Found 20mm cannon & ammo - if only

[fat tony]

[youtube]-p8h43TRXwk&feature=related[/youtube]

 

[Tyler]

That's crazy.

Under all that ice for so long, and it still works...

Reminds me of the story of the Lady Be Good, a B-24 that went down in the Sahara during WW2. People found the wreck decades later, and the .50 cals w/ ammo were still good to go.

 

[Pblatzz]

Burried 200 ft below the ice, lost and found now flying again..

 

[cyclone]

The P-38 was among the most incredible WW2 aircraft...

 

[Pblatzz]

Reminds me of the story of the Lady Be Good, a B-24 that went down in the Sahara during WW2. People found the wreck decades later, and the .50 cals w/ ammo were still good to go.

That's the Lady be good..

http://www.qmfound.com/lady_be_good_b-24_bomber_recovery.htm

 

[CanAm]

There was another doc about a B29 in Greenland that they got running and were going to fly out until the APU caught fire on taxi. heartbreaking.

I believe it was called "B29, lost in time"

 

[LeeEnfieldNo.4_mk1]

There was another doc about a B29 in Greenland that they got running and were going to fly out until the APU caught fire on taxi. heartbreaking.

I believe it was called "B29, lost in time"

I heard that from my dad, it really is sad. They spent months trying to get the plane ready, Then they had to sit there and literally watch it all go up in smoke.

 

[fat tony]

The P-38 was among the most incredible WW2 aircraft...

Apparently it was an incredibly rugged and high performance fighter/bomber for it's time, it was pretty much the first heavy fighter that had a 'jet - fighter' layout. Just before the Korean War broke out; thousands of "J" models were sent to the scrapper; there was a little scandal about that at the time - I can't remember where the reference was from it could have been the book: "The Reservoir".

 

[Deltasilver]

NOVA documentary called "B29 Frozen in time". The aircraft burned to the ground when the Flight Engineer forgot to shut down the APU on take off. The AMT who did most of the work on the aircraft had to be evacuated from the job site after he worked himself into a ruptured back and died later on.

 

[Vimy Ridge]

Cool.

 

[jsquig]

There's a Spitfire (I think) at the Juno Beach museum that has full belts of live .303 with apparently one in the chamber.

 

[Dosing]

There was another doc about a B29 in Greenland that they got running and were going to fly out until the APU caught fire on taxi. heartbreaking.

I believe it was called "B29, lost in time"

I found it more infuriating than heartbreaking, that was a downright sin.

 

[Strangeday]

The P-38 is the grandfather of the A-10............pure awesomness

 

[Tbolt]

the p-38 is the grandfather of the a-10............pure awesomness

x2 for sure

 

[tjhaile]

There's a Spitfire (I think) at the Juno Beach museum that has full belts of live .303 with apparently one in the chamber.

The .303 Browning is open bolt. It doesn't chamber a round until you pull the trigger (or press the button in this case).

The ammo is most likely dummy.

 

[tjhaile]

The P-38 is the grandfather of the A-10............pure awesomness

Actually, the Douglas A-1 Skyraider is the grandfather of the A-10.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyraider

 

[Jiggi-watt]

I believe the P-47, IL-2, Hs-129 and A-1 were all drawn on to create the A-10.

P-38 was an excellent aircraft all the same. No Spitfire though ...

 

[fat tony]

I remember hearing this tale my dad told me about his youth in Belgium during the war, one night a P-38 Lightning collided with a Messcherschmidt 109 in West Flanders airspace, this was near where dad was billeted with a farmer and his family for the duration, he got food in exchange for working for the farmer, which in those days was a pretty sweet deal, from what I can gather they could hear the fire burning all night (rounds cooking off etc) in the am they went to see the burned out wreckage, total devastation.

 

[OneBarfly]

My father was wounded when the column he was driving in was strafed by a P-38 in Tunisia. Worked out OK as the hospital he was sent to was soon overrun by the advancing Americans. Spent the rest of the war (and then some) as a "guest" of the French government (in exile).

 

[bussche]

I found it more infuriating than heartbreaking, that was a downright sin.

I watched that last night, a dude DIED during the course of the restoration (not directly in a accident or anything mind you). But still, they were so damn close, everything was running, just about to take off.