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Old April 14th 10, 06:16 PM posted to sci.military.naval,rec.aviation.military.naval,rec.aviation.military
Matt Wiser
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Default Ditched: Curtiss SBC-2 Helldiver wreckage found off Maui

On Apr 14, 12:27*am, Peter Stickney wrote:
On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:22:50 -0700, Matt Wiser wrote:

El snippo grande





http://www.mauinews.com/page/content...0164.html-Hide quoted
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What gets me is that when the plane's intact and in fresh water (such as
the Great Lakes), the Navy steps in and prevents salvage, especially by
those who'd like to restore the aircraft and fly it. There's a whole
hangar at NAS Pensacola of aircraft (I've seen F4Fs and SBDs in the
picture of the hangar) that were pulled from the Great Lakes by private
parties and the Navy comes in and takes the aircraft. If there were
human remains in or near the plane, the plane ought to be left alone,
but if there's no remains, let the warbird folks salvage the plane, and
if they can restore it to flyable condition, let 'em. There's only one
flying Helldiver, if some in the lakes could be recovered and restored,
there might be more. Same thing for TBMs, F6Fs, etc.


Well, if it's an actual SBC-2 (The prewar biplane dive bomber)
rather than an SB2C (The article quoted is mixed)
then it's worth raising - there aren't any in captivity that I know of.

As for the Navy going after the fresh-water wrecks, there's a provision
in Marine Salvage Law that states that military equipment on the bottom
is still owned by whatever military it belonged to when it was lost. *

--
Pete Stickney
Failure is not an option
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The AF doesn't seem to go after those who recover wrecks in fresh
water...ISTR reading about a P-51 that was found in a lake in Montana
back in the '80s. It was salvaged, restored, and is now flying. And
the AF didn't raise any stink about the salvage, they only asked if
there were human remains found. When none were, the AF said "go
ahead." The Navy's attitude,even if there's no human remains found in
or near the wreck, is "It was ours then, it's ours now."