You have to do your homework James. The evidence was a half a page article on them by Stuart Howe, it was no advertisement. They could be bought for 10.000 usd all 3. I tried to buy one (for 3000 ) but I had to get them all 3. Apart from that no one in Holland was interested, and still isn’t, in the Avenger. Thet prefer to invest in plastic Spitfires more expensive than a TBM while as it was for me I should exchanche all Dutch Spitfires for half a TBM tailhook.

BW Roger

Careful Roger, 😮 😮

Go wash your mouth, you naughty boy. :p

Cees

p.s. I’m interested to see an Avenger in the Aviodrome or Soesterberg

One more

Cees

We had discussed this in depth with TT before the project and warned against any apportioning of blame, but at the end of the day we had no control over the finished programme – no doubt one of the reasons so few groups get involved with such projects.

My point exactly.

Sometimes we also had a journalist present during the end of the dig and even though we had made arrangements that only one person from our group would give information and general background information to him about the recovery, and that the words: wreckdiggers, treasure etc were not to be used, the next monday these very words were published, as well as a story of which a lot was made up by this particular journalist to tart up the story.
It gave Joe Public the idea that we were only interested in engines and that we were dissapointed if none were found. The serious undertone of this investigation never got through to him, as he was only interested in sensational stories.

On the other hand, we had a collegue of his who was genuinely interested in this kind of work and who also took the trouble to do some research himself, and who was willing to let us have a look at the article (and filter out any mistakes) before it was publised. Obviously every time we now have a recovery going on he gets the “scoop”. It works both ways in this case.
Clever chap.

Cheers

Cees

And what about the three Avengers that were for sale in Israel about 1985. It was reported on in FlyPast.

Cheers

Cees

Personally I am not very much in favour of having a camera crew on site during a recovery. These things are very sensitive and you never know how it is put on screen whatever promises they may give you.

This is a serious business (especially when missing aircrew are concerned) and most camera crews don’t like it when you request them to see the footage or completed footage before it is broadcasted. Same goes for newspaper journalists, some exepted of course. If a story is put into the wrong perspective, Joe Public usually believes it and correcting it may be very difficult as the media are very much into quick news and then go on to the next topic.

Cheers

Cees

IMHO the target tug livery, although very colourful, brakes up the graceful shape of the nose intake of the Tempest.

Cees

All (understandable) frustrations aside, personally I am very glad these aircraft still exist. Yes, it’s a big shame that they were parked outside. But better than to be scrapped due to lack of space. That’s what usually happened.

I heard once that a technical university in Delft, The Netherlands, had an interesting collection of Japanese aircraft, captured after WW2. In the 1950s or so, they were in such bad state that when the university needed more space, they were simply scrapped… How truly sad is that! 🙁 We could have had a whole Japanese collection here in Europe…
(Note: I can’t confirm this story in any way. I just heard it from my aeronautical teacher when I was studying aero engineering. The only type he could remember was an Aichi floatplane… How many of those are still remaining these days… 🙁 )

Japanese aircraft, don’t think so

They did have Mustangs, Thunderbolts, a Lightning, A Tempest, Spitfires, a Mosquito, Stirling bits, Wellington fuselage frame, B-17. A real treasure trove and although a lot of these were scrapped, some bits were saved (remember Spitfire PL344, Mosquito TA122 and Tempest of which the serial escapes me a the moment but it is under rebuild for Kermit Weeks).

Cees