Canal Zone Dumps

[Warbirdnerd]

I just finished reading the article on the Boeing B-15 in the latest issue of Flight Journal. At the end, the article states that when the B-15 had reached the end of its useful life, it was broken up and burried in Panama.
Has anyone done any reasearch on Canal Zone Dumps? I would imagine that there might be some birds worth digging up still down there. Now that the Canal Zone has been returned to Panamanian control, shouldn't it be a little easier to do a litte digging?
Have shovel will travel....

Gentlemen,

Back in 1977, Bob Diemert of Carman, Manitoba, Canada heard rumors of burial dumps in Panama. He went to investigate if there was any truth to the rumors.

Someone gave him the locations of several purported sites, and he hired a crew of locals, along with a bulldozer to clear the jungle areas. After digging several explore holes, he found nothing. He then investigated rumors of a P-40 that crashed, and reported to be located high in the jungle canopy. After hiring a helicopter for several days to scour the purported location, he found nothing.

Rather than come back to Canada with nothing, he located a T-28 and a Sikorsky H-19 helicopter --the type used in the Korean war--sitting near a fire dump at an airport waiting use for firefighting practice. He bought, then crated both for shipment to Carman. He kept both for several years, then later sold these through Trade-A-Plane to the USA.
Yours very truly,
Norman Malayney

[Warbirdnerd]

Thanks for the info Norman.
The Flight Journal Article has some of the detail on where the B-15 is buried, I will post that info when I get home. I also read the P-39 article in the latest Air Classics last night and I believe M.O. mentions something about how the P-400's sent to the canal zone early in the war suffered quite a few operational accidents, I would imagine some of them are buried there as well. Is access to the Canal Zone easier now than before it was in Panamanian control???

[Tulio]

Dan Hagedorn published a great book on the 6th AF in the Caribbean:

Alae Supra Canalem (wings over the Canal). there are many photos and data.

Of interest, either earlier this year or in 2003, a Douglas O-47 was found in the mountains of Panama.


Saludos,


Tulio

[Tulio]

Your Colonelness!!!

Sorry bud, but I don't know if this particular airplane went to the USAFM. I think it was retrieved with the remains of the pilot still inside, and I believe that there was a posting regarding this, at the old WIX forum.

As for photos, I do not have any, but let me see what I can find.


Saludos,


Tulio

[mrhenniger]

Was this the airframe that ended up with the USAFM?

This is from the USAFM website...
The O-47B on display was acquired in 1978 from Mr. Loren L. Florey, Jr., Eden Prairie, Minnesota. It was restored in the markings of an O-47A of the 112th Observation Squadron (Ohio National Guard) by the 179th Consolidated Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, Ohio ANG, at Mansfield, Ohio.

Regards,

Mike

[RMAllnutt]

I was told by Dan Hagedorn that the dump where the XB-15 components were buried was very swampy, and that shantytowns had built up over it with houses on stilts. As I remember the conversation, there were some efforts to locate the wreckage by boring small holes down into the swamp, which came up with aircraft-grade aluminum, similarly to the way they proved the location of the P-38 in Greenland. There was no real way to prove that it was the XB-15 of course, but it showed that there was something down there that was probably from an aircraft. It was a moot point anyway, as there was no way to shift the people living on top of it without causing a lot of problems. Hope this is of interest.

Cheers,
Richard

HI YES THE 0-47 AT DAYTON WAS ORIGINALY A PHOTO SHIP OUT OF MEXICO.RECOVERED AND DISPLAYED AT A SMALL MUSEUM ALONG WITH B-25 NOW BELONGING TO C+P AS LADY LUCK,FG-1 CORSAIR JUST RESTORED,TORRA KATE EX JIM JOHNS,PLUS MANY 20S-30SA/C THAT WENT TO THE SAN DIEGO MUSEUM.THE 0-47 SOLD FOR ABOUT $5000.00 TO LOREN L. FLOREY JR.WHO TRADED IT TO THE U.S.A.F.MUSEUM FOR A DC-6 THAT HE SOLD TO THE DRUG RUNNERS FOR $ 100.000.00 THEN PURCHASED HIS MUSTANG FORMER DEATH RATTLER SHORTLY AFTER WITH IN A YEAR WAS ARRESTED SMUGGLING DRUGS AND THEN FLED THE U.S. SELLING THE P-51 TO HARRY TOPE WHO THEN PLANTED IT INTO THE GROUND THANKS MIKE

[Steve T]

Hi all--

What piques my curiosity is the ref earlier to a "Douglas" O-47...The O-47 was a North American product (the other O-bird often called "Owl" being the Curtiss O-52). Course Douglas might have built O-47s, I suppose, just as Curtiss built P-47s and Vega and Douglas built B-17s; but I wonder, could we be talking about either a Douglas O-46 or a Douglas O-38, either of which would be even rarer than an NAA O-47?

S.

[bdk]

I doubt that Douglas built O-47's. Not many were built in total by NA as they were pre-war.