2018 Walking Holiday, aka CC18

First question, Just how did I manage to persuade the wife to let me go off to Scotland for 3 weeks wreckhunting?

It was actually pretty easy, she wanted to book up for 10 days in Florida followed by 4 days in New York, going in the first two weeks in december. As I work in a school and that was term time I couldn't go then, so I suggested her and my daughter book up and I would make do with a walking holiday during the school's summer holidays. Result!

Grave marker for the crew of Anson N9857 on Imir Fada, Ben More Assynt, a sad and lonely place!

Second question, why aka CC18?
In 2017 I was over Arran and Mull of Kintyre doing a spot of wreckhunting and I had met up with my freind Stuart who had come over from Ireland to do the Mull of Kintyre wrecks with me. While visiting the crashsite of a Beaufighter we bumped into three other 'wreckhunters' who just happened to be visiting the same crashsite at the same time as us.

CC17 at Borgadale on the Mull of Kintyre.

Someone commented that it was like a crashsite convention and so our trip was christened CrashCon17 or CC17 for short. So when me and Stuart decided to organise a trip up to Caithness and Sutherland in 2018 it obviously had to be called CrashCon18.

Some fantastic views on the Isle of Skye. (photo courtesy of Stuart Whittaker)

I eventually ended up doing just 15 days of walking as the weather forecast for the last 6 days of my three weeks was awfull, I had used up all 3 of my DSLR camera batteries and had no way of charging them and I had had enough of sleeping in a tent and eating beans.

Stuart and his Daughter Chloe, holding an intact but slightly bent 20mm cannon.

I still managed to go looking for 26 crashsites, and out of those;- 21 were confirmed, 2 were probables and 3 were ftf's.

Confirmed(c) being where I found a piece of the aircraft or a memorial in the area of the crashsite or as in the case of Beaufort AW345 I was shown the exact spot of the crash by an eyewitness. Probables(p) are when I know I'm at the right place but there are none of the above 3. FtF's, failed to find!

Below is a list of the crashsites I visited, if they're coloured yellow you can click on the aircraft name to visit the webpage.

Day 1--Supermarine Spitfire P8259-c

Day 1--Short Sunderland P9622-c

Day 2--Boeing B-17 FL455-c

Day 2--Hawker Hurricane Z514-p

Day 3--Short Sunderland W4026-c

Day 3--Avron Anson DL178-ftf

Day 3--AW Whitley P5070-c

Day 3--EE Canberra WT531-c

Day 4--Bristol Beaufort AW345-c

Day 4--Bristol Beaufighter LZ294-c

Day 4--Consolodated B24 Liberator BZ720-ftf