While staying in Las Vegas I visited Nellis Air Force Base, just outside town, I knew before I arrived in Las Vegas the air show was on and made every effort to go to it.
Unlike the UK, air shows and the like are all free, parking free, entrance free, just pay for the hotdogs and hot doughnuts.
The American military always put on a great show, without writing pages about it I will mention only one aircraft.
The aircraft is a second world war P38 Lightning, built in 1942, a twin engined fighter which was on a delivery flight from America to Europe by way of Greenland and Iceland along with three or four other aircraft.
They ran into bad weather and all were forced to make a forced landing on a glacier, although the aircraft overturned on landing, the pilot escaped unhurt.
During 1992 it was decided to try and find the aircraft and if possible remove it for restoration as there were no P38s left in flyable condition. When the aircraft was located it was 268 feet down inside a glacier where it had lain undisturbed for 50 years.
The way it was done was as follows, a four foot wide circular tank looking like a child’ s spinning top surrounded by copper pipes full of hot water was slowly lowered down, melting the ice as it went.
Once the aircraft had been reached men were lowered down to excavate a cave around the wreck and enlarge the tunnel.
After a month the shaft was wide enough to start bringing the wreck up piece by piece, the largest part, the centre section, took two days to winch to the surface, it weighed 700 pounds.
When all the parts were once more on the surface, they were flown by helicopter to a seaport where they were shipped to Denmark then onwards to Savannah Georgia, ending up in Middlesboro Kentucky where the aircraft was fully restored to flying condition.
The aircraft looks exactly as it did in 1942, the only difference,” Glacier Girl” painted on its nose.
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