Consul and Viscount, I am extremely impressed by both of your depths of knowledge on this matter. I strongly suspect that you both have anoraks hanging on coat hooks near your respective front doors. In fact Viscount sounds like he may also have a log book with First Officers name and flight time recorded. I hope all this information is recorded somewhere other than the internet.

The standard fit out to the P-40, P-38 and P-51 were either SCR-274N or SCR-522. I would think the P-47 would have been the same. The P-39, because it was older started with a different radio(SCR-285, I think), but by wars end was also using the 274 or 522. I own two complete SCR-274N sets, the usual fighter set up had 2 Transmitters (BC-457A[4 – 5.3 MC], BC-458A [5.5 – 7 MC)and Three recievers(BC-453A [190-550 KC], BC-454A[3 – 6 MC], BC-455A[6 – 9.1 MC]). The transmitting freqs were set before flight, but the recievers were controlled by 3 coffee grinder style controls(BC-450A) in the cockpit. The set uses a BC-456 Modulator and a BC-442A Antena Relay Unit. On the P-40 this equipment is located on three shelves located on the left side as you open the Radio Compartment door(mid way along the rear fuselage on the left side), on the P-38s the equipment is located behind the pilot on the upper surface of the centre wing section. The P-51 is similar to the P-38, ie behind the pilot and I think the P-47 radio sets are located inside the removable panel located above the trailing edge of the wing on the right side of the fuselage. Manuals, radios and further reading is widely available on Ebay.

Take it to the press and shine a big bright spotlight on it. Let your MPs know the press are running with it. It’s all very well to sit back and let the public service perform it’s duties in the fullness of time. But in this case the public service are saying the matter is closed. And, to any intelligent and informed person, it obviously is still very much an open case with leads not followed.
I have a new G4m crashsite here in PNG, we notified the Japanese embassy, who told us to notify the PNG National Museum, which we then did and nothing has happened in 2 years. We are now notifying the G4m reunion associations in Japan in the hope that they will bring political pressure to the case. The site is littered with bones, and the landowners are not impressed with the lack of respect and action they have witnessed.
The US JPAC operate on similar time scales, but they do act, they liase with the public and they stress that the sites not be visited or disturbed. So action does take place………….in the fullness of (public service)time.

Bf-109G Instrument Panel in Aluminium. I thought the originals were all wooden. Does anyone know if any “G” models did actually have aluminium instrument panels?

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Geratebrett-Bf109-G-Messerschmitt-Luftwaffe-/201004746446?pt=Transportwesen&hash=item2eccd106ce

Stihl make an excellent walkabout cut off saw. Would see her off that beach in a matter of hours. Save the public coffers 250 to 500 thousand quid. And provide lots of useful patterns for manufacturing replacement parts. If you were thoughtful, you might even be able to use the recovered sections to make assembly jigs. Oh, and for around the 500,000 pounds mentioned previously, I dare say Precision Aerospace productions in Australia could build you an airworthy centre section.
Or we could just invite conflict archaeologists to get involved…….

I suspect we all have stories akin to these. Something of true value within our grasp, but for a cruel twist of fate, it is lost forever.

But the truth is that Do17s look alot more intact on sonar pictures than they do on the surface covered in marine growth and corroded. Our mind sees things as we would like them to be rather than allow reality to tell us other wise. This is particularly true of our memory. I have returned to several crashsites over the years, seeking parts that I knew were there from a previous visit, only to discover the reason I never recovered the part in the first instance was because it was; corroded, cracked damaged, powder. My memory remembered that that hard to source part existed there but not the true condition it was in.

The P-51 canopy pictures look great, just like a P-51 canopy should look. But now. all these years later, pin hole corrosion, magnesium turned to powder, perspex brittle and cracked. The photos and the story are more valuable than what remains of the canopy.

After all, is not life just just a brief exciting story.

Quite deep for a Saturday morning, isn’t it?