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60 Buried Spitfires to be retreived from Burma

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  • 60 Buried Spitfires to be retreived from Burma

    YANGON, Myanmar – Burma has signed a deal with a British aviation enthusiast to allow the excavation of a World War II treasure: dozens of Spitfire fighter planes buried by the British almost 70 years ago.
    Aviation enthusiast David J. Cundall discovered the locations of the aircraft after years of searching. The planes are believed to be in good condition, since they were reportedly packed in crates and hidden by British forces to keep them out of the hands of invading Japanese.


    Read more: Burma signs deal to dig up buried World War II planes | Fox News

    More Spitfires than you can shake a stick at

    Burma signs deal to dig up buried World War II planes | Fox News
    sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
    If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

  • #2
    I was hoping this would happen. :)

    I'd love to see a couple of them flying in a few years.

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    • #3
      I hope also that when the crates are opened, what we'll see will be recognizable components, and not a gory mess of corrosion, mildew, and decay.

      The rubber wil be trash, as will any fabric-covered porrions of the airframe. I don't know of the Spit uses wood anywhere, but it was not uncommon for non-structural parts.

      If the packers and shippers did their job right, sending these things to Burma, the engines will be drowned in preservative, and everything else will have an appropriate amount of protection from a tropical environment.

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      • #4
        Hopefully they turn out in better shape than the 1957 Plymouth Belvedere.

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        • #5
          From what I read in a UK paper, all he has discovered is a wood sample located at the 40 foot mark. No mention of actually finding plane parts or doing a radar scan and finding plane shaped/or crate shaped blips.

          Unfortunately , I'm afraid this will turn into nothing.

          Has this English eccentric found sixty perfectly preserved Spitfires buried in a jungle grave? | Mail Online

          Finally, in February this year, Mr Cundall made a breakthrough. Working with a local survey company in Burma, he sank 18 bore holes on a site near the present-day Mingaladon airport. He had located the site after piecing together a jigsaw of testimonies of veterans, aerial photographs and wartime documents.
          One of the holes passed through timber at a depth of some 40ft, which was picked up by a fibre-optic camera that was sent down the bore hole. He had struck what he hoped was aviation history gold. It looked like all those years of research in the jungle and in archives had finally paid off.
          In April, his efforts received another boost when David Cameron, during a trade visit to Burma, discussed the possibility of recovering the aircraft with the Burmese president.
          This week, after 16 years of searching, Cundall has signed an agreement with the government of Burma giving him permission to excavate at least 20 aircraft at Mingaladon.
          This figure may represent a mere fraction of the total, as Mr Cundall believes that there are in fact 124 Spitfires buried in at least five locations in the country — some in Myitkyina in the north. He also reckons that there are perhaps eight very rare Mark VIII Spitfires buried whole in a quarry.
          NOT surprisingly, Mr Cundall has no wish to let on the locations of these aircraft in case other hunters beat him to it.


          Read more: Has this English eccentric found sixty perfectly preserved Spitfires buried in a jungle grave? | Mail Online
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