WICHITA, Kan. – Decades after pieces of World War II-era history were left to deteriorate in the desert, one aircraft artifact is close to flying again.

It has been a 14-year project in the Air Capital of the World to restore a B-29 Superfortress named "Doc." It is a full-circle journey, since the historic warplane was originally manufactured in Wichita in 1944. Doc's squadron was named for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

After service in the Korean War, this B-29 and others were used for target practice in the Mojave Desert.

"They towed about a hundred of them out there with Doc and they blew all of them up -- but Doc.," TJ Norman, project manager for the restoration, said. "The story is they dropped missiles or bombs six different times and missed it all six times,"

It took years of negotiations with the U.S. Navy to get it released. The non-profit organization Doc's Friends now owns it. The organization's volunteers have logged roughly 250,000 hours of painstaking work to give it new life with wires, cables, hydraulics, tubing and skins. They run on donations.

When Doc takes to the skies this October or November, it will be one of only two flight-ready B-29s in the world.

"There are no more to be restored," Norman said. "We've looked all over the world. There's just no more. The desert is empty, boneyards are empty, there's no more to be had."