very recent biplane find lake huron michigan

[tom d. friedman]

i had the good fortune today to talk with an experienced recreational wreck diver with deep dive credentials from michigan that happened into my store. he had a diver's ball cap on & when i found that out.... well 1 thing came to another. naturally i asked him about great lakes plane crashes, with all the buzz these days. he has extensive dive time on lake huron. while he has not not seen this biplane wreck i asked him in depth questions, he had answers.... found by david trotter. location / depth unknown. trotter has great credentials according to a google search. the plane is belly up, most fabric gone, most struts etc, still intact. fixed gear. it's got to be a stearman navy trainer.... if that's the case, because i believe the n3n was mostly metal fuselage. any input peanut gallery?? this guy definetely knew his crap from his oatmeal. he said there is dive footage out their. i've yet to find it.

[peter]

http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=3601277

[N3Njeff]

Tom, the N3N was all aluminum. To where the stearman has wood wings. Only wood were the javalins for the flying wires. Pending on how wood survives, which is good in the great lakes. Vemonts lake champlain being developed at the same time. We still have a perfect preserved 1812 gunboat at the bottom.

[N3Njeff]

http://www.infohub.com/forums/printthre ... ge=2&pp=10


Found this on the net

[tom d. friedman]

great fresh stuff!! i only hope the site is not a war grave.

[wacoykc]

I read that story with interest because when Tom suggested it must be a Stearman I wondered why he thought that...especially in Lake Huron. (just curious what made you think Stearman) The 0-38 makes alot more sense. It would be great to see this old bird recovered but now we're back to the Zebra mussell discussion and the damage they can possibly do.

[tom d. friedman]

well.......... simply explained, out of sight, out of mind. i would never have thought of such an obscure bird. time will tell. hopefully it's not a navy bird, otherwise you can heap a recovery effort x 100 in red tape.

[Chris Brame]

Cool - the population of O-38s is doubled? Hope it's one of the early models with the shallower fuselage so we can see both types (with the F model in the NMUSAF). Now if there's a Thomas-Morse O-19 down there somewhere...

Update: Just checked the the Aircraft Serial Numbers site and there were no O-38s listed as lost in Lake Huron, but many are not accounted for on the list. There was also a basic trainer variant of the O-38, the BT-2B, so could it be one of those?

[Shay]

The Curtiss P-6 Hawk on display at the NMUSAF is marked as a P-6 that was lost over Lake Erie (or Michigan I forget). Not that this the same aircraft though.

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[airnutz]

There were 17 O-38's converted to drones. The photos I've seen of them have tricycle
undercarriage...dunno if the early ones had standard setup. BT-2BR(2), BT-2BG(15)..later
designated Douglas A-4. Dunno where the Air Corps tested or used the drones.

I wonder if it's feasable to pressure wash the Zebra mussels off of it before they lift it?
Steel tube fuse with aluminum ribs...really neat unusual project. I wonder how deep the upper
wing is in the muck(mussel free)? Sure wish there was more photos available...

[airnutz]

Ooops, correction! Wooden wing ribs and spars. After looking through some old mags,
Air Classics, Model Builder(11/'73) and Airpower(3/'73) and the accompanying Matt and
P.W. Westburg drawings, I found I erred.

Here's the only photo I've seen of the Huron bird. Appears to be an early model, an A, B or
C(only 1 and it was USCG). Scroll down abit...
http://vaxxine.com/advtech/shipwrecks/sw2007/dt.htm

Link corrected..