W8 # 95 "so dont write off a tiggy that has been used for ag spraying. it may not have harmed it at all."
No offence meant; I only was curious about why DCA felt the need to retire apparently serviceable airframes from agricultural operations; seemed a strange thing to me. As you say, repairs and rectification would return the aircraft to service, no permanent harm done. Reading back through the old 1947 manual there are 'fixes' for just about every metal part, so even if the dreaded corrosion had taken hold, it seems that it could be very quickly and painlessly sorted.
I agree with Chairman though, there is a deep pool of expert knowledge available - world wide, it's impressive to find such dedication and freely available knowledge on tap to doting owners. I'd risk a choccy frog and bet that the canny 'Tiger' wizards have some ideas on what happened and are only waiting on hard data to confirm them. Lets hope the ATSB manages to do this sad event justice. HNY all.