Warbird Information Exchange

Anyone have pictures of the forced landing site or later recovery operation?

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

Do you speak about the French B-25, who did a forced landing few weeks ago ?

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Sorry for my bad English:-(

He is referring to B-25D 41-30222 of the 498th Bomb Squadron that crashed during the war in AU. The aircraft was recovered in the 1970s. I have never seen pictures. I'd also be interested interested in seeing some.

Ryan

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The B-25D 41-30222, "Hawg Mouth" has been restored on display in Darwin for many years in the NT Aviation Centre.

http://www.darwinsairwar.com.au/

Unfortunately the rear fuselage and tail were lost when Cyclone Tracey wiped out Darwin blowing the structures away during outside storage long before the museum was formally established.




The Museum is currently restoring a replacement tail section to install, see here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40132991@N07/sets/72157622327035235/detail/



I believe this is a picture of Hawg Mouth prior to recovery in 1974






Regards

Mark Pilkington

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20th Century - The Age of Manned Flight
"from Wrights to Armstrong in 66 years -WOW!"

Thank you for the picture posting. I'd seen that on the web before but didn't realize it was the same a/c. It must have really
been remote if they didn't salvage the engines during the war. I've been interested in AU warbird crash sites since reading about Faletta's P-39 in a certain mag many years ago.

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

Yeesh, with both props feathered I bet there was a lot to deal with in the cockpit immediately before the plane ended up there.

-Tim

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Keep 'em Flying.

More than a year ago since the last reply, but I just saw another picture that is claimed to be of 41-30222 before it was receovered, photographed by a party of geologists:

Both this and the above mentioned picture by Mark Pilkington seem to be different aircraft, but which one is the real Hawg Mouth? I put my money on the latter, when I look at the damage. Especially the broken panels in the glass nose and the holes in the left front cockpit window pane. The same holes can be seen on a photo of the aircraft on display in Darwin:


Tillerman.

Edit: the IMG thingy doesn't work for the last picture, here is the link to it:
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/photo/543169L.html

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Jets are nice. Props are nicer.

Also, note the .50 Cal in the nose. I don't know which B-25 this is, but also believe that it is not 30222.

after comparison of photos, I to am at a loss.

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

Comparing the pictures posted by both Mark and Tillerman I can say with almost certainty that Mark's picture is not of 41-30222 and Tillerman's picture very easily could be. The biggest thing to note is the reconfiguration of the glazed nose (note squared frame front). This is a modification was fairly common for C/D models of this theater. This was reconfigured to house 4 forward firing .50 cal machine guns and was often accompanied by a painted over glazed nose. This can be seen on both the Tillerman posted picture and 41-30222 today.



Ryan

They are different aircraft and your summary of the second pic with the same damage as the Darwins is correct. The other B-25 is in storage for possible future restoration and is a former NEIAF 18th squadron bird. Darwin has several B-25's in dry storage at locations that would withstand a scale 5 cyclone. yep, they learned their lesson.

Both a C /D models - I say both because most US spares went direct to the US forces and the RAAF second and the NIEAF if they were lucky or pinched them from the RAAF you in turn pinched them from the USAAC. This meant that the parts you got you had to make fit to the aircraft you had. Its a neat story about the Dutch flying out of the North and North West of Australia.


SD