In 1949, the Smithsonian Institution assumed control of the plane, and it is now part of the Air and Space Museum. And that particular moment changed the whole world around. It was flown by the pilot, Paul Tibbets who named the plane after his mother. On August 30, 1946, the Enola Gay was placed in storage and never flew another combat mission. But once upon a time, you flew a plane called the Enola Gay over the city of Hiroshima, in Japan, on a Sunday morning Aug and a bomb fell. The Enola Gay is a B-29 bomber that was used in the bombing of Japan. Lieutenant Colonel Tibbets flew the plane to Hiroshima where its. Martin Company delivered the plane to the military on May 18, 1945. The B-29 bomber, Enola Gay, was named after the mother of pilot Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. The United States military kept the Enola Gay in use for only a short period of time. On the morning before the mission, Colonel Tibbets had his mothers name painted on the nose of the airplane: Enola Gay. Tibbets named the plane after his mother. Captain Paul Tibbets, the Enola Gay's pilot, personally selected this plane to drop the atomic bomb. The plane had a 2,200-horsepower engine, with a maximum speed of 360 miles per hour and a range of 3,250 miles. Martin Company assembled it in Omaha, Nebraska, in early 1945. The Enola Gay was the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Boeing Aircraft Company manufactured the plane, and the Glenn L. on August 6, 1945, a modified American B-29 Superfortress bomber named the Enola Gay left the island of Tinian for Hiroshima. This atomic bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, along with a second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, prompted the Japanese government to surrender, bringing World War II to an end. On August 6, 1945, the crew of the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. United States Army Air Forces Colonel Paul Tibbets named the B-29 Superfortress bomber he had selected after his mother, Enola Gay, before it came off the.