The 2001 Joe Nall Fly-In is history and so is the B-29. It met its demise at the beginning of the first roll on the first flight Friday. I had dropped the X-1 on a successful flight, climbed up, spun down, recovered, leveled out, turned parallel with the runway, powered up, and when I gave right aileron to initiate a roll, the left wing folded at a point about 5 feet in from the left tip. It broke at the end of the plug in wing tubes in an area with no spar support, only the foam and sheeting giving support. And the sheeting had very little adhesion to the foam anymore. It was also a very windy and gusty day that might have contributed to the failure.

The B-29 was built in 1983 by Larry Horbacz from Brunswick, Georgia. Larry died in 1989 having never seen the B-29 take to the air. Larry was a prolific builder of giant scale airplanes but didn't fly. I met Larry about 1980 when he showed up at a fly-in with all these big planes and didn't know how to fly them. Someone pointed him in my direction and I was more than happy to do the test flight honors. The flights were successful and we became good friends, meeting at fly-ins all over the area with him building new birds and me flying them. He built the 29 in 1983 from Bob Campbell plans and cores after Bob had built one for the movie "The Right Stuff". Larry was on a tight budget and pieces and parts came slowly for the big 29. By the time he got close to having it ready, a 100 lb. weight limit was imposed and the 29 was about 120 lbs. so he kind of put it aside. He developed leukemia and died in 1989 at the age of 51. His parents wanted me to have the 29 and I told them I would get it flying as a tribute to Larry. And that I did.

The first flight was in April of 1991 at my annual fly-in at Hodges Hobbies. His parents and brother were here and there were plenty of tears during that first flight. The first flight was very successful. Just a few passes around the field keeping the gear extended. The second flight was in 1992 at the same fly-in. This time I had sent the gear off and had it worked on in order to make it operable. Well, on the second flight, one gear leg fell off, an engine or two started sagging, and things started going downhill in a hurry. I retracted the gear and made it back to the edge of a plowed field. The crash landing knocked one of the engine nacelles off. We repaired the damage and I sent the gear to someone else to rebuild. In 1993 we flew it successfully and took it around to a few fly-ins but didn't go too many places because it didn't have the AMA certification for a 55 to 100 lb. airplane. Don Lowe said I ought to go ahead and get it certified so I could be legal with it. But to do that it had to loose some weight. I swapped the American 70 engines ( 4.2 Homelites ) for Quadra 42s and lost about 12 lbs. The rest of the weight was lost by making new outer wing panels and stabs with lighter foam, lighter sheeting, and using Monokote instead of glass and paint.

So in 1994 we hit the road with it and had flown it approximately 225 flights at 33 different sights. A remarkable record! I never thought it would have lasted anywhere near this long. We added the X-1 about 5 years ago after my flying buddy Dan Stevens came up with the idea and built a model to the same scale as the B-29. It was a big success and got the biggest applause of any act at a fly-in including the B-29. By the way, Dan's looking for a ride now if you know of a 29 out there. Will we build another? Time will tell I suppose. I always said I would move on when it happened and wouldn't build another one but so many people have encouraged me to consider it that I might. Something about my "trademark". Like I said, time will tell.

Mac's B-29 Inverted Landing