recovered Spitfire radiator

[Kingscoy]

Hi,

Thought that these pics could be interesting. It shows the power of the Mauser 20mm canon of a Fw190 and what the pilots endured during dogfights! This is one of the radiotors of Spitfire ML318 flown by F/Lt G.R Patterson RCAF which we excavated a short while back. He was shot down by Major Wolfgang Späte. In his book regarding the Me163 he published a few frames of his guncamera (included in this post) showing the shooting down of ML318...clearly hitting Patterson in the radiator area. Patterson was able to bale out and survived the war.
The impact must have been truly frightning for Patterson. The "exit wound" is huge!
Eyewitnesses told that Patterson baled out just under 1000ft!



Cheers,
Sander

[Colin1]

Considering a 20mm strike, a date with gravity and 70'ish years interred in the ground, it's not in bad shape all things considered

Bottle of radweld in that...

[Airframes]

Interesting pics, and looks like the FW had really closed in to the target. Thanks Sander.

[Wayne Little]

thanks for sharing....

[Kingscoy]

Considering a 20mm strike, a date with gravity and 70'ish years interred in the ground, it's not in bad shape all things considered

Bottle of radweld in that...

Very true...we also found the aerial antenna in a very remarkable state that surprised us very much....being a somewhat more delicate piece of aircraft.

Cheer,
Sander

[Airframes]

Wow!That's amazing, especially considering the relatively light structure of the mast.

[vikingBerserker]

Very cool, thanks for posting!