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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/12 ... sea-floor/


Crews are working to recover a World War II Stuka dive bomber from the bottom of the Baltic Sea that will join the only other two known models to survive.


Cool . . .

Wonder why it hasn't rusted away?

Turned out today that it wasn't a Ju-87 Stuka, but a much larger Ju-88 bomber.

Interesting . . . but still, same question . . .

How did it survive? Salt Water?

The wreck was mostly covered by sand. The parts that weren't are said to be in pretty bad condition.

Zak wrote:Turned out today that it wasn't a Ju-87 Stuka, but a much larger Ju-88 bomber.

Was this a case of bad transcription... or non-horrible aircraft identification skills? A JU-87 and JU-88 are not alike.

ANCFlyer wrote:Cool . . . Wonder why it hasn't rusted away?

Last year I saw a Zero in Palau that's been underwater since WWII. The fuselage is still intact but I don't know what happened to the rest of it but aluminum can survive in salt water for some time:



As a side note, the pilot survived this ditching and came back to visit it many decades later.

Zak wrote:Turned out today that it wasn't a Ju-87 Stuka, but a much larger Ju-88 bomber.

Still a win!

Click Click D'oh wrote:Was this a case of bad transcription... or non-horrible aircraft identification skills? A JU-87 and JU-88 are not alike.

They had only found parts at first, and many parts were used in both aircraft.

The fuselage was mostly covered by sand, hence they could not notice that it was much bigger than the expected Ju-87.

They had been wondering already why the visible parts were missing the usual weaponry of a Stuka, though.