Over 60 Spitfires found buried in Myanmar (Burma)

[Brian Dick]

The bombers in the ice are B-17's. Three of them I think. There are also five or six more P-38's up there. The restored "Glacier Girl" Lightning is flying from a small airport in Kentucky. I'm going to stop in and see it one day.

[browningautorifle]

Were the ones that are still there not crushed beyond recovery? Isn't that why they were left there?

[jmoore]

300 feet of ice! And that's in the 1990s. And, yes, smashed like waffles. I got to do a little work on the P38's tail plane. The replacement one. Very strong structure, but not meant to support untold tons of ice. There was a nice book on the expedition, but my copy disappeared soon after I got it.

[muffett.2008]

Well JM, it looks like we have something in common, now where did I put that book?, where's my glasses? what was I doing? what the hell was I about to say?.............

[bigduke6]

Does anyone remember the story of the "kee Bird" ? I remember watching the story of the first recovery on TV but couldnt remember when it was, did a quick search, doesnt seem like 18 years ago. shame about the ending

Kee Bird - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[browningautorifle]

I watched that at the outset. The whole thing was tragic. The mechanic dying and the plane...You can still find the remnants on Google Earth. I mentioned it once to an airline pilot I knew and he admitted to seeing the Kee Bird some years before...

[jmoore]

Does anyone remember the story of the "kee Bird" ? I remember watching the story of the first recovery on TV but couldnt remember when it was, did a search and found it, doesnt seem like 18 years ago. shame about the ending

Kee Bird - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Insurance job is the rumour in some circles. The fellow who ran the expedition doesn't have the best reputation

[Peter Laidler]

Regarding the Lightnings in Iceland, I have a funny feeling in my memory banks that there was some discussion that the damage was only damage caused by the weight of snow while they were visible for a few years. Once it had packed hard and then became ice, it was simply frozen water and you can't compress a liquid. And ice is simply water at 0 degrees C! My friend (another shooting man.....) is a geologist and we both read the book/saw the video and it was he who explained it - but the frozen ice would move of course!

That is the reason during survival training, you build a house in an ice pack and not in the snow. Indeed, the salvage team cut out a huge underground cavern that remained stable for the duration of the recovery.

The other thing that I recall that was only brushed over in the video and book was that the USAF actually accurately located to with metres the actual locations of each aircraft during a sweep using an anti submarine aircraft that was shown in an early version of the video but 'fuzzed' out in a later edition (someone correct me here......). After all, ice is simply water at 0c and 300 feet/100 yards ain't 'deep' in anti-submarine terms

[browningautorifle]

Here's the tale of woe I spoke of. The lost squadron

[Sarge1998]

Guess who's in Myanmar? Yes Mr. Barrack Obama on a Asian peace mission. It's only my cynical ( maybe sarcastic) conspiracy theory that he's there to stop the uncovering of those buried Spitfire war machines to prevent violence that would surely result from their recovery, much like they stopped the import of the Korean M1's, too dangerous. So if nothing is found or all the Spits are beyond salvage it started due to this visit.