Any have info about the Wildcat airplane raised from Lake Michigan

EAA News - Enthusiasts Invited to See Rescued FM-2 Wildcat

Anyone have any info on this news article?

Pretty interesting that the money would be spent to raise this plane. Sounds like a very large undertaking. Based on the comments about restoring it, I wonder if it was worth it as much of the plane will be rebuild with newly manufactured parts. To me I would have loved for it to stay underwater and be a diving location.

AT&T Salvage funded the project. They found the fighter in 2006 or 08 with the help of Paul Ehorn. They spent many dives cleaning it off and securing rigging and other things to the craft. She was in 2 major pieces to begin with. The aircraft was raised and towed a considerable distance underwater to where she was to be raised. The project is one of those it will cost far more to restore her than what her value is. In the end it will be donated to a museum and then it's fate is unknown. They should have left it on the bottom in my opinion. My understanding for her raising is that it was a very rare aircraft type and was historically significant in the Battle Of Midway. I hope this clears things up. We found a WWI fighter on the bottom off of Tawas and was in pretty rough shape.
Jared

Any word on the depth where the wreck was at? Sounds like an interesting salvage.

Even though the WWI fighter you mentioned was in rough shape, it would still be an awesome dive.

She was down in 200ft of water off of Racine Wisconsin.

The Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg Texas has another Lake Michigan Wildcat. It is my understanding that a lot of carrier pilot training was conducted near Chicago.

The National Museum of the Pacific War

Grrr... 200ft. Thats a nice comfortable tech dive. Would have been really nice if they left it for divers to dive on. Would have been a great dive! :-(

I agree Mike. They have pulled at least 40 planes out of the lake. How many do they need in order to satisfy themselves? Even if they are rare, things have been known to happen to antiques that have been salvaged out of the lake when they should have been left there. Oh well I have to fighter jets that need to be located off of Alpena.