Current status of Swamp Ghost???

[Holedigger]

Dealing with ANY government can be an exercise in frustration. Just because you have a piece of paper from a government entity saying you can do such and such or own object X doesn't necessarily make it so. Look at the headaches involved in getting any US Built aircraft BACK from Canada. Or for that matter, importing a SPAD! Lot of paperwork and lots of rules, often conflicting and definitely confusing. Then go halfway around the world and deal with a very different culture, with a totally different set of rules, some of which is being rewritten as you go along, and you have chaos. Not necessarily corruption, just a very different way of doing things. You want corruption, go to get an airframe out of Russia!

[Warbirdnerd]

Found this today, looks like she is getting closer to coming home...

Posted at 05:05 on 20 January, 2010 UTC

Papua New Guinea’s most famous war relic, the Second World War B-17 Flying Fortress, dubbed the Swamp Ghost, is now at the Lae port ready to be shipped to the United States.

The newspaper, the National, reports the aircraft has been taken out of the Voco Point timber yard of PNG Forest Products, where it had been sitting for the past three years, and loaded onto three semi-trailers.

The aircraft was last week dismantled and packed when exporter Fred Hagen, an American businessman, arrived in Lae.

The National understands that clearance for the export was given on September the 10th by the National Executive Council against the recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee, which in 2006 had found that the salvage from the Agiambo Swamp in Oro province was illegal.

Agiambo landowner chief Alan Jojoga last week said he, at the behest of Tourism Minister Charles Abel, had accepted the offer of 100,000 US dollars to be deposited into a trust account.

News Content © Radio New Zealand International
PO Box 123, Wellington, New Zealand

Found it here:
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=51495

[B-25 C]

Hope it's on the way this time!

[Pat Carry]

I wont believe it till it's back home.

[bdk]

I wont believe it till it's back home.

You mean back in the swamp?

[PinecastleAAF]

Hopefully the old goat makes it this go around.

It will be just in the nick of time.

[RyanShort1]

Well, it looks like it may be on it's way out...

http://euraliapaine.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... t-png.html

Ryan

[daveymac82c]

That sounds like promising news. Do you think there will be a "homecoming" party on her arrival to the US, or will it be pretty top secret?

By the way Ryan, nice find.

Peace,

David

[Lightning]

Howdy All

Thought you may all like to see this

B-17 leaving New Guinea shores on Jan 26th 2010 !

http://www.thenational.com.pg/?q=node/5337

Lightning

[daveymac82c]

GREAT STUFF!

[Mark_Pilkington]

.
An excellent result! well done all round!!

(and btw my starting of this thread was purely coincidental, I had no idea it was so close to happening!!!!)

Regarding that, Mr Abel said since he took office he had worked closely with the board to clean up the system and ensure that the sale of the Swamp Ghost set the pace and precedence for any future sale of war relics.

“In the past, things were done illegally, even before Swamp Ghost, a lot of war relics were sold out, but we have changed that and will ensure that any requests for the purchase of war relics must be channeled through the minister and the board,” Mr Abel said.

He also confirmed that plans have already been put in place and the new war museum will be erected.

“It will be a complete modern history building with artists centre, barbeque facilities and children’s playground, and there will be an exact replica of the Swamp Ghost,” he said.

So if this is correct the results seem to be:

1. Swamp Ghost is saved and restored, from a future long death in the swamp,

2. Future recoveries will have a process and framework and be a possibility?

3. There "will" be a local war museum, although its difficult to tell if that is a National Museum in Port Morseby or a local museum in the Swamp area?

4. There will be a "replica" of the Swamp Ghost??

Hopefully with #3 this is a substatial museum in Morseby able to display other relics, and display of aircraft recovered/restored, even if returned to PNG on a take 3 return one basis?

Hopefully with #4, that this sees the Black Cat Pass B-17 recovered, restored and displayed undercover in a substantial museum rather than simply delivery of a Tallichet fibreglass FSM, and not one left in the open in a small museum at the swamp?, or worse a poor and rough approximation of a B-17.

fingers crossed

Mark Pilkington

[gregv]

Ah, so it was just a question of one final bribe then?

That makes sense.

Good to see it finally leaving, about time.

greg v.

[Django]

That last article sounds like PNG are willing for others to be recovered and are getting a legitimate system in place. Nice! I hope the new museum works out. I'd love to go there someday.

What else of note is there besides the other B-17? Any B-24 stuff? Fighters? Undiscovered treasures?

[mustangdriver]

Isn't there a pretty intact PBJ there that still had some of it's paint intact?

[Django]

The H model gunship with the Corsair? Was that PNG?