Not the Burma dig but the QLD recovery…

sh!!!!!!!!!!vers

..grabs shovel…:eek:

This was Point Cooks Spitfire recovered a long time ago..
Photo from P Arnold..
And the recovery..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDD5xfAxhXo

Hey Spits they are onto you..better bury it again!! 😀

Whilst waiting in the GP surgery last week I read a SAGA magazine from last year (OK, OK, settle down now) which referred to a search for a crated Spitfire V at Oakey. – Any news or vapour trails?

Hi Mark,
that is correct, several parts of this airframe do still exist albeit in different places now.

Ahhh I still remember that Auction at Gary Camms vividly. Sabre spares (Complete wings and Rudders in crates), Spitfire Spares and come to think of it there was a little bit of everything almost 😀

Re Lend-lease scrapping. Anything retained had to be paid for. The US did not wish to have unwanted aircraft returned. Therefore all aircraft not retained had to be scrapped, with the scrapping appropriately witnessed and recorded. Nothing to do with false writing off as lost.

This even occurred, at least partially, in the USSR.

“Daniel”/”Liberator”/”Sabredriver/Phil”,

There was nothing of substance recovered, why? Salt Water!

Hundreds of aircraft were pushed of Carriers and the so called recovery team, were just trying to swindle money of others!

I still have the article from Flightpath when then wrote about all those years ago.

I’m not sure there was any intention to swindle, perhaps just an over enthusiastic expectation of what would be recovered and its worth on the market.

Thats probably the only connection/similarity to the current Buried Spitfire project by David Cunndall in Burma as this Queensland project was an all Australian/local project as I understand it.

Is this where someone normally advises this has all been covered before and the search function should have been used rather than starting a new thread smiles:

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=82079

But to save the detour to that old thread:

The material dumped off Australia is understood primarily to be RN FAA aircraft (and perhaps obviously some RNZAF? types that may have been intended to operate with the RN FAA in the Pacific?) lendlease material, which is “lost during the war” did not have to be returned?

There are photos of the aircraft stored on shore in Australia before being dumped, they were primarily complete aircraft but there may also have been NOS airframe and engine spares dumped in the same process.

Rumours had suggested P40’s, P51’s and Spitfires in boxes sitting in the same dumps, but there does not seem to be any substance of unaccounted airframes in the RAAF inventory that would line up with those types being included in the dumping. The photo’s I have seen were all US and UK built Carrier types, I assume the UK examples may have simply been dumped as a downsizing of the RN inventory, rather than lendlease payment related?

With 60 years now being the period of salt immersion of these dumpings and other wrecks, I think the salt water recovery days of WW2 a/c iare coming to end, unless you are desperate for patterns to recreate an extinct type such as the Skua or Devastator, and interestingly the warm deep salt water in the tropics seems to have a high oxygen level and associated corrosion, as compared with cold deep North Sea recoveries we are still seeing today of largely intact airframes such as the recent He-115 recovered from a Fjord.

And of course there was the surprising intact P40L recovered in shallow water of a beach in Italy, where perhaps the high bacteria levels in the sand act to dramatically reduce the oxygen levels and therefore protect aluminium structures from corrosion? – The “Tighar” P-38 and RAFM Do-17 will perhaps test that theory when/if recovered?

There have in the past been successful salt water recoveries and preservation for ongoing static display, but I am not sure future recoveries will yield structures capable of stabilisation for static display, let alone airworthy restoration?

“I think the bottom has long rotted out of this barrel, and its well and truely beyond any further scraping”

At least one Corsair cockpit/centre-section was recovered, and immediately started to convert to aluminium oxide, it was on public viewing in a residential yard in Queensland for a while and then rumoured to have been sent to the US for parts recovery.

I suspect the poor condition of that recovery dampened the enthusiasm to continue with any others?

Pictures below linked from Peter Dunn’s website that provides more info as linked earlier in Matts reply:

http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/ozatwar/dumped@sea.htm

and Jinx, these are apparently AusFlyboys photos as can be seen from the post above – smiles

The ultimate fate of these remains was suggested by some to have been scrapped, although I seperately heard at least its spar had been recovered to assist in patterns for a new spar or spar repair for another project?

regards

Mark Pilkington

Yes, it was sad to say the least… My photos taken a couple years before that Airshow display speak of its condition then!

G’day all

At a Wings and Wheels Airshow at Archerfield (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) the remains of one were on display, it was the centre section and looked very, very sad

cheers

“Daniel”/”Liberator”/”Sabredriver/Phil”,

There was nothing of substance recovered, why? Salt Water!

Hundreds of aircraft were pushed of Carriers and the so called recovery team, were just trying to swindle money of others!

I still have the article from Flightpath when then wrote about all those years ago.

“Daniel”/”Liberator”/”Sabredriver”,

David Cunndall is leading the recovery of the Spitfires, or what remains of them. Are you talking about someone else? A former member of this site used to post tempting snippets of mis-information/lies about fabled recoveries and surveys of the aircraft dumped from carriers at the end of the war off the coast of Australia but none of his stories amounted to more than a hill of beans or a 3350/Lewis Gun/Skyraider prop/Brewster Buffalo/Chinese Stirling.

One of my friends took part in dumping aeroplanes off HMS Victorious at the end of the war. I’ve no doubt it happened, but I doubt that anything of any worth has been recovered.

Phil,

A few chunks of aeroplane were raised, and quickly fizzed into fine powder. There may be a handful of useable components, but pretty much stuff-all.

There were photos getting about, from the early 90s. You can hear the fizzling just by looking at the pics!

Cheers,
Matt

*edit* Fizzle, fizzle: http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/dumped@sea.htm