Bell Aircraft
In the spring of 1943 the adjacent Bell Aircraft Company's factory, an additional plant (besides a pair of Boeing plants Renton, Washington and Wichita, Kansas (former Stearman Aircraft) and a Martin plant at Offutt Field, Omaha, Nebraska) for manufacturing B-29 Superfortresses was completed. The "Defense Plant Corporation" of the Department of War paid for the construction of this factory, and the Department called it "Plant #6". Bell Aircraft completed its first B-29 on schedule, and this was first test-flown on November 4, 1943. The production of B-29s at this factory increased slowly during 1944, and by the fall of 1944, Bell Aircraft's output of new B-29s began to meet and exceed the goals of the Department of War.