Editing Boeing B-29 Superfortress (section)

===Transition to USAF===
Production of the B-29 was phased out after WWII, with the last example completed by Boeing's Renton factory on 28 May 1946. Many aircraft went into storage, being declared excess inventory, and were ultimately scrapped as surplus. Others remained in the active inventory and equipped the [[Strategic Air Command]] when it formed on 21 March 1946.<ref name="Peacock2 p141">Peacock ''Air International'' September 1989, p. 141.</ref><ref>[http://www.boeing.com/history/products/b-29-superfortress.page "Boeing B-29."] ''Boeing.'' Retrieved: 5 August 2010.</ref> In particular, the "Silverplate" modified aircraft of the 509th Composite Group remained the only aircraft capable of delivering the atomic bomb, and so the unit was involved in the [[Operation Crossroads]] series of tests, with B-29 [[Big Stink (B-29)|''Dave's Dream'']] dropping a Fat Man bomb in Test ''Able'' on 1 July 1946.<ref name="Peacock2 p141"/>

Some B-29s, fitted with filtered air sampling scoops, were used to monitor above-ground nuclear weapons testing by the US and the USSR by sampling airborne radioactive [[Nuclear fallout|contamination]]. The USAF also used the aircraft for long-range weather reconnaissance (WB-29), for [[signals intelligence]] gathering (EB-29) and photographic reconnaissance (RB-29).