So what better way to fill in the Sortie than to take a brief look at the history of the P-38 Glacier Girl. For much more info on the Glacier Girl go to (p38assn.org/glacier-girl)>
On July 15, 1942, a flight of six P-38s and two B-17 bombers, with a total of 25 crew members on board, took off from Presque Isle Air Base in Maine headed for the U.K. What followed was a harrowing and life-threatening landing of the entire squadron on a remote ice cap in Greenland. Miraculously, none of the crew was lost and they were all rescued and returned safely home after spending several days on the desolate ice.
Fifty years later a small group of aviation enthusiasts decided to locate that squadron, who had come to be known as "The Lost Squadron," and to recover one of the lost P-38s. It turned out to be no easy task, as the planes had been buried under 25 stories of ice and drifted over a mile from their original location.
So how do you get to a aircraft that is under 250+ feet of ice. Easy, you melt the ice. The equipment used was called the Super Gopher. In simple terms it was a big ol copper coil about 4 foot in diameter that had hot water circulating through the coil. The 'Gopher' would melt through about 2 feet of ice an hour. Of course if you are melting ice you have to have some way to dispose of the water, right. A submersible pump took care of the former ice. After about a month's effort the Super Gopher had melted a shaft approximatley 265 feet deep.
Now the hard part begins. It took about 25 minutes for men to reach the bottom of the ice shaft. Steam hoses were deployed to melt out a cavern around the downed P-38. What fun melting ice in the cold 265 feet below the surface, aye carumba:-) Once a small cavern was created by the folks manning steam hoses while standing in the water from the melting ice the real fun began. How do you get an airplane the size of a P-38 out a 4 foot diameter hole? Easy you take it apart.
Dissasembly of Galcier Girl took several months with all of the pieces having to be hand winched back up the 265 deep shaft. Finally all the pieces where on the surface and with the help of a Sikorsky heavy cargo helicopter the P-38 made it to a Danish cargo ship and eventually to Middlesboro, Kentucky for the restoration work.
January of 1993 restoration work on the Glacier Girl begins. With all of the parts gathered in a hanger the restorers begin the massive task of dissassembly. As the project proceeds it is found that the damage is worse than previously thought. Everything is dissassembled down the the smallest possible part for inspection. Parts that are to badly damaged are used as templates for new arts. For the sum of $1,200 the Smithsonian supplies a treasure trove of microfilms and photgraphs of original tech manuals and documentation that enables the restorers to practiacally make a new P-38. Hours and hours of detective work went into finding some parts that were impractical to remake.
Finaly on October 22, 2002 over ten years after the effort to recover the P-38 had begun pilot Steve Hinton gets the Glacier Girl airborne. the total cost fo recovery and rebuilding the P-38 was over 3 million bucks, yowzers!!!. Well ther you have it a thumbnail sketch of the life of the Glacier Girl so on with some pics.
First up a headon pic of the "Girl"
Next up a couple of pics from the Glacier Girls first flight!
Glad that the fire truck was not needed, eh?
A WW-II pic of F-5As on Ascenion Island. The F-5 was the photo-recon version of the P-38.
A rather interseting picture of a P-38 take from the radio operator's hatch on a B-17 IIRC. Note the radiatior intakes under the properllers. This would make this P-38 an "L" model most likely. The Glacier Girls radiator intakes are much smaller that the "L" models.
About 12,000 P-38's of all types were built during WW-II only 6 or so arte still flying. The next picyure is for all the folks who went out in thier Lightnings and fore what ever reason never made it home.
Well that's all for now folks, y'all have a great week ahead and stay safe. I will be heading off for a nap in a few minutes as I have my 12 hours of frivolity and fun to look forward to tonight.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}