Up to 20 Crated Spitfires in Burma

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Wouldn't it be nice to find these in one piece !

British and Burmese authorities could work together to find 20 Spitfires buried in crates in Burma at the end of the World War II, officials say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17710598

The planes were buried in 1945 by the RAF amid fears that they could either be used or destroyed by Japanese forces, but in the intervening years they have not been located.

At the time they were unused, still in crates, and yet to be assembled.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

If the packing is un damaged, they could be still in mint condition. 10 to 15 years ago, vast suplies of Jeep parts were found in the jungle in the Philippines, and I was at the time helping to restore a number of war time Jeeps for the Military Vehicles club, and we got some of the bits, and they were OK.

Might be needed to upgrade the RAF, it would be more than our lot have got!

Just got a book Spitfire Icon of a Nation, I see in that that Burma did buy 15 Spitfires from Italy in 1955.

Edited By Ian S C on 14/04/2012 12:00:35

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Might be needed to upgrade the RAF, it would be more than our lot have got!

ouchies
I'm not sure if Britain still has enough skilled personnel to keep all 15 in the air at the same time

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Ady 1

Defeatist as usual!

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

They will have been heavily greased and packed well to stand up to a salty voyage and tropical destinatuon, so here's hoping.

Neil

Slaty?

Edited By Stub Mandrel on 14/04/2012 19:05:08

[SpringbokParticipant @springbok]

My father worked on these and to his dying day day thought that there was only a few left so will be personally helping to support this cause. Ady1 there are still a lot of us around and if it gets 15 spit's restored come hell or high water it will be done. I wanted to join up but was told to young .

Ed This would make a fantastic series of articles on the recovery of these Spit,s

Bob

[NobbyParticipant @nobby]

Hi Guys
My son helped restore a Spitfire at Booker airfield & a sunderland at Calshot and I done some tooling on the Vulcan bomber & the TSR2 . There must be loads of people around with the skills
Nobby

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

There are engineers specialising in aircraft restoration here in NZ, they rebuilt a Hurricane hauled out of a Russian swamp, I'm not sure what happened to the two ME 110 airframes. And Tim Wallis the then organiser of the War Birds over Wanaka airshow had a number of I-16 Polikarpov fighters built in the origional factory in Russia, by the origional factory workers, helped by some engineers from NZ. The interesting thing is/was, when production finished on one type, they closed the doors, and started another factory for the next aircraft, leaving the first factory as is. 'Fraid I only worked on current aircraft, but some of them where in a fairly bad way, but as long as you have the nameplate, you can rebuild most things. Then there is The Croydon Aircraft Co., the home of the Moth doctors, they rebuild DH 82A Tigermoth, and other similar aircraft, a number of their aircraft are in Britain, and Austrailia. Ian S C

[Sandy MortonParticipant @sandymorton10620]

I have a few toolroom engineers gauges which were used to build Spitfire engines – given to me by the family of a deceased RR toolroom inspector.

[Richard MarksParticipant @richardmarks80868]

Gentlemen

Quite happy to loan out my Haynes Manual if anybody needs it!

Richard

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