Thu, Aug 12, 2010
And A Primary Support Aircraft Will Be A Russian-Designed
Biplane
A team hoping to recover a P-38 Lightning from under more than
260 feet of Greenland glacier ice has acquired a
support aircraft they say will be perfect for the job ... a
Russian-designed Antonov AN-2 biplane which was mouldering in Ovid,
NY.
Antonov AN-2 File Photo
Californian Ken McBride is leading the team which will attempt
to extract a second P-38 from a 1942 crash site in Greenland. The
planes were part of a flight of six P-38's and two B-17's which
went down during the war. All of the crewmembers were rescued, but
the aircraft were unrecoverable at the time. Over the years, they
have become encased in the ice of the glacier.
The AN-2 hasn't flown for about two years. It was owned by a
resident of Ovid, who sold it to a person in Texas who has sold it
again to the Greenland team. The Ithaca Journal reports that
McBride and 7 other men are working to bring the aircraft back to
flying condition, and plan to fly it to Greenland next week. Two of
the team members will fly the AN-2 while the others will travel on
commercial flights.
The team says the AN-2's 95 knot cruising speed and unimproved
runway capabilities make the aircraft very well suited to operating
on the Greenland glacier.
P-38 "Glacier Girl"
Recovering the first P-38, dubbed "Glacier Girl" from the crash
site required hot water pumps and specialized equipment including
something called a thermal meltdown generator to tunnel into the
ice to get to the plane. The aircraft was brought to the surface in
sections, and restored in California. The effort cost in the
neighborhood of $3 million in 1992, but Glacier Girl, which was
restored to flying condition, sold for $7 million after the project
was completed.
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