Supermarine Spitfire

outkast;119029 wrote:

what about the eyewitness who said he saw them being buried, as so much was made of the story he told he has a lot to answer for now.

Well they should hang him.....slowly Only joking

I think it a little sad that someones dreams have been dashed.

hydealfred;119068 wrote:

I think it a little sad that someones dreams have been dashed.

It's a great shame. And whilst we were all highly sceptical, we also know that if they had turned out to be there we would all have been delighted.

This link to Doug Arnold (he of Spitfire restoration) acclaim might clear things.

www.clubhyper.com/forums/forum.htm

Ossington_2008;119219 wrote:

This link to Doug Arnold (he of Spitfire restoration) acclaim might clear things.

www.clubhyper.com/forums/forum.htm

I couldn't make head or tail of it, will have another look when I am not on iPhone...

Arcade wrote:

I couldn't make head or tail of it, will have another look when I am not on iPhone...

Where, exactly, on the 40+ page forum..I couldn't see it...?

Sorry about that. I thought I'd captured the specific page, but it seems I can't do it. It is currently on page 2, but this will slip down in time as news posts are added. It is dated Jan 20 at 0858.

I took the liberty of a cut n paste. If this is against the 'rules' then please accept my apologies as a 'noob'.

---

Below is an on-sight report from Burma given by a well-respected historian/enthusiast. I think it sheds light on what's really happening over there. Mr. Cundall's quest is sincere although he's stuck between a production crew making a docudrama about the hunt (which will probably be as good as the same garbage on TLC, History, and Discovery networks), the tabloid media which have been publishing wildly speculative and inaccurate new reports, and very cranky Burmese officials.

So the search is not officially over, and I hope something is eventually found.

This was my fifth trip to Burma since 1987 on Spitfire business, so I have more than a passing idea of how the system works.

I went this time as an independent observer, paying my own way, and have no contractual ties to any of the main participants.

When Fergal Keane announces on BBC that there are no Spitfires in Burma that just about kills the story for further follow on journalists however I think Robert Hardman's report in yesterday's Mail and and the Robin Pagnamenta piece in the Times are giving a pretty clear picture.

I am on record here of saying that is more to do with making a TV adventure documentary that may end up with Spitfires rather than a Spitfire dig by obsessed enthusiasts with a TV crew tagging along filming the event.

It was pretty clear from press conference at the IWM, and general chatting there, that the principal 'Conflict Archaeologists' thought this buried Spitfire theory was light weight.

David Cundall is the figurehead project leader but he is not leading the project. That is being done by the Wargaming upper echelon in close association with the documentary director and his crew of about twelve.

So where do we start digging? We have a inner perimeter fence in poor order, a perimeter un-made road, a ditch, some sort of modern pipework and new indicators to show where electrical cables run parallel. There is then about three hundred metres of rough grass up to the parallel main runway. The grass is flat and the earth beneath, the leveling spoil from the time the new and current main runway was laid, I would estimate in the 1950's/60's...or whenever.

Think documentary, looking across this grass you have regular take-offs, the odd Mig 29, taxiing aircraft, the old colonial buildings from the early post WWII airport and the magnificent old 'Gold' arrivals building. This will be fine, so lets start our geophysics work here in two separate football pitch size areas, then we will scrape the surface and get the 'Conflict Archaeologist' to work. Well as you can imagine there will not be too much conflict archeology in 1960's spoil but we will dig an exploratory trench down to the original WWII ground level and see what we find...an industrial bolt, a nail, a substantial softwood post, three bricks and a small level area of concrete. The image of this site work has been posted back some couple of days.

David Cundall, the two geophysicists Dr Roger Clark and Dr Adam Booth together with the on site eye-witness Stanley Coombes all make it quite clear that from the readings and the memory no Spitfires will be found here. And you are patient and when this has been done we will surely move on the hot spots of the 2004 survey by the British and the later survey by the Burmese where they bored holes and fully reported...and we can resolve the riddle of the 'old old Prome road' and the 'old Prome road', so important to the eyewitness accounts that throws doubt on the conflict archaeologists overlay map by a couple of hundred metres or so...but no, a senior military officer says that is it, stop there, it is too dangerous, you can dig at night.

I think we can all imagine David Cundall's exasperation at this. The world's Press and TV crews are flying in and there is nothing to show. Major headache for the Wargaming PR team. Who makes the call...perhaps best not David Cundall, we will field the Conflict Archaeos. Result...'There are no buried Spitfires in Burma'...time to go home.

With the internal, and I would say anticipated, wrangling with all the participants 'miked up' this is going to be a wonderful documentary.

Myitkycina is 900 odd miles north. It is a military base. I would suggest the next move would be for David Cundall to quietly retrace his steps there from December 2012 with his Burmese geologist and partners, expand the hand dug hole by 300%, expose more of the crate, if that is what it is, cut a substantial hole in it, and using a very large pump and generator set get sufficient water out so that a conventional camera can record what is there. I would allow a couple of weeks.

Posted in Hyperscale Forum.