A large building company located near me has (had?) a Griffon which it used to generate wind for ‘proving’ building structures. I have seen it once, from a distance, and iirc it was mounted on a 4 wheel trailer. it must sound mighty impressive when its fired up!

Aye, I’ve seen that one too, also on TV for testing one of the structures in Dubai (The Burj something or other, supposed to be tallest building in Dubai I think). Placed in front of a glass window, and let rip!!!!

Pity they said it was from a WWII Lancaster…..

Fascinating.
Includes Hunter at Llantwit Major???

Roger Smith.

I’m surprised nothing from Long Marston there – plenty of sad looking airframes there….. 🙁

Is there any update to their continued deterioration?

Like a freind said to me who was a aircraft engineer,
You go to Do it all DIY centre, and pick up a normal little Dashboard Lightbulb for 50 pence, (pennys, ) as soon as it has ANY conection with Aircraft, and has a bit of Paper, Add POUNDS to it, and yet to mine ,and his thinking, a light bulb , is a light bulb, is a light bulb,??,

so what i am getting at is ANYTHING aircraft, Seems to hold Very High Prices,

you could say the same for Vinatge Boats and equipment too, I suppose anything that has a collectable interest seems to hold in some respects, extremely High prices, Way of the world I suppose ,:diablo:, I wish it wasnt sometimes 😀

Aye, but it’s not just a little bit of paper – the traceabilty usually goes back to manufacture which adds a big headache. When I worked as an avionics tech, everything had to traceable, even items from cannablised units. As it was back then, only somebody with the correct approval could certify something without traceable paperwork, and only then it had to be in agreement with the OEM. So there is a reason why aircraft things get expensive. The manufacturer doesn’t know whether or not it’s going to an airworthy aircraft or one for static, therefore to avoid non-certified stuff going onto an airworthy aircraft, it’s all to the same standard…

We get charged a fortune for Atchely servo valves for the ROV vehicles I now work with, soley due to this, despite us never getting airborne – we only fly underwater…..

Again, regards the certification issue, there are plenty here on this forum will have a direct working knowledge of the rules, as I have been away from the aviation industry for 11 years, and I know CAA / JAA rules have changed since I left

All the best,

Scotty 🙂

Cheers for the tips Low’n’slow!

I visit Singapore on a regular basis, but never thought of heading out to Seletar – didn’t think there would be much left. Have seen the remains of Kallang airport, that is also sad. As you quite rightly say, the other former UK bases are very active, and the RSAF police are not the most forgiving.

Will make a point of visiting the airforce museum.

Cheers,

Scotty

Missed this thread 1st time round, as I was offshore – thought I might add something to it. Of course, some of you guys actually preserving aircraft might know more, but I’ve a lot of experience of salt water and metals…

Slightly related to this I was reading a report on a mission to locate the Ark Royal in the Mediterranean. Given that the ship has been underwater for something like 60 years it was surprising to see an aircraft alongside the ship, and looking fairly complete. Is the Med not as corrosive as the channel?
David

Different areas of sea have different amounts of salinity, but apart from the Dead Sea, it isn’t vastly different. I work in the ROV industry using heavy workclass equipment, and occasionally if we change location (ie – a different sea) we often have to recalibrate our sonar equipment due to the change of salinity affecting the speed of sound in water, the difference between the upper and lower levels being about 200mtr/sec. Temperature also has a big difference in the speed of corrosion of metals. We carry Temperature / Salinity probes so the surveyors can calibrate their doodahs attached to our vehicle. Seabed temperature in the North Sea is typically 2-5 C, but in shallower Med waters can be a lot higher. Temps down to about 500ft have been recorded at about 20C.

Off the Norfolk coast, fishermen from time to time trawl up old aircraft parts.
The Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum has some bits on display. Mostly beat up, corroded and holed engines.
Aluminium fuselages will have long gone for WW2 aircraft.

Steven

Indeed. Depending on the quality of aluminium, it will corrode quite quickly in salt water. Most of our equipment we put underwater is made of aluminium, and needs sacrificial anodes to protect it, usually zinc. Our stuff is quite thick, but I’d imagine lightweight stuff would rot pretty quickly without protection.

I do recall seeing a picture of a B-17 that appeared when they drained one of the areas. IIRC it was scrapped.

Deep sea wrecks will survive longer as there is less oxygen (and I think less salinity) in the water, so corrosion is inhibited.

Lack of oxygen does slow it down, but metals at depth corrode just as well. Depending on how tight an oil company has been in paying for anodes for their subsea equipment, we can see corrosion starting on equipment in 2000m deep equipment within months. Again, depends on several factors like salinity, quality of metal, directly exposed surface area, different alloys, or metals / minerals in contact with structures which may act as cathodic protectors. Another thing to take into account at depth is bacteria. One company I used to work for had big problems in deep, warm water off of West Africa when anerobic bacteria was found to be eating our main lift umbilical cable strands (basically wire rope cable with electrical and fibre optic cable conductors running down the middle internally). Over 3000m down, you do not want to be dropping $2m of equipment on the seabed!

Deep water wrecks like Titanic point the way for this. The rusticles hanging off the structure is the result of bacteria eating the ferrous metals out of the ships hull. She’s getting fragile and is a matter of time before she collapses in on her self. She’s only lasted this long, as it is heavy gauge metal, unlike a lighter aircraft. Titanic also does not have ferocious ocean currents or wave action affecting her, since she sits in about 13,000ft of water.

For channel sunk aircraft, the tide and shifting seabed is also going to be as bad as being in salt water. Sediment propelled by tide and wave action in the relatively shallow waters of the channel are going to sandblast any airframe. I’ve worked in bits of the channel with subsea currents running to 5kts+. Being buried under tons of sand as the seabed moves, or getting dragged by a moving seabed or fishing nets is all going to add to the destruction of any WWII era airframe. Perhaps there is a reason for the fact the biggest bits that seem to get salvaged are engine blocks….

Again, other people might have different experiences to me, but what I’ve written is after a long history of looking at aluminium and other metal structures under the sea….. Pity the only aircraft wreck I’ve had to recover was an F-16 in the med – very little left of that!

Hope I’ve been a little bit informative.
Kind Regards,
Scotty

I would, however, take issue with the last clause of the quote! What, if I may make so bold, is our current UK administration about other than trying to ensure their own survival.;
Yrs Aye
Resmoroh

Is any other British Government different? Look at how Churchill and the Conservatives distanced themselves from Harris to save their skins for the July General Election in 1945. It didn’t work, and enter Clement Atlee, another man who we owe a lot to for creating a National Health Service.

Churchill even went as far to suggest that to vote for a socialist government is akin to letting Nazi’s and commumnists run Great Britain. I cannot remember the actual quote, but it was on TV yesterday on the programme ’50 things you should about British History’. Perhaps Winston had lost his marbles on the ‘broad sunlit uplands’ of his mind….

As for the current government, I’ll only start seriously worrying when they start loading minorities onto cattle trucks and send them through the Chunnel…. 😉

I agree and disagree on some points…

I agree heritage is something that we should keep an eye on, and try to retain, but at what cost? We can’t keep every base preserved that has seen people go out on active service not to return – it’s just not viable. As to saying that the buildings are in good nick, well maybe so, but how much would it cost to refurbish them and make them good for modern use? As I understand (certainly in Scotland) if you have a substantial change of use for a building, in most cases it has to meet modern building codes, something I doubt many ex MOD buildings would manage.

I know many bases are precious for some people, and I can understand the attachment, but how many bases do we have to save to preserve our heritage? Unfortunately, people with our hobby are very much in the minority of the the UK population, so perhaps having a few well preserved bases is better than none?

Do we get so upset when the MOD alters our heritage because the base is still active? We don’t have a say in that, but it amounts to the same argument. Think of all the control towers modernised, hangars modrenised or removed – that’s still playing with heritage isn’t it? Nothing can be done about that..

Preserving them as a memorial to those who died although an admirable idea isn’t in itself sustainable. Why can’t some sort of memorial do just as well? That’s all that gets left in many cases of ex-airfields that returned to farmland after the war; some don’t even have that…

Development doesn’t always mean greed – it can also mean progress. Remember that the house you live in is on what was once undeveloped ground, which I am sure was important to somebody at one point. Progress is going to happen, regardless.

It is admirable for people to stand up and try and make a stand, in Merkles case about the bunker, but heritage is about what it means to a nation, and what builds our character. A bunker is just that to the nation, no matter what it has attached to it. They were built as utility buildings, not meant to last much more than the duration of the conflict they were built for. Apart from us enthusiasts, nobody else is going to care – sometimes we have to realise that, ask ourselves is it a major part we are losing, and be prepared to let go.

Before we rage against the machine, perhaps to illustrate a point, this weekend I posted what I thought was a brilliant pic of the Vulcan at Leuchars to one of my friends – her reply? “So? It’s just a plane”. This is after all the news coverage, and all the effort and money invested in it. I find it beautiful, but others might not worry…

Playing devils advocate, some battles we’ll win, and some we won’t – best pick battles wisely. I’m afraid battles for bases like Driffield and similar just won’t be won…..

Halifax scrapping

The halifax scrapping took place at an airfield away from Kinloss, called RAF Brackla. This is close to Nairn and Cawdor Castle. It didn’t have concrete runways, and little remains now to show that there was ever an airfield there.

I have a leaflet somewhere that details this, I’ll see if I can pass it on to you Elliot, but give me a while to find it!

Regards,
Scotty