Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: curry1 on January 09, 2013, 09:19:41 AM
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It's full of muddy water though :headscratch:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/9789830/Burma-Spitfire-search-finds-water-filled-crate-that-may-contain-plane.html
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Here's hoping for not much oxidation damage
.. altho the water probably destroyed any fabric components
and not much chance they will come up in anything resembling flyable condition :(
-Frank aka GE
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Apparently they are not Spitfires but Brewsters, because they were the best plane in the war :)
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Apparently they are not Spitfires but Brewsters, because they were the best plane in the war :)
Say Brewster 3 times and Wmaker appears.
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They were never going to be flyable out of the box as it were. But water damage isn't the end of the world. Worse has been restored to fly. At the very least all of them will have water damage. You can hardly expect anything else for something buried all that time in a tropical country with an annual monsoon.
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I can't wait to see how they look.
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Say Brewster 3 times and Wmaker appears.
:lol :lol :aok
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Apparently they are not Spitfires but Brewsters, because they were the best plane in the war :)
:( okay boys cover the hole back up and lets go home :frown:
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It's full of muddy water though :headscratch:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/9789830/Burma-Spitfire-search-finds-water-filled-crate-that-may-contain-plane.html
From what I remember reading, before crating all the metal bits were covered in thick, heavy grease and then a layer of parafin (sp) wax to seal moisture out... obviously it was a thought-of possibility that the planes might be crated for quite some time before being unboxed and assembled. Whether the level of prep was adequate to resist 60+ years of being buried below the water table remains to be seen.... however, I do remember reading that in one of the previous expeditions, they had bored a hole down and into one of the crates, and lowered a camera, and were at least of the opinion from that exercise that the plane thay happened to be looking at seemed well preserved (I don't know how much they thought they could tell but obviously they though it was worth the $$$ to go back for the whole lot of them).
Heck, if they even get enough parts to build one or two airframes out of, it will have been more than worth it.
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If they have luck, there may be crates in dryer conditions. Lets hope so ;)
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I'm really looking forward to see the updated footage after enough water has been pumped out!
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If the engines can be salvaged, this will be huge.
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open, open, open, open, open, open,.....
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:pray :pray :pray
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the crates actually contain different parts of Jimmy Hoffa!
:noid
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On restoration: If they have a nearly destroyed ID plate they can build the plane around it :)
I have no doubt it will be worthy to bring em all up
..the hardware alone will be worth a fortune and from what I have read
they will be able to get more than a few flyable planes out of it all
..I just hope the preservation methods worked better than I anticipate ..
..I'd love to see every airframe flying .. but .. that's just me :)
As it is .. cosmoline (that thick grease) works *very* well ..
20-30-40 year old rifles stored with that stuff worked fine after thorough cleaning and test fire worked as advertised.
ie: My dad bought me my first rifle, an Italian WW2 vintage gun ..when I was 15 (1965)
Cost 5 bucks and was still in the crate smothered in that stuff at the gunshow.. 6.5mm Carcano model 1939 bolt action.
My dad showed me how to shave the stock and we discarded the military hardware
(strap, forward wood part of stock, bayonet mount an such)
Re-blued all the metal, stained and laquered the stock after it was the shape I wanted, and test fired it.
I used that rifle for years target shootin for fun, sold it for a bit more than 5 bucks when I got married.
So ya .. I am hopin they get some great planes outta that hole :)
-Frank aka GE