Apart from his general interest in the fact that the plane--Enola Gay--was the mechanism that led to the Cold War's nuclear rivalry and placed the shadow of the bomb over his generation,
@EnolaGaia had two neat links with the plane (forgive me if this is on his website, I haven't checked):
1) He somehow (he never explained how) inadvertently damaged it while it was being restored for a 50th anniversary display at the Smithsonian!
2) His father was a flight mechanic stationed on Guam with a USAAF long-range fighter escort squadron in 1945 when Tibbets and his crew were on the nearby island of Tinian. His father met Tibbets and his men, and years later Enola found a baseball signed by Tibbets and members of the crew following an inter-island game a few weeks before the Hiroshima mission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tibbets
One night we got into a heavy conversation about some topic he also cared about, I can't remember what it was about but he replied with ..
"I have a reputation for "transforming into a machine" during crises and effectively / efficiently dealing with whatever the Cosmic Joker throws in my path. My late best friend of all time pinpointed this as my most impressive superpower.
Among other things, I spent 8 years as a front-line representative for the Social Security Administration, overseeing a welfare-dependent population of circa 17,000 unfortunate and needy souls. I dealt with a lot of folks in crisis as well as a lot of their crises. However ...
I already knew at that point in my life my empathy / sympathy only extended to people I knew and valued. In my professional role I was "official", cut no corners, and let the chips fall wherever they may. If someone needed help I was the guy who knew how the systems worked to get them help ASAP. If someone tried to rip us off or owed money back I was so fearsomely effective at nailing them that the agency secretly reviewed all my cases overnight for a month before concluding I was simply doing the job by the book.
Our client population asked for me by name, because they knew whether the news was good or bad I'd give 'em straight answers and a clear explanation for things.
Here's my point ... I don't have the "automatic benevolence toward anyone / everyone" gene. In the job described above I dispensed more aid and more punishment than anyone, but I didn't "care" in the sense of letting it get to me personally. My colleagues who "cared" all washed out.
This is why I didn't go into medicine as my extended family continually urged me to do during my early youth. I've provided first aid and other emergency help at (e.g.) accident scenes and been a caregiver in other situations, but I've long known in my heart this wasn't the sort of role I was really cut out for.
Same goes for parenting ... I don't have the "all kids are a blessing; I wanna have some" gene.
Make no mistake - I have tons of respect for parents, caregivers and medical professionals. It's just that their path isn't my path. A half-century of experience has validated my youthful beliefs about this.."
.... he also wasn't afraid to have a laugh though and seemed to have a soft spot for us more silly posters so I reckon we're going to miss him as well. I'll try to find some of his less profound stuff lol.
Dry sense of humour only one of many reasons to miss him. 
