Woomera Aircraft Wrecks

Not the Curse of the Pharoahs, more like the curse of the Truman/Pestis, an Anglo-Hungarian ailment, this run of bad luck has continued today with our ill-fated attempts at a house purchase.
There must be several people on here who have been to the Shelf Stones wreck, any bad vibes?
On the other hand I have a collection of various a/c instruments, Spits, Tempest, Lightning, weren’t they all given a good coating of radio-active paint for night vision, and don’t forget the wonderful luminous watches we all used to wear in the 50’s and 60’s.
Change of subject, there has been a lot of activity involving the MoD police up at Wethersfield, stuff has been coming past even as I speak and it started early this morning, are we under threat again?

Pete

I have some experience of working with radioactive materials and I have a cautious respect for all connected matters. This includes the current Health & Safety drive on irradiated aircraft instrumentation and other artefacts.

Have you made your GP and doctors aware of the thoughts mentioned above? If not perhaps you should.

I have always been blessed with good health, but since that time things have deteriorated, I’ve been in hospital twice, nearly three times and have not been a happy, healthy bunny ever since, and thats not just me, my brother and son, who were also involved in the trip, have had serious illnesses, coincidence or what?

Radiation sickness has a very well documented and known range of very specific effects. If you are serious in thinking there’s a connection you should, and can, get it checked out, and any B-29 bits can be checked too.

If it’s any other symptoms, file under ‘the curse of the Pharaohs’.

Co- incidence

Interestingly enough, the only so called ‘hot’ aircraft that I’ve ever been knowingly in contact with is the B-29 crash on Shelf Stones, Derbyshire, as you all know this a/c allegedly monitored the fall out from Nagasaki and was used over here to test Soviet experiments.
We took our local scouts on a visit to the site, and others, a few years ago, and of course, scouts being as they are, a few bits, quite large, were brought back to the scout hut here.
I have always been blessed with good health, but since that time things have deteriorated, I’ve been in hospital twice, nearly three times and have not been a happy, healthy bunny ever since, and thats not just me, my brother and son, who were also involved in the trip, have had serious illnesses, coincidence or what?

There are ex-‘hot’ aircraft flying in private hands. I’m told that they don’t even glow when you turn out the hangar lights…

Isn’t the Collings Foundation B-17 one such example?

Nah. They were still being used… I’m almost serious! Why Swifts is indeed odd though.

IIRC the Swifts were the rather disastrous early marks which were scrapped or otherwise decommissioned fairly quickly. The Swifts which became the quite successful recon aircraft were the later marks which were seriously redesigned.

Would it not have been easier and cheaper to have flown in retiring indeginous RAAF a/c such as Meteors and Sabres.

Nah. They were still being used… I’m almost serious! Why Swifts is indeed odd though.

I’m not into nuclear physics, is it possible to de-activate a hot airframe or are you stuffed for hundreds of years.

There are ex-‘hot’ aircraft flying in private hands. I’m told that they don’t even glow when you turn out the hangar lights…

I’m not into nuclear physics, is it possible to de-activate a hot airframe or are you stuffed for hundreds of years.

Me neither, but it depends on the isotope that is contaminating the airframe. According to the Maralinga documentation [see link that was posted by 682al] the radioactive contaminants were many and varied.

From my reading of the report it appears that 5 contaminated Swifts were disposed of, but whether the same applies to Woomera airframes??

Can someone explain why they used Swifts at Woomera.
I assume that there were a lot of redundant airframes in the UK due to the types lack of success, but presumably they had to be shipped across the world and then transported overland, which would be an interesting story.
Would it not have been easier and cheaper to have flown in retiring indeginous RAAF a/c such as Meteors and Sabres.
Perhaps someone could ferret away one of these ‘hot’ examples and craftily swap it for the rotting example guarding the scrap metal yard over here.
I’m not into nuclear physics, is it possible to de-activate a hot airframe or are you stuffed for hundreds of years.

Saw a minor documentry once surrounding a Spit that was recovered from a group of airframes, it was flown out of the area…

Not all fighters are Spitfires. Try CAC built Mustang.

Cheers Mk12.Was that the one that was flown back to the states..Good story behind it and a doco around about it somewhere.

Saw a minor documentry once surrounding a Spit that was recovered from a group of airframes, it was flown out of the area eventually after a few new misses but did not follow what happened to it after that, maybe it was this range but cannot recall the exact details.

Here is a taster of the Maralinga wrecks after the ‘A’ tests.

Photo by Langdon Badger.

Mark

Anything of value from that dry environment would have gone before many of us were born, come on guys. 🙂

Totally agree with the comment made by TwinOtter. With regard to Phillips post and the seemingly official line about wrecks and survivors, I suspect this relates to everything above ground. I have seen photos of some 10-12 complete Swifts being bulldozed into a large hole in the ground – probably for good reason – location not known but somewhere in Australia.

If any of the airframes survived and were moved back to the UK I guess the potential radioactive contamination would really give the UK Health & Safety people something new to get their teeth into!

This probably contains a full explanation, but I haven’t got time to plough through it all.

www.radioactivewaste.gov.au/documents/martac_report_chapter_1_pdf.htm

It’s at the Maralinga site, by the way. I assume this is distinct from the Woomera Range?

Heres an extract:-

Not something I would be able to do but can one of our experts in Googling find anything?

Roger Smith.

I am sure this is the view of those at the Woomera site, but I have seen modern pictures of at least 2 Swifts surviving at one of the test sites in the Melbourne offices of a Federal Government department, it is a big area and I am not sure current staff would know or visit every inch of the site?

Interestingly I understand 16 RAF Lincolns were brought to Woomera and only 1 ever returned to the UK, with 1 scrapped at Tocumwal and the remander all scrapped at Woomera? I have never seen any details of these remains in Adelaide scrap yards etc?

regards

Mark Pilkington