If we found the B-29, I imagined seeing the desiccated skeleton of a wing or a tail poking through the snow. But when we swooped over a hill and dove into a wide snow-covered bowl at 150 knots, my heart raced. The "Kee Bird" was lying on top of the snow, a silver-coloured B-29 Superfortress, literally frozen in time.
Save a missing rudder and four bent props, the plane looked perfect, as if it had landed yesterday. I could see the yellow letters "Kee Bird" written on the nose, its panes of glass still intact. Four .50-caliber machine guns pointed sky-wards from the top turret. We banked hard to the left and swung around for another look in stunned silence.
"You know," said the pilot finally, over the intercom, as he swept eighty-five feet above the "Kee Bird", "some guys came to the plane last summer and actually got the engine started. And they're coming back this summer to fly it out."
