http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/9256879/WWII-fighter-plane-hailed-the-aviation-equivalent-of-Tutankhamuns-Tomb-found-preserved-in-the-Sahara.html

Reminds me of the the Deserts Rats vehicle on display at the Imperial War Museum.

I like it when these king of stories appear. I hope they find the spitfires in Burma as that would be awesome.

Intact German hardware is found all the time throughout Russia. If you can read/write Russian theres a fair few Vid’s online of warplanes etc.

😯

Crazy, never realised that there was stuff out there that just wouldn’t have been ‘happened across’ yet.

Sad story though, must have been awful for the pilot. Can’t imagine the feeling of being in a single seater fighter plane back then and then having the awful realsiation that you’re lost over the desert 😥

is it the only surviving example of its type or something ? or was it involved in some key strategic moment ? otherwise what’s the big deal, just another piece of military material of which there are millions upon millions scattered around. sure, i know that there’s a human story attached to it but there is to every button, bullet and mess tin that you can dig out of the ground in normandy or flanders. do we have to preserve everyone of those and bring them home ?

for every architectural site that is lost, over ninety are uncovered. how much of the past do we need to conserve and more importantly who makes that decision and based on what criteria ?

unless it has some unique significance other than one of the countless millions of human stories from wwii, then let the locals have it for scrap. make some use from it.

Ah! Quite a few here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jueDXiuU6aM

Crazy, never realised that there was stuff out there that just wouldn’t have been ‘happened across’ yet.

You forget just how big those countries are though. Speaking to some folk from Libya the other week, they brought up google earth on my lappy to show where they all live. Libya is about half the size of Europe, its huge. The amount of stuff lying around in the wilderness from WWII there would probably be amazing, its just so much of the landscape is uninhabited nobody would happen across it. In fact the amount of stuff lying around full stop is amazing. The Libyan guys were showing me film of swathes of ancient roman and greek empire ruins, towns and cities worth, complete amphitheatres. No doubt things like google maps will start to make more of this sort of stuff come to light though.

Stuff doesn’t have to be all that remote to get left alone. Here in ayrshire I’m about 3 or 4 miles from a 1950’s plane wreck, its pretty much all there (although much more broken up) but theres no paths around and no landmark to guide you so few can actually find it.

Libya is about half the size of Europe, its huge.

Few people realise that Australia is really quite large too:

WOW

ned: interesting one, an image that takes a stand against “insufficient geographical knowledge”, but appears to present Africa as a country. 😐

Africa is a continent. Continents are generally quite big.

I was just thinking about the opening scene of Close Encounters of the Third Kind…

I wonder why Speilberg hasn’t made a sequel? Whatever happened to Roy Neary?

Well, I’ve found shell cases from WW2 in our garden which happens to be right underneath a few well documented Battle of Britain dogfights.

The chances of me finding an undamaged English Electric Lightning underneath our vegetable patch are slim though, which is a great shame as I think one would look awesome parked on our front drive.

Africa is a continent. Continents are generally quite big.

More pictures on the Daily Wail site (unfortunatly it does generally have good pics on it – makes up for the woeful words a little bit)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2142300/Crashed-plane-Second-World-War-pilot-Dennis-Copping-discovered-Sahara-desert.html

Amazing pics and a very desperate story. My mum recently found out her uncle died in Palestine during WW1 he went to Egypt I believe. He apparently died from a heart attack in his sleep. He was born in 1899 and signed up for the army 1915 saying he was 19 years old lol!

Ha. Interesting story from the Max Hastings book that I’m currently reading.

German Soldier limping along the track, English tank pulls alongside and the commander says ‘Italian’? German replies ‘don’t insult me’. Conversation ensues, English give the German a lift until they notice a German armoured column ahead. German hops off and says ‘when we meet next it’ll be in London’.

Their biggest enemy in the desert was the desert.