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When I spoke to the K. Tibbets, she told me that as far as she knew from him, on that mission he wore a standard khaki short sleeve shirt, standard pants, wore some kind of cap that looked like a ball cap, and carried the Army standard issue bottle of poison, as he would kill himself if he crashed and thought he would be taken alive by the Japanese.

There are plenty of color films that show him wearing an "overall flight suit" when being greeted by his commanding officers after he returned from the mission, but I have been warned that those all could have been "staged" and filmed later, after the actual event was done. There will have to be some discussion with the widow, and deep research into any other data before this gets made, but it is hoped we can include as much as possible with the figure to cover all the bases. Keep in mind, the B-29 was very advanced aircraft, and a lot less gear was required by the crew to be flying in it.

Anyone who finds anything that can help, please post it in this thread, and spread the word to other places you go for the same.

Meanwhile, here is the official Tibbets website, and trust me, they would appreciate if people would buy anything they have left in stock that the man had made, in which he and some of his crew signed, to help his widow.

http://www.enolagay.org/

The "drop dead date" for having everything worked out and ready to go, is July 2008, if product is to be shipped on time for the Show dates in November, and frankly, we would like to get this done sooner, so other option could be done to get the product out into collectors hands.

It looks like only 1250 production pieces will be made, and some portion out of those are slotted to go to schools for kids to use in school projects. It was decided that this will NOT be a "limited to a fixed end number" release, as if there is greater demand, more might be made and sold, but the first 1250 pieces will have ITEMS, that will NOT be included in any other releases, if indeed any more are ever made again. Think in terms of the DML "Winter Gerhard", and you will understand the plan. Legacy of Valor told us, that locking this into a "fixed end number release" may hurt the Fort Thomas Museum down the road, as if this is the first of a series of figures to be made for their own line of product, people might want some after the first edition is long gone. I insisted that there should be something special for those that buy the first release, that no other re-release should get after that. Look at the 2 versions of the Legacy of Valor releases of the "Rosie" figure, and see only ONE version for a museum came with the Helmet and Welding Mask, while the other didn't. Again, there may be no more than these 1250 production pieces ever, and if this doesn't go well, there may be no more thought of producing future figure sets. As the Fort has been searching their records of other men that had been inducted through them ( as it was with Paul Tibbets ), more figures will be based on them. The next figure being considered, is a Tuskegee Airman, and then maybe a MOH winner, and as the Fort was commisioned from the Spanish American War until most recently, we hope to find plenty of notable men to base figures on over a long period of time and conflicts.

As a sidenote, another Museum that Tibbets was working with may also choose to want in on these figures, but that is by no means a done deal, and may have no impact on this project afterall, but that seems to be the nature of this so far, but when July rolls around, the final decisions will be made, "go" or "no go".

I want to be very clear here, so read closely. This will NOT be a highly articulated figure, but one based on more human proportions, and focused on quality, while holding as low a retail price as can be done. The Tibbets figure is targeted to be at $27 USD plus shipping ( if not purchased at the Fort ).

If people only will want this figure if it is loaded with stuff, they better speak up now and give complete lists, and then be prepared to pay higher for it, for once again, it is believed that Tibbets flew "pretty light" on this mission, so there you go.

I've held off of saying anything further about this project, as we waited for some last minute news on funding attempt results.

One was through private means, and the other was a formal request for a grant or some type, complete with a plan for using this figure in a school program tied directly into history classes.

Sadly, with just a few days left in this month, it doesn't appear either will happen, at least not in time to hope to release this figure to the buying public in time for the November show. It was hoped to be the first of a series, with 2 others already in planning, names also taken from the records of actual men that were inducted through this Fort.

It may be for the best, for frankly from what I saw ( here in this forum where it was the most discussed, and to a lesser degree in many others ), the demand it appeared from collectors wasn't very high for this figure, and among the few responses indicating any interest, the most repeated thoughts about it was how it wasn't ( by design mind you ) to be a very articulated figure of the highest order, and just how much "stuff" was going to be included with it, which are fair enough questions to ask, even at the $27 price for only 1250 units made.

The deadline to get this into motion with any hope of getting it done by Show time, will truly be "past the point of no return" by the end of this month, and I don't think anything will change soon enough to reverse things, if at all.

Any further attempts to try something like this in the future, are on hold, and how well the November Show does, may more than set the tone for even considering it beyond that. Throw in a lousy economy, a very political year, and things just get more complicated.

And so it goes.

Drone7771 wrote:

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Paul Tibbets was my neighbor. No kidding, I used to see him having breakfast at the local Bob Evans resturant every morning. Now that he's gone the world is definitely a smaller place. If ever this figure gets into production, I'll buy one regardless of how much gear it comes with. I would just hope that it is not presented as a "toy" but rather a faithful representation of his likeness and stature.

Geno.

Got it in "one" there buddy. That is exactly what everyone involved with this project wanted to do, and if you have ever looked at the other figures released by Legacy of Valor, much so the Sgt. York figure with their latest body, you can believe all that could be done to do it right, would have been done, save for high articulation. I just can't answer now how things will progress from this point, we will have to just wait and see.