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Re: "Warbird Aircraft Recovery" Queensland??

Posted by Rob Mears on Tue Apr 09, 2002 05:03:10 PM

In reply top "Warbird Aircraft Recovery" Queensland?? posted by Dave Sutton on Tue Apr 09, 2002 08:08:48 AM

From what I understand, the whole endeavour has primarily come to nothing due to the fact that there is no real money behind the project. No one is interested in financing the drawn out recovery of plane parts that are not usable for anything other than crude static display - if that. I'd LOVE to see a large storage area brimming with the recovered RNFAA aircraft, if only so they could be identified and documented for what they are. Unfortunately that kind of mass recovery would take many hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the investor would have little hope of recovering such an investment from selling the corroded hulks of these planes.

A number of the bits that have been recovered so far have made it to the United States in hopes of using them as the basis for restoration projects. Ultimately they have become little more than hangar fodder because massive intergranular corrosion has rendered them useless for anything other than to serve as patterns for new-build parts.

Now if someone could positively identify the location of those crated, cosmoline-coated airframes we'd be in for a show! I believe it is a fact that these planes were actually dumped, the trick is finding their particular location in the dozens of square miles (maybe more) of water where the dumping took place. Such a haul would certainly give the recovery effort a needed boost.

Rob

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