A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Business Aviation Services Editor

Curt Epstein

While many might consider Wichita’s role in aviation history through the recent lens of the numerous Citations, Learjets, King Airs, and other aircraft produced by its manufacturers, the city has carried the sobriquet of Air Capital of the World since the late 1920s.
During World War II, Boeing’s Wichita factory churned out more than 1,600 B-29 Superfortress bombers, and the story of how one of them returned as an abandoned wreck and was restored to become only the second of its type still airworthy is told by Wichita-based Dave Franson, a veteran aviation industry publicist.
Every story requires a protagonist, and in Franson’s new book,&nbsp;Rescuing DOC, that is Cleveland native Tony Mazzolini, who served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War as a flight engineer, having enlisted fresh out of high school.
The first half of the book is relayed to the author as first-person narrative and describes how Mazzolini got the idea to rescue a B-29, his quest to locate a viable candidate for restoration, and the eventual hoops he was forced to jump through to gain title to the four-engine bomber that had lain forgotten at the China Lake weapon test range in the California desert for more than four decades.
DOC wasn’t the first target as Mazzolini cast his net for a B-29. Indeed, it was possibly the last viable example left. His search followed up every trail of potential subjects, including one that had crashed and sank in Nevada’s Lake Mead, and even the ill-fated snowbound Kee Bird in Greenland (which would eventually be destroyed in a salvage attempt by another crew). A call to the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah revealed that any aircraft or components there were permanently off-limits due to radiation contamination.
In conversation with contacts he had made at the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake during his quest, Mazzolini learned through an offhand comment that there was indeed one B-29 left there, “in fairly good condition.” It was lingering in case a museum was ever installed at the base in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
Mazzolini and his small crew were finally given permission to visit China Lake to see it with their own eyes after his request bounced around the halls of the Pentagon. He had seen DOC—part of a squadron of B-29s named after the characters in Disney’s animated "Snow White" movie—at a New York Air Force Base during his Air Force duty, and recounts his sense of wonder upon realizing that of the nearly 4,000 B-29s produced, this was the same aircraft abandoned in the desert. Mazzolini would then navigate the byzantine maze of military and government bureaucracy for a dozen years until he was finally able to negotiate a resolution.
To gain ownership of DOC's carcass, Mazzolini was forced to accept a rather one-sided trade. He was required to obtain and restore a B-25 in U.S. Navy colors as a PBJ, which he could then barter with the National Museum of Naval Aviation for the transfer of the B-29’s remains.
Exhuming the aircraft from where it had lain and removing it from the test range was entirely up to his group, and in the process, they had to satisfy various environmental regulations (including avoiding endangered desert tortoise burrows), which slowed the process.
Surprisingly, Mazzolini wasn’t the only one with the idea of obtaining the relic, and other groups attempted to undercut him, but luckily for him, the authorities he dealt with recognized his claim as the first and never wavered.
In a monumental project such as this, financing was always a concern, and Mazzolini—through Franson’s narrative—details the machinations as some of the backers attempted to conduct an end run and cut him out of the process.
Other problems involved miscommunications within various departments of the military establishment, one of which accused Mazzolini and his crew of theft of government resources. After satisfying all of the conditions set forth, Mazzolini finally found himself the owner of a derelict B-29.
Once excavated, Doc was eventually towed nearly 40 miles to Inyokern Airport, in the process making it “the longest and widest vehicle to ever cross a California highway.”
Mazzolini’s initial plans called for the work at Inyokern to progress to the point that DOC would receive a ferry permit to fly to its future home in Cleveland, where the restoration would be completed. But with the restoration stagnating, Mazzolini reached out to contacts at Boeing in Seattle who directed him to their Wichita facility, DOC’s birthplace. He was told that if he could get that airplane to Wichita, “we can help you get it back into the air.”
Once the airframe arrived in Wichita in segments, the narrative of the story changes to those among “DOC’s Friends” who played large roles in its restoration, including Jeff Turner, v-p and general manager of Boeing-Wichita, who issued the original invitation that changed the bomber’s course to Kansas. It was here that Wichita’s storied aviation history shone; many of its residents worked in aircraft manufacturing and provided a skilled pool of volunteer labor.
The book describes the tedious tasks of restoring or finding replacements for 80-year-old parts and components, not to mention coordinating the work required to remove, reassemble, and attach them as the restoration dragged on. Many hurdles presented themselves. For instance, during its service days, DOC’s cockpit instruments and gauges included radium-based paint to make them glow in the dark. All of them had to be removed and sent to a lab to be sanitized of radioactivity before they could be reinstalled.
In 2009, in the aftermath of the global economic downturn, Boeing departed Wichita but with the pledge of $1 million towards the establishment of a permanent Kansas base for DOC. At that point, Mazzolini made the decision to sign ownership of the bomber over to a Wichita-based 501 C3 organization, which maintains and operates the aircraft.
Finally, on July 17, 2016, the momentous day—one which many thought would never happen—occurred as DOC’s four engines roared to life before a group of volunteers, dignitaries, and media, and the big silver airplane left the ground for the first time in more than half a century.

After all that work, DOC needed a permanent home, and Franson details the negotiations, planning, and construction of its <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2019-04-29/b-29-doc-settles-new-wichita-hangar">purpose-built hangar </a>and museum at Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (KICT) as well as provides a walkthrough of all the exhibits.
Franson noted that after a career spent learning about, observing, and writing about airplanes, it was no surprise that on his retirement, he would choose to write a book about DOC’s journey.
“DOC is Wichita with wings,” he told&nbsp;AIN. “Building the B-29 during World War ll exemplified that pride as the local workforce worked around the clock during 'the Battle of Kansas' to produce the first B-29s to enter the conflict. When, nearly 60 years after the war ended, an opportunity to restore one of only two airworthy B-29s landed in Wichita, the community’s pride, patriotism, and perseverance re-emerged. Today, they embrace the airplane as a symbol of Wichita’s aviation heritage and a tangible means of honoring the Greatest Generation.”
For anyone who has ever thrilled at the sound of vintage aircraft engines throttling up, Rescuing DOC&nbsp;takes you on the full flight, from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs, in one of the most audacious and improbably successful aircraft restorations in history.

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Rescuing DOC: The Tale of a B-29’s Triumphant Return to Wichita and Flight

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Rescuing DOC details one man’s quest to restore a derelict B-29 to flight status.


Rescuing DOC: The Tale of a B-29’s Triumphant Return to Wichita

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