RAF Spitfire pulled from Irish peat bog

Telegraph.co.UK ^ | Jun 29. 2011

[KeyLargo]

RAF Spitfire pulled from Irish peat bog

A Second World War RAF Spitfire has been excavated from an Irish peat bog almost 70 years after it crash-landed. A piece of the Wreckage of the World War Two spitire that crashed into the Bog in County Donegal

A piece of the Wreckage of the World War Two spitire that crashed into the Bog in County Donegal 6:00AM BST 29 Jun 2011

Six machine guns and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition were also discovered by archaeologists searching the Inishowen Peninsula in Co Donegal.

The British fighter plane was piloted by an American, Roland "Bud" Wolf, who parachuted safely from the aircraft before it crashed in the bog in November 1941.

The excavation was carried out as part of a BBC Northern Ireland programme.

Historian Dan Snow said: "The plane itself is obviously kind of wreckage and the big pieces survived. We're expecting to find things like the engine and there still may be personal effects in the cockpit.

"It's just incredible because it's just so wet here that the ground just sucked it up and the plane was able to burrow into it and it's been preserved.

[rlmorel]

I had kind of a sucky, yet funny experience that year (It wasn’t fun, but in retrospect, it was funny)

I had a new pair of sneakers I was wearing, and my feet got so sweaty on day one I couldn’t stand it. The next day, I powdered down my feet, something I have never done.

My feet got blistered and bloody (doing a lot of walking at Oshkosh on concrete) and my buddy said that he saw me walking towards him, bowlegged trying to walk on the outside of my feet and limping badly, and he said my hat and gait made me look like some Japanese POW limping towards the Marines to surrender...

[rlmorel]

I hate hearing those stories about being able to buy a surplus fighter plane for $1000 after WWII...argh. I can’t stand it. It is torture. I can live with buying 500 shares of Apple stock when it was $12 and having my wife sell it for me when it got to $25, but I grit my teeth when I hear about those fighters being fed into shredders or sold for a thousand bucks.

[Grut]

I do believe they’re still short two Browning .303s.

[Osage Orange]

Wow!!

Never heard of that story before....

Thanks!

[zot]

Thanks for the spitfire ping.

[Amberdawn]

SIGH.......

[cpdiii]

The P-51 Mustang was a superior aircraft to the Spitfire in the design of its airframe and performance with a good engine. It had a “piece of crap” for an engine.”

When the P-51 was fitted with the Merlin Super Marine engine from Rolls Royce the best airframe and best engine made history. The Rolls Royce engine was also produced in the United States under license of Rolls Royce.

However, as lovely as the P-51 is, when you see a Spit do a chandel there is no question as to the beauty of the Spit.

[archy]

After the P-51 Mustang I suspect that the Supermarine Spitfire is the second most popular WW-II fighter

Not in Germany.

[Celtic Conservative]

Packard motors built the Merlin under license from rolls royce. They made so many of them that the US was shipping them back to the UK for their domestic aircraft production.What made this swap possible were the nearly identical dimensions and weights between the merlin and the Allison V12. BTW, Allison is still in business as a division of General motors. They make commercial and industrial application vehicle transmissions.

CC

[mad_as_he$$]

Really?

http://www.vintagewings.ca/Aircraft/tabid/66/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1/language/en-CA/Supermarine-Spitfire-XVI.aspx

[skeptoid]

There is only one flying Spit, and it is an ugly two seater.. . . . .

I just can't resist piling on . . A list of the Airworthy Spitfires around today

[MindBender26]

Heets awl roight, Mate! Naw hoffenze toiken!

[skeptoid]

Good on ya!