USS Lexington found and the condition of the Aircraft is staggering
 

Probably not the place to post it, but I hope some of you like it

See link for video

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/paul-a...years-sinking/

Pail Allen has found the Lexington!! - General Discussion - LSP Forums

https://i.imgur.com/4slEPPY.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/PBcvpdG.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/tBiFBHZ.jpg

Well done Mr. Allen!

WOW, just WOW!!!!

Wow! VF 3, famous USN squadron. Can't have been too many squadron pilots with 4 kills at that point of the war. Butch O'Hare?? Great work, I believe there are still liberty ships at the bottom of the Coral Sea with P 38, 39 and 40's packed in boxes .....

http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/574/pics/3_9_b1.jpg

He could have saved a bit of money and simply driven down Interstate 37.
https://usslexington.com/

Well done, Mr Allen and the team for seeing this through.:}

No, O'Hare scored his kills in F-15...which had 5 kill flags.

F-13 also wore 4 kill flags at the same time as well, and F-1 wore 3 kill flags.


The TBD's shown are combat vets that took part in the attack on the Shokaku and the Shoho.
T-4 and T-9 shown scored confirmed hits on the Shoho.

Incredible that the doped fabric rudder surfaces have not only survived but look like they only sunk a few days ago!!

I think that tends to reflect the fact that (if the depth reading on the stills is to be believed) she's over 9000ft down. Not much lives down there to affect the fabric etc...

Wiki has a good article on "The Lady Lex" . The hull will probably be in good condition as the ship was scuttled because of uncontainable fires.

Cold, dark, and likely fairly anaerobic so, yes, not much to 'eat' at the aircraft structure. As the thread title alludes to, the condition of these aircraft is remarkable. The vividness of the various paint hues is amazing!

Historians have been doing a bit of digging plus blowing up the photos to reveal at least 3 letters from the name under the cockpit, seems in all probability that this F-4 was the mount of Noel Gayler, which tallies with the single bomb mission and the 4 kill flags.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4796/...a51a5b30_o.jpg

Gaylor later became a USN TP at Pax and eventually became Admiral Gayler, and served as US Naval Attache in London 1960-62, retired in 1976, and only passed away in 2011 aged 96.

NAROBS,

Paul Allen has been doing useful things for the aviation community for many years:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyi...t_Armor_Museum

Here’s my favourite - an airworthy Dora:

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/71/68/11/7...48bbff7686.jpg

For general background, Felix with the lit fuse and the Lexington are mentioned here in our flexible Wiki friend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFA-31


VFA-31, was originally established as VF-1B on July 1, 1935 flying the F4B, making it the second oldest active US Navy squadron behind VFA-14 which was originally established in 1919. On 1 July 1937, the squadron combined with VF-8B and was redesignated VF-6, flying the F3F. Between the years 1937 and 1943 VF-6 flew the F3F-1 and two variants of the F4F Wildcat and ended with the F4F-4. On 15 July 1943, VF-6 swapped designations with VF-3 and began flying the F6F Hellcat.

A VF-6 F4F-3 aboard USS Enterprise, March 1942.


Through the years the squadron and their predecessors have served on many of the Navy's aircraft carriers, including the first, the USS Langley; the second, USS Lexington; and the sixth, USS Enterprise. They were aboard Enterprise during the Attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the battles of Wake Island, Marcus Island, Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Eastern Solomon Islands. The squadron also saw aerial combat over the Philippines, Formosa, Okinawa, and China.

India, as I understand it that all started out as Paul Allen's personal collection. However as it grew someone had the brainstorm to create a museum - I don't know if it actually makes a profit but at least it offsets the cost of storing his collection (and it makes for a very nice museum - I visited last year). BTW, nearly the entire aircraft collection is in flyable condition. For a while they'd fly one or two of the aircraft every summer weekend weather permitting (I'd often see them overfly my house near Paine Field), but my understand is they now limit flying to designated 'fly' weekends.

Official report into the loss and how it happened

https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN...al-prelim.html

Paul Allens site that shows the discoveries of the Indianapolis, Hood, Muasashi etc

https://www.paulallen.com/uss-indian...ery-materials/

https://www.paulallen.com/tag/underwater-exploration

There's a B777 waiting to be found a fair bit to the west.

Surely, only sealed compartments would be subjected to crushing. An open aircraft structure would experience the same pressure on both sides.

He bought the Dora airworthy and it has never flown since being rebuilt as it was deemed to precious, Kurt Tank the designer, when he was still alive wanted them to enter it at Reno and race it.

https://www.airspacemag.com/history-...ow-10-4310601/



..

"I understand that the returning RN Pacific Fleet, in 1945, ditched a large number of airworthy lend-lease American kit overboard - to keep post-war scrap prices high?"


An uncle of mine was a Hellcat pilot on HMS Pursuer (with the BPF) in the last few months of the war and he used to tell that after VJ day the aeroplanes were dumped into the sea because if they were written-off as war losses then the UK did not have to pay for them.