Myers Depot Metal Detectors

WW2 plane Identification. recovered tail elevator.

D

Dogfisch

Full Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
118
Location
New England
I recovered this tail elevator from a plane wreck in Rhode Island. The wreck lies in about 8" of water in a lagoon in the misquamicut area. It is located right in front of a well known abandoned WW2 airfield. I found this section of wing intact burred under the sand and silt while looking of oysters. I can't seem to find any info of a plane crashing in that area or what type of plane it was. The base was used mainly for dive bombers such as grumman avengers and hellcats but their tail elevators don't match with this one. My feeling is it came off a Douglas SBD Dauntless. Anyone think they can help ID this plane? The elevator stands approximately 8' tall and the SN that I could find is 26565-1
:?:
 

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Great find - my suggestion is to email a museum and attach a pic. There's a museum with lots of WWII planes in Tillamook, OR which I visited a couple years ago. A great museum located in an airship hangar, I highly recommend it. Tillamook Air Museum, I think. Beautiful country around there also, don't miss the cheese factory nearby.
 
I'd say that it's from a F6F Hellcat because the trim tab on the SBD is placed by where the tail attaches to the fuselage ,but the trim tab on the Hellcat is further up on the elevator and that corresponds to what you found.

Hellcat:
grumman_hellcat.gif


SBD:
sbd-1.gif


Cheers! ;)

Karlis.
 
Find the propeller!!!!

I would buy it if you don't want it, although I probably couldn't afford it because they go for big money..

I've always wanted one to hang over my bar...

<°)))>{
 
Wow nice work! all the pics of the hellcat that I found had different looking elevator flaps, but the F6F version depicted on the top looks like a pretty good match. I was getting hung up on the bearcat since it looked close but doesn't have the sharp angel return near the tail rudder. Thanks for your help.
 
There are a few crashes reported in rhode island but none reported to have gone down in the location where I found the plane. Its wasn't the p47d since the location where it went down is not the same and the tail elevator is completely different. Pretty sure the F6F hellcat is the plane. The plane wreck is located off the Ninigret airfield and its proximity to the airfield indicates a crash landing or takeoff.
 
Dogfisch said:
There are a few crashes reported in rhode island but none reported to have gone down in the location where I found the plane. Its wasn't the p47d since the location where it went down is not the same and the tail elevator is completely different. Pretty sure the F6F hellcat is the plane. The plane wreck is located off the Ninigret airfield and its proximity to the airfield indicates a crash landing or takeoff.
Click to expand...


I deleted this post cause it was obselete and incorrect.
 
I also sent the pics to a couple buddies who might know more than i do about the plane, and to my uncle who was in the airforce, to see if i could learn anything new, will do my best to get a 100% accurate report on what plane this is from and what might have happened to it.
 
Okay found some new information, someone who is a expert in ww2 planes told me it is from a F6F Hellcat, and I also found a link that may show a couple potential incidents it could be related to http://www.newenglandaviationhistory.com/tag/rhode-island-wwii-plane-crash/

Im really liking the first one because the airfield is the same one you are talking about it went Charlestown Aux. Naval Air Station(Ninigret Airfield) and has been called other things, but thats as far as i got. Its very possible that that is the plane.

Also found this
http://www.newenglandaviationhistory.com/charlestown-r-i-march-2-1945/

I really like this one, to be honest as you said you found it near the runway so it may be debris from this crash.
 
Latvianrifleman said:
I'd say that it's from a F6F Hellcat because the trim tab on the SBD is placed by where the tail attaches to the fuselage ,but the trim tab on the Hellcat is further up on the elevator and that corresponds to what you found.

Hellcat:
grumman_hellcat.gif


SBD:
sbd-1.gif


Cheers! ;)

Karlis.
Click to expand...

Take a closer look. Notice how the hellcat elevator has a rounded tip, like the one I found. Notice where the smaller stabilizer is located on the elevator. and notice how it cuts back to the ruder at a 45 degree angle. Look where the 2 hinges are located on the hepcat elevator and the one I found. This is a unique shape I couldn't find on another plane. This pattern of tale elevator is not consistent with the P47 or P47d.
One picture is of a wrecked hellcat that shows the distinct rounded tip of the elevator flap. It has the number and placement of the holes as mine. Obviously this elevator flap has the ribs broken off.
Here is a guy building a scale model and an example of the tail elevator being constructed . http://scalebirds.com/blog/2015/4/28/elevator-structures-finished
 

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I knew the engineer who designed the Hellcat .... one of them at least. He had the scale drawings in his study and I have seen them probably a dozen times ....... I would say that is a absolute match with the F6F. Mr Z would be proud someone took the trouble to recover it!
 
That part is specifically from a F6F-5N Night Fighter version which differed in that it had a radar system built in. It supposedly crashed at the location during take off, the engine stalled and it smacked into the ice covered pond in 1945 and killed the pilot. Im willing to bet that you recovered a piece of that plane because they said that while the propeller was recovered they left the rest of the plane at the crash site.

Sadly it was after the war for the most part that the plane crashed, they only made like 1200 of this variant.

http://www.newenglandaviationhistory.com/charlestown-r-i-march-2-1945/
 
Dogfisch said:
Take a closer look. Notice how the hellcat elevator has a rounded tip, like the one I found. Notice where the smaller stabilizer is located on the elevator. and notice how it cuts back to the ruder at a 45 degree angle. Look where the 2 hinges are located on the hepcat elevator and the one I found. This is a unique shape I couldn't find on another plane. This pattern of tale elevator is not consistent with the P47 or P47d.
One picture is of a wrecked hellcat that shows the distinct rounded tip of the elevator flap. It has the number and placement of the holes as mine. Obviously this elevator flap has the ribs broken off.
Here is a guy building a scale model and an example of the tail elevator being constructed . http://scalebirds.com/blog/2015/4/28/elevator-structures-finished
Click to expand...

Thanks for ponting out the other things that match your elevator to the F6F's ,I just couldn't get a more detailed picture :). Awesome find by the way ,I bet you could e-mail Northrop Grumman and see if they have your serial number in their archives of produced aircrafts and parts.

Cheers ;)

Karlis.
 
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