Spitfire in a crate-Australian cave??

Gone Bush…

Finished packing in the Hangar before lunch so after a quick bite we trundled over to behind the new museum to have a poke around.First pic is of the old taxiway where the countless Kittyhawks were lined up.@nd pic is it,s wartime condition.Third pic is the smelter slab(ute there for scale) where we have found a lot of stuff off the side of it.Next pic is some parts dug up.As you can see the condition is very,very poor due to the intense heat of the fire.Next is of a site near the taxiway where fires were lit under the planes to melt them down on site.The ground is almost sterile and rock hard from the heat of the fires.Look hard enough and you can see bits of perspex,steel and other odds and sods.Which is the next pic.We believe it to be a Kittyhawk part as it has a 200 up the top and “fuel” down the bottom.This pic next in line is special as this is where my good mate Earl test flew Mustangs from.The site is “Test and Ferry” and the last pic is what it contained during the war.Not a bad day all up.Where we had dug before someone had gone through with a digger and cleaned the area out.(Thanks Wednesday guys!!:D )But we did find a couple of parts in the nearby gully..:eek:
Looks like a Supercharger gear..Well if we keep on digging we might find a Spit one day.Thanks to the Museum and all the volunteers out there.The original WW2 pics are copywrited and the others were taken by moi.Hope you enjoyed it..

Probably be one of these then!:)

Examples of this type may be found at Museum City State
Champlin Fighter Museum Mesa Arizona
National Museum of Naval Aviation NAS Pensacola Florida
United States Air Force Museum Wright-Patterson Ohio

http://aeroweb.brooklyn.cuny.edu/specs/kawanish/n1k2j.htm

A museum in the US opened an old container and found a Kawanishi Shiden fighter aircraft in it. It’s now restored and on display. Can’t remember the museum though. It was published in Warbirds Worldwide a decade ago.

Cheers

Cees

Wouldn’t it be great if one of these was actually found after all these years – imagine your delight on opening a crate up after fifty years and finding out it wasn’t a Spitfire after all but a Hurricane!

Or a Whirlwind……:)

Red moon rising…

Whizzing in and out checking out the bonza light show on the moon tonight.Very deep blood red at the moment,nearly a black red.Scarey..Not much rain Digger,well not as much as the coast.A few inches though.I,m just happy the wind has gone down.
A lot of the stuff we have found has been through the scrappers fires and the good stuff has been cleared out yonks ago by various restorers.A lot of Stainless steel bits are the major finds here.Only thing is that the mower chews them up pretty well every time the grass is cut.:mad: Every time it rains more stuff comes to the surface.Got a box full of it now,just mangled bits of Kitty,s,Spits and Mustangs.

Pot’s and pan’s Grrrrrrr

Ripper post Qspit mate! 😎

Is there gold in them there hill’s!!!!! 😀

How many coke can’s would it take make a new Spit :rolleyes:

Oooo Roooo mate (hope ya not to WET:rolleyes: beaut one day pissssing down the next:eek: )

Know all the rumours…

6AD Oakey was a major satellite repair depot during the latter stages of WW2.The locality is full of old mine shafts,caves and various holes in the ground.After the war about 500 odd planes sat around until about 1947 when the decision came down to get rid of it all.The planes were systematically cut up and dropped into mobile smelters,the aluminium ingots being sent down to Adelaide by rail IIRC.Five Spitfires I think were bought into Toowoomba and were scrapped at Martins Spare parts,the aluminium bits going down to Adelaide as well.There were substantial remains kept by the Junk yard until they were eventually all sold off etc to the countless restorers who have picked through the area over the years.
Out at the base countless Government Auctions were held with complete planes and parts going for next to nothing.Far as I know only a handfull of complete planes were sold off.The ones that did get sold were the Boomerangs as the endless supply of tube members kept the farmers tractors and farm machinery going.The wheels and tyres off the planes went to farms and one enterprising individual used them to go onto hay carts that he made.Oleos went onto Headers and other farm machines,hydraulic presses and the sort.One shed I have heard rumour of has its complete roof framework built from P40 engine mounts.
The parts that didn,t sell went down any available hole in the area.Coal shafts,quarries,rivers were fair game and guys on the job say that the trucks were loaded up each morning and they came back empty later and later each day.1100 Allison engines were unpacked,pulled apart then smashed with sledgehammers.The remains burnt.Spare parts had the same thing happen.
A lot of guys who were “on the job” have been asked countless times over the years and the stories get passed on from year to year.We have dug around the area.The dirt is hard and rocky down about a foot and a half down.No way other than heavy machinery can any decent hole be dug.There was reportedly a spur line off the main railway at Oakey that was filled with “crates” and eventually sealed due to safety concerns but it has never resurfaced.We will still keep looking as we are still fairly young in regards to the volunteer group.Well we are not dead yet.:rolleyes:
At the moment we are trying to get a written history down of the area with the rumours answered best we can.Mark 12 knows more I expect as he knows nearly everything about Spitfires and their histories than us.Good thread and hopefully something will come to the surface in our lifetime.Knowing the condition of the parts that we have recovered it will be a lottery in what condition a full Spit is in.

I do remember well hearing that rumor of crated Spits in Australian caves when I was in college and did a semester in England. Some old guy in a pub was talking about it. That was 1980.

Now if I could just find a crated Spit XII in my back yard, I’d have it made!

If you could get a small piece of Spitfire Crate on Ebay, it might be worth using it in a Reproduction / New Build Spitfire Crate. Did the crates have the aircraft’s serial number on it anywhere? What was Bader’s Spit’s serial again?….

There were two, both are in the UK now…and both in process to flying condition, one more advanced than the other.

RM694 and RM927

Mark

Bl****y hell, you must have been following me in ’78 or vice versa, I was on my honeymoon then, Oshkosh and then mysterious cases! I had forgotten about this post!

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/archive/index.php?t-48005.html

But once you’ve found your Spitfire in a crate – what do you do with it?

DRINK!

😀

Wouldn’t it be great if one of these was actually found after all these years – imagine your delight on opening a crate up after fifty years and finding out it wasn’t a Spitfire after all but a Hurricane!

That would realy p*ss some people off on here 😀
Phil.

Now you mention it, I met a guy in 1978, north of Chicago who claimed he had a Spitfire in a crate! Showed me the case, but wouldn’t open it! Wonder what happened to it?:confused:

There were two, both are in the UK now…and both in process to flying condition, one more advanced than the other.

RM694 and RM927

Mark

A dilemma

But once you’ve found your Spitfire in a crate – what do you do with it?

There are hundreds of Spitfires outside of the box – but you may have the only one left in a crate

is it actually historically more important to leave it as the last crated Spitfire??

Wouldn’t it be great if one of these was actually found after all these years – imagine your delight on opening a crate up after fifty years and finding out it wasn’t a Spitfire after all but a Hurricane!

Now you mention it, I met a guy in 1978, north of Chicago who claimed he had a Spitfire in a crate! Showed me the case, but wouldn’t open it! Wonder what happend to it?:confused:

Wouldn’t it be great if one of these was actually found after all these years – imagine your delight on opening a crate up after fifty years and finding out it wasn’t a Spitfire after all but a Hurricane!

Really??
‘It is easy to mock these Spitfire rumours. I have followed a number up over the years with some success.’
See post number 5.

Just another urban myth unfortunately!:p

Oh this one again!!

I read this story in an Australasian Post Mag when I between about 10 or 12 year’s old, shiit I am gettin on:eek: .

Yes the donk’s were supposed to be still crated, and the Spit’s and all stuffed down Mine’s or Cave’s somewhere in the Aussie bush at the end of WW2, only known by the Ex Raaf Pilot’s and Erk’s involved.

I then asked me ex WW2 Erk granddad Jim about it, and he said well anything was possibly after all that mess(WW2).

But he said the oil in the engine’s would have damaged them after that many year’s :confused: change’s to like acid or something over time ?.

I think we just hope it was true, but I have asked lot’s of Ex RAAF dude’s about it, some just laughed, OH that one again!

Other’s said well maybe who really know’s it’s a might big Island 😮

Might have more of a chance with the Avenger’s flight in the triangle turning up instead though 😀

Ooooo Roooo

Ciao

CROC’S RULE :dev2:

Gotta crash cause I am knackered, I did another 7 km walk today with me stick, aeroplane spottin around the Drome, beaut day for it 24/25 c already, set another record for this time of year 😮 .

I Hope that’s not a sign of another damn hot summer commin:dev2:
‘ Gut Nacht ” all.

But were any of them ‘crated’?

That is the phrase that usually gets my suspicions up.

Moggy

Yes