Yes, the MH434 one is for the A wing with eight machine guns. It should have the rectangular rocker type as you say. They will have to add that one to the list along with the roundels 😀 .

Hi Lancman,

Several of the Lake Michigan Wildcats are now flying. These aircraft came out of the water still in their original paint (see another thread higher up the pile for pics) and are often in staggeringly good condition: air in the tires, strut pressure and gas in the tanks etc. One estimate suggests there are around 300 aircraft in that lake. Sadly the US NAvy has proven ownership of them and it is very difficult to persuade them to authorise a salvage.

PS: The point is these aircraft have come out of deep, cold fresh water and not the sea.

Brilliant photos… the Dauntless coming out of Michigan looks like it got in there yesterday, amazingly intact. These shots prove the point: freshwater good, salt water bad (from the point of view of restoring to flying condition).

Edited because the forum naughty word finding system took exception to salt and water being one word, evidently it did not like the four letter word starting and ending with ‘t’ that occurs in the middle of it. Good thing I do not come from Scun*horpe!

Hi Ant,

When you say ‘ought to be performed’ do you envisage this as a friendly request to the warbird pilot/owners or as a rule for certain shows or maybe a CAA directive?

Daz – what is a Mk XVI style air intake?

There are hundreds if not thousands of WWII aircraft beneath the oceans of the world. Some are regularly explored by divers, many others sit unseen in the holds sunken freighters or lie on the bottom follwing deliberate dumping overboard.

The condition of these airframes will undoubtedly make them unsuitable for restoration to airworthy standard as the highly corrosive effects of salt water, regardless of what temporary measure were taken to protect them during the voyage, on aluminium alloy airframes and steel engines are well known. This severely reduces the feasibilty of locating and rescuing these airframes.

The issue of wrecked vessels as wargraves should be considered.

The only underwater aircraft wrecks worth making serious efforts to recover are those in cold freshwater. The US Navy aircraft in Lake Michigan being the best examples I can think of. A number of these aircraft have been salvaged and some were in surprisingly good condition and flew again after restoration. There are likely to be many more potentially restorable aircraft in the remote lakes of Russia and perhaps this source will be explored further once the (comparitivley) readily accesible supply of surface wrecks is exhausted.

😀 😀 😀 !!

Not really Mike, the designation ‘HF’ reffered to the engine, the Merlin 70, rather than the wingspan.