Plane Wrecks, what`s happening

I have seen on this forum a lot of talking about plane wrecks found in the sea etc. my point is that we should do something. I saw a lot of foundations and associations that are trying to preserve this things. why don`t we have such an foundation? are we to good at this or too stupid ? are we idiots? I just don`t understand this. Honestly if such a foundation would exist and I mean one that would restore and afterward wold show in exhibitions discovered thing I would do anything I could to help them. For example if they discover an IAR 80 sunk somewhere and would need money for restoration I would take for auction my t-shirts and put the winner`s name on it and would not wear something else for an year or so. Too bad that is not possible great thing like this are not happening in Romania

Its all about finance, do you realize how much it would cost

to recover items from the Black Sea and then preserve them.

You need to have money for the search, the dice costs, boat hire,

heavy equipment for recovery, divers wages etc..etc..

this all runs into thousands of Euros, and not all items are salvageable

from the sea anyway.

For example there are thousands of items, British, American, French, German, Italian etc..etc warships, planes, even tanks, submarines sitting on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea and they will never be recovered

Kevin in Deva

Yes the costs are huge but I think that an action like " da-ti un leu pentru ateneu" might brig at least a part of the money. at least I know that I could try to do something like this. At least where I could reach in my free Saturday . I`d start with my neighbors and I`m close to Timisoara and who knows. And if we are talking about other wrecks like warships ok they tried with Titanic, but also remember that the British have some great museums with lot of planes tanks etc. and Germans Americans too. and we have nothing or almost nothing and what we have is going the drain.

I have a friend who is very involved in the recovery and restoration of aircraft. Some of his work is on display in museums such as the RAF Museums in Hendon or Cosford.
The "lack of of interest" is not a striclty "Romanian" thing. You need money and labour. Money can be found, although it is a struggle to raise such funds (and not only in Romania).
Recovery of such wrecks can be done and it has been done all over the world. Only a fraction of the existing wrecks are rescued and even fewer are restored.
I heard a lot of Romanians lamenting the fact that "no IARs were kept" or "we got rid of all Bf109s" etc. Romanians are not the only ones who do that. Every single air force has such stories. The US Army was dumping Hueys over the side from ships on the way back from Vietnam, or see what happened to the USAF Mustangs after the war.
There are also a few things that you must keep in mind. If there is still a pilot (or even a part of any crew), that is a war grave and cannot be touched without permission. Many families prefer to leave it as is. If there is still ammunition on board, then that has to be dealt with by the bomb disposal unit. Old cordite is a PIA. Have you ever seen how they dispose of old ammunition?. Then you have to deal with the issue of what can be restored. Most aircraft that you see in museums were relatively sound structurally and were most likely held in storage before restoration. A crashed aircraft is a different thing altogether - few parts remain intact. Have you ever seen a crashed aircraft? I have seen a few in museums and there are some bits of such crashed aircraft in the Aviation Museum in Bucharest. Go have a look. In such cases, it is easier to make a scale 1/1 model than restore a wreck.
This may make for good conversation between "chibiti" while sipping a beer in a comfortable bar, but in reality it is not a simple thing.
Radu

As far as I know there are 6 IAR 80 which crashed in Black Sea near Romanian coast line and I do not think that any of them was salvaged. I think that it would be a good thing at least to try to locate them and to see in what shape the wrecks are and if possible to try to salvage them.
Dear Radub the cost of such a salvage are high but what about the historical value or the fact that it would be THE ONLY ORIGINAL IAR 80 existing in the World? Also I do not know if the building of a 1/1 model is a possibility as a lot of the documents related to the building of the IAR80 were lost. By the way do you know how many P51, Hueys and Bf109 are in the world some of them still flying.

Dear Petru32, please do not get me wrong. I would love to have a genuine and proper IAR80 in a museum somewhere. The IAR80 is one of my most favoutire aircraft and, believe me, you are very very very wrong when you state that the original drawings are gone. They exist, they are in a fragile state, but they exist nevertheless. I have been researching it for many years and last summer I had the privilege to see and touch a lot of the original documentation connected with the IAR80.
Let us not start banging our chests and go all Nicolae Furdui Iancu on this issue. This has nothing to do with national pride. It has everything to do with hard facts. The airframes may be in a very bad state. A plane that crashes at sea will still be mangled. Furthermore, aluminium corrodes badly in seawater. Steel goes even worse and the forward structure of the IAR is made from tubular steel.
Then, these wrecks have to located. Surveys of sea bottoms are expensive and the equipment is available to very few people.
Then, when/if the aircraft are located, they have to be assessed - not every wreck is salvageable. Some can be so damaged that they would be better left alone.
Then, if these wrecks are salvageable, they have to be recovered - only a few people can do that properly and even fewer people have the right equipment for that.
Then, if salvaged properly, only a very small part of the airframe can be restored becasue it will be badly corroded, fractured, damaged.
Then, if some part of the airframe can be restored, that can be done only by a few people.
All of this costs money.
There has ti be interest from people who can actually do this. Otherwise, this is all pipedreams and nice thoughts. As I said, I have seen a good few aircraft in various states of restoration and I have a fair idea of what is involved. I also sent a lot of time talking to volunteer mechanics in Duxford (I go there regulalry, photgraphing and measuring aircraft) to know what kind of person is needed for this kind of work.
In teory, it is feasible, but too many variables have to come together in the right order for this to work in practice.
Few (if any at all) of the classic aircraft that are flying today are made from mangled wrecks recovered from the sea bottom.
Radu

Thx for your replies guys. The thing I meant to say is that nobody did any research or attempt to see if possible the salvage in the first place. And second yes the costs are huge but we are a big country and we could do some fund rising actions if we could find an wreck that can be saved. And maybe could find some help from aviation enthusiasts at the cleaning part of the job and other minor jobs that not inquire some advanced knowledge of mechanics or so. Of course as always is an big IF?. If could be done? that is actually the thing I want to know. And we yes I saw what kind of work is done by the group working on the wreck at RAF Hendon museum(unfortunately on an web site not the real thing) and such work could take years to finish. Thx in advance

Yes Romania is a big country, but, I still see people searching rubbish bins for food and living in poor conditions, and old people having to wait outside the local hospital from 06:30 in the morning just to get a ticket to have a Doctors appointment. The country is rampant with T.B. & Diabetes and more deserving causes than a piece of "junk" lying on the bottom of the sea since 1945.

Look at the current situation in Romania with regards Military Museums, you have a National Army Museum & Air force Museum in Bucharest, thats a long way for a person from outside Bucharest to travel to see items.

You have a Naval Museum in Constansa on the Black Sea again a very long way to travel on a poor rail service & road service to see items.

Many Museums in Great Britain are funded from the National Lottery, Public donation, as well as Private Patrons (exp. Bovington Tank Museum, Tamiya Hall paid for by the Model Company in Japan.)

Everybody is enthusiastic and willing to offer their time (until something better comes along) these volunteers need accommodation, feeding, transport and equipment, also I would imagine some form of insurance against injury, its not the Boy Scouts, accidents at Sea as well on land happen, the biggest danger being from unexploded ordnance, which with the passage of time does not get any safer.

So as you can see its not so simple, as you think.

Kevin in Deva.

Romania may be a big country, but that has nothing to do with this.
Most restorations tend to be carried out by private enthusiasts with private money.
I still believe that a 1/1 replica is more feasible than a restoration.
Radu

Later edit: Kevin said pretty much the same as I was writing this...

Hi Kevin,
the IAC Aviation Museum in Baldonnel, is even harder to get into becasue it is part of a operational air base. You need to get an appointment and be vetted to get in. Once you get in it is quite good.

This post has been edited by Radub on January 12, 2009 05:19 pm

Yes, we are a big country and yes, we have a lot of people digging in garbage, but same is USA. But as a cruel reality, not the garbage-diggers are those who can help our museums and they never did this in time.

In comparison with the States, they have some pieces of their short history preserved, we dont have as much, keeping the proportions of size.

Military Museums from Romania are eager to develop but they lack money. They can be suported by private organisations, by private initiative.

We founded at Oradea in 2008 an ONG association and we have an outstandng colaboration with the Military Museum from Oradea. In each last saturday of the month we are doing a show of living history, presenting our WW1 romanian equipment, showing military history, tactics and weapons, so we are atracting visitors to the museum. We had shows when we atracted as much as 200 visitors/day at the Military Museum from Oradea, contributing to the awarness of this oficial institution and making the romanian history more available to the public. We give "live" to the items shown at the museum. We are doing this for free, both for the museum and the public. We plan to expand our activity to more than one show per month and we plan to raise money from private or state funds in order to restore some museum facilities or items.

We also donated some items to the Military Museum and at least one of them is now part of a temporary exhibition organised by it at Beius History Museum.

We are organising also a big show on 24 of january at Military Museum Oradea so you are invited to see us We have as special guest the Veteran Choir and mass/media.

If any of you want to contribute and help our asociation (Asociatia Datina Strabuna) and in this way helping the Military Museum, in any way, please PM me.

That might be the case with the museum in Oradea. However, since we are talking of aircraft, here is a little story (told by one of the most important aviation historians of today, Dan A.) that signalles the attitude of the Museum of Aviation (text in Rumanian):
"Istorie pentru cartea recordurilor!
Alouette II din custodia MAv are un simulacru de cupola, cauza? la un moment dat au incercat la sa-l introduca in sala Manicatide prin fereastra, ceva similar cu extragerea unei masele prin anus, nu au masurat, l-au ridicat in macara si l-au proptit in fereastra, dar cum aceasta era mai mica dacat cupola au spart-o, apoi "Victorie" elicopterul a incaput pe fereastra. Puteau demola o despartitura si demonta doua ferestre si gata, incapea intreg."

Gen. Dénes

Regarding the Aviation Museum and recovering IAR-80s from the see, I forwarded them the info the Ukrainian divers uncovering a IAR-80 near Chornomorskoe (see http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=421) and they said back then that they will contact the Ukrainians to retrieve at least a part of the remnants. Somehow I doubt anything was done in the past 4 years abot this.

No nothing was done.
Below discussion between the Museum chief and Razvan Bujor (who helped in restoring the IAR80 replica)

R.Bujor: Why the IAR 80 parts (found in the Black Sea) were not in the museum?
M. chief: Because the ucrainians asked to much money?
R.Bujor: How much ?
M.chief: A lot ?
R.Bujor: How much ? Please tell me how much ? 1000 ? 1000.000 ?
M.chief: !!!!!
R.Bujor: Please give me the ucrainians contact adress to ask personally. I could find sponsors and I need to know the price.
M.chief: I don't have it anymore.

This is the case of the IAR 80 crashed in Brates lake (near Galati).
Today the lake has only 1m depth and are more chance to find it.
The pilot it's still inside the plane.

This is the case of the IAR 80 crashed in Brates lake (near Galati).
Today the lake has only 1m depth and are more chance to find it.
The pilot it's still inside the plane.

The Brates IAR80 may be actually more "lost" than we think. Last summer I went fishing with my father in one of the canals at the southern tip of Brates.
While talking about all kinds of stuff (as you do when you are fishing) I brought up the topic of the IAR. It turns out that only a small fraction Brates is left. Brates was the floodplain of Prut River and used to be about three times the size it is now. However, a large area of the lake (which was opposite the area where the airfield was) was reclaimed in the 50s and filled in with topsoil and turned into agricultural land.
There is a very good chance that the IAR may be in that dry reclaimed area, but even deeper now.
Radu