Of legends rumours and urban myths

Burying aircraft still goes on, but perhaps for different reasons…
(buried MiG25 found by the US in iraq)

Looks like the cost of getting Concorde flying again will be a lot cheaper than we originally thought:

well you did ask for myths….

Re the Avenger – It might be the only surviving source of info as to what changes the FAA made to the rear cockpit of the Tarpon, as I understand no documentation survives.

Thanks for the link scotavia.

Still in storage it would appear. Turns out it has FAA history! https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/grumman-tarpon-i-tbf-1-avenger

Baz62,

The gear doors are missing from the Spitfire together with one flat tyre and one deflated tyre. On top this the oleos have lost most of their pressure and in consequence are compressed.

A shot also of the Avenger at Smithsonian Silverhill store. I wonder where that is now.

Mark

I know you have a bit of a thing about Spitfires Mark12 😀 but I have a similar yearning for the TBF Avenger. Since there’s one in the background and the Spit is owned by (Smithsonian?) I presume this is the one they have. New Zealand seems to have cornered the market having 4 here (plus a TBM-3e).
Is it me or is there something weied about the undercarriage legs on the Spitfire? They look too short and in the wrong place.

Sea disposals, some rumours and some facts

Malta, possibly 3 Seafires dumped over the cliff at Hal Far, photo exists of one, also a Baltimore?

Ceylon/Sri Lanka rumour of a number of a/c dumped at sea, no evidence yet.

Malaya/Malaysia, unknown number of Tempests at Penang/Butterworth or Port Klang, no evidence yet.

Singapore, 14-16 Spitfire 18 take out to sea and dumped, written evidence exists.

Labuan, up to 9 Spitfire XXIV dumped at sea, photo only of the a/c being prepped, maybe some P40’s but there is conflicting info on this.

Hong Kong, maybe Spitfire 18, PRXIX and 24, no physical evidence yet.

I would love to find more information of on any of the above

StuartM

^^^^^^^^^ wasn’t it RNAS Gosport? and the area is now a nature reserve now so can’t be dug?

A while back someone on the forum was chasing up stories of Wyverns buried at Daedulas/Lee-On-Solent. Does anyone know if anything came of this?

Fascinating Photo Mark12, taken at the same time as Steve William’s one on Airliners.net I ppresume?

https://www.facebook.com/Oakey-Spitfires-1818098681835194/

I’ve just finished reading “Spitfire Stories” and they are still saying in there about Spitfires being buried in crates in trenches and in mine shafts at Oakey in Australia at the end of their use when they were being scrapped.

I just found a Huey that I’ve been trying to locate for about 6 years or so. Last reported as “on a dump in Rosamond Ca with crash damage”. There were a couple of *characters* involved with this bird & I couldn’t get any info that would confirm if it existed or not. Then a few weeks ago I was driving along a road & spotted it through a gap in a hedge.
Got the phone # of the guy who owns the property & have spoken to him briefly on the phone. Just need to meet up at a convenient time so I can get pics & have a poke about.

Re: post 168 and the USN dumping Mustangs enroute to South Africa.
I ‘m not sure I believe it, most…if not all…USN supply ships crossed the Pacific to the U.S., no need to go via the Cape. Remember too, that the aircraft storage area where sales or scrapping occurred was in Arizona in the west. Going to the east coast would have been counterproductive.

Also, Mustangs are still in the inventory, they would be flown by the ANG until 1957, so they would have been worth something, if nothing more than spares.

Not quite urban myths, but a few years ago an untouched Stearman was recovered from a western hanger where it hadn’t moved since the 1950s (it may of had its original wartime fabric). As that generation (the guys who bought stuff cheaply post war) pass away, we very well may see similar items come out of long locked hangars. I knew a guy in Texas with enough spare BT-13 components to make a complete airframe.

Not as sexy as a Spitfire or Mustang…or exotic as Connie Edward’s stash of Buchons…but still important.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned those a/c in the late 40’s early 50’s,
that were deliberately disposed of at sea in Asia (not Burma/Myanmar),
or off the back of aircraft carriers.

Unlike the UK, in the Asian sphere all the information you can find is the
SOC date no actual final disposition, no mention of scrapping or who bought
them, but some were actually loaded on barges and dumped at sea.

interesting yes?

StuartM

the finds of the Freeman Field Recovery team shows that this isn’t necessarily all ‘myth’…(Not least parts of the Napier Sabre from what is now the RAFM Typhhon)

They also found the remains of the missing gear doors of the Mk VII Spitfire EN474 seen here on my first trip to the US in June 1972.

Mark

Unfortunately it seems like the myth is exactly that. The Brooklands Concorde doesn’t have remnants of hard-points hidden away in the wings.

Thought Trubshaw offered the surplus Concordes to the RN as targets as I recall?

Is it wrong that I’m really enjoying this thread

It’s great to revisit rumours, and fun too. Russian Stirling anyone?

I enjoy it…

I stumbled on a rumour of people discovering vestigial hard-points on the Brooklands Concorde during an inspection. A bit of Googling revealed a few different posts, across different fora, indicating the same thing. There seems to be a bit of a conspiracy theory about Concorde being sneakily developed for a military career. The sum total of hard evidence cited is a fanciful drawing of a suitably tooled up Concorde from an RAF yearbook.

I made a thread on here discussing the subject, and the replies are excellent:

https://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?142455-Concorde-hardpoints&highlight=Brooklands+Concorde

Unfortunately it seems like the myth is exactly that. The Brooklands Concorde doesn’t have remnants of hard-points hidden away in the wings.