On May 4, 1944, twenty thousand feet above Kansas, a 25-year-old woman crawled through a narrow, pressurized tunnel directly over an open bomb bay and slid into the pilot’s seat of the most powerful bomber ever built. Her name was Mildred “Micky” Axton. She became the first woman in history to fly the B-29 Superfortress — the plane that would later drop atomic bombs to end World War II. And almost no one knew it happened. The B-29 was not just an aircraft. It was the most classified piece of military technology in existence. A 141-foot, 30-ton giant so advanced that factory workers were forbidden to discuss what they were building. To even be aboard required top-level security clearance. Micky wasn’t supposed to be there. She had joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots — the WASPs — in 1943. These women ferried bombers across the country, towed live-fire targets for combat training, and tested aircraft fresh from the factory that male pilots sometimes refused to touch. It wasn’t combat. But it wasn’t safe. Micky trained for six brutal months, graduated, and was assigned as a test pilot. She signed off on B-25s, B-26s, and eventually B-29s before they were cleared for war. When one male pilot told her he’d rather die in combat with glory than in Texas testing a broken plane, she understood exactly what he meant. She flew the broken planes anyway. Six weeks after transitioning to Boeing in Wichita as a flight test engineer, she was on board “Sweet Sixteen” — the 16th B-29 ever manufactured — monitoring engines during a routine test flight. Then the chief engineer’s voice came over the intercom. “Micky — how’d you like to come fly this thing?” She had seconds to decide. She strapped on her parachute and crawled through the dark tunnel over the open bomb bay. She emerged breathing hard, slid into the left seat — the pilot’s seat — and took the controls. For the next twenty minutes, Micky Axton flew the B-29 Superfortress. Banking. Adjusting throttle.