Rough Landing

You can find many different things with your metal detector in your quest for gold. The desert is full of relics of various types, some related to mining and others to everyday life from those who were there before. Sometimes you find things that are puzzling. The pictures below are of finds made by members near our Wickenburg claims who wrote:

"On March 5th, in preparation for re-marking the Red Basin claims we found military aircraft parts in the hills just north of our Wickenburg claim. I sent out several queries concerning this site and recently received some interesting information from Trey Brandt, author of "Faded Contrails, Last Flights Over Arizona." He informs me that the aircraft was an F-84F "Thunderstreak," flown by a German Air Force pilot who was training out of Luke AFB as part of an exchange program we had with them. His name was Udo Gayer, and he crashed on January 9, 1961. He successfully bailed out after an engine/mechanical failure. The report indicates the jet cart wheeled after impact, so there might be other wreckage out there as well as the canopy. F-84F's were first delivered to the Air Force in 1954. They were gradually replaced by the supersonic F-100's in the late 1950's, however, some were called back into temporary service in the early 1960's due to the Berlin Crisis. Each plane cost $769,000. I thought readers of the Bird Tailings would find this story interesting. I also included a few photos of parts recovered from the site."