Hmmm - a matter of perspective, I think!

Next question - how does the prop assembly get to be at the right rear when the damage indicates it went over/under the left wing. More bent cowling on that side.

I'm having trouble seeing how those last few yards of the landing played out.

Quite badly it appears.

As soon as I saw the first three photos, I thought: model. The focus isn't at all convincing to my eyes and the the whole panorama just smacks of a carefully-arranged set-up.
To begin with, I've spent a bit of time in hot & dusty places and would therefore expect to see a fair bit of sand in the engine compartment, which there isn't. Speaking of which, there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of damage to the cowling areas considering the reduction gear is supposed to have been ripped out (especially to the forward bulkhead attachments at the support frame aft of the spinner).
The fourth photo shows a scene that wouldn't be beyond the capability of a skilled modelmaker and the oil spots (after how many years?) on the wing root fillet show that he's gone a bit too far with his 'authenticity'.
BTW, anyone noticed that the magnetos are turned on and the throttle & mixture controls are fully forward... Hardly a forced landing configuration. :hmm:
The whole thing's a clever con in my opinion and it's probably generated the heat that the initiator intended.

So how does it get there? Care to speculate on those last few yards of motion?

Yeah, but would a skilled model maker or photo-shopper have gone to the extent of an open hatch that because it is open but part of a bent fuselage actually be cut by the metal of the fuselage and bent so that there was no view of the open compartment...? That's just too serendipitous for my liking.

I'm going to stick with '..real but from maybe a decade or multiple decades ago.'

Interesting - if you up the Gamma on picture #3, there's a fair amount of engine detail visible in the dark shadows of the nose, and much more detail visible on the rear end of the detached prop hub. If it's a fake it's a very skilled modeller :confused:

I Vote Real....:ok:

Oh come on !!! They are obviously fake and I cannot believe so many people have been duped. If not a model, then it looks like stills from a flight sim enviroment, created in the same way as a flight sim. The landscape in the first and second photos is different, where did those clouds in the second photo suddenly come from that weren't in the first one, and, the paintwork would be FAR more weathered, it would be barely visible if at all. Not even worth discussing this any more.

Some time around 1965/6 we took two Sioux helicopters out to El Adem, courtesy of a Beverly and an Argosy from the RAF. The aircraft were reassembled and we flew them west wards to an old WW2 fighter field called Timimi where an armoured battle group was in camp for a month doing live fire battle runs, we flew a whole lot of hours all over the place, areas that had not been overflown at low level and low speed since the war and saw wrecks of vehicles and aircraft that looked as though it happened much more recently than twenty three years.

Very dry air, no corrosion to speak of etc. and in the case of these pictures it is a very rocky looking piece of desert with not a whole lot of sand to fill up or cover up the wreck. Which ever way I vote will be wrong so I'll just leave the above as additional info!:)

Mag switches and throttle in the wrong position are easily explained by passing nomads.

Well, at least they had the manners to close the canopy once they'd finished playing. :)

And if you were the guy who took the photos, wouldn't you want to play with the controls and perhaps even get in if the canopy still slides. So, if it is indeed real the control & canopy positions don't really mean anything.

Just watched these two, now doing the rounds.

Well, those vids are the clincher. Genuine.
Looks like the photos pre-date the vids tho, so it's likely to have been picked clean now :-(

Now that's some clever model making and photo-shopping innit then ;-P


Great pity that it appears there was / is very little that'll be left to save.

Fair enough - can't argue with that! :O

Well I guess that settles it!

The canopy is wholly intact in the video, it appears.

Hmmm, what can I say ? The video looks more genuine than the photos. Typical of the Arabs to salvage the guns and ammo packs. Hehe, I wonder if they're still usable, they'll come in handy.

Can anyone judge from the vehicles seen in the video, what year approximately ?

The description says 'Egypt 2012.03' and it was only uploaded to YouTube on Friday, if that helps at all.

If that is indeed Eygpt, I wonder if it could be a 112 squadron a/c?