He wasn’t silent today. 11.15 2013

“Last post by Matt Rimmer
I’m afraid I’m a little late to this most interesting discussion, but I’m very pleased to see Captain Elliott here on the forum and read of his desire to see his Uncles aircraft recovered and conserved.

It is true that the project has not moved forward as quickly as some(myself included) would like, however this is in large part due to outside factors rather than any lack of effort on Tighar’s part.

In many ways it’s a catch 22 situation-before considering a recovery there must be a suitable home for the aircraft, yet it’s difficult to convince a museum to take on a complicated conservation project when they cannot see the aircraft before first carrying out a recovery.

Some will ask “So why not go ahead and recover the aircraft anyway?”, however there are a number of very good reasons for not doing this. At present the P-38 is stable in her present environment, but as soon as she is removed from that environment rapid decay will occur without proper(and costly) intervention. Now if funds were not an issue a recovery and conservation could be carried out without first having a museum on board, but to what end? in the(admittedly unlikely) event that even after conservation was completed a home still couldn’t be found what then? to place the aircraft into storage would in many ways differ little from leaving her where shy now sits under the sand.

Though this is a rather controversial statement to make, the history of historic aircraft recovery is littered with the wreckage of best intentions, recoveries carried out without better planning or enough funding for the long term care and preservation of the subject aircraft, the best known of these being the B-29 “Key Bird” but there are many others. I for one do not wish to see The Maid as a broken pile of wreckage on the beach, or a rapidly corroding hulk in some yard, or being hacked apart piecemeal for want of more time.

One comment I would make concerning the point Jeff raised about the publics desire to see a recovered aircraft verses a restored example, last month I visited the Dornier at RAFM Cosford and even on a damp October day the one aircraft at the museum which drew a small crowd during the entire time I was there was the Dornier, people are fascinated by something which has survived untouched for over 70 years and which bears not only the scares of war but details like the original paint overspray, and the controls still in the position they were left by it’s last pilot, these things speak to many people and bring home far more the human side of war than a shiny restored aircraft could ever do.

Regards,

Matt.

http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1381.msg29112.htm

Does anyone have any info on the crash of the newly restored Stratoliner. It apparently suffered engine failure and crashed into shallow water.

The only surviving Boeing 307 Stratoliner (NC19903) is preserved in flying condition at the Smithsonian Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. On March 28, 2002, this particular aircraft was subject to a dramatic crash in which it ditched into Elliott Bay in Seattle, Washington, on what was to be its last flight before heading to the Smithsonian. Despite the incident, it was again restored, flown to the Smithsonian, and is now on display.

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Laurie,

You may want to check out Popular Flying Magazine. Those pics look like they could have been cut from the front cover. Without knowing the size of the pics, I can’t be sure.