As I said, my example was not relevant to your Spitfire, although it remains a historical artefact that is currently undiscovered. As such it is no different to any other historical item.

I know I keep banging on about it but go and see the aircraft at East Kirkby – it tells so much more about the horrors of war than any restored aircraft ever could.

Bruce

Is there a website or a photo that I can look at?

Ali

For myself, I believe that the problem with aircraft archeology in the past has been that once the aircraft has been recovered, it is then spread out amongst interested parties, sold off, and so on until all the context has gone. And thats the thing about archeology – context. Remove an item from the field in which it has been buried all these years, and it begins to lose its context. Split it up amongst different collections and it loses the context still further. Before long it is just another anonymous lump of aluminium. The very best example of preservation I have seen is the Spitfire V at East Kirkby, where the airframe has been carefull reassembled, or positioned such that all parts are in the correct relationship to one another.

As an example of leaving stuff for future generations, go look at a typical Time Team dig, whereby they will remove some small artefacts, but leave the main site undisturbed. Indeed, most properly led digs are the same. In the future, someone else can come along and dig the site again, and possibly learn something that we couldnt know.

Neither example is relevant to Allison and her Spitfire. It will also be the responsibility of the museum that receives it to display it to its best advantage, but I leave you with one thought.. Is the museum capable of preserving the aircraft in the best possible way?

Bruce (avoiding personal attacks!)

Bruce, I quite agree with you (that’s a first 🙂 ) but it’s not my Spitfire but lets not go down that road. I can see these principles apply to a land excavation that is hundreds of years old but not to an aircraft. The museum I have been speaking to have discussed all sorts of options for preservation and restoration and not once have they mentioned splitting it up. Their attitude is preserve and display. They have got an archaeologist from Newcastle Uni to get involved in it and they have even discussed the idea of displaying it in the condition that it was found (I don’t really like that idea). I can understand the concept of the artifact being in context to it’s surroundings but an aircraft that hasn’t been there that long in the big scheme of things has no relationship, or very little, to the archaeology of the bottom of the lake. Perhaps I may be missing something here but if you could explain that point to me and perhaps I may understand your meaning a little better.

Ali

Thanks pal, I’m glad I didn’t look at this thread last night before I went to bed, my view of the octopus was up those bloody tentacles and it was twice as big as me and most upset, probably as much as I was, I’ll stay with looking at the sticklebacks in my pond thank you very much, they don’t tend to put suckers round your head.

It only wanted a cuddle. Maybe it came from a deprived background…. It should be understood and not shunned….. 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Maybe it thought you were lonely and needed to show you that you ARE important and loved ….. 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Maybe it’s now rolling around the seabed with a complete sense of rejection and abandonment and it’s YOUR FAULT!!!! 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Ali :diablo:

Try the idea of leaving the whole aircraft…

It’s the arrogance of the present thinking we have a right to all of the past.

The crying need in aviation preservation today is for people to catalogue, preserve and display already recovered artefacts.

Museums need people helping them with what they’ve got – not more stuff to manage.

There is an excellent case to be made to recover ‘extinct’ or ‘rare’ types; another Spitfire, while a crowd puller and meretricious is simply difficult to provide as good a case for – that’s just my opinion, and not an instruction.

While we toss up about finding a recovering another Spitfire, there are huge numbers of all ready recovered and ‘preserved’ aircraft need real saving now. The MAM threads here and here demonstrate what can be an answer. Do they need more help with the aircraft they’ve got? Yes.

This is just looking at the same thing from a different angle; over a lifetime of interest in aviation history I’ve learned that there’s a lot of people doing terrific things in their own arena – and plenty of room for everybody. However, co-operation and fitting one’s own plan into the bigger picture’s a very good idea – we have had a ample sufficiency of people pleasing themselves to date, we don’t need any more.

I’m not going to get involved in this kind of suggestion. I WILL say that I don’t believe that it should be left and that’s the end of my contribution to this idea.

I maintain that it should be recovered and there are a lot out there who believe that too. There are also museums that would love a MkII Spitfire to restore, the NE Aircraft Museum for example.

You are free to give your opinon and I am free to give mine. I am also fee to act on my opinion as long as it’s legal and sanctioned.

Ali 🙁 🙁

Now that IS sexist dear girl….to assume is a dangerous thing to do….who says ;

1. that i have “dangly ” bits in my trousers :rolleyes:

We grow great by dreams. All men are dreamers – Woodrow Wilson

2. that i would let you anywhere next or near those alleged parts of the male body..if i am male. :confused:

Apart from man no being wonders at it’s own existence – Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1804)

3. that you wouldnt have to fight off the legions of female admirers who would defend a fine bit of Irish beefcake. 😎

Egotism is nature’s compensation for mediocrity – L.A.Safian :rolleyes:

4. that you couldnt find something more creative to do if you did travel over here…like diving the silent valley! : :rolleyes:

Got to prove there may be something there first. 🙂

5. that a person who enjoys inflicting pain would be let loose in civilisied company…still trying to find some actually! :diablo:

There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it. – Ovid (43 B.C. – A.D. 18) :p

6.that you DO have such a reputation ( bark worse than bite and all that) :dev2:

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread – Alexander Pope :dev2:

7.that you wear boots…stiletto’s are soooo Much better for a bit of FUN.

You know what I think of violence. For me it is profoundly moral, more moral than compromises and transactions. – Benito Mussolini 🙂

8.that WE couldnt find something more creative to do….like discuss the merits of Zen.

There’s a wonderful story about a learned man who went to see a Zen master to debate the merits of Zen. The master poured him a cup of tea, and purposely kept pouring so the tea ran over the cup and spilled onto the table. The man was startled and asked the master what he was doing. The Zen master replied, “You are like this cup, too full of your own opinions to receive anything else.” 😀

9.that i wouldnt ENJOY the pain 😮

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance – Anatole France

10. that at least i would die happy having met the great skydiving deep water leather/lycra wearing ali :dev2:

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman that she was born so long ago – H.L.Mencken

but remember…..ASSUME makes an ASS out of U and ME

Shouldn’t that end with the words “but mostly me”.

Now who was it who said I shouldn’t quote dead people? 😀 😀

Just wondering where the lycra came from. Jump suits are made of spandex.

Ali 😀

I still don’t know why we must leave an amount of “artifacts” in situ, to be discovered by future generatons, surely we are living history ourselves, and our lives and our very existance will be raked over and poked at with a pointy trowel in years to come. We are in danger as a generation of losing sight of what the second world war was really like; school children, need to learn more ,not less about ww2 (in the UK there is a move within govt to stop the inclusion of ww2 in the syllabus) , we have discussed many times the polarisation of national types of museums, and if you live in the London area, as a school kid ,you stand a good chance of a trip to Duxford or Hendon ,but what about the extremities of the country, there are still quite a lot of museums (aviation or otherwise) that do not have any aircraft from the ww2 period. If we are confident that technology in the future will be far beyond ours ,let them tackle the deep water wrecks, those in the artic, or the ones that glow in the dark in Russia.

I couldn’t agree more. If I was a kid and taken to a lake and told “There’s a Spitfire in there” I would probably say something like “well lets see it then”. My favourite museum doesn’t have anything from WWII and is sometimes regarded as a “Cold War Jet Museum” which is sad. They are an aircraft museum and one of the greatest periods of aircraft development was probably WWII so I feel that something should be done to address the balance and what better than to get tucked into the archives and see if there’s something out there that can be recovered and the history of the machine and the men who flew them told. With the development of rebreathers and the gases for deeper diving we are now hitting wrecks that have never been touched since they went down so why not use that technology to get to aircraft and see if it’s worth getting one up.

Ali