They had onboard “the gadget”, a single bomb ordinance called “Little Boy”, yet they had up to three other possible alternate targets. What many people don’t realise is that even at that midway point in the mission, the flight crew of the Enola Gay did not yet know exactly where the target was going to be. From Iwo Jima, the Enola Gay and its two support aircraft veered eastward towards the island of Honshu and increased their cruising altitude to 9,500 m and settled into a sustained speed of around 200 knots. Three other supporting B-29s had left Tinian an hour earlier to conduct weather reconnaissance over the selected targets on the Japanese mainland. 35 was rising into the inky blackness of the northern Pacific skies on an initial flight path to Iwo Jima where it rendezvoused with mission support aircraft whose primary role would be to document what happens over the next few hours on film and through scientific telemetry. Thirty seconds later USAF Operations Order No. It took every ounce of horsepower, every metre of tarmac to get the 60,000 kg aircraft airborne. The Enola Gay was 7,500 kilograms overweight due to the heavy fuel load and the weight of its onboard ordinance that morning.
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At the controls Tibbets and his co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis carefully built the four Wright R-3350 engines to the roar of full power, released brakes and slowly began to lumber down the 2,500-metre runway. When the huge bomber named ‘Enola Gay’ after Tibbets’s mother, reached the end of the runway it turned 90 degrees and was pointed in the direction of the Japanese islands some six hours’ flight time away. “It took every ounce of horsepower, every metre of tarmac to get the 60,000 kg aircraft airborne.”Īt approximately 2.45am on AugUSAF pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets, taxied the silver Boeing B-29 Superfortress towards the end of the floodlit runway ‘A’ at North Field, Tinian Island in the Mariana’s.