WIX Archives
Re: My opinion....
Posted by bdk on Mon Oct 22, 2001 03:23:56 PM
In reply top Found it..... posted by Tony on Sun Oct 21, 2001 10:19:03 PM
This guy is a self aggrandizing liberal knucklehead. Without the commercial value of these wrecks, few public institutions would recover any of them. The "Kee Bird" sat on the icecap for nearly 50 years. Who is this guy sitting at a desk drinking double lattes to criticize these recoveries (or attempts)? What has he done to preserve any of these aircraft? Maybe he'll be waiting another 20 years for the US Navy to recover Champlin's TBD so he can glue the bits of corrosion back together with white glue!
I think that it is more important that these aircraft are recovered while they are substanmtially intact. At this point they only become less valuable and can only be less authentically restored with time as they deteriorate further.
Classic archaelogy looks for artifacts thousands of years old for which little reliable information from the time is available. Clues such as the position of a body buried in the volcanic eruption in Pompeii are much more useful than which way a Sparrowhawk was resting on the bottom of the ocean after the Macon sank. While I wouldn't go out of my way to destroy the remains of the Macon during a recovery, from a practical standpoint the Macon will remain at the bottom of the ocean until it becomes bauxite silt.
A Sparrowhawk in the hand after all...
BK
P.S. I think that Sparrowhawk is under restoration at the San Diego Aerospace Museum.
: http://www.airspacemag.com/ASM/Mag/Index/1996/AS/butr.html