Posted on 11/15/2007 5:47:47 AM PST by SJackson
An early model of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, marked with U.S. wing and tail insignia, flies over Los Angeles, Calif., in this 1940 file photo. An early model of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, marked with U.S. wing and tail insignia, flies over Los Angeles, Calif., in this 1940 file photo.
NEW YORK — Sixty-five years after it ran out of gas and crash-landed on a beach in Wales, an American P-38 fighter plane has emerged from the surf and sand where it lay buried — a World War II relic long forgotten by the U.S. government and unknown to the British public.
During those decades, beach strollers, sunbathers and swimmers were often within a few yards of the aircraft, utterly unaware of its existence just under the sand. Only this past summer did it suddenly reappear due to unusual conditions that caused the sands to shift and erode.
The startling revelation of the Lockheed "Lightning" fighter, with its distinctive twin-boom design, has stirred considerable interest in British aviation circles and among officials of the country's aircraft museums, ready to reclaim yet another artifact from history's greatest armed conflict.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“Only this past summer did it suddenly reappear due to unusual conditions that caused the sands to shift and erode.”
How soon before Algore takes credit and chalks this up to Global Warming? ;)
What, the Brits don’t have retired men combing the beaches with those metal-detector thingies?
Very cool. :)
Is it just me, but sand does not erode. What would it erode to? SMALLER pieces of sand? Sand shifts, beaches erode.
WWII P-38 fighter discovered in Wales
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925824/posts
Shifting sands reveal World War Two fighter plane lost for 65 years
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925915/posts
No, but sand is made up of pebbles not rocks and sand pebbles move when driven by moving water. Plane crashes into water, settles to the sandy bottom and currents move sand over the plane, sand collects on and covers plane. The ocean currents shifted in this area and caused some washing away of sand that had covered the plane over the years.
Also, small sand pebbles do erode over long periods of time because they are pushed against other pebbles and eventually they become fine dust in the ocean. Sand didn’t start as sand, it started as large rocks that erode and continue to erode regardless of size.
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