Buried Aircraft again

Hei Dave,

Finding a rough position from wrecks wouldn´t be to difficult, if you make a study from the archives from the allied merchant fleet and the kriegsmarine. Also the cargolists from the ships can be found in the archives so it´s possible to find out what should be were. Perhaps the aircrafts are not the most interesting things to find, there must also be a lot of spareparts for the engines! ( camshafts, pistonrings etc.) my own experience with old machinery spareparts ( from the 1950´s) is that they are heavly coated and still will be as new after being submerged for so long time. An interesting book is perhaps : the road to russia, arctic convoys 1942 writen by Bernard Edwards isbn 0 85052 898 4

best regards,

Mathieu

Thanks Steve, maybe someone can update us on the current situation with these artefacts?

Going from memory on these, but they were both subjects which were covered a couple of years ago either on here, on WIX, or in FlyPast and Aeroplane.

Frankfurt engine cache – I recall that there were about half a dozen German aero engines (DB somethings) which were unearthed as part of the development of the cargo area at Frankfurt Main airport. I don’t know exactly what they were, or what has happened to them since, but I seem to recall they were in quite good condition considering they’d spent almost sixty years underground.

FW190 – This aircraft was discovered amongst the crushed remains of a hangar located in the former East Germany. The airfield (whose name escapes me) had been taken over by the Soviets during the cold war, and the hangar had either collapsed or been demolished by the Soviets, with the FW190 inside it. Again, I have no idea what has become of this aircraft, but the reports I read (pretty sure this was in both FlyPast and Aeroplane) suggested the airframe was battered but substantially complete.

It seems pretty certain that there are still a few treasures out there which are yet to be discovered. Recent years have seen the PNG P47’s, the Frankfurt engine cache, the complete FW190 under a hangar, to name but a few.

Steve, could you kindly remind me of the details of the latter two cases please?

Here’s a true story to add a little intrigue to this favourite debate!

Some years ago, I was shown a highly magnified, vertical photo of an aerodrome where large scale scrapping of airframes was underway, circa 1946. (Very like the one published in this month’s Aeroplane Monthly).

The ‘drome was in the U.K. but the exact location was withheld from me for “security reasons”. (But the aerodrome code letters in the Signals Square outside the Watch Office weren’t much of a challenge to interpret!)

The reason for the security was contained in an area in one corner of the airfield. There were a number of airframes lined up around the perimeter of what appeared to be a large hole. There were airframes clearly visible in the hole. Types recognisable were Spitfires and Wellingtons, what looked like Lancaster fuselages and sundry other types.

The story was that the hole (actually a disused quarry), was viewed as a hazard and the end of the war, with the suddenly available suppy of redundant airframes, was a golden opportunity to fill it and level it. After the hole was filled, a layer of stone, then topsoil, was applied to complete the transformation.

There was a plan to excavate the hole and reap the rewards. I heard later that the excavation took place. I’m told the digger went down to thirty feet until it hit what the driver decided was bedrock.

What was found? Zip, nix, nicto, nuttin’!

So what was that all about? Mis-interpretation of the photo? Wrong location (should have been twenty feet to the left or right?) Post-war scrappies beat them to it all? A cleverly forged photo by someone?

I’m fairly certain that I was not the only one to be told about this project, so maybe someone else can add more to the story as I’ve lost touch with the guy who was running it?

That seems like a very good point Mathieu. I think the difficulty would be pinpointing such a wreck, and the depth may be a factor. Underwater currents and water pressure may have had an effect on the aircraft too. But then those Avengers discovered in the Bermuda Triangle looked pretty good after all this time. Where is Dr Robert Ballard when you need him? Imagine seeing a few dozen Seafires or Hurricanes or P40’s etc being winched up still in their protective rubber coating they sometimes used when shipping aircraft. 🙂

Melvyn, an interesting point about the price of Alumnium. I see your point too about the need to use a bulldozer to crush the aircraft. We can’t possibly hope they wheeled the planes into a hole and carefully filled in the dirt around them as if planting a bulb. They would have probably crushed and smashed up the aircraft. They bulldozed a load of Venturas into a gully to build it up level and extend the runway at Hamilton International Airport here in NZ. You’d hardly want the runway to start sinking over time. This is purely my imagination but I envisage perhaps a wrecking ball and heavy dozers flattening the bombers 🙁 – maybe they even filled in and around with concrete? I wonder if the Public Works Dept records detail what really went on.

What is the story about the FW190 under a hangar?

Hei everybody,

In this thread we are talking about aircraft dumped after the war, but what about all the aircraft that sunk together with the vessels that transported them? Particular on the route to Murmansk the Germans managed to sink a lot of vessels that transported aircraft for the red airforce. If we keep in mind that the temperature from the seawater in this area is very low and that the aircraft were well prepared for the voyage, it is possible that some aircraft( parts) has been well preserved.

best regards,

Mathieu 🙂

Years ago I wrote a piece for AM on dumping. (I wanted to call it “To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump” but they wouldn’t let me).

It answered some of the more common theories. Landfill with airframes only really works when they are crushed as they will rot and collapse otherwise. As for value of the scrap, that was interesting. A report in the PRO dated March 1944, so before the end of the war in Japan was even considered, stated that the price for scrap aluminium was £45 per ton yet the cost of processing was £54, so a loss of £9 (equal to just a few beers in Patterson-speak) per ton. They also estimated that there was potentially 400,000 tons available in March 1944, the end of the war in the Far East would at least have doubled this. This also did not allow for the fact that a sudden glut of material onto the market would have lowered the selling price but the processing would not have altered that much due to the infrastructure of the country being a bit knackered by then.

The report also mentioned land fill and even things like pointing them out to sea and having the pilot jump!

So, dumping most definitely WAS an option. Whether complete aircraft would ever be recoverable is highly unlikely. If I had the task of filling a hole with aeroplanes I would use a bulldozer. It is the only way that makes sense if you want a hole filled properly.

Melvyn Hiscock

It seems pretty certain that there are still a few treasures out there which are yet to be discovered. Recent years have seen the PNG P47’s, the Frankfurt engine cache, the complete FW190 under a hangar, to name but a few.

I would guess that most of the sites which were well documented would have been investigated by now, and possibly already built over. You also have to consider the materials involved in aircraft construction at the time, and how those materials have fared over the years. I spent some time working on a number of parts that had been pulled out of the ground at a former scrapyard; once you started dismantling them and cleaning them up, the aluminium bits weren’t too bad, the steel suffered corrosion to varying degrees, and the mag alloy generally just crumbled into mush.

As an aside, and following on from Webpilot’s comments about hardcore, today’s trivia fact for you: RAF Harrowbeer, about ten miles north of Plymouth, is believed to be the only airfield to have been constructed using the rubble of the city it was built to protect.

Hey Guys,

All I have to say is Chino Airport, two years ago when they un-earth alot of parts when they were doing the Runway work. Also off the end of Pax River there are the remains of the German aircraft that were brought over here for the Navy to play with.

Also I know that atleast four former military airports have remains on them.

Local legend is that around Farnborough there are a couple of ‘planefillsites’! WW1 aircraft supposedly dumped on what is now a large industrial estate. And WW” German aircraft dumped in a gravel pit near Camberley. Im sure many of these stories have a element of truth but I feel Russia must be a better source for finds?

I was once told that a large number of WW1 airframes where dumped in an around Burntisland in Fife, perhaps in old oil shale pits. I was also told that the’ve now build houses on the land (go for a full survey!).

Any truth in this?

In fact, there was plenty of material about for land fill after the war – the rubble from blitzed areas. If you are going to fill in an area, you tend to want stable land fill, not something that will decompose and then shift. I’m sure some airframes were dumped and buried in localised areas but I doubt it was very extensive.

If you listen to the show you’ll find that the scrap dealers stripped all usable metal from the ships and it was merely the hulks that was left. I guess today technology would mean much more of the hulks could be recycled than they were able to in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

As for aircraft, I agree it is senseless, but they certainly did bury them anyway. I guess they didn’t have a need to turn them into pots and pans as rationing continued for many years later. Perhaps someday someone will find a site with the right soil conditions and a restorable wreck will be uncovered. If they can restore crashed aircraft from Russia, I’m sure a buried aircraft in the UK stands a chance.

Makes sense to fill them with no longer needed war materials.

What sense – can’t see any. Burying high quality steel and aluminium ?

Or to create treasure troves for a lucky finder some decades later ?

:confused:

Martin / Swiss Mustangs