Warbird Wreck Question

[daveymac82c]

Hi everyone,

on the topic of recoveries of warbirds such as "Swamp Ghost" I've got a question to ask the WIX community.

My question is about the PBY-5A Canso/Catalina serial RCAF11007. It crashed near Tofino, BC during WWII and has remained there quite intact ever since. All crew survived the crash. The crash site isn't very well known, but the plane has lost all of it's "neat bits" and now has the names and initials of several hundred visitors all over the airframe. I've been to the crash site, took pictures, but no longer have them.

The pictures supplied are from:
http://www.pinetreeline.org/other/other ... r43ad.html
'Which is a great website with lots of neat stuff on it.





I suppose you could say that RCAF 11007 is very similar to "Swamp Ghost" (SG) but the difference being that it was operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force and crashed in Canada, as opposed to the obvious situation of SG. Considering it's relatively good condition I'm surprised it has not been recovered yet. I imagine there are some people on WIX that are more familiar with the intended and wished recovery of the airplane past and present.

www.warbirdregistry.org provides information that it belonged to.....

Commonwealth Military Aviation Musum, Sidney, BC, circa 1992.
West Coast Museum of Flying, Sidney, BC, 1992-2002

I have a hard time finding any information on these two organizations to research what kind of involvment they have with the airplane.

From what I know, someone has the salvage rights to it, and I think at one point the Canadian Museum of Flight intented to recover it with help from a US military Chinook helicopter. That was back in 2002 or so... and nothing came of it. Can anyone update on the "ownership" and if there are any plans to recover it?

What are your thoughts of this relatively significant airframe sitting in the BC wilderness wasting away and constantly being vandalized? Even if the airplane were to be recovered, I don't know of any museums in Canada that currently has the money and skill to restore it to static condition. I suppose you could liken Canada to the bush-league of PNG in this respect. Nor have we had the money, effort, and equipment to recover it (so far).

Maybe it would be best for a non-Canadian group to recover it, then before it is exported have the Canadian Government prevent its export.

I mean a lot of this with hints of sarcasm. The intention of this post is to see how people feel about this wreck and how people would compare this situation to Swamp Ghost.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Cheers,

David

[warbirdcrew]

Daveymac-

If you're interested, there was an article on this Catalina in one of the latest issues of West Coast Aviator. Can't remember exactly which issue, but I will look through and see if I can find it.

-WC

[daveymac82c]

Hey WC, that would be great if you could track down the issue.

Thanks,

David

[Warbird Kid]

Im usually for salvaging any wreck out there. Aside from any deaths involved in a crash, therefore making it a grave site, I'd be all for gettin it out of there!

Though I'm a 19 year old college student in Connecticut. What could I do?

Chris

I'm suprised that that turret isn't long gone.

[daveymac82c]

Yeah,

I'm 26 and wish I could do something about it. Apparently there's another Canso very close to this one.

As for the Turret, I'm also surprised that it's still there too. The only thing protecting it is that it's quite a hike to get to the plane. As well it's in a very boggy kind of area that makes it nearly impossible to get machinery near it.

Cheers,

David

[Warbird Kid]

When in doubt, airlift it out!

[mustangdriver]

I would be for helping to get it out of there, but I am just the average joe. I would be willing to help.

[rwdfresno]

Someone needs to get that turret!

[davem]

From what I understand of 11007.

The aircraft was sold in 1988 by Crown Assets (Canadian Government), however the recovery of the aircraft by the museums mentioned has been repeatedly blocked by Parks Canada, as the aircraft is located in Pacific Rim National Park.

I do know that the blisters were cut out of the airframe in recent years and understand that there is an active police investigation into the theft from the Park.

The 'nearby' Canso wreck is in the moutains above Kennedy Lake (10 miles or so away) - very little remains of the wreckage and it is designated a 'war grave' under the Commonwealth War Graves Act and the recovery of any items is, as such, prohibited by law.

[hang the expense]

Man, Is there a spot on that bird that ain't bent.Not worth the recovery.....yet.

[retroaviation]

It's difficult for me to tell, but is this the same Cat as the one y'all are talking about?




My maintenance officer sent that picture to me a while back, but I don't remember the info behind it. I think he just sent it to show me that the PBY that Mark Pilkington bought really wasn't in that bad of shape after all.

Gary

[aabryant]

While performing songbird surveys in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve in 1991 I encountered this aircraft on several occasionas and was amazed. There were some parts (i.e., the complete nose turret) that I could not imagine should not have been recovered, and yes several other major components that had apparently been already removed.

I will offer several conflicting opinions here. On the one hand this airfame can be removed...all it needs would be a large helicopter (various forestry companies operate Sikorsky S-63 skycranes here). On the 2nd hand, why not rescue the Catalina that sits, every day I drive past the aeroport, in Nanaimo? Admittedly the latter does not have the combat history of the former (or does it)?

Just a thought
Andrew

[davem]

Hey retroaviation;

Yes, this is 11007.

As you can see, the Blisters have been hacked off of the fuselage in your photo.

[Nathan]

Why don't someone get it?

Maybe WIX could start a recovery fund?

How much would something like that cost and what is the paper work involved?