WWII aircraft wing I found tonight!

[Wrath1]

sorry guys but, my camera took a dump on me and quite working I've ordered another but, it will take more than a few weeks to get it in the mail.

In the meantime, have a merry Christmas and a happy New year!

[FLYBOYJ]

Sorry to hear about your camera - keep us updated and happy holidays!

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

This is turning really interesting. You should see if some your friends might want to come down and help you dig it up. There might be some more clues underneath it.

[timshatz]

No worries, the board is patient. Besides, we're all genuinely interested in what it turns out to be. Something of a low stress mystery for people who dig airplanes. That's got the attention of a decent number of people on this board.

Want to toss out one more idea, it could be the horizontal stableizer (sp?) on something from a C-47 through C-54. No idea if I am on or not but after kicking it around for a while, I figure I might as well throw it out there.

[HealzDevo]

I'm not familiar with the designations C-47 through to C-54. But could be... I just observed that they didn't have paint and thought late war...

[FLYBOYJ]

C-47 Dakota? Gooney Bird? DC-3? Are you serious? The C-54 was a DC-4.

[timshatz]

C-47 Dakota? Gooney Bird? DC-3? Are you serious? The C-54 was a DC-4.

Thought it might be part of the tail, not the wing. Like I said, tossing it out there.

If I was kidding I would say it was wreckage from the UFO that landed in Roswell that was hidden by the Govt. out in the Pacific because area 51 and Roswell Air Base were too hot. They tossed it in the ocean to get rid of it and Wrath 1 stumbled across it.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

There is a theory.

[timshatz]

Did I get the CIA in there? I can get the CIA in there too. What with Diana and all that, this has been a bad week for them anyway.

[Matt308]

NSA dammit. Get your story straight.

[timshatz]

NSA, Right. My bad. So many of them it's sometimes like alphabet soup.

[HealzDevo]

I knew the names, just not the type numbers. Cargo planes are my weak point... Could have been an obsolete type dumped there when they were doing the Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands. Could also have been part of an experiment into flash paint perhaps... We notice that a lot of the post-war nuclear bombers are painted in white so obviously in one of the nuclear tests there must have been experiments to test how much nuclear radiation got through certain paint schemes... Perhaps an obsolete type that was converted to radio control for the test and then stripped of anything useful internally and dumped. Just speculation but I thought Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb as well as Bockscar, the partner aircraft were both finished in bare aluminium...

[FLYBOYJ]

I knew the names, just not the type numbers. Cargo planes are my weak point...

I guess so..

Could have been an obsolete type dumped there when they were doing the Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands. Could also have been part of an experiment into flash paint perhaps... We notice that a lot of the post-war nuclear bombers are painted in white so obviously in one of the nuclear tests there must have been experiments to test how much nuclear radiation got through certain paint schemes... Perhaps an obsolete type that was converted to radio control for the test and then stripped of anything useful internally and dumped. Just speculation but I thought Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb as well as Bockscar, the partner aircraft were both finished in bare aluminium...

You have a wild imagination. Drones usually had orange on them and were not operated from there. Based on the website I posted earlier and based on the part numbers shown, it is likely this aircraft was built by North American. Until more of it is dug up or until we could see any material markings, it could be just about anything.

[HealzDevo]

I was just suggesting that logically they would need to test the white flash-paint before they used it, and at the time there would have still been a lot of WW2 surplus aircraft to use to conduct the testing with... It began in 1946 and goes right through until 1958, giving plenty of time for use of surplus aircraft as drones. Not really that far-fetched an idea really. You would have an aircraft without the flash paint and one with the white flash paint and then the instruments inside the two drones would take radiation readings inside the aircraft, and outside so there is a comparison for a full-sized aircraft. I think it is a fact that white flash paint happened over soon after this testing finished at Bikini Atoll...

[FLYBOYJ]

I was just suggesting that logically they would need to test the white flash-paint before they used it, and at the time there would have still been a lot of WW2 surplus aircraft to use to conduct the testing with... It began in 1946 and goes right through until 1958, giving plenty of time for use of surplus aircraft as drones.

Drones were not used in that aera - PERIOD!

Not really that far-fetched an idea really. You would have an aircraft without the flash paint and one with the white flash paint and then the instruments inside the two drones would take radiation readings inside the aircraft, and outside so there is a comparison for a full-sized aircraft. I think it is a fact that white flash paint happened over soon after this testing finished at Bikini Atoll...

It is far fetched - again, drones were not used in that area and there only a hand full of aircraft droned in the post war years. Most of them were out of Point Mugu, China Lake, Tyndall AFB and Holloman AFB - and there were no nuke test on those Islands as well. This piece of aircraft is bare metal and until it is fully dug up there is no way to know if it was aluminum or if the paint eroded due to reaction with the currents and salt water. Again, by the data shown from the part numbers it seems its a North American aircraft product.