PBY destroyed

[pelmet]

Submerged and then was broken during salvage efforts. Sometimes these salvagers are the most dangerous thing for an aircraft. A flight school I have been renting from recently had a 172 RG lose an engine and land on a road about 18 months ago. I was told that the salvage is what wrote it off.

http://www.fox10tv.com/clip/11652968/wo ... ing-effort

http://www.wsfa.com/story/29437781/wwii ... g-on-water

[Taiser]

"Came to an end because of the sea..." What a bunch of retards!!! One of my favorite planes too!!!

We had a 185 go in the drink here not that long ago. Only had a bit of damage to a wing tip when he hit the water. Salvage dragged the plane to a concrete pier and hoisted him out. By the time they lifted it out one of the floats got wrecked, bouncing on the concrete, a wing bent and the top skins got toasted from scraping on the lake bed. The motor mount/firewall got shoved in, again from bouncing on concrete.... Morons...

[ahramin]

We lost a homebuilt amphib at our club a few years ago in a lake. The owner went back, directed the salvage, and very slowly lifted it out of the water over a period of several hours, making sure as much water as possible was emptied as each part was brought above the water. No further damage and the aircraft is flying again.

It's not impossible, you just have to want to.

[PilotDAR]

I'm no authority on recovering PBY's but I've done a few 180/185's in the day. We used to inflate tractor inner tubes down the tail (as far as I could swim them in). The inflated inner tube would gently displace water, and lift the plane up in the water. We never further damaged one recovering it. I do wonder if inner tubes correctly placed could have saved that PBY.

Another trick is spray can foam. If the void is not too large, spray foam can fill and plug it long enough to get the plane adequately afloat.

Another trick for northern recoveries, where you can't get land equipment to the lake, and the wreck is too much for a helicopter: If the plane has a hope of being repaired to ferry-able, either get it up on shore, or block it up higher the water level, then wait for the freeze over, and fly it off...

If more experienced thought were applied, planes would not be being damaged during recovery.....

[rigpiggy]

Several years back a super cub on floats was flipped by the winds in the taxi, little to no damage, salvage yanked her out, tore the wings and cabana right off. 30 seconds in the water x'ing the "fabric" wings and fuselage would have saved it.

[TG]

Years ago, a C152 did a landing in a crop field for a reason I forgot.
They sent a chopper to retreave it.
In the process, they forgot to add 4x4 wood on the Cessna's wings to break its lift.

Sooo.... As soon as the chopper picked up some speed, C152 started to fly proudly next to it all by itself.

Pilot got scared and hit "release button"


This second crash totally wrecked it.

[JungleMonkey]

I participated in loading effort about 20 years ago. It was a rare old seaplane can't remember the name. The guy in charge of lifting it put cables through the rear cargo doors and started to lift without a spreader bar. I was told him I thought is might not like that but he assured me it was strong enough to handle it. Being the junior guy (and quite young) I said ok. As the aircraft was lifted, sure enough the fuselage crumpled up a bit. It was a learning experience for me and a lot of work for the museum mechanics. I'd say 99% of the people moving airplanes don't know much about them.
I also watched much more recently as a C206 was lifted up using cables from a tow-truck on a bridge. The owner had landed, porpoised, and flipped over. The salvage destroyed the airplane which had been in reasonable shape until the tow-truck driver got his hands on it.

[Siddley Hawker]

Is Cat Driver around? He'll probably remember the Austin Airways Canso salvage at Winisk. I forget the exact sequence of events, but the airplane had been holed and partially sank. They poured quick setting cement into the thing and Jimmy Bell ferried it out.

[Caracrane]

nearby the cockpit you could see a pump to evacuate water and probably a few others we couldn't see. She was almost afloat on an other picture. They had the perfect sandy beach to tow her at high tide and then work from that. Bunch of idiots i agree with all of you guys... What a loss... Can't believe some of them were laughing.

[Caracrane]

Far from being an expert salvaging an a/c but any sign of structural failure due to metal fatigue? Sea didnt't seem rough from what I saw.