Flt Sgt Copping's P-40 From The Egyptian Desert

Read the forum code of contact

Member for

19 years 3 months

Posts: 27

Hello

Look what I found on polish modelers forum
http://www.konradus.com/forum/read.php?f=13&i=7154&t=7154&filtr=0&page=1

There is no information where directly is this plane, only that they found this on Sahara, and RAF was asked for identification.

Original post

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 10,029

Well if it is not a model, it is a remarkable image.

So what date could this image be I wonder?

Mark

Member for

16 years 10 months

Posts: 151

very surprised the scrapman hasn't got it like the Blenheim I asked about on here a few years ago

Member for

14 years 3 months

Posts: 1,205

The quality of the fourth picture down suggests to me a recent digital image. It's a shame the photographer didn't take ( or at least display) a shot of the serial! Presumably P-40s with genuine RAF provenance are pretty rare? This one looks in superb condition considering the time elapsed since 1941-2. Ripe for recovery?

Member for

12 years 1 month

Posts: 442

Maybe if they dig around they'll find 19 more...

Member for

13 years 6 months

Posts: 629

If that's a model diorama, he certainly has all the details right, including little things like the ball in the turn-and-bank being positioned correctly for the airplane's tilt. Which is unusual: modelers have been known to make stunningly realistic models with both ailerons deflected down, or the stick in the cockpit hard left and the ailerons deflected for a right bank. (I'm a modeler, though also a pilot...)

Member for

19 years 4 months

Posts: 839

ooohh, now that I like!!!!

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 2,841

Blooming hell you can't move for rediscovered fighters at the moment. My wife is doing a bit of digging down the bottom of the garden. I hopes she is careful poking around that 109 while putting the clematis in.

My thoughts are it is not photoshopped but if it is its a damned clever one.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 536

I'm going to call fake on this one but I would love to be proven wrong. There is something about the first three shots that just don't look 100% real to me. The other two may or may not be fake and could be of a different aircraft entirely. Granted, the whole thing would make for a very complex and time consuming fake for reasons I can't fathom but I just have a gut feeling that it isn't real. (For one thing the starboard leading edge is in impeccable condition for an aircraft that was belly landed amongst some very uninviting looking terra firma.) My .02 cents.

Member for

16 years 11 months

Posts: 832

I am going to go out on a limb and say it looks real to me, especially the last 2 photos, there is a lot of detail that I think would be hard to replicate.

Chad Veich - there is a possibility that the rocks were covered in sand when the aircraft landed and the sand has since been blown away.

Can't wait to see how this develops, it seems far more interesting to me than 20 Spits, at least here there are some photos (real or not).

Paul

Edit to add, if it is real and is recovered it would be a shame to restore it, looks fantastic just how it is.

Member for

13 years 6 months

Posts: 629

Funny, Photoshop never occurred to me. As a modeler, I immediately thought diorama, because truly skilled modelers can make something that looks exactly like that out of stuff they find in the garden and the kitchen and from model-maker suppliers. I'm with Veich, though; there's something about those photos that puts me in mind of what NASA might have published to disprove conspiracy theories about the moon landing actually having been accomplished on a sound stage in Burbank.

Still, that perfect turn-and-bank...

Member for

16 years 11 months

Posts: 832

In the second and third photo there are some fairly distinctive clouds which change their position relative to the aircraft just like they really would if you took a photo in a different direction.

I have taken some photos in the desert here in Australia and find my basic digital camera can often be overwhelmed and washed out by the sheer amount of light coming at it which is also similar to those photos.

Paul

Member for

15 years 4 months

Posts: 313

I'd say that's very real, not a model. I've seen models that you couldn't tell were models from their photographs, but that instrument panel is not one of those. Blow it up and take a good close look at the details and use period pictures from the manuals for comparison. Real deal. The pictures were taken with a modern digital but the EXIF data has been stripped, so no location clues there.

Here is what the OP said:

"My friend works in the Sahara looking for oil and gas. Recently, however, they came upon something completely different"

"The plane lay so many years is not bothered by anyone. The finder of the wreck told the RAF and were able to identify aircraft. We do not know why he was only at that particular place. It may puzzle some time find a solution."

We know men and aircraft can lay undiscovered in the desert for very long periods. Many are swallowed up by the sands never to be seen again, some get spit back out decades later, or somebody stumbles upon them. (Remember LBG!) I'll bet this aircraft has been visited by petrol companies a few times since it crashed and I'll bet the RAF might have visited the site at least once themselves.

Now who knows the serial?

PS: Here's a really interesting story of another record attempt that ended badly for the pilot, discovered 29 years after he came down in the middle of nowhere and simply dried out.

http://www.historynet.com/bill-lancaster-lost-in-the-sahara-after-attempting-to-break-the-england-cape-town-flight-speed-record.htm

Member for

12 years 5 months

Posts: 797

They Look Gen'.

Those photos look 100% genuine to me. Parts of the Sahara are extremely dry. I was out there in the 1970's, and there were various old vehicles from the war. There are no dunes in the photos, but in those areas where there are dunes, anything left will soon get covered with sand as the Erg moves. Much of it is not the classic sand dunes however, such as the rough rocky area in the photos and the mixed sand and gravel area where Bill Lancaster came down. Some is very rocky and rugged. It's remote, huge, hot and dry. Not the sort of place where you wander around just on the offchance of finding things.....:diablo:
Not the ideal sort of place for a forced landing.....let's hope the pilot made it home.

I hope they bring this one back pronto, at least it's real and not corroded to hell.

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 4,796

Chad Veich - there is a possibility that the rocks were covered in sand when the aircraft landed and the sand has since been blown away.

To quote my grandfather who spent some time out there subduing the natives* pre-WWII. "You'd pitch your tent between 2 sand dunes & by the time you got up in the morning, the sand had moved so much you'd be on top of a sand dune"

* not the word he used...

Member for

17 years 11 months

Posts: 2,024

If it is a diorama then it is a brilliant one ... the first two photos at least do look a little model-ish ...

Member for

14 years 1 month

Posts: 1,190

The terrain looks about right for the Libyan Sahara....
http://cache2.artprintimages.com/lrg/40/4002/CL4WF00Z.jpg

Member for

20 years

Posts: 5,572

Finally all that money on the Mars Rover has finally paid off, just how did it get up there?

Member for

13 years 4 months

Posts: 218

Photos

Pics 1-3 - Model! No heat haze or fading of colours into the distant horizon.

Pics 4 and 5 presumably also, although 4 certainly looks like bent a/c metalwork.

Member for

12 years 4 months

Posts: 277

Well if it is a model then the level of detail is first class , and yes the first couple of pics do look like a model .
If it is real i'm sure we'll hear about it soon and someone will recover it.
Then before you know it people will be asking if it will appear at flying legends next year in formation with the burmese spitfires ! :)

Member for

13 years 2 months

Posts: 251

Translation via Google

Posting 1
Heading 1

My friend works in the Sahara looking for oil and gas. Recently, however, they came upon something completely different ...

Heading 2
The plane lay so many years is not bothered by anyone. The finder of the wreck told the RAF and were able to identify aircraft. We do not know why he was only at that particular place. It may puzzle some time find a solution.

Posting 2
No good trinket.

Posting 3
It's like I Curtiss P-40 "Kittyhawk" / or "Tomahawk" / - had them equipped squadrons in the RAF in 1943 Zach.Afryce

Posting 4
It's a shame that there are no pictures of the side - then the markings on the hull lterowych might be tempted to decipher the individual.

Posting 5
Give us, in a workshop wyklepia and will even fly :)

Okay, jokes aside, but it's really interesting thing. I remember as a few-dozen years ago I read about a bomber ... :) I already found http://www.ladybegood.net/index.htm

Posting 6
Well as our wyklepali it would still be two F-16 came out and a piece of Hercules ...

Posting 7
Massacre! Please send me more information and additional photos :-)

put through Google translate, I can't see any clues here.... thoughts