A little piece of aeronautical history
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A little piece of aeronautical history
Anyone want to do the same?
I see in Dick Smiths book a top shot of a gaggle of Li.2s ( the soviet DC 3) at a russian base, partly buried, unwanted and abandoned.
Probably enough there to complete one and return it to flying status.
Hullo....HARS ??? N-ICE little project for resto there.
I see in Dick Smiths book a top shot of a gaggle of Li.2s ( the soviet DC 3) at a russian base, partly buried, unwanted and abandoned.
Probably enough there to complete one and return it to flying status.
Hullo....HARS ??? N-ICE little project for resto there.
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Pretty crappy that they lost a whole other Herc and 2 crew whilst trying to retrieve this one :-( If they had done nothing, they would still have the same number of aircraft and crew.
There is a similar story regarding a B-29 that made a forced landing in (IIRC) Greenland. A team went in to restore it and fly it out, as original B-29s have become extraordinarily rare (most having crashed or been turned into beer cans) (this was ~25 years ago). Big effort - one of the team died of some sort of medical condition that couldn't be treated in the middle of nowhere. Finally they thought they had the aircraft airworthy and did a taxi test on a frozen lake - during the taxi test something broke loose on the APU, it caught fire, and the B-29 burned to the ground...
There is a documentary out there on the project if someone more ambitious wants to go find it...
EDIT:
Ok, it wasn't that hard to find:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...8&&FORM=VRDGAR
There is a documentary out there on the project if someone more ambitious wants to go find it...
EDIT:
Ok, it wasn't that hard to find:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...8&&FORM=VRDGAR
Last edited by tdracer; 1st Mar 2018 at 00:27.
Am probably the most famous is Glacier Girl - the P38 that was extracted from the ice in Greenland. One of 5 that crash landed there in "company".
I did read an excellent book many years ago on the extraction of her in the early 90's - they had to melt a shaft a couple of hundred feet into the 50 years of accumulated ice, lower some guys in to pull it to bits to get it out. Incredible stuff.
I had a bit of contact with the guys behind renewed attempts to salvage the remaining ones early 15 years ago but it all fizzled out and the airframes are still there.
I did read an excellent book many years ago on the extraction of her in the early 90's - they had to melt a shaft a couple of hundred feet into the 50 years of accumulated ice, lower some guys in to pull it to bits to get it out. Incredible stuff.
I had a bit of contact with the guys behind renewed attempts to salvage the remaining ones early 15 years ago but it all fizzled out and the airframes are still there.
With Kee Bird in Greenland , after the fire and during the resto much environmental damage, just let oil onto the ground etc. I read somewhere? a 'local' got a contract supposedly to clean-up and recover engines and etc.
Never seen anything further, maybe the remoteness and costs put a stop to all that.
Apart from the P38s there was another ice cap site with DC 3s and a couple of Waco troop gliders after failed attempts to get people out that way.
A ski-ed DC 3 finally did the job.
Never seen anything further, maybe the remoteness and costs put a stop to all that.
Apart from the P38s there was another ice cap site with DC 3s and a couple of Waco troop gliders after failed attempts to get people out that way.
A ski-ed DC 3 finally did the job.
Recovery of a US C-130 from Antarctica. Crashed 1971 when a jato bottle came loss on take off and went through a prop. Recovered in 1988.
U.S. airplane recovered from East Antarctica
U.S. airplane recovered from East Antarctica
