Hello Swifter, this is what the post said. Yes, gone to Alconbury:
Something a little more modern than usual, kindly donated by an ex-RAF BD chap who found it during an airfield EOD clearance sweep:
The initial thinking was it may have been from one of the two B-47s lost on the ground through accidents at Greenham Common, one crashed on landing and was scrapped on site (53-2134 “City of Lincoln”), the other being destroyed by fire after being hit by a jettisoned drop tank from another B-47 while being preflighted (53-6204).
However, the serial numbers show these two aircraft were Douglas-built and Boeing-built respectively.
Graham Luxton kindly provided another potential source today, Lockheed-built B-47E 52-258 formerly of the 305th Bomb Wing (a descendent of the wartime 305th Bomb Group).
“She arrived from MacDill AFB, FL, in 1959 to serve as a weapons loading trainer and was parked for many years at the west end of the base next to buildings constructed for rotating SAC bomb squadrons. Engineless, gunless and missing lots of other parts it was cut up for salvage in early 1964 as part of a base clean up before SAC departed.”
Sadly, because the centre caps weren’t individually marked, there is no way to prove this particular cap belonged to any particular airframe.
It will be living in the Archive room at Alconbury airfield when I’ve finished cleaning it up.
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