Warbird Information Exchange

Remember this is an aircraft that was lost, with its crew through ignorance and inexperience on it's first mission.

The history is her loss.

Imagine, for a moment, you're the guide standing at an airshow with a flying Lady be Good. How do you explain to the public that this was the wreckage of the story, but it's flying now? You would just confuse people.

Who is going to pay to restore it to fly anyway? There's no queue forming waving cash.

There's more to history than getting off on airplanes flying over.

Thanks Django. Bear in mind that the aircraft is currently not 'rotting away' - but is actually better preserved (now and in the immediate future) and better protected than, say some of the aircraft at places like Lackland AFB.

Much of the 'damage' was due to souveniring and looting; many of those pieces ending up at the NMUSAF. Better there than vanished, but they should be with the aircraft, and the aircraft should be displayed 'as found' in a diorama. IMHO, that should be at the new museum in Libya, but a bad second would be at the NMUSAF.

Thanks for the insight! There's a great opportunity for those oil companies to make much better political capital by helping to establish a museum in Libya. Incidentally, we should 'argue the restoration crap' at time of purchase or donation.

I don't see what's so hard about spreading the good stuff around, but then I've found it worth travelling to other places to see what they've got and how they do it. Packed 'mine-mine-mine' toyboxes don't do it for me, sorry.

Just some thoughts,

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James K

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

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Many of the LBG artifacts in the NMUSAF were taken from the wreck for lab analysis of the effects of long-term desert exposure. The crash site was subsequently looted by souvenier hunters over the years..I saw some pics taken late in the 90s, and virtually every removable part had been stripped. Even sections of sheet metal had been "souveniered," and dozens of people had scratched their names on her. AT one point the entire cockpit roof torn off and was lying upside down nearby.

Long story short, any attempt to restore the LBG would end up with little more than a new-biuld aircraft with a few original parts, destroying her history. As a memorial to the crew, I think she should be preserved as-is. It'd be neat to see her at the NMUSAF, but I wouldn't complain if a proper display/memorial was constructed in Libya. It might serve to remind the Libyan people of the price paid by the Allies to push the Nazis out of their country.

SN

So how "safe" is Libya these days for the average American?

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Sure, Charles Lindbergh flew the plane... but Tom Rutledge built the engine!

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I don't know, I don't have one.

My info is from Peter A (of Great Britain) who was in Libya and took some very interesting pics of the Lady in her secure compound. But then he's a lot more intrepid than I am.

More seriously, answering your implicit question, I think we all need to invest (in money, time and tourism) widely if we want a stable world. That's obviously naively idealistic, but no less so than 'bring it home and fly it', IMHO.

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James K

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

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

it's an arab country, need i say more?? let's not forget that the lady is a war grave in many respects too.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Actually, yeah, you should. Libya does not presently have any State Dept. Travel warnings in place against it.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_t ... _1764.html

It's also been off the list of state sponsors of Terrorism since c.2006.

I think the Lady should remain in Libya; she is part of that nation's history as much as she is ours, and I don't see why we have the right to disrespect that.

I'm not sure who took this sad photo, but it's dated 1972 and I guess from what Steve Nelson reports, things just kept getting worse.



When investigated in 1959, the nose section was still pretty much intact. I don't know how much of what followed was due to vandalism and how much was due to another thirteen years of exposure.

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www.B17BlackJack.com

Thanks for the pic, Steve, and an enlightening reasonable conversation, folks.
90% vandalism and souvenir hunters. The climactic conditions where she was found were no different prior to discovery and after; certain stuff like rubber would have degraded further, and Perspex become more sanded and crazed, but most stuff would've been OK.

The good news is what's left is in a secure compound, protected from further stuff going missing.

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James K

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

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the damage was done by local scrappers. In relative terms there was in intact Blenheim not that far away (something like 150 miles?) and that was cut up and scrapped.

I think towards the end of it's period in the desert LBG was a victim of it's own fame. The scrappers knew it was there, but there will have been that many visits they wouldn't have been able to do much to it for any length of time.

I think it was the best thing the Libyans could have done to bring it in to Tobruk.

The best time it could have been recovered was right when it was rediscovered.... just before the military coup in Libya, and when she was in way better shape.

Just think, when she left Benghazi for her target she only had just over 150 hours on her...

But to me (and others by the look of the thread) the legend outweighs the need to see it fly.

Regards

Ric

We could all wish that the 'Lady' was still in the condition as this shot taken by my uncle in May 1965.



She is not. That said the cockpit section is still just on right side of conveying 'B-24' to a museum visitor and was saved just in time.



I wouldn't want this to develop into too much of a political discussion but when you have just been targeted and bombed by F-111s, as Colonel Gadhaffi, and lost your daughter, preserving US aluminium heritage is not high on the agenda.

Here is one of my favourite shots of the 'Lady'



Now about that Vulcan at Barksdale AFB.

PeterA

Preserve her as-is, somewhere - anywhere.

"Restoration" doesn't look feasible to me - that would ruin the patina of what is left.

She and the ghosts of her valiant crew should be allowed to rest in peace.

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Dave

It

I understood the intact South African Blenheim was destroyed by a French Foreign Legion patrol many years later to avoid it being mistaken for a recent crash, there is a website online with photos of it being burnt by them, obviously there is ongoing metal scavanging of anything left in the desert and visited by nomadic tribes, and yes systematic scrapping must also occur when prices are favourable as is now happening in PNG.

I suspect most of LBG has just been lost through scavanging over the years, as I would expect scrappies to be more efficient and take the lot?

regards

Mark Pilkington

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20th Century - The Age of Manned Flight
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I'm sure with enough $ thrown at her, The Lady could be made to look much as she did when she was found in the Libyan desert. A place like Duxford, the NASM or the NMUSAF is certainly capable of doing that. Will that ever come to pass...unlikely. I doubt the Libyans will ever let it go and I don't think it's high on anyone's priority list to negotiate for...

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Peter, your 1965 shot shows how much damage/deteriation she'd suffered in just the six years since her rediscovery. I'm not sure when the Vulcan shot was taken, but it shows the forward fuselage clearly hacked appart, and lots of other damage to the airframe.

I first heard of the Lady in one of Mr. Birdsall's books when I was in middle school, and have been captivated by her story ever since. I remember reading that had the crew realized thier navigational error, they could have made a normal landing. The might have survived, and we would likely have never heard of her. Consider how many other now forgotten aircraft vanished with their crews over far-flung oceans, jungles, or mountains during the war. The Lady should stand as a monument to their memories.


SN

that photo with the Vulcan shadow is amazing! Someone had some pretty darn good timing!

It would be great to see the Libyans try to put her back at least to the mid '60s condition, per PeterA's uncle's photo.

Realistically for me, the odds of ever seeing LBG are zero. But I really hope they can build some kind of museum around what's left.

As for the war grave comments... Is it really considered a war grave? The crew thought they had a better chance walking so they left. Eerie, definitely to have been discovered 15 years later. And it has a mystique about it for sure. But not necessarily a war grave. IIRC (and I'm not really sure) didn't a few Pacific wrecks have remains on board prior to recovery at some point? And no one seems to mind that they WERE war graves prior to the recovery of the remains and later on the aircraft. Unfortunately, I can't site any specific examples, so if I am wrong, please say so.

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Sure, Charles Lindbergh flew the plane... but Tom Rutledge built the engine!

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