British WWII fighter found in Egyptian desert (amazing pics!)

[Poll_Blind]

Fuck an excerpt, click here to see more cool pics of this plane (including the controls) and read the story behind it. Amazing how well-preserved that thing is.

It's a little...eerie.

PB

[DevonRex]

1. Um...

Does that say "Fuck an excerpt" at the beginning? Or do I need to get up and clean my glasses?

Totally cool pictures. Poor guy. Can't imagine trying to walk out of that terrain.

[Poll_Blind]

5. Heh heh, yeah. I usually religiously post an excerpt from the article...

...but I figured "Why bother? This shit is hotter than a silk t-shirt."



BTW, props to Make7, DU's unofficial excerpt code tailor.

PB

[DevonRex]

11. Ooohhhh.

I thought you meant to say For an excerpt click here but autocorrect really got you good.

[Poll_Blind]

8. Re: "Can't imagine trying to walk out of that terrain."

Yeah, talk about desolate. How desolate? Compare it to this, amazingly similar landscape:


That's the surface of Mars!

PB

[DevonRex]

10. Woah. And did you see the parachute still intact?

After all this time, too. It's just unreal, like he walked out last week. It's chilling. Yet hot. Really, really hot looking.

[Old Troop]

2. Does anyone have an idea why the

tail section is partially stripped?

[arbusto_baboso]

3. I'm guessing the control surfaces were fabric-covered.

That would be more likely the earlier the model of P-40 that it was.

[warrior1]

4. I wonder if he left bread crumbs.

Like a pointer to where he would have traveled, if he survived.

[BiggJawn]

6. There's damage that didn't come from the "landing"

Left horizontal stab looks like it caught something from below and those holes in the rear fuselage.

I wonder if the plane flipped, too. The landing gear were stuck "down", and now they're either collapsed or torn off. I hope they publish more about this plane as they figure it out.

Got lost. shades of "Lady Be Good". He's around there someplace.

[freshwest]

7. Well, that shoot down that 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' scooping them up idea.

[hlthe2b]

9. Reminds me of "the English Patient"....

Interesting...

[frylock]

12. awesome!

my cousin recently found a wrecked WWII aircraft while hiking Sombrero Peak.

[Kaleva]

13. The US still has 73,692 military personel listed as MIA from WWII

I tried to find info on how many Brits are listed as MIA from that war but haven't been able to find it.

[-..__...]

14. For those unaware...

the P-40 Tomahawk was made famous and best known for it's use by the 1st American Volunteer Group, (aka "The Flying tigers&quot , with it's distinctive "sharks mouth" nose art.



As a vintage aircraft buff, it's always been one of my favorites.

[Codeine]

15. King Nine Will Not Return

[liberalhistorian]

20. I was just thinking about that

episode and how much it reminded me of this! That was one of the eeriest episodes, especially the ending.

According to the article, it looks probable that the pilot lived and that he likely walked off trying to find some help any way he could. What a horrible death from heat and dehydration that must have been, let alone the emotional agony of it.

[Recursion]

16. Maybe it was St. Expury's...

Amazing

[petronius]

21. Actually, his plane was found a few years ago, off the coast of France

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/international/europe/07france.html

...
The pilot, then 44, never returned, and, until recently, it was not known whether his plane went down in the mountainous back country on the mainland, or somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea in between. In May 2000, a French professional diver found the remains of a P38 plane in 230 feet of water off Marseille - in the same area that a fisherman two years earlier had brought to the surface a bracelet inscribed "Saint-Ex."

"The zone containing the pieces was very large, one kilometer long and 400 meters wide," said the diver, Luc Vanrell.

...

One of them bore a manufacturer's number, 2734, that researchers finally confirmed corresponded to the military number given to Saint-Exupery's plane - 42-68223.

[hifiguy]

17. Amazing. He must have put the plane down

fairly softly. Not much weather out there to rot the wreckage, just heat and more heat.

That landscape really does look like the pic of Mars posted above. Not a good way to go.

[Meiko]

18. Pretty cool

I hope it winds up restored in a museum somewhere.

[alphafemale]

19. My guess is he lived for awhile.

As a quick cursory, I think he took off the propeller and fabric off the tail to make a lean-to shelter. Animals would have dragged off his carcass long ago. What a lonely death that must have been.