20 Griffon Engined Spitfires .... still in their original crates

It's not nice to tease us like this!

And it looks like a research team think they know where they are ....

Independent:

Experts from Leeds University have linked up with an academic based in Rangoon and believe they have identified the sites where the craft are concealed using sophisticated radar techniques.

Telegraph:

David Cundall, 62, spent 15 years doggedly searching for the Mk II planes, an exercise that involved 12 trips to Burma and cost him more than £130,000.
When he finally managed to locate them in February, he was told Mr Cameron “loved” the project and would intervene to secure their repatriation.
Mr Cundall told the Daily Telegraph: “I’m only a small farmer, I’m not a multi-millionaire and it has been a struggle. It took me more than 15 years but I finally found them.
”Spitfires are beautiful aeroplanes and should not be rotting away in a foreign land. They saved our neck in the Battle of Britain and they should be preserved.”
He said the Spitfires, of which there are only around 35 flying left in the world, were shipped to Burma and then transported by rail to the British RAF base during the war.
“They were just buried there in transport crates,” Mr Cundall said. “They were waxed, wrapped in greased paper and their joints tarred. They will be in near perfect condition.”
The married father of three, an avid plane enthusiast, embarked on his voyage of discovery in 1996 after being told of their existence by a friend who had met some American veterans who described digging a trench for the aircraft during the Allied withdrawal of Burma.
He spent years appealing for information on their whereabouts from eye witnesses, scouring public records and placing advertisements in specialist magazines.
Several early trips to Burma were unsuccessful and were hampered by the political climate.
He eventually met one eyewitness who drew maps and an outline of where the aircraft were buried and took him out to the scene.
“Unfortunately, he got his north, south, east and west muddled up and we were searching at the wrong end of the runway,” he said.
“We also realised that we were not searching deep enough as they had filled in all of these bomb craters which were 20-feet to start with.
“I hired another machine in the UK that went down to 40-feet and after going back surveying the land many times, I eventually found them.
A team from the UK is already in place and is expecting to begin the excavation, estimated to cost around £500,000, imminently. It is being funded by the Chichester-based Boultbee Flight Acadamy.
Mr Cundall said the government had promised him it would be making no claim on the aircraft, of which 21,000 were originally produced, and that he would be entitled to a share in them.
“It’s been a financial nightmare but hopefully I’ll get my money back,” he said.
“I’m hoping the discovery will generate some jobs. They will need to be stripped down and re-riveted but it must be done. My dream is to have a flying squadron at air shows.”

Moggy DCM

Brand new Hurricanes were supposed to be in Russia, after the fall of communism, but nothing was found, other than wrecks.

These aircraft might be like those, just a nice story. Burying aircraft though, was a popular way of disposing of aircraft quickly, at the end of the war, and I'd bet that's more likely. More used scrap Spits, than new boxed ones, but you never know what your going to find in the Jungle.

Nice story though.

Could this be the beginning of just another "Urban Legend"

There is an "Urban Legend" around these parts about the "Last Avro Arrow"

Seems that back in the late 50's when the Canadian Government ordered
the complete destruction (ie: blueprints, jigs, aircraft, everything)
of all the six prototype Avro Arrows.
Inventory records showed that 5 prototypes were accounted for.
However, the assemlbed parts of the sixth aircraft were not included.
As the "legend" goes they were spirited away
and hidden somewhere in rural Canada by those who built it...



Cheers mates ;pilot:
David

There was a similar legend here about the wonderful and similarly politically assassinated TSR-2. When the Harold Wilson government bowed to US pressure and their own anti-military instincts and cancelled the plane and bought that inadequate replacement the F111, they were also obliged by terms of the agreement to scrub out all evidence of the TSR2's existence, right down to the manufacturing jigs and all the prototypes. Legend said one survived.

And it actually did! It is now in the War Museum at Duxford. I go there to worship from time to time.



There seems to be more to this story of the crated spitfires. We shall see.

Moggy DCM

Dunno about that,we flew them quite succesfully
http://www.airforce.gov.au/aircraft/f111.aspx

No contest over the fact that it flew. Just not a serious rival to what the TSR2 would have been.

The RAAF was the only other operator of the F111. The RAF never actually received any Ardvarks, and finally made do with Phantoms and Buccaneers. Meanwhile the British aircraft industry had been near fatally damaged.

Moggy DCM

Thems fightin words son...