Reply With QuoteHe should be able to keep it.
This is the kind of "WTF?" story which I really like. Otay Lake is an old reservoir out here in San Diego but I never knew that in WW2 the area around it was used as a target range for Navy carrier based fighter planes. In 1945 a Navy SB2C-1 Helldiver carrier based fighter was heading back from this target range when it suffered engine failure and the pilot was forced to make an emergency water landing with the plane. Fortunately the pilot got out just before the plane sank but unfortunately the Navy decided the plane was in to deep of water to recover and so just left the plane at the bottom of the lake. And there it remained forgotten and undiscovered for 64 years... Until a bass fisherman found it using his electronic fish finder.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori...&zIndex=135432Search for fish unearths history
Navy to inspect plane spotted in Otay lake
By Ed Zieralski
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. July 21, 2009
Bass fishermen see the craziest things on their electronic fish finders, but San Diego angler Duane Johnson couldn't believe what he spotted as he was idling across Lower Otay Reservoir.
“I turned to my fishing buddy and said, ‘That looks like a plane,’ ” Johnson said.
He downloaded the images from his Humminbird Fish Finder and shared them with Bryan Norris, reservoir keeper for the city of San Diego's water department. An investigation began and now Johnson's incredible discovery in February has led divers to uncover a Navy bomber that was forced into a water landing 64 years ago.
On Thursday, Navy divers from Coronado, ranger-divers for the city's lakes system and a private company from Chicago experienced in recovering aircraft from the Great Lakes will try to see whether the SB2C-4 Helldiver is worth salvaging.
If restored, the aircraft could end up in a museum — like the handful on display across the country.
“This is our bread and butter. It's just great stuff for our guys to be involved in right now,” said Nelson Manville, assistant lakes manager for San Diego. “It's an international story with all sorts of twists and turns. Here's a plane that played a big role in World War II and it's been stuck down there at Lower Otay.”
Navy officials were at the reservoir yesterday to prepare for the operation Thursday. About 12 Navy divers will head down approximately 85 feet to inspect the plane, snap photographs and possibly take video, said Navy spokeswoman Lt. Kate Raia.
“We want to see its condition, structural integrity, how much sediment is in the plane, the environment around it,” Raia said. “At this point, we need to know if it's even feasible to pull up the aircraft.”
On May 28, 1945, the SB2C-4 Helldiver was on a practice bombing run from a nearby aircraft carrier. The crew members survived the emergency landing.
At the time, the Navy opted not to recover the plane.
Yesterday, Raia said she couldn't comment on how long it will take Navy officials to decide whether to salvage the plane. Typically, the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla., plays a major role in the evaluation process.
One of the pilots is believed to be 90 years old and living in Michigan, but the Navy hasn't provided his name.
“Wouldn't that be something to fly him out here and have him standing on the shoreline when they lift the plane out?” Manville said.
Manville has been working on the project since February with his ranger-diver team and is excited about the Navy becoming involved.
“They're going to need quite a bit of government money to lift this plane, and restoration of it will cost around $400,000,” Manville said. “I've done a lot of research on these planes and, from what I've found, there aren't many like this in the world right now.”
The United States built about 30,000 planes in the overall Helldiver family, but most of them crashed or were shot down during World War II. The aircraft suffered from structural weaknesses, an unreliable electrical system and engines that often stalled — the problem that caused the landing at Lower Otay Reservoir.
Manville wasn't sure what effect the salvaging process would have on recreational activities at the lake, which is open Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays for boating and fishing.
“There aren't any armaments on (the plane), which is a good thing,” he said. “But there will be some fuel and hydraulic fluid that we need to be careful with if it's recovered.”
Lower Otay, or Savage Dam, was built in 1919. Its current users include the U.S. Olympic rowing teams, which conduct training sessions at the site.
The reservoir is located close to Upper Otay Lake, where the famous Florida-largemouth-bass hatchery in the 1960s started the big-bass fishing craze in the West.
After Johnson told San Diego officials about seeing the outline of a plane in Lower Otay, Manville sent ranger-divers Jim Miller and Kevin Kidd-Tackaberry to check it. They used the city's remotely operated vehicle — a tethered, underwater robot — to video the aircraft.
Once they discovered that it was a Navy plane, Miller and Kidd-Tackaberry returned to the spot and took more footage.
“One of the reasons this took so much time is that we had to send the video back to the Navy so they could assess it,” Manville said. “They got back to us and said they were very interested because this is an important plane to them.”
The SB2C-4 Helldiver first saw war action in late 1943 with a heavy raid on the major Japanese base of Rabaul. They were flown from the Navy's new Essex Class aircraft carrier Bunker Hill.
Their last significant action was in the Philippine Sea battle of June 1944.
“I hope if the Navy decides to take it out of the water that I'm there to see it,” said Johnson, 33, who owns Western Flooring in San Diego. “That would be cool.”
Union-Tribune
Ed Zieralski: (619) 293-1225;
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
He should be able to keep it.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
"Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead
That is awesome.
Apolyton's Grim Reaper 2008, 2010 & 2011
RIP lest we forget... SG (2) and LaFayette -- Civ2 Succession Games Brothers-in-Arms
I can't read most of the posts in this thread.
04-06-04 Killdozer NEVER FORGET
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Killing it is the new killing it
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Just mine? LULZ...
The title is adequately descriptive. It's a lake near San Diego, it's an abandoned SB2C-4 Helldiver, it's 64 years later, and a Humminbird Fish Finder was the key technology.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori...&zIndex=135432
Apolyton's Grim Reaper 2008, 2010 & 2011
RIP lest we forget... SG (2) and LaFayette -- Civ2 Succession Games Brothers-in-Arms
I was expecting the fishermen to say they'd found a WW II fighter-bomber but it got away.
I assume they weren't using top water lures. What were they using? Worms?
Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
"Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead
Here's a historic photograph of a U.S. Navy Helldiver.
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
That really is cool.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.
"Hating America is something best left to Mobius. He is an expert Yank hater.
He also hates Texans and Australians, he does diversify." ~ Braindead
The Navy's aviation museum in Pensacola, FL is now saying that if possible they want to restore the airplane and put it on display in Pensacola. Personally, I'd rather see it put on display in our local Air & Space Museum as it is a bit of local history but I guess any museum is better then no museum.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori...&zIndex=135965
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
Originally Posted by SlowwHand
IIRC, Japanese aircraft carriers.
The Navy is moving very fast and will be sending a salvage team tomorrow to see if the plane can be raised. If the plane is in good condition and if it is not in to deep in the silt then they may even try to raise it tomorrow. They also interviewed a mechanic who used to work on these planes back in the 40's and he said they were a bad design which had numerous problems.
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori...&zIndex=136699
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
Cool. 85 feet is well within range of normal dive techniques so they shouldn´t have much of a problem.
"Ceterum censeo Ben esse expellendum."
They're lucky we're in the middle of the fifth year of drought because it has meant water levels in reservoirs have decreased by a huge amount.Cool. 85 feet is well within range of normal dive techniques so they shouldn´t have much of a problem.
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
Well since i believe Navy divers should be capable of more than I am, anything above 300 feet should not be a problem...
"Ceterum censeo Ben esse expellendum."
Well, yeah, but I'd guess the shallower the easier it would be to recover, right?
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stori...mment-13281070
The local museum is also saying they want the plane and the case seems to be a bit complicated as the wreck is located on city owned property.
"Our scientific power has out run out spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself." - Joseph Pulitzer
The helldiver wasn't a fighter-bomber. It was a dive-bomber.
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
As you correctly pointed out, it has a lot to do with visibility and bottom conditions
"Ceterum censeo Ben esse expellendum."
YOu really need an "Ignore all" button. Then you can flip on the 3 or 4 posters you normally respond to. Be a lot quicker and easier.I can't read most of the posts in this thread.
I'm consitently stupid- Japher
I think that opinion in the United States is decidedly different from the rest of the world because we have a free press -- by free, I mean a virgorously presented right wing point of view on the air and available to all.- Ned
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