Brickends, slate and clinker looked slightly promising but a smell of fuel from only 18 inches down proved we were not excavating a manhole. The accident report stated that the engine and one propellor blade had not been recovered from a depth of 20 feet. We didn’t find the blade. There was probably a schoolboy with a very impressive souvenir.

Congratulations – Its good to see this attempt on this site was finally successful – guess some expert Forster operation helped on this occassion Ian 😉 Did you find the armament & was the recovery filmed for TV as discussed – if so any idea when it will be aired? PM on its way to you.

It would appear that the mystery engines thought to be Jumos could actually be Russian Klimov M-105 engines and being four of them, they could have come from a Tupolev TB-7 .

Can anyone confirm this

If they are the ones I think they are – from near Preston? Yes they are mostly Russian from Yak fighters or IL-2 Sturmoviks I was told ??? though not my area really – They came as part of a consignment of battlefield scrap from Russia several years ago – the owners main interest was aircraft armament and plenty of that was included too 😮 – One was definitely a Jumo, from Norway.

Need to speak to Mark (tel No. I have doesnt work) or whoever is responsible for the Centurion ASAP – please PM me his new No. or ask him to ring me please.

Have you been fishing again Cees? 😉

Perhaps if those who are genuine in their motives were a little more pro-active in weeding out those who do some or all of the “rubbish” you list everyone would not get tarred with the same brush!. A start would be for all recovery groups to be much more open about what they have,what they had which they have since disposed of,etc. Also some effort within many groups to preserve what they already have before rushing out to grab more wreckage would show an intent to preserve history.

Hi again Garry – Before I start, I would like to say we are obviously NEVER going to agree and I have no wish to reiterate past arguments – That said I really feel that you need to moderate your tone and stop making such all encompassing and downright insulting statements – I accept you have strong feelings on this issue and may not realise how your accusasions are coming across (or may be you do?). Like any activity, the hobby (and it is a hobby, not a profession) of Aviation Archaeology attracts both the good and the bad – it is human nature and beyond all our control -though we can vet (up to a point) those who we allow to attend our digs, we have no right or mandate to impose our views on others – rather like yourself!

Me-109E – It is a sad fact that good intentions are not always followed up by good practice as far as the preservation of recovered artefacts is concerned and though I like to feel our group as struck a fair balance by limiting the number of dig we carry out, so as not to outstrip our ability to deal with what we have recovered. The majority of our finds eventually go on public display at the RAF Millom Museum. However at the end of the day it seems that there is only so much crash material that can maintain the average museum visitors interest, so compromises are inevitable – some surplus has been donated to certain restoration projects and we do allow individual members to keep a few items once the material required for display has been assessed + of course we usually put aside at least one artefact to be presented to interested landowners (polished engine valves suitably mounted and labelled usually do the trick!).

There is also, of course, the physical problem of conserving some recovered material and not all recovered items can be successfuly preserved – badly corroded propeller blade will continue to delaminate, no matter what you do and salt water immersed engines can be impossible to stabilise – hence there are sites that we leave undisturbed as the effort to preserve the recovered material would, at the very least, jeopardize our other projects.

All this of course is in addition to the moral obligations that we feel important when recovering material from a crash site where often aircrew may have lost their lives – we do not sell artefacts as we believe this would be disrespectful – this is our groups opinion and we recognise other groups / individuals have a right to their opinions too – on a point of law once the title of the recovered material is transeferred you are entitled to with it as you see fit – the PMR Act protects the sites, not the artefacts once thaey have been legally recovered.

Magnetometers and buried dumps

Going back to the original topic !!! 😮

I own two Forsters (+ one in bits! just greedy I guess!!:D ). Also a Fisher Gemini 3 & a Whites TM808 – may sound excessive but has I have become experienced in operating them, I find each gives a different insight as to what may be buried.

I have heard of various dumps etc. and have been asked to help out with a couple such projects, which I am not averse to – my only condition is to be involved in the project – not that I want a share of the finds or anything (I have more than enough aircraft bits cluttering up the place! :rolleyes: ) But I just simply love this hobby and being involved in recoveries.

This brings me to my point! and the reason I have not been instrumental in the unearthing of any lost caches of crated Spitfires etc. In my experience those hunting for such material seem to be VERY secretive and more than a little profit motivated? (IMO of course!).

My assistance has been turned down flat on more than one occasion because I made this condition – and I was the one who had been asked to help !!! 😡 I don’t think I am unreasonable in, at the very least, not wanting let this hard to replace and easily damaged equipment out of my sight – but it transpired that the individuals asking did actually want to just borrow my equipment – without an operator – presumably to maintain secrecy? Those who have used such machines will know that they are not just like modern “switch on and go” metal detectors and interpretation of the readings you get can only come with experience – so this attitude seems a bit daft to me :confused:

To achieve this it comes down to time, bodies and money of which we only have a finite amount of each. 😮

Volunteers anyone ?

You may be pleased to hear that the long awaited (and very frustrating 🙁 ) House move is all set for next week 🙂 So hopefully I should be able to manage a trip or two to the museum very soon. 😮

I have continued to try to contact Lucite for the perspex sheet that they promised us ages ago, but seem to be up against a brick wall – Answerphones all the time & never ring back 😡 But you know me – I never give up 😉

Good to hear that the A-26 parts will be under cover soon – about time I got a proper display organised on that one. Also is the WW1 display Glynn mentioned still on the cards as I will start putting stuff to one side for that as it comes out of storage if it is.

[QUOTE=Mark12;1156853]The Firefly section in the Manchester museum surely, from memory, looked superior in appearance to the ebay images.:confused:

Mark

Although the cockpit section did indeed look quite presentable whilst at the Manchester museum, close inspection would have revealed it had suffered quite badly during its exposure to the elements whilst at Failsworth, with many of the castings being severly pitted. The restoration work appeared to my untrained eye to have been very much conservation / cosmetic rather than structural.

Re Professor Carl Chinn see http://www.history.bham.ac.uk/staff/chinn.htm nothing on a Spitfire? project though, but does mention his research into the “Birmingham Blitz” and his Sunday radio slot.