of joy the weeks of work are paying off the rudder has been fitted and four new engines are in place the last major job is the propellers the propellers came out of prop shop in tucson and they've been overhauled but they haven't been finally assembled yet we'll put those together hang them on but i don't anticipate any problem with that they i've done that before and they usually go together pretty easy these are awful big propellers so the biggest i've ever dealt with okay come on carefully balanced in a workshop back home they have to be assembled in the right sequence or they'll rip the engines apart step right on your foot wiped off it's probably got sand all over it now set it down here let me have it all right up okay you got it all right here we let's go okay set it down look at that see that's what happens when you have the first team man 16 feet across and weighing almost a ton they're difficult to maneuver that looks good we're gonna have to come down about an inch and a half first how's the crane for okay a little bit more okay hold it okay that's it okay now you should be able to rock it okay now it's time to start an engine it's the first real test of weeks of exhausting work and the engine refuses to start rick thinks he knows what's wrong she gave me a pair of tin snips no no okay the carburetor needs adjusting everyone is jubilant but still only one engine has been tested time is running out fast and vernon is still working on the other three we've got to hook everything up to them to make sure that they work going to put the magnetos on the generators all the fuel system the oil system it probably takes uh 12 14 hours after the time you stick it on there per motor uh to actually get them going uh and that's in a nice heated hangar with all the tools that you need but so when it's blowing uh blowing snow sideways it takes a little bit longer and we'll fix it we'll get it going the last major hurdle is a runway daryl uses the bulldozer to level the ground but the heavy rain has left the tundra waterlogged the shallow lakes dotting the surface normally a b-29 will use a runway of over five thousand feet but the most daryl can hope for is two thousand feet of dry earth to take off this is the in spot of all right here and uh it's it's it's really at a critical distance well you know like you're saying two days ago there was no water here so hopefully with you know three or four good days yeah just like this this water won't even be here it's august the 22nd and the first sunset at midnight signals the approach of the polar winter finally all four engines have their controls and fuel systems connected and are ready to be tested darrell climbs into the cockpit and the first engine is turned over hahahahaha it's a beautiful the engines will have to run perfectly to lift the giant bomber from such a short runway rick knows that everything needs to be double checked once you stand up on that side look down there and see if you can see the oily so i'm gonna go around here work continues on the engines eliminating oil leaks and making sure that everything will work as it should everyone's got an oil leak that one's got a loose pushrod it seems that the flight of the keyboard will be only a few days away the caribou departs for tully to pick up more fuel for the bomber but just as success seems within reach rick has become ill for several weeks he's been taking painkillers for what he's insisted is a badly twisted back most days he's faced the grueling schedule in great pain he has now collapsed and can no longer do any work then the caribou returns with a serious mechanical problem one that puts everybody's safety in jeopardy we lost partial power on the right engine of the caribou and we thought it was probably a cylinder problem and then when we arrived we found that we had a stuck exhaust valve and it was hitting the top of the piston and we need a cylinder to get out of here with any kind of safety at all the winter finally hits bringing gale force winds and freezing rain the temperature plummets soon life here will be impossible if they don't get out now they never will the first of the winter snow is settling on the camp after two months time has beaten daryl work on the keyboard stops as everyone's attention focuses on the caribou the caribou is their lifeline and vernon and cecilia struggle to fit a spare cylinder despite inadequate tools and freezing fingers they managed to do it but the engine still has a serious oil leak and there's no guarantee it won't give out all together as they fly over the glacier back to tooling you fly this now if we can put oil in the engine while we're flying and we have absolutely no problem at all every flight of the cariboo is a flirtation with death this is ever more so as ice is knocked off the caribou's wing daryl faces up to the fact that he can go no further i'm just gonna have to sit down and take a long thinking session about what we're going to do i haven't given up we've got too much uh we're too close the airplane is essentially ready to fly we never did get a runway suitable to take off this year the uh winter caught us rick is sicker and a dog we got to get him out of here and probably to a hospital and so things are coming to a screeching halt at last they're ready to pull out leaving the keyboard where it has been for nearly 50 years halfway through the flight the caribou's right engine loses power but they managed to struggle on one engine into tully rick is carried off into an ambulance suffering from internal bleeding he is flown to a hospital in canada and rushed to surgery two weeks later this kind and gentle man a resourceful and highly skilled engineer died of a blood clot daryl could barely come to terms with rick's death but having come so far he was not prepared to give up his struggle to recover the b-29 it would mean bitter disappointment and financial disaster nine months later with the caribou still out of action at thule daryl returns the keyboard in a chartered twin order he has enlarged the team with the inclusion of matt jackson and john cater both specialists in radial engines an old friend al hansen a qualified b-29 flight engineer the temperature never rises above 24 degrees fahrenheit the cold makes the work far more difficult but daryl's plan is to use the surface of the frozen lake as a runway we were trying to get here as late as possible before the ice melted so that we could use the lake for the runway and and yet not have miserable cold weather the lake is covered in snow drifts but daryl's main concern is how long it will remain frozen i'd say two weeks we've got to get on that lake or we're in trouble the snow has piled up around the keyboard and the engines need to be thoroughly checked after the winter the new team is all business the biting cold is a spur to their determination to get the job done daryl is concerned about the effect the cold will have on the engines it takes his time warming them up he's running at low rpm until the oil temperature gets up how long will that take 10 minutes they discover a number of oil leaks we're fighting little gremlins right now because of the weather you know moisture and coal really wreaks havoc on an airplane you can bring a brand new airplane up here and let it sit for a week and you'll have the same kind of problems the engine cowlings have to be taken off and replaced every time something needs fixing in the engines and every time an engine stops great care has to be taken before it can be restarted after a week of work the engines are running smoothly and the oil leaks have been eliminated the flight of the keyboard is approaching and daryl turns his thoughts to the runway what i'm concerned about is the drifts on the lake i tried to to flatten them out with the bulldozer and the greater that we've got but uh i may have created more problem than i uh cured because the it left little mounds the problem with the b29 is there's no nose wheel stirring and so when i hit one of these mounds with the right gear it's going to pull right it's a problem we're just gonna have to get out and try it the engines cool quickly in this climate and an oil burning heater pipes hot air under the cowlings to keep them close to working temperature preparations get underway for the first flight daryl must be ready as soon as the conditions are right today is a good day it's it's warmer and what we'll do is we'll start at one end we're preheating one engine now and we'll start it then we'll start the next one and then get to the third one by time we get to the third one we'll probably go back and run the first one and then get and so we get them all up to temperature um at the same time and then once we get them up there we've got to keep them there that's why it's so critical to once we get everything warmed up and ready to go that we don't dally we go otherwise we got to start the whole process again and that's burning fuel which is a precious commodity up here you know when the engines are running there's a surge of adrenaline i want to get in it and go and i think it'll make it daryl strides to the cockpit the dream that has obsessed him for three years is just hours from being realized thad sits at the flight engineers console to start all four engines instruments that have remained dormant for 50 years once again register life in the machine the giant radial engines can deliver over 2 000 horsepower each thaad makes last-minute adjustments to the oil pressure and the carburetors to get the engines running sweetly much in the way it knows oil pressure on three darrell that's coming up now manifold pressure gauge just came loose there she comes as the propellers shimmer in the sunlight daryl puts the coordinates for thule into the newly installed satellite navigation system the plane has frozen into the modern snow and it takes maximum power to break the wheels free the nose wheel can't be controlled and at slow speeds daryl has to adjust the engine power to steer the plane finally it is moving in a wide circle out onto the lake on its way toward the end of the runway the plane is bounced and shaken by the frozen snow drifts suddenly smoke can be seen pouring from the windows in the cockpit the auxiliary power unit a standby generator was thrown from its mounting in the rear fuselage and caught fire fortunately the crew managed to jump clear daryl shouts for more extinguishers but it's too late the fire has already swept through the plane he can do nothing but stand and watch as this irreplaceable piece of aviation history is consumed by fire with it go the years of planning and hard work by so many people apparently the uh the apu was left running in the tail and the fuel tank broke loose and dumped fuel on the apu and started to fire in the tail that's where the fire extinguisher was but we couldn't get to it i don't think it would have made a difference which way we took off it would have been airborne a third of the way across the lake well i almost threw my bag in before you pulled out cause i figured we were gonna go so i just put my tools in where are they up front no they're in the tail where the fire was oh that's gone my tools are up front that wasn't because we didn't try it was ready to go that's the the real tragedy of it i mean we were so close success was right there it was right there but this is my game and i do it again daryl had faith that the b-29 would fly once again with him at the controls but instead it remains on the frozen surface when the ice melts what's left of the keyboard the new engines and propellers will sink and come to rest on the dark bottom of the lake forever educators and home viewers can purchase this and many other nova programs for 19.95 plus shipping and handling to order call 1-800-255-9424 you

Channel: bdrmfg

Views: 565,143

Rating: 4.7782011 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 2g3ZU0ZEVRk

Length: 54min 38sec (3278 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 05 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/CiredFish]

It was a good documentary, frustrating stupid ending though, not to spoil it for anyone.

[u/Useless_Corrections]

This is one of my favorite Nova episodes of all time. I remember watching when it first aired back in the 90’s. Very sad story but presented very well.

[u/Reddit_reader_2206]

Turn this off as soon as the plane looks airworthy. Trust me.

[u/SwenSnuk]

Depressing end.

[u/NealR2000]

So much hard work and they were so close to project completion. Very sad.

[u/C_King_Justice]

Found it on Google Earth.

[u/I_got_bs_ideas]

/r/Wellthatsucks

[u/rowlfthedog12]

I watched this documentary long me ago and I thought that this was the worst organized rescue mission ever. Tons of fuckups and quite predictable ending.

[u/Sniffinberries32]

Huh? The ending was a little confusing