Warbird Information Exchange

Spitfire landing in Burma-

No I mean this one-

OK, how about a secret photo looking in the cockpit of a crated Spitfire-

Boxed parts ready to be opened-

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Rich Palmer

Remember an Injured Youth
benstear.org
#64- Stay Strong and Keep the Faith

BOOM BOOM, ROUND ROUND, PROPELLER GO

Don't Be A Dilbert!

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[Thread title is ridiculous btw]

yes please.

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You can't see me!!

So get the cosmoline off of them, flush the tanks, charge the batteries and fuel them up. And maybe add some invasion strips and fly them back to GB.

It should be just that easy.

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Flying Piper L4-J 45-55209

So is there any chance these things could have survived? I don't really know anything about the process of burying a crated airplane and I'm a huge skeptic about these Spits being anything other than twenty Miss Belvederes but man, what if they're there and okay?

I guess the first place to start is the crate. What did a Spitfire crate look like? How was it built? How exactly did they preserve the airplane inside and how have other items given this treatment weathered the last sixty years?

That could be the easy part, what about the environment they have sat in for decades? Does anyone know roughly where they might be buried? What are the odds the crates have filled with water or collapsed? Is there any chance they didn't run over the crates with a bulldozer before burying them?

There are probably at least a dozen more variables (probably more like a hundred) but in general what I'm asking is what could go wrong between burying brand new airplanes and recovering nothing OR what would have to go right to pull twenty as-delivered Spitfires out of the ground in Malta?

-Tim

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Keep 'em Flying.

Malta? Minnesota? Malaya?

Anyway, I'd suggest you read the thread, THEN ask questions.

I'd suggest Tiger Tim's questions are in a general sense, legitimate enough, and as I said in the P-40 thread it's foolish to be too dogmatic about how such 'buried treasure' scenarios are likely to turn out. Over time, what we see as minor factors have a cumulative effect, and not least, how something was originally 'preserved' will obviously have a huge long-term influence.

The two cases to consider is the 'Miss Belvedere' 1957 Plymouth Belvedere, familiar to most here, but for a recap:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Belvedere

That we can regard as essentially a failure, particularly given that it was 'just 50 years' and 20C technologies of preservation potentially enabled better preservation than we got.

Now imaging an equivalent that is not just a few times longer, more successful and historic, but literally thousands of years earlier and a successful essentially complete (if not 'serviceable') preservation of a vehicle. That's the Cheops or Khufu ship from over four and a half thousand years ago!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khufu_ship

Those serve well as two bookend parameters of achievement and potential possibility.

As to 'buried crated' aircraft? Could be a huge variety of variation, as illustrated above. However tales of careful packing and securing of the machines for long term preservation are usually good modern publicity and if you think about it, hardly particularly likely at the time of placement.

These stories almost always prove a variable degree of disappointment; but, just sometimes, the Pharoh's technicians do good.

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Oops, I've been keeping up with the story but for some reason I've had Malta stuck in my head instead of Burma.

-Tim

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Keep 'em Flying.

I will chime in with my two cents as it relates to the plymouth. As a Tulsan, I got to see that car up close and personal. Some potential differences between that car and the Spits...

The car was in a concrete vault. Good intentions, but it very successfully kept several feet of water around the car, ensuring that it sat in water for 50 years. Being in cosmlline and in crates, but with no vault to hold the water around them they might get wet but dry out quickly. Additionally, the car was simply wrapped in some protective wrapping, but it deteriorated rapidly in the water and was of little use. No effort was made to seal up the gaps for the hood or the trunk like it sounds was done on the spits. The car was cocooned, but not effectively.

It will be interesting to see how te spits were preserved in comparison to the car. Here's hoping they dd a good job!

Kevin

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FOUND the elusive DT-built B-24! Woo-hoo!!!

Doesn't it rain in Burma , a lot? I read a passage about the dramas EAR (Engineer Aviation Regiments) had draining airfields in Burma , as every time it rained, the runways turned into mud lakes.

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So there I was , with nothing on the clock except the makers' name, and that was in Hindustani and fast disappearing...

Don't think these Spitfires were 'preserved' in any sense; dumped is more like it.

Still in crates allegedly, but that wouldn't have keep out air or dirt. I doubt they were wrapped in any kind of cocoon being wartime but it is possible.

20 crates of junk is my pessimistic prediction

If in fact they were buried and someone locates them, does not matter how much covering or what type of protection there was/is, water and air have a way of getting in. In my opinion there more than likely will be nothing much left of the crates and the aircraft them selves will serve nothing more than maybe a pattern or two for parts.


Just my .02

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A&P/I.A., A.A.S./Aviation Maintenance technology
Warbird salvage/recovery
One day I'll get that P-40!

The article clearly states that they were in their shipping crates. That means they were set up for normal overseas shipping.( preserved for travel on the ocean ) Then the article states that the CRATES were wrapped in preservative paper then the joints sealed and tarred. Not the aircraft.

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"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass..."
Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto

If you know anything about construction, an underground vault made from reinforced concrete (a bunker if you will) would be required to keep the tons of earth above from crushing some relatively flimsy wooden crates flat. These were supposedly shipping crates, right?

When you dig a tunnel, you are making a cavity in well packed earth. The top of the tunnel essentially supports itself like an arch. In the case of these Spitfires, you have loose earth pushed into a hole with bulldozers or hand shovels. Even a modern steel shipping container would collapse under these circumstances. To make a vault strong enough you would need a foundation to keep the walls and roof from punching down over the aircraft like a staple through a few sheets of paper (the foundation would have to float on the soil below). And then the walls would need to be strong enough to keep from buckling and finally the roof would need to be strong enough to bridge the distance across each crate.

I've seen Spitfire sized wooden shipping crates (with a Spitfire inside actually) and I suggest it was much less strong than a modern steel shipping container.

Maybe this is a modern miracle or some very special engineering was done to protect these aircraft, but this engineer has his reservations that these aircraft are in any condition resembling intact. I suspect they will be at least as crushed as Glacier Girl and likely more corroded.

Even if my expectations are realized, I hope these are recovered and at a minimum the identities can be used to create more flyable aircraft.

What the article states and what actually happened may be two different things. I understand that the article was reffering to the CRATES being wrapped, sealed, and tarred. Not the aircraft themselves!

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A&P/I.A., A.A.S./Aviation Maintenance technology
Warbird salvage/recovery
One day I'll get that P-40!