Warbird Information Exchange

Dave - I am not sure what figures you are working to but I should imagine shipping is at $100,000 and the cost of heli-lift and labour at $70,000 so far . Still a bit of a way to go to your millions!
The fact that her spar attachments were cut tends to indicate a flying restoration and not 'preservation'. That kind of makes her worth long term a little higher as she might have a resale value at some time.
Add to this the tv revenue you might accrue from the documentary
of her recovery and subsequent restoration and the figures start to become a little more interesting !

What I find funny about all this is that the Swiss were recovering WWII
combat veterans from lakes in the 1960's and they ended up in the smelter. I cannot recall seeing any article of uproar this was causing in the U.S! Fast forward forty years and the machine in the swamp becomes
a little more interesting! Nothing to do with the increased interest in the type or their rising value! Of course 'johnny native' is terrible for letting her rot away all these years - the fact that if she had returned home
she would have been 'Smelter Ghost' years ago and probably recycled into a thousand Coke tins doesn't matter!

Now of course as they are letting her go it's great to deride 'johnny native' - there must be plenty of other nations around the world who have neglected aircraft for sixty years rather than smelting them -maybe it's time to go and grab those too!

'Swamp Ghost' will undoubtedly now be rebuilt. New engines-props-instruments -50% fuselage reskin- 40% wing reskin for starters!

I read today on the Aerovintage site that the B-17 wreck in Black Cat Pass was destroyed by a fire recently. Is that accurate?

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yes

Like I said before, is that really what we want to do with such a timecapsule of an aircraft?

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Mustangdriver is right. We really need to replace 100% of the skin so it will polish up nicely!

August

Perhaps. Depending on the state of corrosion it may need to have a lot of metal replaced just to support it's own weight. Of course you could embed the plane in a lucite block.

I never thought of it that way. I guess we wil have to wait to see what kind of shape it is really in.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

I wasnt aware of this?? How and when?? This wasnt locals rebelling against foreigners coming and taking the war wrecks was it?? or anything to do with swamp ghosts bad press??? This airframe was largely in one piece, if true this is very upsetting and a great shame...

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"A B-24 was the box a B-17 came in!" - One crew teasing another circa 1944!

I know a lot of hands have touched the aircraft over the years. I wonder if it is at a point where a full restoration makes sense as opposed to preservation. I love the idea of preserving the airframe but on the other hand seeing it flying would be amazing.

Nobody said that. What was said was it is glad to see them admit they had neither the funds, means or interest to safeguard, recover, restore and or display the aircraft. It could have easily wound up being destroyed out in the swamp. Look at the Black Cat Pass B-17, now there is nothing left of it but melted junk it seems. I do plead guilty to poking fun at Big Pat. I apologize for that.

Pretty much everything that was not bolted down and above water was removed long ago, all that was left was a hull, so it is a very empty time capsule, The only unknown was if the bendix belly turret was still in place, which it was.

Dave

My millions figure was in response to the guys 'making millions' out of it when it is on display. Stand by it as far as the end result goes though. The 'easy' part is done, now comes the hard and expensive work - the pay rates are quite a bit higher than those that are paid in PNG!
As far as stuff being scrapped in the 60s, unfortunately it wasn't only the Swiss, all countries were getting rid of war material, a hangover from the post war and 50's scrap drives and people who didn't want anything more to do with horrific war.
Anyway, time machines aren't available so there is little we can do about that, but there are one or two airframes that we can do something about, Swamp Ghost being one!

Dave

As far as airframe parts she will be a piece of cake.A very,very large piece of cake but she is really in pretty good nic.I have seen more challenging airframes than this.

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Hang The Expense

What a terrible idea. What good is a museum going to do their children? They already have no education, so a museum is the last thing they need. I'd say use the money to build some infrastructure and find some way to improve their economy to slightly above the horticluture stage, and see if they can't use this as a chance to get on a solid footing. They shoudl definitely sell as much of their air goodies as they can. but not to waste it on a museum. They should let US build the museums. Tourism down there will never be all that hoppin'. Too far, to hot, too many mosquitos. To many...blah blah blah...But they might be able to do something about all the poverty.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

have any of the more well known restorers shown an interest in this project?? what a shame about the black cat pass bird. it just goes to show that if you sit on your hands enough one day theyre gonna be brown! too bad.