The discussion about the B-17 tail wheel well protective cover reminded me of something.
Many years ago I was working with a museum recovering a B-17 from Litchfield Park, AZ. The aircraft had been a P2B-1S, mother ship for the D.558-2 Skyrocket. The bomb bay area was heavily modified to take the Skyrocket in the belly. We replaced the entire fuselage center section with a section from a B-50.
The plane made a short test flight with a very fast return. The right (IIRC) wing wouldn't stay up. When we checked we found what had to be a couple of hundred pounds of bird crap, mummified birds and the like in the wing. They had come in through the open landing gear bay. Nothing had gotten into the left wing as it was sealed with a leatherized canvas (that's the best description that I can come up with) attached with metal snaps.
A Pacific vet touring "Myrtle" at an airshow a year or so later told me that these covers were an in-the-field modfication to keep out the coral dust.
Has anyone else ever heard of or seen this on a B-29 or any other aircraft of the period?
Tom