Air Crash Sites & GPS Co-ordinates

On a related crash site note – this appeared today on Flyvrak, strange how it was recovered, stored for ten years and then put back. Surely one that deserves a roof over its head.

http://ktsorens.tihlde.org/flyvrak/porjus.html

The trip went well.

For a list of books I may as well bring up that old thread about books, http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=74713.

By charging you can only be refering to buying books.

Hi Alan

Good to hear from you – Hope your trip was productive! 😉 While I agree wholeheartedly with your comments, as a professional Librarian, I do have one comment on this :p If you you don’t want to fork out for the book – Use your local Library!!! 😮 Surely even Sean cannot begrudge 50p to request a book – I am sure we could all recommend a few to him! :dev2:

Lets make it three posters.

I think on the whole me and Nick are in agreement, certainly stuff has been turning up on ebay recently but not much has actually sold.

I saw testiment to curious walker syndrome last Sunday in Wales with a fairly large (24″x24″)panel from Canberra WK129 found between the dumped wreckage from Blenheim L9039 and the old mine track. Clearly it had been carried down the mountain and then probably realising that it was still a good 3 miles out to the road the part was dumped.

By charging you can only be refering to buying books. These cannot just be given away as a lot of work goes into their preperation and often royalties have to be paid for use of photographs etc. Even so most books barely make any money, but do get a lot of useful information into the public. If your rationale is to undermine these works then there is not much else to say on the matter.

🙁

I’m glad to see that their irrational objections to my simply giving away what others charge for are not commonly held.

Sean http://peakwreckhunters.blogspot.com/

Missed something here Sean – When did I object to you publishing grid refs? As I always said (when I attempted to talk reasonably with you) – within the law, you are quite entitled do do as you wish and I respect that – your replies I cannot publish on here 🙁

The only objection I made was to your insulting remarks (or description! as you loosely call it) published on your site about a carefully planned excavation that I helped organise.

You are not the only one publishing such information on the net by any means and as far as I am aware (& yes I have looked) there is nothing on your website that I and most of those on here did not have access to already – Why on earth do you think you have to pay for this information?

Increasing number of “blogs”

Thought my ears were burning!As the author of the only blog I am aware of publishing GPS coordinates for UK wrecksites, this thread may be a little less general in its nature than some of you realise.

Two of the posters on this thread have objected to my blog’s description of one of their recent digs.

I’m glad to see that their irrational objections to my simply giving away what others charge for are not commonly held.

Sean
_________
http://peakwreckhunters.blogspot.com/

HGWs

Hi Don

Sorry to disagree on this occasion :p, but I really can’t see scrap values being a motive for disappearing HGW sites in the UK. Also even recent attempts by unknown individuals to profit from certain Peak District wrecks through selling artefacts they have removed on ebay have proved a flop – few if any sold, probably as the collectors who might have been interested already have their own bits they took years ago 🙁 plus they were not connected with any famous individual or action – Hopefully interest in buying often dubiously provenanced shapeless scraps of metal is waning?:mad:

True in the past scrap was a motive & a lot of the easier to access sites were lost long before historic interest in these sites was thought of – To many they were (and to a few, still are) unsightly blots on the landscape. Even on our recent excavation of VV602 at Wildboarclough, the farmer from the neighbouring farm we met was telling me that a tail boom from the Vampire lay on his land until about three years ago, when it vanished – he blamed scrap dealers as it was visible from the track leading to his farm & personally I am inclined to agree, as it would have disappeared long before if it had been of interest to enthusiasts! The quantities needed to make scrap recovery worthwhile would IMO need vehicular access – helicopter removal would I think be cost prohibitive.:eek:

The biggest danger to these sites is Ignorance (IMO) – curious passers-by taking souveniers, which once shown to a few friends, lose their appeal & are consigned to sheds or even the dustbin. For some the interest even wanes long before that, as trails of abandoned pieces leading back from crash sites towards nearby roads testifies in some cases. As Andy points out info on the whereabouts of these sites has been in the public domain for many years & there is nothing we can do about that, as those individuals have as much right to visit the as we have – However much we may disagree with their actions.

I feel the only chance of there being something left for visitors to see in the future (and even then corrosion + erosion mean these sites have a limited time left anyway) is to try to educate people that there actions may at least be disrespectful & selfish & at worst illegal. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel that under the right circumstances the recovery of material from HGW sites may be warranted, but the state of many of the engines and larger pieces I have seen, makes it unlikely there would be much purpose in recovering them and perhaps most are best left as memorials.

What I do find disturbing is the apparent lack of any knowledge of the legal protection afforded to HGW sites, by the MOD, the National Parks Authorities and the National Trust, demonstrated on some these Blogs / Sites. Coupled with the double standards of decrying any disturbance they find at sites, Whilst happily admitting to and even photographing themselves metal detecting on them!

I agree. What you can lift, and what you can actually carry off a mountain are two different things. You would surely have to be desperate to look at this as a serious source of income.

Pete

Especially considering the amount of parts not half way up mountains.. the wings that just got stolen in Az & the B24 fuselage in Aus being the 2 most recent (as seen on Wix)
In the US farmers are making a small fortune ripping up miles of copper wiring from derelict missile silos on their land..

Even at todays scrap prices I find it a bit of a stretch of the imagination to suppose that anyone would trek miles, up hill and down dale, cross moor and mountain, to bring down a rucksack full of scrap steel or alloy. Would the return REALLY be worth the effort for scrap value? I think not, really. I may be wrong, of course. As to the use/publication of GPS co-ordinates, well, these sites have been published WIDELY in all sorts of publications, giving six or eight figure OS map references since the 1960’s, often with detailed instructions on how to find the wreck and sometimes with photos, to boot! GPS just makes an already possible and very well publicised access a little bit easier – thats all!

I agree. What you can lift, and what you can actually carry off a mountain are two different things. You would surely have to be desperate to look at this as a serious source of income.

Pete

Even at todays scrap prices I find it a bit of a stretch of the imagination to suppose that anyone would trek miles, up hill and down dale, cross moor and mountain, to bring down a rucksack full of scrap steel or alloy. Would the return REALLY be worth the effort for scrap value? I think not, really. I may be wrong, of course. As to the use/publication of GPS co-ordinates, well, these sites have been published WIDELY in all sorts of publications, giving six or eight figure OS map references since the 1960’s, often with detailed instructions on how to find the wreck and sometimes with photos, to boot! GPS just makes an already possible and very well publicised access a little bit easier – thats all!

With scrap prices at their current level, would they be threatened by metal theft?
Don

yup.