All the items shown below were found in February and October 2014. I will start with showing the finds located on Wasp engines that are specific to to the engines fitted only to variants of the Beechcraft Model 18, this pretty much confirm the aircraft had a Pratt and Whitney R-985 or R1340 / Wasp Junior / Wasp engines. Knowing the engine type does not exactly narrow the search down much but it does rule out some US-built aircraft that carried different engines and some Beechcraft Model 18's which used different types of engines. Having found the items marked in red I believe that these pieces were only fitted to Beechcraft aircraft. Some early Beechcraft Model 18's were made with different engines or as seaplanes and were later converted and had engine changed to Wasps or were modified so identifying the exact type is therefore hard. Some of the items found at the crash site actually look like modification pieces of metal rather than production standards. I have used photograph of the complete engine shown here and found on the internet to show their location on the aircraft. We have located other fragments of Wasp engines which detail here .

The items that were found at the crash site in February and October 2014 that are from the Pratt and Whitney R-985 (Wasp Junior) and the R1340 (Wasp) engine are marked on this original photograph of a similar Wasp Junior engine in a museum taken by "Skytamer Images" and found on the internet. This IS NOT a complete engine found at the crash site at Coniston but only identical fragments that match this photograph.

This "Vought" stamped item which was located on the Pratt and Whitney Wasp Junior and Wasp engine between the fins of two of the cylinders. The Vought logo is shown next to the item. It is a "clamp assembly - inter cylinder deflector" for those who are interested!! This piece confused us as it was the first piece we found with a makers inspection stamp so believing the aircraft was a Vought type of aircraft were were sent down the Kingfisher / Vindicator / Chesapeake route. After I eventually worked out where it was on the aircraft; it looks like Vought were approached to make this item for Pratt and Whitney so marked it with their stamp. The section of the Pratt and Whitney parts catalogue with the part and it's number are shown below. This item was used on more than just Beechcraft powered aircraft.

This item was located on the Wasp engine and is marked on the photograph of the complete engine above. After cleaning the item the part number was found (shown below) and reads "18S5918" and in a Beechcraft Expeditor dated 1970 parts manual the same item was still used, it was called a "cowl support bracket" and was given the number "404-185918" in the Expeditor manual. It appears to have been used by Beechcraft to align their engine cowl to the Wasp engine. The item is shown on the technical drawing below.

The piece located at the crash site is item number 11 on this technical drawing.

In addition to the items located on the Wasp engine we have located a number of fragments from the aircraft engine cowlings which I believe are specific to a Beechcraft Model 18. This piece here shows the part number "185981-1" which has been found on the 1970 Beech 18 parts manual.

The parts list the item is down as Item 14. On the drawing it appears to part of Item 13 so perhaps the manual was revised and an addional item added between it being made prior to 1942 and the 1970 manual being printed.

I also believe that we have found one of Item 11 on the drawing but the metal has not faired so well and no part number is now visible. This part is shown below.

The Beechcraft Model 18 cockpit, the one shown above is an AT-11 variant (original photograph above by Ken Stoltzius). The items located at the crash site and that have been identified in this and similar Beechcraft Model 18 cockpit photographs I detail below.

This find I believe is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence that the aircraft type is a Beechcraft Model 18 as it is identical to numerous examples found in photographs of the aircraft type. It shows a hinged switch cover found under the throttle controls protecting a switch and an identical example shown on a Beechcraft Model 18 (bottom right) showing the location.

One of the cockpit window catches. Different variants of the Beech 18 appear to have had different opening cockpit windows and as a result had different catches. The one found at the crash site is either the one at the top of the window on the left cockpit side (not the lower one shown in the general cockpit photograph shown above) or possibly one from the lower-right cockpit window not present on the example shown in the photograph above.

A 1970 Beechcraft Expeditor parts manual for a much later variant of the Model 18 shows where this item (Item No.28) was located on the Expeditor but it was much the same on an AT-7 or AT-11 except they appears to have had two.

Examples of the stringers with the round edging at the crash site. The drawings below have been found in a Beechcraft repair manual of the exact stringer; the dimensions are the same.

By way of comparison of the types of stringers used in different American aircraft the example at the top is one of numerous found at the Coniston site. The one at the bottom was one of many found at a Lockheed Lodestar crash site and I took the Coniston one to the Arran one to compare them together before returning it. The Lodestar was a military variant of the Lockheed Model 14 "Super Electra". The rolled edge on the Coniston example is on the outer side while the rolled edge on the Lockheed example is on the inner side and the dimensions are different.

This fragment has a part number "18897 ??? and "A or R" below. In a 1970 Beechcraft Expeditor 3N parts manual, the part number for Item No.47 shown on the drawing below item "1889 7535A" is the motor for the landing gear retracting mechanism shown below. A further drawing giving individual parts used to make this motor and many parts for this motor many have the "1889" prefix. This is not compelling evidence that they are the same part but they are certainly similar. In addition to this a number of Beechcraft Model 18 parts carried the "18" prefix and without knowing it at the time we may have located one such piece.