Curious. What do you restoration guys do about spares? Reverse engineer?
On Christmas, 1980, I arrived on Yap Island in the Western Caroline Chain. Micronesian Airlines (Continental) pranged a B727-100 and I was assigned to dismantle it. Well, everywhere I looked I saw Japanese airplanes and bits of them. Once when booney-stomping through the underbrush I ran smack into a prop blade sticking out of the ground still attached to the engine. Caught me right between the eyes. I was there the better part of 4 months and took a talley of all the planes. There was what appeared to be the remains of a Tabby, two Betty, a few Jumo (Susei) engines littered about and I forget how many A6M's in various conditions - all bad. I mapped their locations in a journal I kept while I was there. The last surviving example of an intact Susei was found isolated by a growth of bamboo. When the Japanese learned of it the came out to fetch it and after only a few months had it flying.
These wrecks litter the Pacific. Do you guys ever reclaim this stuff or is it too far gone at this point?
Edit: When I was doing a 30 TDY in Fairbanks, AK, in the mid '70s I took an aerial tour of the area and on a island (oxbow) in a river was a B-25 sitting gear up. Looks like it was going to Russia and didn't make it. The upper turret .50's were sticking up so it didn't look salvaged. If there's that one then there must be more and probably some P-400's? Again, just curious.