fighteraceThis direct link works,
http://www.spitfirespares.com/SpitfireSpares.com/Pages/Recovery’s%20page.html
fighteraceAnd I was not intending to pee on your parade merkle, just that for some airfield research groups, the finding of, and excavation of, an airfield dump is top on their list. We would not be happy having another group approaching the landowner, digging up and taking away artifacts we have been searching ages for.
It is how you worded it that comes across as being..well…greedy…to me at least!, and I did put a smiley thingy in the post to show it was meant in lightheartedness:) just like that!
Well chris, seems like they have the view on insitue archeology, leave it all rusting away for someone else to find!! Get that magnetometer out there may be gold buried in the hills:D
These old dumps arnt that hard to find given the correct kit and aerial photos, if you want to dig one chris have a calilier attitude:diablo: , i will clean the spade off as a nice 50cal would look nice on the jeep
fighteraceHello Peter
There was one small piece of and engine head as far as i know, there was none of the normal smell of fuel, the dark patch was the remains of corroded alloy.
There was a few large bits of the smashed engine not shown in the pics, generally radial engines dont go into the ground to well like inline engines, especally when fixed to such a strong wing section
From the start we was not expecting trailer loads from the magnetometer reading, but given the rarety of the aircraft over here any find was interesting and of significance.
Oh, Nice pics graham you better get it charged up ready, the next site to investigate before summer is over is a nice bailout mosquito FB. This will reviel a pair of merlins i recon at 12ft and few bits for your project, no undercarrage on this one sorry so you will have to keep looking and this time i wont be driving the digger!!!:D
fighteraceHi Gareth
There are a few more in the pipeline – don’t worry 😉
No movement on the one Phillipa put me onto – difficulty finding the landowner.
I have a throttlebox! Next big bit is the control column, although we have parts of this I want an intact one.
Cheers
I know of two sites excluding the one in the peat we put you onto, each site having a pair of merlins buried. The one site has a local rumour to have a missing rear gunner which is incorrect, the tail broke away with the plane crashing into very soft clay with the tail unit falling into a pond and believed still onsite.
This may be worth chasing as there could be a turret buried if you are interested?,this site was stumbled accross years ago while chasing a hurricane with a local farm worker telling us the story while working in the next field.
fighteraceWell, it was meant to be tongue in cheek but there is truth to it.
That’s the main reason I have been so selective on getting items made up for the Whitley. There are still components out there. Only 2 days ago I got an email from a kind person offering me a flap section and hydraulic component from Whitley BD232 that were picked up off the hillside in the 1970s.
Lord only knows the volume of souvenired parts that were subsequently binned.
We will continue to watch and wait – restoring original components and selectively and conservatively having new ones made.
Fuselage frames are a different matter :p
Cheers
why dont you find a good buried whitley to dig, there are a few i know off which would reveil loads of parts including merlins. you find a good buried one any you may even get an origional throttle box!!!:D
fighteraceWill look in the shed over the weekend for you boys, somewhere in there is also the engineers panel to prime the engines complete with fuel tank selector on, also a complete dingy with wooden bellow foot pump still working!!
I will post a few pics
fighteraceI have a set of origional ones from a dug halifax in peat running bristol herc engines, would guess that they are the same. They are almost perfect apart from a twist or 2 which could be used again with a bit of tinkering.
I will endevour to dig them out of the shed and post a few pics of the 4 engine throttle unit.
Gareth
fighteraceObviously have no idea why it got deleted, but back on track my two questions related to the crew of this aircraft and their identities. There seems a bit of a puzzle over this crash. I see from letters from the late Al Brown and Peter Foote that the site was first dug some 20 years ago when two parachutes were found. So, obviously the crew died. Hence your memorial idea I suppose. However, Peter and Al seemed to think another aircraft was involved nearby where the crew survived. Could there be some confusion between aeroplanes here and would this explain the bomb that shouldnt have been there?
Spot on Andy, the site was investigated in 1972 i believe with the recovery of two parachutes, a reminder off the sad loss of the crew plus an unknown quanity of parts unknown. After a site survey it was beleaved large qualities of the aircraft remained buried from the magnetometer readings and permissons for a recovery was aranged
As you are all well aware records are not aways 100% reliable especially during the war years which has been found out before on digs, the aircraft from the finds would appear to be almost intact on hitting the ground as both wing ballest & rudder weight was found during the recovery in the right locations, however we did find a molten metal oxygen regulator with conector,so possible o2 failure/fire in flight at high alt if i had a guess.
fighteracewell does look a little different but would think this was like it is due to cost of molding the perspex, i guess that he may have found a window similar as not everyone has deep pockets. looks good enough to me graham wish he was in my shed!!.
If all the rivit counters put as much time helping out than slagging off other peoples projects, you may get it near perfect. we are not trying to re-invent the wheel again here
fighteracefighteraceyes LOL i’ll post a link, will have another recovery to report in a couple of weeks, twin Merlins:D , rest is classified for now. 😎
MMMMMMMmmmmmm let me guess a mossi, i better get me shovel polished up and a screwdriver for that shiny Rolls Royce Merlin 25 label:D
fighteraceInteresting to see that we are all tared with the same bush atleast, I think this is a fruitless debate that i personally dont think you will ever faviour our side
The case of ownership has never been tested after some 60 years on somelses land and the acts states its an affence to tamper with the remains, we all are happly to comply with the new policlys,reports ect as normally they grant permission unless there is a possibility of the unwanted which is then placed on the local SMR
fighteraceWell, interesting point raised Gary
Firstly everything i recover is done above board and all the thing i have ever found were never visable to the eye as they was below ground level and often like new if deeply buried.
Some surface sights are interesting to visit but to be honist in badly decaying condition from the elements and would leave it upto the landowner if he wants wreckage accross his land. I would agree that its a bad show cutting off prop which i have seen ect from the high groung sites as they would be best left alone and origional
One point that we differ is that i disregard ourselves “hoarders” as most people display their finds, after all if it was not for us most of the sites would never have been found as all the witnesses are no longer around so i think we fall in to the preservation catorgory
fighteraceYes that true enough, personally i have recovered some excellent finds deeply buried from complete hurricane control columns to almost undamaged merlins that would run again with a lot of money spent and to be fare they have granted ownership.
Thats needless to say they may ask oneday if i ever found something like a whirlwind, but would have to cross that bridge with a fight for some componsation as some digs cost 500 pounds for the digger alone for the day with the chance of finding nothing!!
As the the P-38 site you could ask the question why did they not tidy up,they take a dim view on rubish on the hillside now by the seems of it as they removed a lot of wreckage off the hills up north recently if i remember by helecopter to keep it tidy. Least if it has gone lets hope its looked after rather that being scrapped
I will leave the coat and the anorak question for the boys to battle out on the difference!
fighteraceflying again
Well the answer to the question is yes a few aircraft have been restored to flying condition such as hurricane AE977. As a Digger myself i think the idea of a recovered list is a waste of time, half of the gear recovered will never be used in a flying aircraft apart from ods n ends and the rest just used to gain the identity,if you can afford to keep a flyier insured in the air alone you can afford to make the parts. question you should ask what persentage is original anyway to make it WW2 ?
Any how the new MOD recovery forms cover all parts recovered if filled in correctly so they have a list and have chance of the picking if they want, otherwise its handed to the us to look after and display rarther than rotting under the ground
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