42-29150 Dottie May Status

[Shade Ruff]

Dottie Mae's" demise was due to its pilot buzzing the lake. He was so low that his prop struck the lake's surface resulting in the crash.

Henry Mohr was not buzzing the Lake. He was rejoining his flight which was low over the lake while on a armed recce
of POW camps and touched the surface of the lake. He wasn't goofing off, flathatting or whatever.

I guess it was just a matter of bad piloting then since no one else in his flight shared the same misfortune.

Regards,

Shade Ruff

Last edited by Shade Ruff on Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[bdk]

I guess it was just a matter of bad piloting then since no one else in his flight shared the same misfortune.

Wow! That's quite a conclusion. Have you ever done any formation flying?

Can you give us a rough timeline of when work may be started on Dottie May? Just out of curiosity, what is the project and is it near completion?

The owner is restoring a twin Beech which is quite far along. He has previously restored a T-28.

I hope they keep her "Dottie May" and not something else.

The owner is quite aware of the history of this aircraft and I'm sure he will restore it to airworthy condition with a focus on preservation, including the original name of "Dottie Mae." I am not a spokesperson for the owner however.

Frankly these are questions I would have never thought to ask. I'm just glad to see it isn't on the bottom of the lake still and that it is in the hands of someone who thought the effort was worthwhile and will appreciate it. I'm sure he can no better predict when the plane will be restored and flying any better than I can predict when my T-6 will be done which is a far simpler prospect.

Last edited by bdk on Wed Jun 07, 2006 2:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Shade Ruff]

I guess it was just a matter of bad piloting then since no one else in his flight shared the same misfortune.

Wow! That's quite a conclusion. Have you ever done any formation flying?

Absent a mechanical failure (to which Henry never alluded), what explanation is feasible?

Regards,

Shade Ruff

[bdk]

Absent a mechanical failure (to which Henry never alluded), what explanation is feasible?

Are pilots in formation all at the same altitude? Who is responsible for the altitude of the entire formation? What should a pilot in formation be looking at?

[Shade Ruff]

Absent a mechanical failure (to which Henry never alluded), what explanation is feasible?

Are pilots in formation all at the same altitude? Who is responsible for the altitude of the entire formation? What should a pilot in formation be looking at? :wink:

To fly so low as to risk your prop hitting a surface is questionable at best. Henry wasn't flying a Blue Angels or Thunderbirds demonstration - even they have safety of flight standards.

Regards,

Shade Ruff

[APG85]

This aircraft isn't in the Warbird Registry. Does anyone know the full story of it's discovery and recovery?

[Jack Cook]

To fly so low as to risk your prop hitting a surface is questionable at best. Henry wasn't flying a Blue Angels or Thunderbirds demonstration - even they have safety of flight standards.

Jesus get out the freaking tar and feathers.
He was the #4 man in the flight and fell out of formation in a very tight turn. At the time of the rejoin the flight was very low over the lake setting up for another run over a POW camp. There is also the issue of glare off the water. Henry was the follower not the leader and was rejoining the flight. This was a war time low level armed recce of POW camps to see if the Germans were killing Allied POWs. What does the fact that it was a low level combat mission mean to you?
If he'd landed safely, the plane would have been scrapped post-war and not sitting in a hanger awaiting restoration. Duh.......................

Last edited by Jack Cook on Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Robbie Stuart]

From Aero News


Historic P-47 Recovered In Austria
Fri, 17 Jun '05

Lake-Bound Plane In Decent Shape - To Be Restored
There's a new tail number in the too-short list of P-47 survivors. According to the Salzkammergut newspaper in Austria's Tirol, warbird recovery experts, working in the tightest secrecy, raised a forgotten P-47D Thunderbolt to the surface of Traunsee, a lake in Traunkirchen, in the late afternoon and early evening of June 13th, after sixty long years on the lakebed. Sixty years, one month and five days, to be exact.



Apart from the damage caused by its ditching in the lake on V-E day, the "Jug," as pilots nicknamed the stout, dependable fighter, is little the worse for its long immersion. After bringing the machine to the surface, inverted, they carefully raised it, allowing water to drain, and set it upon a cradle made of wood. The machine will be restored, probably in Austria, before going to its permanent home in the USA. Evansville, Indiana, where Republic had a plant during the war, has expressed interest in displaying the plane -- if it's an Evansville-built machine, which is not known at press time. (The Republic plant is now used by... wait for it... appliance maker Whirlpool).



Who exactly raised the machine is a matter of some speculation in the warbird community, and one website suggested that it was the Austrian government.

This machine was one of 12,602 P-47Ds produced during World War II. (A total of 15,683 P-47s of all models were built between 1941 and 1945). Not one in a thousand of the mighty R-2800-powered fighter-bombers survive in airworthy condition; most of the survivors soldiered on into the 1950s and 1960s with Latin American air forces. This recovery is from the most common source for new warbird projects in the 21st century: deep freshwater lakes. But it's unusual in that it comes from a Western European country; most of the lakebed relics are turning up in former Communist lands, where everybody was so busy trying not to be shot by the secret police for fifty years that they had no time for frivolities like aviation history or wreck recovery.

A look over the photos show that the machine is eminently restorable, especially by today's standards. The markings still are boldly visible, including the nose art and name (Dottie Mae); the propeller is gone, and the oil cooler seems to have torn out violently, tearing up the keel with its fuel-tank plumbing on its way back. Mohr must have had full-flaps on to ditch; water contact removed them violently. Some other sheet metal is torn; you can see that the horizontal stabilizer spar is shot. The canopy is missing; jettisoned before the ditch, probably, and likely to be on the bottom of the Traunsee. But all in all this machine is in good, restorable shape.



From experience with engines immersed in freshwater, magnesium parts will be corroded to the point of being completely gone, but aluminum alloy parts may be serviceable with a polish, and steel parts will need careful removal of surface rust. Parts made of wood and fiberboard will be intact (depending on the aquatic fauna in the lake) but are all but certain to be unserviceable.

Many Austrian people have stopped to marvel at this relic from a bygone time -- for most Austrians living today, who have known nothing but peace and neutrality for these sixty years, it's as remote as a Tyrannosaurus, with its eight .50-caliber guns standing in for T-Rex's rows of jagged teeth.



A German team filmed the recovery for a television special, although no word on English-language rights or release is available at this time.

World War II warbird experts have already identified the airplane. It was "Dottie Mae," of the 511th Fighter Squadron, 405th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force.

On V/E Day, pilot 2nd Lt. Henry G. Mohr, Jr. was making a "presence patrol" near a POW camp or concentration camp (there are multiple stories) with another Jug. This was to lift the morale of the prisoners, and to discourage the guards from doing anything stupid, while Nazi Germany was collapsing all around them (Austria was incorporated in the German Reich from 1938-1945). Buzzing the lake, he tied the world's low-flying record, damaging his prop and leading to an emergency ditching.

The war might have been over, but Mohr (right) celebrated its end in the same prison camp whose morale he'd been sent to raise. Obviously, he was soon liberated. Mohr is reportedly alive and well in the USA. It's only a matter of time before he is reunited with his plane.

Meanwhile, the editors of the Salzkammergut Internet Newspaper, the Austrian paper that initially reported the rare warbird's recovery, were overwhelmed with thousands of visits to their website -- most of them from the USA. But the tourism aspect was positive: "proven by a few emails that noted the impression: 'What a wonderful lake!'" A wonderful lake indeed.
===============================================
This should shed some light
Robbie

[Jack Cook]

Here's a link to a wearlier thread with relevent info.
http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3977

[Django]

Frankly these are questions I would have never thought to ask. I'm just glad to see it isn't on the bottom of the lake still and that it is in the hands of someone who thought the effort was worthwhile and will appreciate it.

No doubt! I was just curious. Seems alot of the fighters flying today didn't have actual combat history during WWII (I could be wrong but that is my impression) and get repainted in a different scheme everytime they change hands based on whatever the owner wants (which is fine but...) An aircraft that has actual combat history and recovered as intact as Dottie May is very exciting to me!

[marine air]

All respects to the owner, he put his money where his mouth is and financed retrieving this awesome bird and it is safely in a hangar at Chino. Well done! Two T-bolts I'm familiar with cost about 1.2 million or so to restore to pristine condition 8 years ago. He could probably buy one for that price maybe cheaper, paint it like Dottie Mae and keep the original or loan it to the Air Force Museum or Smithsonian. My guess is that to restore Dottie Mae, in 2006 to 2007 dollars it would cost close to 1.5 maybe 2 million bucks. It will need new spars, all new electrics and hydraulics, etc. Can't trust any of the mechanicals after this long a period of time. Probably have to demate some of the skins, etc.
Marine Air

ps. The pilot made the same mistake ace Don Gentile did in his P-51B Shangra La' he just got a few inches too low!

[Jack Cook]

The pilot made the same mistake ace Don Gentile did in his P-51B Shangra La' he just got a few inches too low!

Gentile was buzzing and showing off for the press against Blakeslee's standing orders against such a act. He was grounded and sent home by DJMB. Blakeslee hated show-offs.
Mohr was just trying to rejoin his flight while on a combat mission.

[Aircraft Mech Paul]

Hi all,

Any restoration work, to WW II "like new" is very costly for anyone, even a person with very good financial means. Seeing yet another pristine restoration of a P-47 is very great thin, as I have found that out of all of the aircraft from that era, the Thunderbolt holds a very unique status, and after working on one the flying examples in my career, was a distinct honor.

I only hope that whatever restoration efforts done on this Combat Veteran are of the highest caliber given the aircrafts history.

Respectfully,

Paul

[Shade Ruff]

Jesus get out the freaking tar and feathers.
He was the #4 man in the flight and fell out of formation in a very tight turn. At the time of the rejoin the flight was very low over the lake setting up for another run over a POW camp. There is also the issue of glare off the water. Henry was the follower not the leader and was rejoining the flight. This was a war time low level armed recce of POW camps to see if the Germans were killing Allied POWs. What does the fact that it was a low level combat mission mean to you?
If he'd landed safely, the plane would have been scrapped post-war and not sitting in a hanger awaiting restoration. Duh.......................

Given the facts you've presented, it appears he was a pilot who was placed in an unfortunate position that got the better of him that day. Yes, the glare off those high-elevation Austrian lakes can be ferocious. Good thing he wasn't contending with AAA or Luftwaffe fighters at the same time.

Shade Ruff

Last edited by Shade Ruff on Thu Jun 08, 2006 8:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

[mike furline]

Any pics of it at Chino right side up??

Regards,
Mike