Warbird Information Exchange

TVC is home. I was also stationed here flying out of Cherry Capital Airport. The water is very clear right after the ice out. If someone want to search for aircraft in the shallows (<30'-40') that would be the time to try it.

The clarity of Lake Michigan is attributed to the Zebra Mussel which is a stowaway on ships arriving from the Caspian Sea. They arrived in Lake Michigan over 20 years ago.
This clarity affects the lake ecology in that young fish are easily targeted by larger fish predators, thus decreasing the spawning populations.

All that aside, I have yet to see any aircraft wreckage from the air.
VL

Michigan is a big lake - 307 miles long, 118 miles wide with an average depth of 279'.

Any military aircraft that went down in shallow water was salvaged by the Navy years ago.

The bulk of flying training on the lake took place as follows:

NAS Glenview, located next door to Chicago, was where the Navy's inland training Aircraft Carrier USS Wolverine IX-64 was based. The American Ship Building Company in Buffalo, New York had converted over a six month period the Great Lakes cruise liner SS Seeandbee into the mini-flattop. The Wolverine's crew began training the Navy's future sea-going pilots in the art of taking off and landing from a moving ship on August 12, 1942. Operating exclusively in Lake Michigan, IX-64 sailed north from Chicago's Navy Pier out into the lake fifty or more miles every day where, free from any interruptions, it conducted flight operations. A second training carrier, USS Sable IX-81, joined Wolverine at Glenview on May 8, 1943. Sable had previously been registered before its conversion as the SS Greater Buffalo. Both ships were coal-burning, side-wheel paddle steamers. By war's end, the two vessels had completed 116,000 air movements qualifying 17,820 naval and marine aviators.


Cheers,

Tom Walsh.

Fantastic pics! Those wrecks in the pics are all in very shallow water off Sleeping Bear Dunes..most sank because they grounded on shoals or sandbars in rough weather or darkness. All the remaining aircraft wrecks are in much deeper water. It's incredible not only how many shipwrecks there are in the Great Lakes, but how many keep turning up. 100+ year-old wrecks are discovered on a regular basis, many remarkably well preserved due to the cold fresh water. If a 100+ foot-long ship can be lie there undiscovered for over a century (or two) I can't help but wonder what else might still be down there. There's still an ongoing effort to locate the remains of a Northwest Airlines DC-4 that went down during a thunderstorm off South Haven, MI in 1950. Some debris and human remains later washed up, but the wreck itself has never been found (partly because the plane likely disintegrated on impact and is scattered over a wide area.)

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/volunteers-try-to-solve-mystery-of-1950-plane-crash-in-lake-michigan-b99222243z1-249370671.html#ixzz2x0kVMjzp

SN

The Navy used various aircraft types for training on these two vessels and, from the ship's logs and accident reports, it is known that a total of one hundred and forty-two aircraft were lost from 1942 through to 1945 costing the lives of eight pilots. The number and types of planes that sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan are as follows: forty-one Grumman/General Motors TBF/TBM Avengers, one Vought F4U Corsair, thirty-eight Douglas Dauntless Dive-Bombers, four Grumman F6F Hellcats, one Vought SB2U Vindicator, thirty-seven Grumman/General Motors F4F/FM Wildcats, seventeen North American SNJ's and three TDN experimental drones. Many of the types were older aircraft that had served in the North African and Pacific Campaigns. The USN managed to salvage, six of the crashed airframes from shallow water before the end of the war. The remaining one hundred and thirty-six aircraft sat in a semi-preserved state for decades in a deep, fresh-water dark repository. Within the past several years, approximately thirty airframes have been recovered by salvagers for the Navy. Most were found to be in good condition with tires inflated, parachutes preserved, leather seats maintained and engine crankcases full of oil. A sizeable portion of Lake Michigan's lost fleet of historic aircraft remains to be located and harvested. However, the USN still exercises control and ownership of these aircraft as they are considered to be, even after all these years, U. S. Government property.


Cheers,

Tom Walsh.

I was going over Google News Archives. There are quite a few other DOD service planes in the lake somewhere. I seen the following are out there somewhere.

T-33 north of Chicago, 1953
C-45 east of Milwaukee, 1950
B-52 just offshore of Charlevoix, 1971
A Czech-built L-39 is believed to be 25 NW of Traverse City, 1998
F-84F Sheboygan, 1960
F-86 Chicago area, 1953

And a few more possibles from the Chicago Tribune:

Probable T-6, April 27, 1948, about 500 yards off Washington Park in Wilmette (2 fatal, plane ditched and sank, pilot and passenger were seen to get out but rescuers couldn't reach them in time).

FH-1 Phantom, May 4, 1951, several hundred yards east of Northwestern University (1 fatal, flamed out and ditched in lake; the pilot was seen waving from the water, two sets of rescuers tried to reach him but were beaten back by high wind and waves. Even worse: Two days later, four sailors, including a diver trying to find the pilot's body and attach a line to the Phantom, drowned when the LCVP they were using as a diving platform was suddenly swamped by a wave and sank. About two weeks later the Navy abandoned the search, after the plane and boat were determined to be covered by drifting sand).

F9F-6 Cougar, May 19, 1956 1/2 mile off Fort Sheridan (1 fatal, pilot reported losing control at 19,000 feet; canopy recovered at Fort Sheridan).

F9F-6 Cougar, November 14, 1958 somewhere off Wilmette or Lake Forest (1 fatal, pilot reported radio/instrument trouble and low fuel and was going to attempt landing at O'Hare; he may have gone down in the lake trying to avoid houses).

_________________

All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Don't forget the F-89 that went down in Lake Superior while chasing a UFO in 1953.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Moncla

SN

There are still some civilian owned PBY wings in the lake as well. The fuselage was recovered and on display at the Victory Air Museum for many years.

The case with the hoax photos....probably a Revell F-89.
Unless you really think a jet fighter can hit the lake at speed and remain in one piece. Per f you're going to argue that it ditched...I'd suggest looking where the 89s intakes are.
A very cruel for the family hoax by UFO nuts (or people pretending to be).

_________________
Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

I was just referring to the incident itself..that is, that the plane was lost and likely ended up in the lake. I haven't really read up on the details, or any surrounding conspiracy theories.

SN