Squadron of Lost WWII Spitfires To Be Exhumed In Burma

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt that sounds like a good Neal Stephenson plot point: "Like a treasure chest stuffed with priceless booty, as many as 20 World War II-era Spitfire planes are perfectly preserved, buried in crates beneath Burma — and after 67 years underground, they're set to be uncovered. The planes were shipped in standard fashion in 1945 from their manufacturer in England to the Far East country: waxed, wrapped in greased paper and tarred to protect against the elements. They were then buried in the crates they were shipped in, rather than let them fall into enemy hands, said David Cundall, an aviation enthusiast who has spent 15 years and about $200,000 in his efforts to reveal the lost planes."

Comments

Re: It's not Fox

[qubezz]

It is sad when submitters don't check for the best sources.

Fox news copied their story from The Syndey Morning Herald, who copied the story from The Telegraph (UK) (April 14). There is a follow up story on the Telegraph site too; the buried spitfire story was revealed by a war vet, and they found them and made bore holes and looked inside the crates.

Re:Preserved Junk?

[peragrin]

They were covered in tar and grease and crated.

The region they were found in has mostly dry soil.

while I doubt all of them will fly I wouldn't be surprised if they can't get 6-12 of the 70 they found flying.

Despite the Rarity,

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I think it a bit of pity that these are 1945 Spits, with Gryphon engines and the modified airframes.

If you care to see what these XIVs might look like, see this:
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit14v109.html

The XIV marque - like other Gryphon Spits - had an elongated cowl, which interrupted the series of broad, elliptical shapes that made up a Spitfire, and gave it an extraordinary, sculptural quality.

Additionally, there was an enormous , five-bladed airscrew, behind a pointier spinner. The tiny cross section where the fuselage tapers toward the tali was "beefed up" and a much broader and taller tail/rudder structure again, change the elegant line of the aircraft. I suppose, as late as these models are, that Burma mk XIV's also have... Horror! The cut-down and bubble-top, instead of the more familiar hood and sloping airframe, behind the pilot.

Even in Merlin-engined Spitfires, you begin to see the transformation hinted with the Mk VIIIs that served in Australia and Asia, with clipped wingtips and pointed tops on their rudders. But these were gentler adaptations, and lent an interesting variant on the form of the aircraft that wasn't displeasing.

Altogether, so seriously altered, the Spitfire may well have been able to maintain itself against the equally radical adaptations made in BF109s and FW190s. However in doing so, the Spit looked more derived from Hawker's Tempest fighters, albeit with a nip at the chin, and less like the supple, equine aircraft that Reg Mitchell derived from Thompson Trophy racing winners of the 1930s.