Discussion
I was in Iceland recently doing some model photography, and one of the locations we used was the crashed DC3. I just came across an image of it that was taken shortly after it put down. I know that things like the engines would have been recovered by the US Navy, but it's still amazing how much difference a few years on an isolated beach can make.
Edited by DIW35 on Wednesday 22 January 12:29
Eric Mc said:
She's obviously a bit of a vandal.
It's a Super DC-3 by the way (or technically, an R4D-7 or C-117 in US Navy/Air Force service).
The annoying thing is that there is a big sign in the car park that asks visitors to refrain from climbing on top of the wreck, but that's exactly what someone was doing when we got there. My model launched into them saying how disrespectful they were being and that by climbing all over it, they would hasten the total demise of the wreck and thus deprive future visitors the opportunity of seeing it. Needless to say the offender climbed down with a rather sheepish look on their face.It's a Super DC-3 by the way (or technically, an R4D-7 or C-117 in US Navy/Air Force service).
eharding said:
That's the one. It's a long hike from the car park, and it would be very easy to get caught out if the weather turned or you just weren't prepared.
I'm not sure just how "disrespectful" you can be to a knackered old Dak lying on an Icelandic beach. It's not a casualty of war, nor is it a grave site. The crew survived, so I'm struggling with the concept of being able to "disrespect" a pile of metal parts abandoned 4 decades ago by it's owners. The aeroplane was clearly in good condition after it crashed, as evidenced by the photos. No big smoking hole in the ground, no breaking into pieces. And yet large pieces of the aeroplane appear to have been removed. Salvage? Whole wings and tail sections don't just fall off and blow away, so someone has clearly been "disrespectful" to this wreck on an industrial scale at some point in the past. And then it's being sand-blasted by Icelandic weather continually. Which means there's going to come a point when either it will be entirely lost, save for a few ribs, or a decision will be taken by whoever 'owns' the wreck (or the land upon which it sits) to remove it before that happens. Given the fact that it is far from a unique example, or worse, a sole survivor, and that if it hadn't crashed it may well have ended up being broken up for scrap anyway, it's debatable what value this airframe has other than it's value in bringing tourists to see it. You can bet your bottom dollar that if it had been a more militarily 'valuable' aircraft it would have been salvaged in it's entirety, and if it were more accessible the crash site would have been cleaned up at the time. But the US military came along almost immediately, hacked off the wings, tail, engines, etc, then left it where it was. And the landowner? Having no idea what he was supposed to do with it, he got some mates around and shot it with guns, then used it to store driftwood. Any talk of being "disrespectful" to what is essentially a pile of scrap is nought but a tornado in a tin cup.
Nice pictures though.
3D model... https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dc3-plane-wreckage...
A reasonable article on the story of this R4D-8/C-117 here... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mg777n/icelands...
And the inevitable Wiki page here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_US_Navy_R4D-8_S...
Nice pictures though.
3D model... https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dc3-plane-wreckage...
A reasonable article on the story of this R4D-8/C-117 here... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mg777n/icelands...
And the inevitable Wiki page here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_US_Navy_R4D-8_S...
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