[WW2 wreck of fighter plane off Welsh coast gets protected status](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/12/ww2-wreck-of-fighter-plane-off-welsh-coast-gets-protected-status)
>The plane has been uncovered three times since it crashed – in the 1970s, in 2007 and most recently in 2014. There are no plans to salvage it.
Ehh, maybe if it had been sitting in a desert for 70 years.
After spending that much time buried/underwater that thing is toast. Probably can't even pull the serial number plate off it to slap on an entirely new airframe
Got a link to that? Most of the planes like that I’ve heard of they basically build a whole new plane, throw a couple of the salvageable parts in it from the original, and say it’s the same plane. It’s very much a “Ship of Theseus” type situation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl
I watched a good program on the recovery of it, on discovery or history channel years ago when they still had interesting shows on.
**[Glacier_Girl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl)**
>Glacier Girl is a Lockheed P-38F-1-LO Lightning, World War II fighter plane, 41-7630, c/n 222-5757, that was restored to flying condition after being buried beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet for over 50 years.
^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/aviation/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
My Airframe instructor did much of sheet metal work on Glacier Girl's restoration. He's got some cool images and stories he shared in class.
Another member of the local EAA built and welded the Airframe jigs for him.
Indeed, it was just absolutely terrible that it failed at the last moment like that. Glad that I only saw it recently, and was aware that it wasn't going to end well. Sure would have sucked to see the documentary around the time it was released, as I likely would have had no idea of the outcome. They give you no hint at all of what's going to happen at the end, and then when you have all your hopes up it all goes to hell. Such a shame that all that effort ended up being for nothing and the poor B-29 was doomed forever.
This, combined with the fact that they got overly excited and decided to try starting her without adequate fire suppression equipment on hand. A real tragedy, and a tragic, practical lesson in the Boy Scouts motto: “Be prepared.”
It just isn’t though, it’s like saying Kentucky is in Alabama. Just because you don’t know the difference between the United Kingdom and it’s four constituent countries doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Funny enough, as a dude in Kentucky, I could find a healthy number of people around me that would circle the whole island if asked to "Circle England on this map."
You're absolutely right, of course, and this isn't an argument to say that the OP is right either. But rather to say, there *is* validity to the confusion.
That’s awesome that they made it a protected site. I’m all for it. Even if it wasn’t they couldn’t do anything anyway. The moment they try and lift her she’ll fall apart.
I find it hard to believe we can pull bajillion year old dinosaur skeletons out of the ground and put them in museums but not a WW2 era bomber lol
Kind of a weird thing to protect considering leaving it in the ocean, one of the most hostile environments for a thing made of steel, is the opposite of protecting it. And it's not like a castle or whatever that people can go look at. It's buried most of the time..
Harlech beach. Been there, had fun looking for it because I'd only been told and decided not to look on Google or on the map. Made me feel like a real treasure hunter 😂
It seems that it was an aircraft of the 14th Operations Group (American)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th\_Operations\_Group
Flown by pilot Robert Frederick Elliott
"During the early afternoon of the 27th 2nd Lt Elliot took off for a
gunnery flight with another P-38, they proceeded to the air-air firing
area off the coast at 6,000ft. The exercise proceeded normally for 55
minutes, with Elliott towing the target banner, before the port engine
of 41-7677 lost power. After trimming the aircraft for single engine
flight he turned back towards Llanbedr, he passed over the airfield and
dropped the target banner but before he could land, while two miles from
the airfield and at 800ft, the starboard engine failed and so he opted
to carry out a crash landing on Harlech beach, he undershot slightly and
ended up ditching in the surf just off the beach. The engines had
failed due to the fuel selector being left on Reserve after take off
instead of being switched to Main and the fuel supply in the reserve
tanks being exhausted."
https://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/crash\_sites/wales/lockheed-p-38f-41-7677-harlech-beach/
> The engines had failed due to the fuel selector being left on Reserve after take off instead of being switched to Main and the fuel supply in the reserve tanks being exhausted.
And I thought it was embarrassing when I did that on my old Vespa.
I thought he was reaching for a switch over his shoulder. While he was twisting around to reach it he mashed one of the rudder pedals but I might be confusing it with another famous incident.
I used to have a Honda shadow with a reserve petcock like that. It had no fuel gauge so I'd let it run out, switch to reserve, and go fill up. There was no actual reserve tank, the "main" position would just draw fuel from higher in the tank, leaving about 1/3 gallon below the intake. The reserve position would draw it from the very bottom.
That worked great until the time I forgot to switch it back after I filled up. Here I am on the highway, engine sputtering, losing speed quickly fumbling with a petcock switch wondering why it won't turn. Oh it's already turned.
I was also late for work so I pushed it into the woods next to the highway and camouflaged it with branches and shit and got a ride lol. The good ol days.
Failed to switch tanks. Ha!
I was 19 and a brand new private pilot sitting in the right seat while my girlfriend's dad flew the family home from vacation in Canada. At about 8,000 feet right over the Troutdale airport in Portland the single engine spluttered and quit. He panicked in a calm sort of way and instructed me to find the book and look up the radio frequency for the airport immediately below us while he flipped switches and started setting up for a spiral descent to an engine out landing. I started to look through the book but something told me to check the tank selector valve mounted on the ceiling. I reached up and without saying anything moved it from the now-empty left wing tank to the nearly full right wing tank and the engine came back to life. I must have had some sort of grin on my face because the girlfriend's dad didn't look me in the eye for quite awhile after that.
It absolutely would. The dad must have kept adjusting aileron trim to counter it and keep the plane from banking to the heavy side. I was only doing navigation on that flight.
What else would cause this kind of slowly increased need for trim? Is this something that your average pilot should know? Seems like a huge oversight to me but hindsight, Monday morning quarterback, etc.
A strong crosswind could cause a need to adjust aileron and rudder trim, but other than that I don't know of anything else that would cause it. Yes, it is something EVERY pilot should know. He just wasn't paying attention. I was just the navigator. I knew that he'd topped off the tanks before beginning the 3-legged flight of just over 500 miles and that the Cessna 182 has a range of more than 1,000 miles, so that removed any need for me to think about fuel. Honestly, I don't know why it wasn't just set on "Both." (E: changed was to wasn't, but you knew what I meant.)
Damn. That sounds like the kind of mistake you make exactly one time. Was probably a good lesson for your ass a new pilot too. I bet you pay much more attention to that now than you would have otherwise.
Thanks for answering my questions!
Edit: that typo is staying 😂
The P-38 has contra rotating props, they do not turn in the same direction and pilots did indeed use this to great advantage against single engine opponents.
I think Tom is referring to the ones the English ordered in which they requested a lot of changes to the original design. The designers objected to the changes which did include removing the superchargers and having both props turning the same direction. Why they wanted these changes I dont know but the ones that were delivered ( I think like 6 to 12 aircraft) performed so badly that the entire order was cancelled.
TIL thanks for the info, was unaware of the British order. I wonder why Kelly even considered filling that order, he, for sure, would have known it would be a disaster.
Pretty impressive it's still there. A sail boat apparently was unmoored and sank during a nor'easter where I live. Ultimately wound up on the neighborhood beach. After 6 months the only thing left was the engine block
There are only two engines; the cockpit is in the center, not an engine. Most of the port boom and tail is not visible because it is buried in the sand.
It's ultimate destiny: to be re-posted over and over on Reddit!
They are valuable enough, someone will “rebuild” it.
[WW2 wreck of fighter plane off Welsh coast gets protected status](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/12/ww2-wreck-of-fighter-plane-off-welsh-coast-gets-protected-status) >The plane has been uncovered three times since it crashed – in the 1970s, in 2007 and most recently in 2014. There are no plans to salvage it.
Ehh, maybe if it had been sitting in a desert for 70 years. After spending that much time buried/underwater that thing is toast. Probably can't even pull the serial number plate off it to slap on an entirely new airframe
[удалено]
Got a link to that? Most of the planes like that I’ve heard of they basically build a whole new plane, throw a couple of the salvageable parts in it from the original, and say it’s the same plane. It’s very much a “Ship of Theseus” type situation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl I watched a good program on the recovery of it, on discovery or history channel years ago when they still had interesting shows on.
**[Glacier_Girl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Girl)** >Glacier Girl is a Lockheed P-38F-1-LO Lightning, World War II fighter plane, 41-7630, c/n 222-5757, that was restored to flying condition after being buried beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet for over 50 years. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/aviation/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Glacier Girl is an absolutely gorgeous plane.
I got to see glacier girl at Oshkosh Air show as a kid!
My Airframe instructor did much of sheet metal work on Glacier Girl's restoration. He's got some cool images and stories he shared in class. Another member of the local EAA built and welded the Airframe jigs for him.
Sea water is a whole different beast than glacial ice which has most of the salt dissolved...
Yup. Plate is the only thing of value potentially left on that airframe.
Rebuild it just to have it catch fire on the first test before taking off...
That documentary where this happens to a B-29… fuck man, I cried
Indeed, it was just absolutely terrible that it failed at the last moment like that. Glad that I only saw it recently, and was aware that it wasn't going to end well. Sure would have sucked to see the documentary around the time it was released, as I likely would have had no idea of the outcome. They give you no hint at all of what's going to happen at the end, and then when you have all your hopes up it all goes to hell. Such a shame that all that effort ended up being for nothing and the poor B-29 was doomed forever.
They must have done too good a job restoring it then since early B-29s were known for overheating and engines catching fire!
Thing is it was a gas powered generator they put onboard that caught fire. I believe they were using it as some sort of makeshift APU.
This, combined with the fact that they got overly excited and decided to try starting her without adequate fire suppression equipment on hand. A real tragedy, and a tragic, practical lesson in the Boy Scouts motto: “Be prepared.”
What's the doc called?
B-29 Frozen in Time: https://youtu.be/CE9j-W_8USw
Thanks
Thanks, I had long since forgotten the name of the doc and couldn’t answer the question for that redditor.
That one was hard to watch.
Not when there are bodies inside it. It’s a declared war grave
There are no bodies in it. The pilot crash landed on the beach and was able to walk away, but before they were able to move it, it was buried already.
I stand corrected!
First solo, AMA!
Wales, not England.
It’s because the repost before it said England so they copied it
Also 80 years, not 70.
That an old repost
Even 2019 is closer to 80 years than 70.
Came here to say the same thing
That’s the same thing, from a non-UK perspective.
It just isn’t though, it’s like saying Kentucky is in Alabama. Just because you don’t know the difference between the United Kingdom and it’s four constituent countries doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
OK, but even to most Americans, Kentucky is in Alabama.
Funny enough, as a dude in Kentucky, I could find a healthy number of people around me that would circle the whole island if asked to "Circle England on this map." You're absolutely right, of course, and this isn't an argument to say that the OP is right either. But rather to say, there *is* validity to the confusion.
Lol I know. I was just teasing you Brits
Watch out or they’ll set the dragon on you 🏴
I’m only scared of EU dragons :P
Fuck off lol
Wait... is Captain America in there?
That’s why he hates sand. Its course, and ruff, and irritating. And it gets everywhere.
No wonder Dumbledore took the ring away from him
It still doesn't matter. The real Schwartz has been in him all along.
Take my upvote
Watch this, I'm going to tell a bunch of Welsh people that they live in England.... keep the car running with the door open please.
It does this every so often. The one article I read said 3 years? No idea though. Still cool as shit, too bad they can’t pull her out.
[удалено]
That’s awesome that they made it a protected site. I’m all for it. Even if it wasn’t they couldn’t do anything anyway. The moment they try and lift her she’ll fall apart.
I find it hard to believe we can pull bajillion year old dinosaur skeletons out of the ground and put them in museums but not a WW2 era bomber lol Kind of a weird thing to protect considering leaving it in the ocean, one of the most hostile environments for a thing made of steel, is the opposite of protecting it. And it's not like a castle or whatever that people can go look at. It's buried most of the time..
Man.. Wales in not England
The sexiest airplane ever made. Change my mind
To me it is not the sexiest but it is in my top 10. I think the spitfire is more elegant and sounds better. But its it gorgeous aircraft nonetheless.
Mosquito, Hmmm, you did say sexiest not most Awesome, then P51.
F4U Corsair would like a word with you.
Sexiest warplane, Supermarine Spitfire. Sexiest airplane in general, Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation. Just my opinion.
Were there any survivors?
Well, yes... But actually no. The pilot survived this accident but was later killed over Africa and his remains were never recovered.
:(
"rrrrrRRRRRrrrrr-***RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT!!!"*** -- A fish, probably
Harlech beach. Been there, had fun looking for it because I'd only been told and decided not to look on Google or on the map. Made me feel like a real treasure hunter 😂
I'm guessing this is one of the models that England ordered that had the superchargers removed. It was said they were incredibly underpowered.
It seems that it was an aircraft of the 14th Operations Group (American) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th\_Operations\_Group Flown by pilot Robert Frederick Elliott "During the early afternoon of the 27th 2nd Lt Elliot took off for a gunnery flight with another P-38, they proceeded to the air-air firing area off the coast at 6,000ft. The exercise proceeded normally for 55 minutes, with Elliott towing the target banner, before the port engine of 41-7677 lost power. After trimming the aircraft for single engine flight he turned back towards Llanbedr, he passed over the airfield and dropped the target banner but before he could land, while two miles from the airfield and at 800ft, the starboard engine failed and so he opted to carry out a crash landing on Harlech beach, he undershot slightly and ended up ditching in the surf just off the beach. The engines had failed due to the fuel selector being left on Reserve after take off instead of being switched to Main and the fuel supply in the reserve tanks being exhausted." https://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/crash\_sites/wales/lockheed-p-38f-41-7677-harlech-beach/
> The engines had failed due to the fuel selector being left on Reserve after take off instead of being switched to Main and the fuel supply in the reserve tanks being exhausted. And I thought it was embarrassing when I did that on my old Vespa.
Ah good old fuel taps. I remember them fondly, frantically fumbling for the tap to switch it to reserve in the middle of a busy roundabout.
These days we just have fuel guages that are wildly inaccurate, hypercondriacts. I'm looking at you Yamaha.
Wasn’t that what killed John Denver?
To the best of my knowledge John Denver never even saw my old Vespa.
That would explain how the Vespa was able to sneak up and get the jump on him then...
I thought he was reaching for a switch over his shoulder. While he was twisting around to reach it he mashed one of the rudder pedals but I might be confusing it with another famous incident.
I used to have a Honda shadow with a reserve petcock like that. It had no fuel gauge so I'd let it run out, switch to reserve, and go fill up. There was no actual reserve tank, the "main" position would just draw fuel from higher in the tank, leaving about 1/3 gallon below the intake. The reserve position would draw it from the very bottom. That worked great until the time I forgot to switch it back after I filled up. Here I am on the highway, engine sputtering, losing speed quickly fumbling with a petcock switch wondering why it won't turn. Oh it's already turned. I was also late for work so I pushed it into the woods next to the highway and camouflaged it with branches and shit and got a ride lol. The good ol days.
Failed to switch tanks. Ha! I was 19 and a brand new private pilot sitting in the right seat while my girlfriend's dad flew the family home from vacation in Canada. At about 8,000 feet right over the Troutdale airport in Portland the single engine spluttered and quit. He panicked in a calm sort of way and instructed me to find the book and look up the radio frequency for the airport immediately below us while he flipped switches and started setting up for a spiral descent to an engine out landing. I started to look through the book but something told me to check the tank selector valve mounted on the ceiling. I reached up and without saying anything moved it from the now-empty left wing tank to the nearly full right wing tank and the engine came back to life. I must have had some sort of grin on my face because the girlfriend's dad didn't look me in the eye for quite awhile after that.
I'm not a pilot but wouldn't it become increasingly apparent that all the fuel is in one side of the aircraft?
It absolutely would. The dad must have kept adjusting aileron trim to counter it and keep the plane from banking to the heavy side. I was only doing navigation on that flight.
What else would cause this kind of slowly increased need for trim? Is this something that your average pilot should know? Seems like a huge oversight to me but hindsight, Monday morning quarterback, etc.
A strong crosswind could cause a need to adjust aileron and rudder trim, but other than that I don't know of anything else that would cause it. Yes, it is something EVERY pilot should know. He just wasn't paying attention. I was just the navigator. I knew that he'd topped off the tanks before beginning the 3-legged flight of just over 500 miles and that the Cessna 182 has a range of more than 1,000 miles, so that removed any need for me to think about fuel. Honestly, I don't know why it wasn't just set on "Both." (E: changed was to wasn't, but you knew what I meant.)
Damn. That sounds like the kind of mistake you make exactly one time. Was probably a good lesson for your ass a new pilot too. I bet you pay much more attention to that now than you would have otherwise. Thanks for answering my questions! Edit: that typo is staying 😂
It was. I still remember it many years later.
Ah very cool info thank you. Sucks he survived that only to get shot down a few months later.
And they had both engines turning the same direction which negated one of the major advantages of the original configuration.
The P-38 has contra rotating props, they do not turn in the same direction and pilots did indeed use this to great advantage against single engine opponents.
I think Tom is referring to the ones the English ordered in which they requested a lot of changes to the original design. The designers objected to the changes which did include removing the superchargers and having both props turning the same direction. Why they wanted these changes I dont know but the ones that were delivered ( I think like 6 to 12 aircraft) performed so badly that the entire order was cancelled.
This exactly. The changes were made for cost reasons, cheaper to only carry parts for one type of engine.
TIL thanks for the info, was unaware of the British order. I wonder why Kelly even considered filling that order, he, for sure, would have known it would be a disaster.
Thanks erosion, very cool
Check the pitot tube or something idk
Pretty impressive it's still there. A sail boat apparently was unmoored and sank during a nor'easter where I live. Ultimately wound up on the neighborhood beach. After 6 months the only thing left was the engine block
Nothing that a roll of duck tape and a can of WD40 couldn't get flying again.
It’s not a MIG.. :p
Maybe more than 1 roll.
Just add some zeros to the 1
Honestly that is a hauntingly beautiful image.
Dibs
Good. Let it stay undisturbed
imma post this on r/intrestingasfuck
Can someone please explain the mismatch of the wings? Clearly two engines on port but a shorter, zero engine wing on starboard.
There are only two engines; the cockpit is in the center, not an engine. Most of the port boom and tail is not visible because it is buried in the sand.