Did anyone else see the Wreck Detective program on channel 4 at 5.25
The program was reallly good, the team dived on a wreck of a sunderland in the south of wales.
Apparently the sunderland they found is the oldest in existence. i think they said it was a sunderland mk1?
The sunderland was very complete for a salt water wreck. The team recovered a pegagus engine in the end of hte show, and now that is going to be restored somewhere on the pembrokeshire coast in South Wales.
This was a very good show, i didnt expect them to dive on a sunderland, they did a sonar scan on the area, this looked alot different to the one that i saw from lake windermere.
did anyone else catch the show?
By: Alistair - 12th July 2004 at 14:08
I saw it too – some very nice archive footage, including some colour stuff.
By: Papa Lima - 12th July 2004 at 09:55
The Sunderland Mk II had improved performance by substituting Pegasus XVIII engines with superchargers for the original Pegasus XXII, and a Botha-type F.N.7 two-gun dorsal turret instead of the two open K-gun mountings. The earlier F.N.13 tail turrets with 500 rpg were replaced by the F.N.4A with 1,000 rpg. Most Sunderland Mk IIs also had the four vertical dipole masts and 16 transmitting loops of ASV Mk II radar along the rear of the hull, as well as central and underwing Yagi homing aerials.
Source: “Shorts Aircraft since 1900” by C.H. Barnes.
By: mmitch - 12th July 2004 at 09:41
Judging by the weather in this and the previous programme I think it was filmed last Summer. Even though the ‘boat was protected against corrosion it was amazing how much survived. Yet some large parts of the engine had gone. See the programme website at:- http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/W/wreck_detectives/prog_sunderland.html
mmitch.
By: adwwebber - 11th July 2004 at 23:10
i saw it, very good it was well.
And by all accounts the only remaining Mk1 anywhere i hope they manage to bring the
rest up.
The sunderland Mk1 had sunk in a bad storm after the anchor had been torn out of its mounting. Prompting a redesign and the MK2 ?
The museum is just across the river from there i think, yet another place on my list to visit now. the list never seems to get shorter though !
Does anyone know how old that program is, wether the engine is restored yet ?
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July 11, 2004 at 10:32 pm