Birdcage Corsair lifted from Lake Michigan

[TopKick]

OUTSTANDING!

[Conny]

Great job!! I would not have spent the $300K to raise it and NOT be the owner. The aircraft may be restored but will never be in the air again. Doing anything for the Government is a waste of time. I'd have let it sit.

[dilvoy]

I bet the Navy lets it sit outside forever.

[horrocks]

The aircraft may be restored but will never be in the air again. Doing anything for the Government is a waste of time...

Why not? It looks in better shape than some planes that have been recovered and restored to flying.

[Dave K.]

I bet the Navy lets it sit outside forever.

Best that it goes to a museum for all to enjoy in static form. I'm very skeptical of restoring extremely rare aircraft back to flying condition these days. Yeah, I'll get a lot of flack here but the CAF bounced quite a few rare aircraft in their day. This would be a good aircraft for the Smithsonian. Not all govt handling of aircraft is mistreatment and fantastic examples can be found in many museums because of govt expenditure as well as private donation. One engine out situation with this aircraft and it will be gone forever (or restored again but with the majority of the parts repro . . .).

[shootiniron]

I have to agree with dilvoy,foot the bill to recover and then hand over to the Navy,hmmmmm.

[Dave K.]

Yeah, I don't understand that aspect IF the recovery people weren't compensated. I doubt very much however that they weren't compensated! Why would they have even started the job?

Note that there are a number of fine examples of aircraft that have come out of Lake Michigan and are now on display--stop on down by O'Hare airport and see the Wildcat on display sometime--nice resto and nicely displayed (and thousands enjoy it every year). I think an SBD went to Pensacola? Recall that the government, while having done some pretty stupid things with classic aircraft, has also had the foresight to preserve the largest collection of historic aircraft in the world and do a beautiful job in restoring them--visit the Smithsonian, Wright-Pat, Marine Corps Museum, and so on. Of course when one wants to see tragedies with classics one can also look at the twin Mustang which was totaled, the Helldiver, the 2 Mustangs which collided at Oshkosh and numerous other examples in private hands. I'm not saying they shouldn't have flown their own aircraft but let's not hold the govt to the fire and ignore the mistakes in the private ranks which resulted in significant aircraft losses . . . .

[Bryan]

A month ago i was on the USS Hornet CVA-12, in san francisco bay, they had a hellcat they got from the same lake, Under restoration

[Woodie]

For those of you worried about this aircraft, don't ! If the story is correct, and it is going to The Naval Air Museum in Pensicola, It will be extremly well restored and displayed inside there first rate facility.

[Packhow75]

My father always said he left an Avenger at the bottom of Puget sound... I guess this would have been the result of a similar training flight which went wrong. Alas he's dead now.

Tim