WIX Archives

Re: Swedish Recovery expedition

Posted by Elliott on Fri Jul 04, 2003 06:50:39 AM

In reply top Swedish Recovery expedition posted by Mikael Olrog on Fri Jul 04, 2003 02:32:42 AM

Hi Mikael

Someone proposed a similar idea for recovering the remains of sunken Roman ships at the bottom of the med. Apparently the energy needed to freeze such a large area was huge, I supposed they would use liquid nitrogen which is relatively cheap but as a diver it's not something i'd be happy handling under water.

I'm not sure how feasible it would be to pipe it down - obviously it depends a lot on the depth of the aircraft, but there would be a big temp gradient.

It would take an ROV forever to cover an aircraft in plastic!! Besides, there are many areas such as under the wings that would probably be just out of reach.

I think it's a crazy idea. The only reason the Condor collapsed was that they held it up over the quay without adequate support (of course condors are famous for their weak wings anyway). If the aircraft is lifted properly underwater and then floated onto a custom built sledge as the RAFMs halifax was I think the aircraft would be very safe. This obviously all depends a lot on the aircrafts condition.

I think they should get advice from some professional salvors if they are worried (but not the people who were involved with the fw200!!).




: A Swedish Air Force C-47 shot down by Soviet Union in 1952
: over the Baltic see has been discovered after a lengthy s
: earch. Soviet Union didn?t admit to shooting down the airc
: raft until 1991. The crew was lost, only a dinghy was reco
: vered. The aircraft was on top secret signals reconnaissan
: ce with the latest American equipment given to Sweden by t
: he English. The English had been given only two sets of th
: e equipment, one which was passed on the Sweden. Obviously
: the English (and probably US) did get information in retu
: rn. As you can understand this information have raised a d
: iscussion about Swedish neutrality which is quite interest
: ing to follow.
:
: It is quite possible that a recovery is being planned sinc
: e the Air Force has always recovered their lost aircraft.
: What is interesting for this forum is that a new way of re
: covery has been discussed in the press. A different way of
: recovering the aircraft is discussed so that not the fail
: ure of the Fw 200 Condor recovery is repeated. The method
: would mean that an ROV would be used to cover/wrap the wre
: ck with a plastic cloth (or similar) and then a liquid is
: poured inside at a temperature of -50C. The wreck can then
: be raised as a block of ice to the surface, without disin
: tegrating.
:
: The Swedish Air Force Museum has expressed interest in pre
: serving the wreck after recovery and examination.
:
: Have this way of recovering aircraft been used before?
:
: May be this would be a good way to recover some of the lar
: ger aircraft that lie around in different lakes (BV 222, H
: e 177 etc ? yeah, yeah let a man have a dream OK? :-)
:
: I?ll keep you updated!
: /Mikael

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