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Barn Find Messerschmitt Starts After Being Stored For 45 Years

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Amazing story of warbirds in a barn. Some one of a kind in the world. (planelopnik.kinja.com) More...

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Moviela
Ric Wernicke 6
A Dutch air Ace was recounting his last battle of WWII for a British TV programme,

"These two Fokker's were coming up fast from below, and two other two Fokker's were coming straight at me."

The host interrupted to say that a Fokker is a type of German aircraft.

The Ace continued "Ja, but these Fokker's were flying Messerschmitt's!"
joelwiley
joel wiley 0
I heard it was the only WWI Swedish war ace on the Merv Griffen show long before George Carlin's 7 dirty words.. LOL anyway.
rbhallett
Roger Hallett 3
Pity about the music backing. Surely they could have faded it while the Merlin started up.
pilot62
Scott Campbell 2
5000' + per minute climb !! WOW
744pnf
744pnf 1
A different bird, but...

"A lightly loaded B58 Hustler would climb at nearly 46,000 ft/min (235 m/s)
skuttlerats
Jeffrey Babey 2
Great find! Great story!
ssobol
Stefan Sobol 2
These are not really barn find airplanes. They were used in the movie "Battle of Britain" made in ~1969. The company that supplied and operated the planes for the movie received these airplanes in lieu of payment. They've been in a hanger for about 40 years. Why the owner did not do anything with them is unknown.

These are actually Spanish built versions of the 109. They are Hispano HA-1112 (or HA-1109). An interesting fact is the Spanish airplanes had Merlin engines in them. This is why the cowling, oil cooler, and exhaust stacks are different from the Messerschmitt 109s.

annellandfrank
John Taylor 1
Your spot on....I was at Moron AB North of Seville in the '60s. An active sqdn of 109s as well as German designed tri-motor tranaports was at Tablada airfield nearer to town....and all flew regularly!
FLGeographer
Joseph Brown 1
About 30 years ago I worked for a FAR 135 freight hauler based at KOAK. The CAF had a hanger down the ramp from us. Used to love watching the old warbirds come to life. Thanks for posting.
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Amazing the batteries were still up. :-/
gshenkle
Gordon Shenkle 1
The -109 uses a flywheel starter...no batteries. Hand crank the flywheel and turn the switch...
WALLACE24
WALLACE24 1
Herr Shenkle, you got me there. Here I was making a funny about batteries and there are none. Duh!
gshenkle
Gordon Shenkle 1
Well, we were both somewhat wrong. The original -109 had a flywheel starter. These move -109s had surplus Merlins installed and they did have batteries. But I suspect that the battery was replaced as well as the engines gone over before the start was attempted.
joelwiley
joel wiley 1
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"
A bird in the barn is worth a cool mil.
GaAubie
Ken Hardy 1
All the German 109's had Daimler Benz engines with fuel injection, they could fly inverted while the Rolls Merlin had a carburetor that ran dry if inverted for very long. This was told to me by one of the few German fighter pilots to survive the War that I got to know when I represented his German company back in the 70's and 80's. he is still alive today living in Hamburg.
jdriskell
James Driskell 0
This is old news.
c38clark
c38clark -4
This story cannot be seen because there is a "problem with its certificate".
How did this happen?
Did the genius who put this up know about it?
jamesadkins
James Adkins 4
Works fine for me. Check your browser settings.

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