Supervision..

Yeah I think the old childlike adrenaline cuts in when your armpit deep in your favourite aircraft.While we are building a full size spit we are also building a cockpit section to allow the public to get up and personal.Also a good way to use up “mistake parts” where the guys (and me) make boo boo,s on parts and can bodgy them up for the display.Have been to a Defence Force open day where kids where allowed to clamber all over a Blackhawk.Had three personel in it to make sure nothing critical was activated and to answer questions.Also some common sense is a rare thing these days.

NZ is still one of the worlds “undiscovered”….

With all the work being done at Avspecs and with Peter Jacksons collection…Two islands rich in history…:)

Digging holes.

Yep we could do the same thing and dig holes everywhere but I don,t think the Army helicopter pilots would appreciate it.An elderly mate of mine has gone through the area about thirty odd years ago and gone through the base site and a lot of other restorers have gone through since.All thats left is the rubbish that is too far gone to be of any real use.Plus 60 odd years is a long time for memories to be correct in regard to small areas.Only thing to do is find good photo,s of the scrapping process and ID landmarks.
We used a metal detector once and found a good signal about the size of a large Oleo we gathered.After digging down to bedrock all we uncovered was an angry sugar ants nest…:D

Another Spit Special

Can,t forget the Spitfire wing bag….To carry spies/corpses around with…And yes I know I have to search for the pic…

The painnnn…

An old bloke around here had a job in the scrapping of about 500 planes out here after the war.About 170 odd were Spits..Anyway his job was to sit in the cockpit with a tiny hammer and smash the instruments.First lot he did he smashed the glasses but was warned to do a better job so the rest the hammer went right through…Ouch…:eek:
The rarity of the trim guage is due to that it being only used in a Spit. 30034/sheet 9 IIRC.Whereas the rest are generic issue.
It is a shame that ridgy didge parts are becoming so expensive.It is a huge stress and I wonder what the future holds.Do Spits go the way of rarer types and just become museum pieces or do we go the Mustang route where a whole new aircraft can be scourced from new build parts.Then flooding the market with repro parts.It,s a knifes edge decision.:(

Lets narrow the search down….

Ok Spits had a 30 Gallon,a 40 Gallon,a 90 gallon and a 170 Gallon jettison/slipper tank IIRC.Now are they made by the same manufacturer as the Main fuel tanks.If so then they might have an idea what it is,that,s if they are still around.;)
In regards to dumping.Here at Oakey during the big cleanup lorries were loaded up each morning and would leave the base and return back empty in the afternoon.This area is rich of stories,furfies,myths and legends of parts chucked down any number of pits/coal shafts/rivers/holes/quarries etc…Yes the armed forces did strange things sometimes and perhaps the parts you recovered might have been spares kept in stores and told to be rid of them.:)

Holes…

It would usually be a small hole on one side and a bigger hole on the exit side.A machine gun round take a bit of material with it on the way through and punch it out the other side.The main diff is with cannon shells.In a Spit the shell would strike the skin,partially penetrate and explode,leaving the other side look like a colander or tear it apart like a tin can.In a Hurri with fabric the surface would tear allowing the round to go right through the plane without exploding.Thats unless it hit something substantial on the way through..