Supermarine Spitfire

Carnaby;113013 wrote:

Does this article say anything different from the one six months ago in post #1 of this thread ?

It says its updated, I guess there must be new info on it. Would like to find out more though

The only real news is that the government of Myanmar has agreed to excavation of the sites in return for a portion of the recoveries. If indeed there are 60 odd airframes then at least some should be recoverable if only through cannibalisation.

I am not to proud to say 'well I never!' and hope for a surprise.

I'll eat my hat* if any of these return to the skies.

*I'll have to buy a hat first, but I think my money's safe...

YellowPinkie;113052 wrote:

I'll eat my hat* if any of these return to the skies.

*I'll have to buy a hat first, but I think my money's safe...

If they find the manufacturers plates that is all they will need for them to be returned to flying condition. How much of an aircraft needs to be original build for the resultant aircraft to be 'original'?

This appeared on the Air Britain forum yesterday ;

"For those who had any doubt about the ‘buried Spitfires’ in Burma they may be interested that an ex-RAF pilot friend, who is involved in this project, has just returned from a visit to the site in Burma.

The cache of Spitfires does exist and consists of 14 Spitfire FR.14s. The difficulty in locating them was due to the fact that they are buried under an active runway meaning that once permission was granted, digging was sideways with strong underpinning of the runway. The Spitfires are there all right – all fresh still in their packing cases with guns fitted. The original crates were buried in a large excavated hole and covered over with a wooden ‘lid’ made of durable timber, teak perhaps? – the runway being added much later"!.
The first Spitfire has been removed successfully and a first inspection plus others looked at so far shows them to be all in excellent condition, fully equipped – only rubber items having perished.

The first one is to go to the USA to the financial backer, the second to the Burmese Air Force Museum – the rest - 12 Spitfire FR.14s belong to the guy who started it all.

The sweetener to ‘open the door’ so to speak was the visit of UK Prime Minister Cameron, soon to be followed by a visit by the American President. This was not a ruse to re-equip the RAF with Spitfire 14s - although they have sod all else! but an opener to revitalised trade with western powers.

Oh er! There appears to be another batch of Spitfires in Burma, 30 in number, mark numbers not known at this stage. Who knows what else they will find."

The problem that I have with this whole story is that with each step forward we are asked to stretch our belief in the incredible a little further.

I would so love it all to be true, but having lived in Singapore which has a similar very wet climate , I just can't see it happening the way we are being asked to believe.

mbriscoe;115739 wrote:

Radio 2's Jimmy Young, oooops, Jeremy Vine show is from Burma today and has an item about the Spitfires according to the preview at 11:30h. Won't be listening because I can't stand Vine but someone might like to see if anything new comes out (suspect it will be same stories recycled).

I listened to some of it. The gentleman that they interviewed on the subject was suitably excited at the prospect, but at the same time was clearly sceptical about the idea that the story was true to any great extent. As indeed many of us are.
More actual, tangible evidence is still required from what I have read...

Simple question
Where are the photo's?
No photographic evidence, no story