Metal part found in Croatian woods - Airplane?

[janw]

I found a metal part in a forest in Croatia.
I am thinking it might be part of an airplane because of shape and material and because there are rumours that in WWII a plane crashed somewhere in that area.
Its about 3 m long, from 8x2cm on the thick end to 4x1cm on the thin end
Covered with two rows of about 400 holes /rivets and a stronger construction hole on the thick end

I found some numbers /IDs on it, maybe someone can identify these:
(dots stand for unreadable characters)

SC206 (found twice)
82172A
6/23 313&.10..1
And there is a signet ".22" inside two oval lines, maybe "P22"
And in a circle I read RTL 84

See attached photos

Any ideas what this ?

 

[SaparotRob]

Can you provide a picture of the entire object? Welcome to the Forum.

 

[janw]

Can you provide a picture of the entire object? Welcome to the Forum.

Hi SeparotRob, thanks for the answer
The 4th attached picture is the entire object (The yellow thing is a 2 meter folding rule) but I understand it is not easily interpretable
I attach a new one, I hope this makes it more clear?

 

[Snautzer01]

Looks like a gate pole.

 

[RichardSuhkoi]

Gate pole? Aluminum with so many rivets? I have no real idea but could believe it's structure.

 

[Antarctica]

Definitely aircraft, possibly British manufacture. Looks something like the style of British-made parts (not very robust) that I've worked on.

 

[janw]

Found one more, would say definitively airplane
Again with some numbers (why did they print so many on a small piece of metal?)
ASY88719 AUI3
719 A3U13
88719 A1J13

Does the greenish color mean anything to someone?

I will try to get more details on the stories told about a crash

 

[Wurger]

Because the metal parts could made by many different manufacturers. Each of them could use their own numbering to ID parts although it could be in accordance with numbering of the main assembling plant.

The greenish yellow/ yellowish green ) colour seems to be the remnants of the anti corrosion protection.

 

[manta22]

Found one more, would say definitively airplane
Again with some numbers (why did they print so many on a small piece of metal?)
ASY88719 AUI3
719 A3U13
88719 A1J13

Does the greenish color mean anything to someone?

I will try to get more details on the stories told about a crash

The greenish color is a zinc chromate primer that is used to protect aluminum from corrosion.

 

[Antarctica]

The greens on those parts look like weathered / aged RAF interior green, especially the very light green on the right hand side in the 3rd photo. I've seen many shades of green used in repaints & touch-ups of wartime parts. Green Zinc-chromate anti-corrosion paint used in US aircraft was generally brighter & didn't fade as much.

 

[manta22]

The greens on those parts look like weathered / aged RAF interior green, especially the very light green on the right hand side in the 3rd photo. I've seen many shades of green used in repaints & touch-ups of wartime parts. Green Zinc-chromate anti-corrosion paint used in US aircraft was generally brighter & didn't fade as much.

There are two types of Zinc Chromate primer, green & yellow- at least in the US>

 

[doc_nele]

Tried image search by google... interestingly, on two different parts it gave "Cessna flap arm assembly" (the first image in set!) , and for the part marked "SC206" it omniusly spitted Cessna 206 image first (among a ton of other results)...

 

[gruad]

Let's hope it was from heroic red Army which I always support for liberating us from Hitler

 

[MiTasol]

Image 1966 in the first post clearly shows the shape of the spar cap extrusions used on the Bristol Beaufort and Beaufighter and the 82nnn drawings apply to Beaufort wings.

82172A shows in the Beaufort parts catalog as being included in section 1 page 296

Unfortunately my good copy of the catalog is missing everything after page 100 of that section but from the large hole at the end I am absolutely confident that it is a Beaufort wing outer panel spar cap.

From my crap early copy this is the front spar and from the bolt pattern it must be a lower front spar cap. The -A automatically means it is from the Starboard wing.

The SC206 suggests it is from the 206th Bristol Beaufort as it was normal practice to stamp the aircraft line number into all major components. A check of Beauforts lost in the area will provide the actual aircraft serial number - wings were an interchangeable spare so it was not uncommon to rob a wing panel from one damaged aircraft to make another serviceable.

 

[MiTasol]

and from the repair manual - a diagram showing the spar cap shape as shown in image 1966 - this is the upper cap so it has more slope on the outer surface

 

[MiTasol]

The greens on those parts look like weathered / aged RAF interior green, especially the very light green on the right hand side in the 3rd photo. I've seen many shades of green used in repaints & touch-ups of wartime parts. Green Zinc-chromate anti-corrosion paint used in US aircraft was generally brighter & didn't fade as much.

Correct

 

[MiTasol]

Found one more, would say definitively airplane
Again with some numbers (why did they print so many on a small piece of metal?)
ASY88719 AUI3
719 A3U13
88719 A1J13

Does the greenish color mean anything to someone?

I will try to get more details on the stories told about a crash

I forgot to say welcome aboard Jan. Always nice to see a new member

In this case 88719 is the part number and that should have a dash A or B following it

That makes it one of the ribs on item 6 as shown in the diagram below. I cannot remember if they number these ribs from inboard to outboard or vice versa. I will check when I am next at the hangar on August 24.

 

[ARTESH]

MiTasol , just curious... Could the numbers in post #7 read as follow:

ASY 88719A U13
719A 3U13
88719A 1J13

I think first 3 letters stand for "Assembly", followed by part number, as you said, then what could be "U/J13"? Could it be a reference to some other parts?

 

[MiTasol]

As you say ASY, or more commonly ASSY, usually indicates an assembly. Some ribs in that area had stiffeners attached to them because there was a crew walkway above and you can see that this one did from the angle attached with three rivets. It would appear that the part number is for the folded rib including the metal walkway stiffener attachment. There are wooden blocks about 10m (3/8) thick that join the ribs and support the walkway that show in the parts list picture

It was common with British manufacturers to put material batch numbers and, less common, production batch numbers on parts but those "13" numbers are way too short so I am not willing to hazard a guess on them.

 

[Antarctica]

Seeing that by the time the Allies started helping Tito in Yugoslavia, the Beaufort was restricted to western Europe, so I would assume the wreckage is from a Beaufighter. You could research which RAF squadrons flew over that area, Allied airbases were on Italy's east coast & on the island of Korcula. Individual squadron histories may enable you to identify the actual plane & crew involved.