Isn’t this just time expired magnesium – square grain structure causes a clean, rapid break from a micro crack. Owners of fancy race cars just replace it after a certain amount of cycles/hours. WW2 aircraft never lasted long enough for it to be an original issue in the 40’s. It is today, if the WW2 component is nudging 75 years old, with a history of hard landings and then keen volunteers looping towing cable from leg to tractor.

Folks want to replace original mag castings with aluminium these days, but it is probably the mag casting acting as a sacrificial anode that preserved the larger aluminium structure over the decades. I can understand if a mag casting is deeply buried within a structure, but if it bolts on, it can be replaced after a certain number of hours, if you invest in the casting pattern. If the aluminium has higher mechanical strength than the magnesium it replaces, it might add a factor of safety, or it might change the way force is transmitted through a structure. The world divides into magnesiumphobes and magnesiumphiles.

You have to be German to know and love magnesium and bratwurst. An old goat of a thing like a Meteor would have DTD285 magnesium castings, basically prewar German Elektron, same as half the mass of the Luftwaffe.

What to do with the Museum static with low budget kept out in the weather? Maybe steel stands under the jacking points? The maggie is just slowly fizzing away…