Posted on 05/10/2012 3:33:48 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
WWII fighter plane hailed the 'aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb' found preserved in the Sahara
A Second World War aeroplane that crash landed in the Sahara Desert before the British pilot walked to his death has been found almost perfectly preserved 70 years later.
Most of its cockpit instruments are intact and it still had it guns and ammunition before they were seized by the Egyptian military.
There are also signs of the makeshift camp the pilot made alongside the fuselage.
No human remains have been found but it is thought the pilot may lie within a 20 mile radius of the plane.
The RAF Museum at Hendon, north London, has been made aware of the discovery and plans are underway to recover the aircraft and display it in the future.
A search will also be launched in the hope of finding the lost airman.
The defence attache at the British embassy in Cairo is due to visit the scene in the near future in order to officially confirm its discovery and serial number.
But there are fears over what will be left of it after locals began stripping parts and instruments from the cockpit for souvenirs and scrap.
Historians are urging the British government to step in sooner rather than later and have the scene declared as a war grave so it can be protected until the plane is recovered.
Military historian Andy Saunders said: "The aviation historical world is hugely excited about this discovery.
"This plane has been lying in the same spot where it crashed 70 years ago. It hasn't been hidden or buried in the sand, it has just sat there.
"It is a quite incredible time capsule, the aviation equivalent of Tutankhamun's Tomb.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
****Likely the B-24 had a decent supply of water on board.****
It did. It was the rarest water in the world as it had NO radioactive fallout in it.
The finders made coffee with it.
Wow, just think!
If the MB can backwards Engineer that thing, they might be able to put together a credible Air Force!
Reminds me when I was in the 8th grade, the Junior Reporter magazine carried a story we read in class about the discovery of The Lady be Good in the Libyan Desert. A B 24 returning from Ploesti, lost and out of gas. Found in pristine shape, even its 50s could still function.
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Yeah it’s a P-40 alright. It has six .50 calibers. The Hawker was armed with six .303s.
Now we know what happened to Sky Captains P-40.
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Yeah. You just don’t leave live ordnance laying around.
Agree. Back in the early 60's my father was doing his weekend reserve duty at Willow Grove NAS. There was a rusted P-40 on static display near the main gate. Somebody cut a deal with the Smithsonian to get the aircraft restored & displayed there.
Long story short, a call came to the parachute loft where the poker game was going on. Duty officer asked "Anybody know how to disassemble a P-40?" A couple of "Super Chiefs" (who began as USAAF) actually knew. They dragooned a few of the younger guys, my father among them, to help. Wasn't too hard.
Lookup a movie called "Sole Survivor" with Richard Basehart (Admiral Nelson from "Beneath the Sea")
Pieces of the Lady Be Good were recovered and used as artifacts at Wheelus AFB in Tripoli. When I was there in ‘63, one propeller was attached to the base of the flagpole outside Base Headquarters and the previous Base Commander had used a seat assembly from the Lady Be Good in his MG Midget.
The plane was said to be cursed, and that taking parts from her resting place would lead to bad luck. That former Base Commander wrecked his car, and we lost the air base when Libya’s King was deposed in the mid-60s.
I’ll report, you decide...
There’s another article about it it today’s National Post- it was a P-40 and they think it may have been flown by a Canadian pilot who survived the crash:
A Second World War fighter plane, just discovered in the Egyptian desert 70 years after it was crash-landed there by its British pilot, is generating excitement among vintage aircraft experts in Canada who suspect the long-buried Kittyhawk P-40 — literally unearthed from the sands of time — was once flown by one of this country’s great aces in the air battles of North Africa: Saskatchewan-born James “Stocky” Edwards, now 90 and living in Comox, B.C.
Edwards is, in fact, considered to be the “highest scoring” living fighter ace in Canada, credited with 19 “confirmed kills” and many additional damaged and destroyed enemy aircraft on the ground.
You have to be kidding, British scientific archaeological excavations--dating into the 19th Century, and commonly called "looting" today (when artifacts were carefully cataloged by scientists, then taken back to the UK and safely kept in museums--instead of left to the black market which was all Egypt was at that time...), are a far cry from the REAL looting which has occurred (and continues to occur)of priceless historic sites in largely lawless Arab countries.
Witness the wholesale archaeological destruction of parts of the Temple Mount next to the Al Asqua Mosque at the hands of the Jerusalem Waqf. This is typical of the value Islamists have for other cultures of the past or real history.
But for European archaeologists "looting" Middle Eastern sites, entire civilizations of the ancient near east would be entirely unknown--and completely unappreciated.
You are reading far too much into my post.
Yep
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