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#2
10-01-2010, 09:41 PM
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About 200 years ago one of the leaders of the revolution that ended in the formation of the modern Greek state was asked about what went through their mind when starting it.
These guys were for the most part uneducated guerillas, with a few notable exceptions (eg one of them had served as an officer in the British army with units stationed in Corfu and that was about it), but they posessed some kind of folk wisdom and he managed to put it very accurately. "When we started the revolution, we didn't know if we would manage to win. All we knew was that we felt the need to do it. It's like when a ship's captain decides to leave port with bad weather and sets sail into the storm. If he makes it and manages to make a delivery when all the other ships are moored, he can command a higher price for his goods and people will praise him for his seamanship, his skill, his daring and the fortunes he has made. If he doesn't make it and the ship sinks, then the same people will call the same captain an unskilled amateur who should have known better than to drown his sailors for no reason". I don't know how good or bad the salvage team for this B29 was, but i think Thunderbolt has a point. They didn't pick up the Battle of Britain memorial flight Lancaster for a joyride and smashed it, depriving everyone of the joy of seeing it again. They picked up a plane nobody knew about or would dare salvage up to that point and through a combination of difficult circumstances and their own mistakes they failed. It's an inherent risk. Maybe they wouldn't have crashed it if they were more careful, but that doesn't mean it would be parked in some museum. The most probable outcome if they really were careful would be that it would end up grounded there and then, this time in full exposure to the elements. Maybe they or someone else could have raised the money to fly it out of there after a few years, or maybe nobody would and it would rot, nobody can know for sure. 
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#3
10-01-2010, 10:07 PM
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#4
10-02-2010, 12:30 PM
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Quote:
[btw, there a Ju52, supposed to have a cargo of160mil in gold, under 30m of ice here in Switzerland...) - It was not in danger, like being pushed out into the sea by a glacier - nobody picked up on it because the basic plan ist to disassemble and fly out parts. That involves a shitload of money. Therefore you just leave it there until on fine day a lunatic with enough cash shows up and does the job(...right). What could the fate of the plane have been? a.) Sold to private collector. Now you dont want to build a hangar for such huge bastard without it being productive. They would use it for commercial flights, ~$400/30min per per persona. b.) Sell it to a museum. There are enough of them who would not store it oustside. And yes, I can give them credit for the balls to plan and raise funds for the expedition. The executive part however is different story. Short resume: http://www.b-29s-over-korea.com/shor...b29-frozen.htm I love this part: When it landed the tires dug into the soft ground and were pulled off the rims. It took hours to dig it out, and they had no means of inflating the tires. Rick came up with a questionable solution. They would use propane gas from the camp stove to inflate them. If the wheels became too hot they would explode. Quote:
I can only talk for myself - and I have non of that. - I'm a tech but no aircraft tech - I don't have the resources(I would estimate 5-8mill.) That's why I wouldn't touch it and therefore the bird would be still there in his original condition. Last edited by swiss; 10-02-2010 at 12:50 PM.
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#5
10-01-2010, 11:13 PM
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-1 Come on! The only thing that went wrong was the APU. They've managed things most of us can only dream about! I'm a hobby mechanic. Transformed my own car, that sort of jazz, often working in the snow on my back. I know how much work even replacing or repairing a car engine can be while your hands are numb. Doing so in such conditions is terrible. I'd want to drink a lot of alcohol just to keep me going, but working on a 50 year old a/c would be too much risk. Yes, maybe it would've been smarter to ferry the B29 by other means, but this man apparently had his reasons. It almost worked, don't forget that. We wouldn't even got as far as replacing one engine. If you want to take off in a plane that has been stationary for 50 years in any country that has air traffic regulations, they'd tell you to completely strip the thing bare and restore it.
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#6
10-02-2010, 05:57 AM
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S!
Not gonna say anything about the persons involved in the B29 incident. But as it was they worked in harsh and primitive conditions. This alone enforces one rule, to be extra careful! It is different to maintain/repair a plane in the hangar than out there in the snow. People tend to make shortcuts to get into warm, tiredness makes your concentration slip etc. So here they put in an APU, but not well enough, the fittings were makeshift and hurried it seems. Now it escalated when they taxied at high speed causing jolts to the already flimsy installation. Fuel tank broke loose, spilled on APU that was running STILL even pre-flight was done..So actually the slogan "Small errors cause big problems" is very true..Here it just escalated and caused loss of a plane and a life. In projects like these hurry and too much eagerness is your enemy and backfires for sure. A leader of this kind of project should know and make assessments of the risk and put extra attention to the work, to be done even more carefull than usual, to avoid mistakes and minimize risks to both personnel and equipment.
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#7
10-02-2010, 10:54 AM
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I'm sure they felt terrible after the plane went up in smoke. Still, if they didn't have the resources to lay out a decent runway on the ice then they didn't really have the resources to do the job. It's a pity to see such a beauty destroyed.
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#8
10-02-2010, 12:59 PM
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So was the basic plan anyway. Fly it out - to? The FAA will to show you the finger if you ask for permission. Maybe the next Greenland airport and disassemble it there?
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