========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 09:37:11 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: NORWICH CITY Cache MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Eric From Ric: All we know is that a cache of provisions was left. We have no information about what it contained. Since the 1929 NORWICH CITY cache plays such an important part in the TIGHAR HYPOTHESIS, I was a little surprised to learn that so little is known about it. Where was it located? Was its location clearly marked so that AE and FN could easily have found it after coming ashore? Was it readily accessible from the beach or, after 8 years, was it surrounded by Scaevola? Considering their probably physical condition when they finally did come ashore, would AE and FN have bothered to conduct a search through the underbrush that would have led them to the cache? (I'm assuming that the Electra's provisions only included enough food and water for their flight to Howland and that, after 2 days on the reef, they came ashore hungry & dehydrated and suffering from possible injuries.) If they didn't find the cache right away, how could they have survived until they did? The 1938 photos show that somebody apparently found and used these supplies and we assume that it was AE and FN. However, this is a little too tidy an explanation, given the many unanswered questions. (I'll be interested to read what other the forumites think.) Eric, NAS North Island, San Diego, CA. ************************************************************************ From Ric I don't know where you got the idea that the Norwich City cache is an important part of TIGHAR's hypothesis. It's an interesting development, but our hypothesis was well-formed and well-supported long before the existence of the cache, or for that matter, the existence of the castaway(s), came to light. The possibility that the castaway found and benefited from the cache is perhaps reinforced by Gallagher's recovery of "corks with brass chains" thought to to be from a "small cask" but I don't think we have enough information to say how essential the cache may have been to the castaway's survival. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 09:41:22 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Kelly Johnson's Headwind Chart MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alan Caldwell From Alan Oscar, I knew you would have a lot of fun with that document. I certainly am. I am still troubled about the so called effect of headwind and tailwind. The game is to present the least drag through the air mass and air mass it is. The wind only blows on airplanes when they are on the ground. In the air the craft is flying through an air mass and has no clue what that air mass is doing. The only result of changing airspeed, I can see, is to change the angle of attack from the optimum and I don't know why I would do that. If the theory is that the additional speed gained more than compensates for the increased fuel consumption then that would apply all the time regardless of the wind and the optimum cruise speed would be invalid. There would now be a new optimum cruise speed. Comment? Alan #2329 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 09:45:26 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Noonan's rank MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alan Some time ago I saw a message questioning the fact that the Naval Museum carried Noonan with the Navy rank of Lt. Commander. I queried their historian, Hill Goodspeed. He said that they had been under the mistaken belief he had such a commission as a Naval navigator and acknowledged it to be untrue. It is his belief that the correct information on Noonan is neatly located on the TIGHAR website. Alan #2329 ************************************************************************* From Ric Some time ago I emailed the correction to the guys in Pensacola but as Fats Dominoe used to say, "One never knows. Do one?" I'm glad to hear they got that straightened out. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 09:54:27 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alan Caldwell > Angus asked: > How does cloud deck height affect one's decisions on altitude re taking > dawn > and speed line shots? Is there a height at which cloud interferes with a > dawn shot whether one is under or above it? Are there any likely scenarios > where Fred was unable to get sun shots on the way in to Howland? Angus, the short answer is that anytime there were clouds between Noonan and whatever celestial body he was shooting he could not shoot. The altitude of the clouds or of Noonan had no bearing. To answer your last question I would have to know what the weather conditions were at the point Noonan was. No one knows that. No one at all. Not even Elgin Long. Alan #2329 *********************************************************************** From Gary LaPook It depends on what type of sextant you are using. The marine sextant is just a device that allows you to measure the angle between two points very accurately. If you are using a marine sextant you must have a clear view of the horizon as that provides the reference point for making the measurement. It is O.K. if there are clouds beyond the horizon but not between you and the horizon. And, obviously, at the same instant, you must be able to see the sun although it is O.K. if the sun is behind thin clouds as long as you can see either the upper edge or the lower edge. You measure the altitude of the sun above the visable horizon by adjusting the sextant until you can see the edge of the sun superimposed on the horizon while looking through he sextant. You then read the angle off of the sextant. When using the marine sextant you must make a correction to the measured altitude to account for "dip" of the horizon since it does not exactly mark the horizontal position because you are looking slightly down towards the horizon. Because of the "dip" any altitude measured in relationship to the visable horizon will be too great since you are measuring from a reference point that is actually below zero. The correction for dip in minutes of altitude (1/60th of a degree) equals .97 times the square root of the height of eye above the sea. At an altitude of 100 feet the correction is approximately 10 minutes of arc; at 400 about 20 minutes; 900 about 30; 1600 about 40 and 10,000 about 97. These corrections are always subtracted from the measured altitude. You can see how a miss-estimate of the altitude of the plane above the sea of only 500 feet would cause you to use a correction that is in error by 10 minutes resulting in a 10 nautical mile error. Remember that an error of one minute of angle of altitude will produce a one nautical mile error in the final line of position. The higher the plane's altitude the farther the horizon is away. At 10,000 feet it is 115 N.M. to the horizon; 1,000 feet it is 36 N.M. and from 100 feet it is only 11. Obviously the higher you are the greater the chance that there will be clouds between you and the horizon. Also, if the visability is less than the distance to the horizon you will not be able to see it clearly enough to use as the refernce point. The other type of sextant uses an internal bubble to establish the instrument in a level position so that you can measure the altitude to the sun from the bubble derived horizontal position. There is no necessity or even ability to see the horizon at the time of measuring the sun's altitude so clouds obstructing the horizon are of no importance. You only have to be able to see the disk of the sun through thin or no clouds. You do not apply the "dip" corection since you are not using the below level visable horizon for your refernce point and so errors in the plane's altitude to not cause a problem. If using a bubble sextant a higher altitude above the clouds is better since you won't have clouds blocking the line of sight to the sun. Noonan had a bubble sextant and may also have carried a mirine sextant as "a preventer." (a backup.) There is a special case when you can abtain an altitude measurement of the sun without any instrument. This is just at sunrise or sunset when you can observe the edge of the sun touch the horizon just like looking through a marine sextant set to "zero." As when using a marine sextant in this case the sextant (or measured) altitude equals zero and since the measurement is made in reference to the visable horizon you must make the same "dip" correction. There is no reason to believe that Noonan would have used this special case as he had a sextant and could measure the altitude of the sun at any elevation. There are other errors and corrections that I left out for simplicity sake but taking them into consideration would make it more likely that Noonan would have used his sextant to mesure the altitude of the sun when higher above the horizon and not at sunrise. There has been a lot of discussion about a "dawn sight" on this forum but there is really no basis to give it much importance as Noonan would have prefered to take sights after dawn when the sun was at a higher altitude allowing for more accurate measurements. A line of position derived from a celestial observation is plotted at right angles to the bearing or azimuth to the sun or star being used. At sunrise at about 1746 Zulu (0616 Itasca time) in the vicinity of Howland Island the azimuth to the rising sun was 067 degrees true so a line of position derived from a "dawn sight" would plot 157-337 degrees at right angles to 067. After sunrise the sun moves accross the sky and its azimuth changes also changing the direction of the line of position. Since Howland is almost on the equator and in July the sun is 23 degrees north of the equator the sun moved counter clockwise around the horizon during the day starting from approximately east-north-east at sunrise and moving through NORTH at noon and eventually setting in the west-north-west. However, as viewed from the vicinity of Howland the sun appeared to climb straight up and did not change its azimuth until 1854 Zulu, one hour and eight minutes after sunrise when the azimuth changed to 066 and at which point it was at a 15 degree altitude. The higher the sun's altitude the more accurate it will be. The radio message that they were on "line of position 157-337" confirms that Noonan was using a sun line of position measured sometime within this one hour and 8 minute window and not just at dawn. It is very likely that he measured the sun's altitude 4 or 5 times or even more during this period. Gary LaPook ***************************************************************** From Ric That's an excellent explanation Gary. Thank you. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 10:03:50 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Maps on the Area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Carol Ric, The maps I ordered from Sporty's Pilot Shop.com came in (many thanks to Gary LaPook), and Gardner Island looks so small and so isolated I just thought to myself....oh God, she didn't try that....it just seems like such a remote possibility. And Hull Island looks like it might be another 100 miles from Gardner and just a mere pin prick on the maps the same as Gardner. There is no archipelago there, nothing. After that disaster at Howland Island, I can't believe Earhart would head for Gardner irrespective of whether it's on the LOP or the WOP or the POP or whatever it's on. It doesn't compute. I know you have the shoe evidence, which is very good. Would like to ask the question... where was the shoe sole found with the cat's paw heel at Gardner? Was it on the beech or inshore or stuck in a tree or wherever? Is there a possibility it washed up on the shore? Do we know that or do we know that? Would like to comment on the Gilberts....what an enticing target that would have been to Earhart...in trouble, low on fuel, the clock is ticking....no more mistakes.... no more chances on islands that can't be found. The Gilberts in daylight hours from 7-8,000 ft. alt. would have been quite an enticing target and very visible on the maps....repeat a very visible chain of islands that would make a great deal of sense to lost aviators like Carol or anyone else who was nuts enough to try it. Carol ********************************************************************* From Ric Carol, as has been discussed many times here on the forum, we now largely discount the shoe parts we found as having anything to do with the Earhart disappearance. Please feel free to turn back for the Gilberts. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 10:07:24 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From John Pratt Let me quote the source of the idea: "One thing I'm pretty sure about: If the bones were actually sent to an academic department [path or anthro] there MUST have been a paper trail, ...If there is no evidence of a paper trail, I very much doubt any bones were sent anywhere." No trail on the government side, no trail on the scientific side. How about the religious side? Administrator has old bones, no apparent worth, cluttering his office. He "does the decent thing" and calls the padre... The most likely thing for a local curate to do is a decent burial, locally, with a notation in the parish records "Unknown Castaway, May God have Mercy...." and the burial plot. If so, would any records have survived and where? LTM John Pratt 2373 ************************************************************************* From Ric I believe some inquiries were made along those lines by the team in 1999. Tom? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 10:14:14 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Convincing evidence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Charlie Sivert Hi, Ric and Pat, Of the many artifacts discovered on Niku, I believe that the plexiglas and the Dado are the most convincing evidence of the presence of the Lockheed 10. It is very difficult to assign the articles to other aircraft. At this time, I would like to mention that the past May 8-9 were the 75th anniversary of the flight of l'Oiseau Blanc,(the White Bird) for those not familiar with the French language. LTM from Charlie Sivert, in Olney, IL.(Home of the White Squirrels) ************************************************************************* From Ric I agree with you Charlie, especially with regard to the Dado. And here's to our old friends Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli. Once we've found Amelia to everyone's (or nearly everyone's) satisfaction I hope we can return to our search for them. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 13:12:14 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Marty Moleski > ... There has been a lot of discussion about a "dawn sight" on this > forum but there is really no basis to give it much importance as Noonan would > have prefered to take sights after dawn when the sun was at a higher altitude > allowing for more accurate measurements. For me, the solid basis for thinking about the dawn sight is that Amelia's garbled transmission included numbers that seem to correspond to the LOP that would have been derived from the dawn sight (or from flight preparation the day before, using lookup tables): 157/337. What she and Fred were doing with this course is uncertain; but I have no one questions the numbers (so far). Marty #2359 ********************************************************************* From Ric If I understand Gary correctly, the 157/337 LOP could be obtained from an observation of the sun anytime from sunrise until an hour and eight minutes later. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 13:13:08 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Betty's Radio MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Mike E. the Radio Historian #2194: Re Betty's Radio vs. the E.H. Scott set, the obvious issue is the type of cabinet. According to Ric, Betty is pretty definitive about the cabinet being the sort used in the Zenith Stratosphere. The Scott does not have the recessed speaker. Photos of the Zenith radio show it to be very large, and the "alcove" for the speaker is easily large enough that a person could lie back with his/her head inside it. Indeed some of the ad photos show various sculptures or vases placed there. Another distinctive feature of the Scott set vs. the Zenith is that the Scott radio has TWO tuning-eye tubes. I don't think I have ever seen another radio which uses two of these. Betty would be able to recall that for sure, I would think. LTM (who keeps her head at all times) and 73 Mike E. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 13:14:50 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Why speed up into a headwind ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Oscar Boswell Alan Caldwell asks why a pilot would mess with his airspeed when faced with a headwind. As a practical matter, that is a very good question, but let's take an extreme circumstance to understand why "the most efficient speed into a headwind is higher than the most efficient speed in still air." Assume a plane in cruise with sufficient fuel to fly one hour at 150 mph, or 40 minutes at 200 mph. In still air, the fuel will carry the plane 150 miles over the ground at 150 mph, but only 100 miles at 200 mph. Assume a headwind of 100 mph is encountered. At 150 mph the plane will cover 50 miles over the ground on its remaining one hour of fuel. If, on the other hand, the pilot increases airspeed to the normally less-efficient 200 mph,. the ground speed will increase from 50 to 100, and the plane will cover 66.66 miles in 40 minutes. So the higher speed becomes the best choice - even though the plane is flying less efficiently in relation to the AIR, it is flying more efficiently in relation to the GROUND. In more realistic scenarios, the technique has problems, the most important of which is that the technique is almost impossible to perform properly in flight, at least without GPS (or other instantaneous information on winds and performance) and interconnected fuel and flight performance computers managing the airplane. It also doesn't matter that much, since the change in efficiency is not great and is not worth the bother. I think that was the point Kelly Johnson was trying to make when he labled his maximum range flight plan in Report 487 as being good for conditions ranging from a tailwind of 20 mph to a headwind of 20 mph - ie, "don't worry about it, it's not a big deal in the real world" - perhaps that also explains the impossible-to-use chart (he didn't expect anyone to use it). Oscar ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 10:50:27 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Kelly Johnson's Headwind Chart MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook Imagine that you are flying at your best long range airspeed and operating the aircraft at its maximum L/D angle of attack that at this particular weight equals an airspeed of 100 K. But, you are flying into a 100 K head wind. Your ground speed is ZERO and your range is ZERO. So you increase the airspeed to, say 125 K. Now you are not operating the aircraft at its most efficient airspeed but at least you are moving forward at 25 K and have some range but not nearly what it would be without the wind. The airspeed for maximum range can be determined from a graph of the power required curve (fuel flow rate) over airspeed for a particular aircraft weight. You draw a line from the origin until it is tangent to the curve. That point is the airspeed for maximum range. To determine the best airspeed for the existing wind condition you draw the line from a point shifted along the airspeed axis by the amount of the wind factor. The line will be tangent to the power required curve at a higher airspeed for a headwind and at a lower airspeed for a tailwind condition. I learned a rule of thumb to change the airspeed by one quarter of the wind component to approximate this correction. " To appreciate the changes in optimum speeds with various winds, refer to the illustration of figure 2.26. When zero wind conditions exist, a straight line from the origin tangent to the curve of fuel flow versus velocity will locate maximum range conditions. When a headwind condition exists, the speed for maximum ground range is located by a line tangent drawn from a velocity offset equal to the headwind velocity. This will locate maximum range at some higher velocity and fuel flow. Of course, the range will be less than at zero wind conditions but the higher velocity and fuel flow will minimize the range loss due to the headwind. In a similar sense, a tailwind will reduce cruise velocity to maximize the benefit of the tailwind." Page 170, Aerodynamics For Naval Aviators, NAVWEPS 00-80T-80, 1965. An airspeed increase to compensate for a headwind only makes sense if you were already operating at the maximum long range speed. If you were flying at a higher speed it might make sense to slow down to achieve the maximum range airspeed given the wind velocity. In the first example if the airplane were being flown at 150 K, not at the optimum range speed, it would make sense to slow down to the 125 K maximum range speed based on the wind, and using the rule of thumb to approximate that number for this illustration. Gary LaPook ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 10:51:27 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Why speed up into a headwind ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Ron Chambless Or maybe a simpler way of explaining it.....The less time you spend in a headwind, the better, the less time you are fighting it. Just like if you are with a tailwind, the more time you are in it, the more benefit there is to gain. Now there is a limit to this. You wont go to full power, with full mixture, and watch your fuel flow double, just to get a few extra more knots, compared to a high speed cruise. Ron Chambless ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 10:52:24 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Tom King Actually, we'd like to do more work with cemetery records in Suva. Kris Tague made a start on it in '99, but only a start. While the Fiji School of Medicine Anatomy Department personnel didn't think it likely that a collection of bones entrusted to Dr. Hoodless would have wound up in a cemetery, that IS where some of their cadavers end up after they're through with them, so it's possible. This is an area that needs more research. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:01:20 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Relative bearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Angus Murray Ric, Is it fair to say that if Noonan had gone considerably off course in the later part of the flight and before his sight for the 157/337 LOP, that he would have inevitably been alerted to the error by the sun's relative bearing? In other words, although the sight could only give a line of position it could also show if the aircraft was flying the expected heading, allowing for drift. This seems to make one think that either they were little off course on their arrival at Howland or that they had gone off course over a very large distance such that their heading was not noticeably different from what might be expected? Of course their compasses should have shown the heading but one has to take account of gyro drift and the fact that the gyros could have been reset from a malfunctioning compass. Incidentally I seem to remember that you said that Amelia was given magnetic headings. With a Gyro compass why was she not given true headings to fly? Regards Angus. ************************************************************************** From Ric True, you can set a gyro compass to any heading, but you need to correct it for precession every 15 minutes or so and you can only do that by referencing a magnetic compass. In theory you could add or subtract the appropriate variation and deviation every time and so fly a "true" heading, but in practice it is never done. If the flight "drifted far off course" it almost certainly was not because Earhart was flying the wrong heading but, rather, because unrecognized crosswinds blew them off course. In that event, the sun would come up at the same relative bearing as if they were dead on course. Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:02:41 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Again with the coconuts! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Ross Devitt > From DeniseNote for Wombat: > > Since I assume you live in Far North Queensland, I guess you've been > following the story about that guy lost in the Daintree Forest? The one > who's just been found, barely alive, after 33 days? (He would have been in > far better health, only he'd been bitten by a highly toxic snake!) Note, if > you will, from the weekend's newspaper accounts, that the only thing he > said he found to eat were coconuts ... AND HE COULDN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO > OPEN THEM!!!! Does that change your thesis somewhat? No, it doesn't. Considering I was the one who originally brought up the coconut discussion by suggesting that the castaway(s) must have been of European origin because a Polynesian (as suggested by the doctor that examined the bones) probably would not have died of thirst with coconuts in the area. I suggested that a European probably would not have known how to open them, therefore the bones were probably NOT those of a Polynesian male! The experiments in trying to open them, and discovering just how easy they are to open were just me trying to shoot down my own theory - which I managed to do by discovering that without tools and in a weakened condition you can open the things in around 15 minutes. Having spent time inthe daintree on many occasions I find it interesting that with all the food available there he had trouble finding any. I'll see if I can have a chat with him when he's back home (he lives here). Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:05:21 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From EL > >From Marty Moleski > > > ... There has been a lot of discussion about a "dawn sight" on this > > forum but there is really no basis to give it much importance as Noonan > would > > have prefered to take sights after dawn when the sun was at a higher > altitude > > allowing for more accurate measurements. > > For me, the solid basis for thinking about the dawn sight is that > Amelia's garbled transmission included numbers that seem to > correspond to the LOP that would have been derived from the dawn > sight (or from flight preparation the day before, using lookup > tables): 157/337. What she and Fred were doing with this course > is uncertain; but I have no one questions the numbers (so far). > > Marty #2359 > ********************************************************************* > >From Ric > > If I understand Gary correctly, the 157/337 LOP could be obtained from an > observation of the sun anytime from sunrise until an hour and eight minutes > later. > Correct but incomplete. This is why I explained LOPs in terms of what it means, geometrically, so that people could answer questions like this relatively independently. An LOP can be taken *at any time* that the celestial body is visible, but the reciprocal values (157 and 337) for it may change as the Earth rotates and tilts on the interval [-23.5deg, 23.5deg]. In the next previous reply, a good point was made about the bubble sextant in that Noonan needed only a clear line of sight to the celestial body, and nothing else. That should be pretty easy to get at any time unless the weather is particularly foul (he was observing the sky from a *moving* airplane - which should have afforded many momentary breaks in any clouds that appeared). It is a relatively simple (and provable) property of trigonometry that an 'exact' fix (with an error of +-15 miles) of both longitude and latitude can be obtained by shooting two or more celestial bodies, provided both are visible at about the same time and the plane doesn't move too far in that time interval. An experienced navigator can time and measure both angles in less than 3 minutes. I've done it in two. For FN, this was probably feasible before sunrise, but we'll never know for certain. This is the same principle by which GPS works, LOPs taken from celestial bodies (satellites) but with radio waves instead of lines of sight. The GPS receiver measures the time delay in the signal, calculates the expected delay if the transmitter is directly overhead, from that it calculates an angle (longitude) of separation, then plugs these values into a tensor. The tensor is then 'diagonalized' to solve for an exact latitude and longitude. After sunrise, Noonan (or anyone depending on line of sight) would have had only one celestial body to shoot, and would thus have to DR from his 'exact' nighttime fix to his new LOP 157-337, enlarging his error somewhat. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:06:17 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting th sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Andew McKenna << If I understand Gary correctly, the 157/337 LOP could be obtained from an observation of the sun anytime from sunrise until an hour and eight minutes later. >> or simply pre-computed, yes? Andrew McKenna ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:08:06 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Small Point MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Denise Note to Lawrence: Gizo is a province, not a town. LTM (who has no idea how she obtains these obscure little facts) Denise ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:11:49 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Back issue! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Denise Reading past issues very late, I came across the letter from Eric, with the reply from Ric "What sort of unauthorized persons would these be? Pacific islanders? From where? Using what mode of transportation? Europeans? Same questions." I would hereby like to volunteer my suspicions about that grumpy colonial administrator from Hull. You know the one? The fellow who told Lambrecht that he'd never heard of A.E.? How likely is that? I mean, all the colonial officers in the area, particularly those within spare-petrol range of Howland would have been put on look-out - even on high alert - so, unless this chap had a broken radio, he's lying through his teeth. And that is very fishy!!!! LTM (who wonders what this was really about) Denise **************************************************************************** From Ric What colonial officers in the area? Spare petrol? What are you talking about? As a matter of fact, John William Jones, the Burns Philp overseer at Hull, had been without a working radio since early June. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:18:04 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Correction on June Knox-Mawer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Denise Herman De Wulf says: "June Knox-Mawer ...was intrigued by Amelia Earhart having had childhood roots in the Pacific. When she grew up she moved to Britain and worked for the BBC as a journalist until around 1990 when she retired." Not so, Mr De Wulf. June came to Fiji with her husband as an adult, when he was shipped out to be Fiji's Chief Justice. She already worked as a BBC journalist and continued to do so in the Pacific, travelling around the entire region, gathering material for her various general interest radio programs she shipped home to Britain for broadcast. We knew her well. She was very slick and chic and my outstanding memory of her is that no one could wear a scarf as well as she could. LTM (who liked June very much) Denise P.S. While on the subject: I know June's British, but since she was a great traveller into "the middle of nowhere" places, she is one of the few women who can be considered as a candidate for "the American woman seen on Nikumaroro". Although it is most likely this mysterious woman was a visiting missionary, it's also possible it was June. The other candidates are "the coconut lady" (that American woman doing her PhD thesis on floatation patterns), and Dame Mary Edgwell-Burke, the Canadian artist who - for over sixty years - always escaped Canadian winters by touring around the Pacific, painting. ************************************************************************** From Ric Your characterization of "the American woman seen on Nikumaroro" makes it sound much more mysterious than it is. Laxton, who spent about three months on the island in early 1949, makes a passing reference to an American woman who visited the island at some point and stayed in the government Rest House. It's not at all clear when this occured but it seems like it had to be sometime after the war but not later than 1949. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:18:54 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: And furthermore ... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Denise Another note to Lawrence: what you all "this plywood craft" was actually made of mahogany. LTM (who read this in the paper) Denise ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:25:55 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Convincing evidence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Mike Haddock Hi Ric, I wasn't a member then, but why did we abandon the "White Bird" search? Not enough leads to pursue? Just curious. LTM Mike Haddock #2438 *************************************************************************** From Ric We didn't abandon the White Bird search but we reached a point where further field work was more expensive than we could justify. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:28:27 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From PBS I think John Pratt's idea is a good one. Any medical official who does pathologic evaluations develops a storage/disposal problem for the human remains. There is usually a policy based on local custom to handle the material. It should be possible to find out what the usual policy was. It may have been to bury such remains in specific plots. Some one would also need to be paid to dispose of the material, and the local authorities [magistrate and/or clergy] would need to assign a long term burial location. There would be discoverable documentation about the policies and procedures, although maybe not about which bones got buried when, or exactly where. PBS ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 11:32:03 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Relative bearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Carol Dow Ric and Angus, On the relative bearing situation I am very curious about how Elgen Long decided Earhart was as much as 100 miles (or maybe more) north of Howland Island at the time of the disappearance (The History Channel and "X" marks the spot). Also, the first destination the Itasca took on the Earhart search was to the North and West of Howland Island (confirmation). If we took the maps (I haven't done this yet) and drew straight lines indicating the path of flight of the Electra, I have a suspicion the path would track to the North of Howland Island. Would you all care to comment on the foregoing? I'm not so sure straight lines would be an answer, but, then again, as Earhart called in, the only times during the flight they mentioned changing course and direction was the route up and down the LOP, and the circular search that followed. There would of course have to be changes in headings for magnetic variation and possibly dodging a few thunderstorms, but whatever moving around they did would take them back to the original line of flight. Would I be safe in making the above assumptions? Carol Dow *************************************************************************** From Ric No. Carol, put down the map before you hurt yourself. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 12:39:56 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Now available on the TIGHAR website at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/06_05_02Bulletin/Itascalog.ht ml is a reseach bulletin entitled "The Radio Logs of the USCGC ITASCA". This is the most ambitious and complex bulletin we've ever mounted. We've taken the ship's two radio logs for the morning of July 2, 1937 and translated them into plain English with each entry color-coded to denote whether it's a message sent by ITASCA in code or voice, or a message received from Earhart, etc. In this way, for the first time, the events of that morning can be followed as an intelligible narrative by the general public. We've also provided downloadable PDFs of the original logs; a glossary of radio shorthand (so that you can check our work); copies of all the preflight radio traffic between the Coast Guard and Earhart setting up the communications protocols for the flight; accurate plans of the physical set up of the radio room aboard ITASCA; a narrative description of the personnel and situation aboard the ship that morning; and an analysis of the all-important final message. Much of the information was drawn from Randy Jacobson's outstanding compilation of all the Earhart-related government radio traffic from the National Archives (available on CD at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/CDad.html). We're also indebted to Bob Brandenburg for the blueprints of the ITASCA. And I would especially like to publicly recognize TIGHAR's webmaster, Pat Thrasher, who spent weeks organizing and coding the monster to turn it into a a useful tool for research and education. Enjoy. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 12:44:50 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Betty's Radio MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mike E. the Radio Historian wrote: Re Betty's Radio vs. the E.H. Scott set, the obvious issue is the type of cabinet . . . Another distinctive feature of the Scott set vs. the Zenith is that the Scott radio has TWO tuning-eye tubes . . . Betty would be able to recall that for sure, I would think. Eric responds: Scott radios were sold as a chassis, amplifier unit and 1 or more speakers. Many different cabinets were offered to accommodate these components, including special custom installations on board yachts, inside book cases and cupboards, and even inside airplanes. (A custom-built Scott radio was installed in FDR's plane SACRED COW, which I understand is on display in the U.S. Air Force Museum at Dayton, Ohio.) More over, since Scott and Zenith both had their factories in Chicago, Scott artisans would have been aware of Zenith's cabinets and could easily have "borrowed" design features from them. (The Philharmonic's big black round dial was clearly patterned after 1000Z Stratosphere's dial.) As for the two tuning eye tubes, it has now been established that Betty tuned the radio while laying on her back and without looking at the dial, so it is quite possible that this feature didn't make much of an impression on her, just as the specific model radio apparently didn't make enough of an impression on her to remember clearly what it was. In any case, I believe that the story of Betty and her notebook is highly probable. She was obviously listening on a set of a much higher quality than the average stock model radio. The fact that it was a large console set with a big black round dial and an alcove for the speaker and her recollection that it was Zenith tends to indicate that it was a 1000Z Stratosphere. My suggesting the possibility that it MIGHT have been a 1937 Scott Philharmonic was based on the following: (a) the Scott also had a big black round dial and undoubtedly had the sensitivity to pick up AE on a harmonic, (b) the Scott was much more affordable than a Stratosphere (c) more Scott Philharmonics were produced than Stratospheres. Surprisingly, most of the Scott Company records still survive, including information on where and to whom various sets were shipped. It is quite possible that the Zenith archives also contain such information on the 350 or so 1000Z's that were sold. (I'm checking this out and will pass along what I find out.) Stay tuned! Eric, NAS North Island, San Diego, CA. ************************************************************************** From Ric Appropos to nothing, I think you'll find that Sacred Cow was Truman's mount. FDR hated to fly. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 12:46:31 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Tom King PBS says: Any medical official who does pathologic evaluations develops a storage/disposal problem for the human remains. No doubt that's true, but whether Hoodless did that kind of thing enough to develop such a problem is something we don't know. We also don't know whether he would have handled these particular remains -- given him by the High Commissioner's office for safekeeping -- the same way he would have treated other remains. But in any event, the best we've been able to come up with as a standard operating procedure is the practice of the Fiji School of Medicine (successor to the Central Medical School) of disposing of surplus cadavers through burial in local cemeteries, sometimes but apparently not always after cremation. Hence it WOULD be useful to check more deeply than we have into cemetery records. I have to say, though, that if the bones were disposed of in any sort of standard, orderly way, I'd expect it to be documented in the files we've already looked at surrounding the bones discovery -- unless, of course, it happened long enough after that file was compiled that it had been retired, in which case there might be a record somewhere else. There's definitely a need for more documentary research into all this; all we need is the wherewithal to do it. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 12:48:02 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: And furthermore ... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Dan Postellon "Mahogany", when used to describe boat construction, generally refers to any wood. Daniel Postellon TIGHAR#2263 **************************************** From Ric I didn't know that. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 10:34:33 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From JHam (2128) Re: "After sunrise, Noonan (or anyone depending on line of sight) would have had only one celestial body to shoot, and would thus have to DR from his'exact' nighttime fix to his new LOP 157-337, enlarging his error somewhat." Early PAA navigators shot three celestial bodies, when available, in the daytime - sun, moon, Venus. blue skies, jerry ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 10:37:27 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Sacred Cow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Herman De Wulf Ric wrote : Appropos to nothing, I think you'll find that Sacred Cow was Truman's mount. FDR hated to fly. In fact both presidents used the "Sacred Cow". I don't know whether FDR hated flying but there is at least one picture in which he seems to enjoy it. It was taken on 30 January when on his way back from the Casablanca summit. In January 1943 FDR flew in one of Pan Am's Boeing 314 flying boats to Casablanca and meet British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss the further conduct of WW II. On the way back he celebrated his anniversary in the air and the picture was taken showing FDR enjoying the flight and toasting with his aides. According to the USAF Museum website, FDR was the first US president to fly when in office. Concerned by the fact that a US president had to rely on commercial airliners the US Army Air Force ordered the conversion of a military aircraft to accommodate the special needs of its Commander in Chief. Encountering difficulties with converting a C-87A transport (a transport version of the B-24 bomber also used by Winston Churchill after the Casablanca summit) the USAAF asked Douglas to build a special transport for presidential use. Derived from the C-54 (the military version of the DC-4) this aircraft became the one and only VC-54C. Nicknamed "Sacred Cow" the aircraft took FDR to the USSR for the Yalta conference in February 1945. Among the differences from a standard C-54 "Sacred Cow" featured an elevator behind the passenger cabin to lift the president in his wheelchair in and out of the aircraft, a conference room and a bullet proof picture window. President Roosevelt used "Sacred Cow" only once. He died in April 1945. The aircraft remained in presidential service during the first 27 months of the Truman Administration. Therefore Ric is right when he says "Sacred Cow" was his mount. But it was FDR's too. By the way, on 26 July 1947 President Truman signed the National Security Act while on board "Sacred Cow", establishing the Air Force as an independent service. Hence "Sacred Cow" is considered the "birthplace" of the USAF. As later presidents used newer aircraft "Sacred Cow" was assigned to other duties and was eventually retired in 1961. In 1985 it was restored to the 1945 configuration as it was when it flew FDR to Yalta. The restoration took 10 years. Today the "Sacred Cow" is on display at the USAF Museum at Dayton, Ohio. LTM (who loves historical aircraft) **************************************************************************** From Eric From Eric: Here is the link to the USAF Museum web page telling about SACRED COW and who flew on it. https://www.asc.wpafb.af.mil/museum/annex/an27.htm Eric, NAS North Island, San Diego, CA. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 10:42:21 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Relative bearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Angus Murray Carol, Since I haven't read the book or "seen the film" I can't comment very usefully on how Elgen Long reached this conclusion. He may have merely concluded she flew north from the point at which she intercepted the 157/337 line, which could be anywhere. What do you mean by the "time of her disappearance" - when she was last heard from or where she came to earth/sea? Since we have no idea of her flight path on the 157/337 line, we can't say where she intercepted that line on her flight from the area south of Nauru. The only clues we have are the radio signal strengths which are subjective and the probable time of interception. One message recorded at S4 may have been recorded as an S5 by another operator, or at a different time by the same operator as an S3 due to variation in propagation conditions. Where did AE mention a course or direction change whilst running on the 157/337 line? What circular search? "We are circling was reinterpreted from "we are drifting" but "we are listening" both fits the context and sounds very similar to "we are drifting" and is much more likely the real meaning. I don't believe there was a circular search. Changing magnetic variation would have been incorporated in each course change and there would not have likely been course changes specifically on this account. Having inadvertently or deliberately left the preplanned course, there is nothing to suggest that they would have tried to rejoin their original course. Noonan would have much more likely merely plotted a new shortest course to their objective. So I don't think you are safe in your assumptions. Regards Angus ************************************************************************ From Ric As has been discussed many times, our contention is that the transmission that was recorded as "We are drifting but cannot hear you." and later changed to "We are circling but cannot hear you." was in reality probably "We are listening but cannot hear you." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 10:45:05 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Ring MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Peter Hi Ric This is probably your first question from Zambia!! Question. Re bones etc did Amelia wear anything like a wedding ring that would make it easily identifiable that you know of? Yours Peter **************************************************************************** From Ric Indeed, it is our first question from Zambia. No, Earhart did not wear any jewelry. Only a wristwatch. Likwise with Noonan. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 10:50:18 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From PBS Tom King says: "standard operating procedure is... disposing of surplus cadavers through burial in local cemeteries... Hence it WOULD be useful to check... into cemetery records. I have to say, though, I'd expect it to be documented in the files.... If there is no paper trail, it seems very unlikely Hoodless sent them anywhere. Its also very unlikely Hoodless or anyone else made a practice of tossing human parts in the trash [see the case ruling in: Commonwealth of Transylvania v. Frankenstein and Associates]. So the cemetery burial area seems a pretty good bet. However, I think I may disagree about "expecting it to be documented in the files." Documentation is important for ongoing cases of interest. However, when a case is finished, the goal is usually just to dispose respectfully of the human remains. I therefore wouldn't be surprised if there are scant records documenting exactly what was disposed of, or exactly which spot it was buried in. PBS *************************************************************************** From Ric The case was never officially finished or closed. Once they decided that it wasn't Amelia Earhart the identity of the castaway became less important and the file leaves the impression that other events during the autumn of 1941 pushed the matter into the background. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:01:57 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting th sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alik > >From Andew McKenna > > << If I understand Gary correctly, the 157/337 LOP could be obtained from an > observation of the sun anytime from sunrise until an hour and eight minutes > later. >> > > or simply pre-computed, yes? Either I've missed a finer point in your question, or you may not be clear on what exactly an LOP means. An LOP is an ordered set of longitude-latitude pairs one of which is your coordinate position *at the time and place that you made the observation*. Your location on Earth, that is, the pair that reflects your exact position, will be certain within an error of about +-15 miles from *any one* of the coordinate positions on that line (you don't know which), assuming you have done a decent job of making the angular measurement. For a 'sun line' (defined as an LOP taken from the sun) this means, as a practical matter, that you have a 30 mile wide corridor running generally north and south within which you can be fairly certain you are located. Again, this LOP is meaningful only for the *place and time* at which the angular measurement was made (the 'sun shot'). But because a "sun line" tends to run generally north and south, with a small deviation from any one meridian, you can be fairly sure of your longitude, but your latitude is more variable. I will leave that proof as an exercise for the reader :-) Assume a seasonal tilt on the interval [-23.5deg, 23.5deg]. In the case of FN, if he was able to shoot the Moon (only speaking hypothetically here) then he could have obtained two LOPs, one based on the Sun and one on the Moon. The two 'corridors' produced along these LOPs would intersect at some point. In such a case, FN would know that his position is somewhere within a box 30 miles square. It should be pointed out that in all likelihood, he did not obtain a Moon shot. It is an open question as to whether he could have done this (using two or more stars) the night previous. Even if he had, DR error would have taken over after that. I'll leave it to the reader to assess what that means. To reiterate from my previous post, an LOP is calculated by measuring the angle between the horizon and a celestial body at a specific time, and a specific, presumptively knowable, place on Earth. Translation: the time and place at which you measure the angle are co-dependent and cannot be disentangled. It is an on-site calculation and cannot be pre-computed. It is not possible to 'pre-compute' that, if I understand what you're saying right. For those interesteed in fully understanding the meaning of LOPs (and therefore enabling yourself to answer almost all these questions about FNs navigation enroute to Howland), here's something you can do that will make it's meaning immediately clear. It is truly surprising how such a seemingly complex notion is in fact so elegantly simple, if you just draw it... Get a piece of paper, Draw a circle in the middle. This is the Earth. Now draw a stick man (FN) directly on top of it. Next, higher and to the right draw another circle. This is the Sun. Starting where FNs feet touch the top of the Earth, draw a straight line out to the Sun. This is called the hypotenuse. Next, draw a vertical line down from the Sun. This is called the Opposite side (or 'rise'). Finally, draw a horizontal line from FNs feet to the Opposite side. This is called the Adjacent side (the 'run'). This is a right triangle. Now, it may help to also draw a dotted line running up through FNs feet, through his head and vertically up. The angle between the hypotenuse and the adjacent is called "theta", and it is measured by FN with a bubble octant. The angle between the dotted line and the hypotenuse is called omicron. You may already see what's going on here. Please notice that the sum of meridians of longitude on Earth is 360, the same number of degrees in a circle. Now, draw a line from the center of the Earth to FNs feet (on the same track as the dotted line). Next, draw a straight line from the center of the Earth out to the Sun. Voila, the angle (call it "rho") that separates those last two lines is equal to omicron, but that angle is just the longitudinal, and angular, difference between FN and the point on the Earth where the Sun appears to be directly overhead. For a little rigor, let's point out that omicron does not *exactly* equal rho, but if the difference in the Earths radius and it's distance to the Sun is sufficiently large, then omicron nicely approximates rho. The rest of the puzzle, especially at what longitude the Sun is 'directly' overhead at a given time is obtained from a nautical almanac. Alik ************************************************************************* From Ric Congratulations. You've just managed to re-open a can of worms that we've examined and re-canned about a hundred times. Take a look at the TIGHAR webiste FAQ at http://www.tighar.org/forum/navigation.html and if you have any disagreements with it we can fight them out here with the help of our other celestial navigators. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:06:28 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Kelly Johnson's Headwind Chart MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alan Caldwell Gary, that's interesting but the example is not realistic. In real life conditions the significance is of little practical value. We don't fly at 100mph into 100mph winds. The theory is correct but not of much value. The Electra was supposedly flying at 130K tas but we don't know at what altitude or OAT. Nor do we know what the winds were at any given point in the flight. Nor did they and if they even HAD the Kelly Johnson graph it would have been unusable as a practical matter. We're off on another nonsense trail. To use any figures at all is mere speculation and of no consequence, unless we're just having fun with numbers. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:06:34 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Relative bearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alik So, Carol, why do you think the plane would veer northerly? Alik ************************************************************* From Ric Look guys, there is absolutely no point in picking on Carol. Let's move on. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:08:15 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alan Tom were any of his cadavers cremated? Alan #2329 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:09:30 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting th sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alan Caldwell > << If I understand Gary correctly, the 157/337 LOP could be obtained from an > observation of the sun anytime from sunrise until an hour and eight minutes > later. >> > > or simply pre-computed, yes? > > Andrew McKenna > From Alan Not necessarily, Andrew (as to the hour and eight minutes) I would depend on where the airplane was and at what particular times. As to YOUR question the answer is yes. It could also have come from a moon shot. Alan #2329 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:25:57 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Relative bearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alik > If the flight "drifted far off course" it almost certainly was not because > Earhart was flying the wrong heading but, rather, because unrecognized > crosswinds blew them off course. In that event, the sun would come up at the > same relative bearing as if they were dead on course. > > Ric > All this is true, but we should remember that if *at any time* during the flight an 'exact' fix was possible (see my previous posts; e.g. if at least two LOPs could be obtained at any 'one' point in the flight) then two things would be evident: 1.) the unexpected drift that had occured previously would immediately become 'recognized', regardless of the relative bearing of the rising sun. 2.) Any drift afterward would be due only to DR error from the last 'exact' fix. That error is a function of the distance traveled between the last 'exact' fix, the last "sun-line" obtained, and Howland island; among other factors. Doing one's best to obtain the maximum number of 'simultaneous' LOPs is a mathematical no-brainer for any competent navigator. An evidentiary basis for significant drift north or south then, is required if we are to posit a significant course change from the planned route. Foul weather over most or all of the route is a candidate, if there is evidence for it. But this weather would have to be *very* foul, considering the fact that there were not just a few, but numerous celestial bodies FN could have shot that night, in all parts of the sky, if visible (see the Nautical Almanac and the Cambridge Atlas of Astronomy). The only other affections possibly attributed to significant course drift would be navigator incapacitation. I am not aware of any such evidence. It should be noted, however, that this does not speak to the actions of the pilot upon intercepting the last DR advanced LOP 157-337. Alik *************************************************************************** From Ric There is no evidence of foul weather nor is there evidence of navigator incapacitation. There is an anecdotal indication that the airplane may have passed over the island of Tabituea in the Gilberts during the night which would have put it preetty much on course for Howland. The only known limitation on Noonan's ability to take celestial observations during the post-sunrise run in toward Howland was the need to descend below the scattered cloud deck so as to be able to look for the island. Recommended Lockheed procedures for such a descent suggest that it was probably initiated 150 to 100 miles out. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:28:13 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook > or simply pre-computed, yes? Sure, pre computed for any time in that interval. I expect that Noonan did his homework the night before leaving Lae and calculated curves of the sun's altitude and azimuth using Howland as the assumed position and graphed the results for immediate access in flight, that was a normal procedure. Then his observations would be plotted using the pre computed azimuths. If he took an observation after 1854 Zulu he would would have plotted it using 156-336. 1926 to 1949 Zulu it would have been 155-335; 1950-2005 then 154-334; 2006-2021 then 153-333 etc. Based on this it makes sense that AE's report on the LOP was based on a sight or sights taken anytime prior to 1854 Zulu. gl ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:38:34 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: And furthermore ... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Bill Leary > Another note to Lawrence: what you all "this plywood craft" > was actually made of mahogany. Is this still about PT boats? To be more specific, quoting National Maritime Initiative site entry for PT 796: "Like all American PT boats, 796 (nicknamed "Tailender") was constructed of mahogany and plywood..." http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/butowsky1/pt796.htm I've seen 796 several times close up. A great deal of it is definitely plywood. You aren't allowed on or in the boat any more, but back when I was much younger my school class had a field trip, and we did get to go inside. As I recall, the ribs and some other bits which were exposed wereclearly NOT plywood. An interesting bit about the above site is they discuss the condition the various boats and ships they keep track of using the term "integrity" in a manner similar to what I read relative to Historical Preservation on the TIGHAR site. - Bill **************************************************************************** From Ric Historic preservation of marine vessels is way ahead of aviation. In 1990 the National Park Service published "The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Historic Vessel Preservation Projects". It's an excellent guide. No such guidelines have been published for historic aircraft preservation projects because, frankly, no one in the historic aviation community wants to hear that thy're doing it wrong. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:40:07 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook Of course, pre computed. The azimuths are not measured at the time of observation but are computed by the navigator using tables or a slide rule or, in the modern era, digital calculators. The rest is for those who are curious as to how this is done. Everyone else stop reading here. You can do the calculation yourself. The formula for altitude is: sin Computed altitude = sin Latitude x sin Declination + cos latitude x cos declination x cos t. ("t" is the difference between Greenwich Hour Angle and longitude) This formula is normally written Sin Hc = sin Lat sin Dec + cos Lat cos Dec cos t. The formula for the azimuth angle is : sin Az =sin t cos Dec /cos Hc. Let's work an example for 18:46 Zulu on July 2, 1937. You can get the sun's data for July 2, 1937 at: http://www.geocities.com/fredienoonan/almanac-1937-22.JPG Howland is located at 0 degrees 48 minutes north latitude and 176 degrees 38 minutes west longitude. At 18:00 GCT (Zulu) the declination of the sun was 23 degrees 2.3 minutes north and its Greenwich Hour Angle (GHA) was 89 degrees 2.5 minutes. (this is equivalent to its longitude.) The sun moves westward at a rate of 15 degrees per hour so at 46 minutes after 18:00 the sun had moved 11 degrees and 30 minutes further making its GHA 100 degrees 32.5 minutes. Subtracting the GHA from the longitude of Howland to find angle "t"--176 - 38 minus 100 - 32.5 leaving 76 degrees 35.5 min. Using decimal degrees it is 76.5916 in,. the sun's declination is 23.03833, and Howland's latitude is .8 degrees north. You get an altitude, Hc of 12.6408 degrees (12 -38 minutes) and an azimuth of 66.54 degrees which rounds to 67. Noonan didn't have a calculator so he used Hydrographic Office Publication number 208 (H.O. 208) to do his calculations. Since he couldn't interpolate for the exact "minutes" of latitude and angle "t" his calculations would have shown an azimuth at 1 degree north (the closest tabulated to Howland's 48 minutes north) of 067 until 1849 Zulu, one hour and 3 minutes after sunrise. Which is different by a few minutes from the previous calculation and would have been the numbers that he would have been using. gl ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:48:27 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook Nicely done but I think you have got the description of the time zones wrong. Itasca was maintaining GMT minus 11.5 hours not plus 11.5. The confusion might have arisen because the "zone description" was "plus 11.5 hours." The zone description is the "number of hours that are added to or subtracted from" the local time to obtain GMT. I think I have noticed this discrepancy in other contexts on the TIGHAR site. "The zones lying in west longitude from the zero zone are numbered in sequence from 1 to 12, and are the plus zones, because, in each of these zones, the zone number must be added to the standard time to obtain Greenwich civil time... "(2) The "zone description" (Z.D.) of the time that is being kept is marked in a conspicuous manner on such of the ship's clocks as may be designated by the commanding officer... "(3) All entries of time in the ship's log books and records are accompanied by the "zone description" of the time being kept.... "(4) In all official correspondence, when time is referred to, the "zone description" is added.... "(5) When a vessel is in a harbor or within the territorial limits of a country where the legal time differs from the standard time zone system, the exact amount in hours, minutes, and seconds which it differs from Greenwich civil time is given with its appropriate sign of plus (+) or minus (-)." ( Bowditch, page 141, 1938 ed.) (Back then G.C.T. was Greenwich Civil Time which is the same as GMT or Zulu, or Universal time.) e.g. you add 11.5 hours to 0616 Itasca time to obtain the GMT of sunrise of 1746. AE took off on July 2nd from Lae at local time 1000 which had zone description of minus 10 hours so the GMT of the take off was 0000 July 2 and the time on Itasca was 1230 July 1st, 11.5 hours behind GMT. Zone descriptions in the western hemisphere are always "plus" and in the eastern are always "minus." gl *************************************************************************** From Ric You're right. We'll fix it. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:52:30 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook > Now available on the TIGHAR website at > > http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/06_05_02Bulletin/Itascalog.ht > > ml > This link doesn't work because it is not all on the same line.. **************************************************************************** From Ric The forum distribution software does not support click-on links. Any url mentioned on the forum has to be manually entered into your browser either by cutting and pasting or by typing it in by hand. Obviously, if it's so long that it runs on to a second line you have to put it all on one line. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:54:49 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Sacred Cow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Mike Haddock For: Eric From: Mike Haddock Eric, have I lost my memory or did Harry Truman eventually use a Constellation as his "Air Force One"? LTM Mike Haddock, #2438 ********************************************************************* From Herman De Wulf If you want to see FDR enjoying flight go to www.flyingclippers.com, then click on "Clippers at War". This story tells what Pan Aerican Airways Clippers performed during the war. The picture of FDR is at the bottom end. LTM (who loves flying) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:00:19 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From PBS Ric says: "The case was never officially finished or closed. Once they decided that it wasn't Amelia Earhart the identity of the castaway became less important and the file leaves the impression that other events during the autumn of 1941 pushed the matter into the background." I think it's a fair guess those 'events' eventually also pushed the bones underground. Unimportant castaway remains would have been disposed of with the local standard procedures for burying human remains. PBS ************************************************************************** From Ric Do you have specific familiarity with wartime Fijian colonial procedures or are you guessing based on your own familiarity with procedures in a completely different context? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:02:35 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Jdubb I think PBS is having a little fun with the forum - "see the case ruling in: Commonwealth of Transylvania v. Frankenstein and Associates" ************************************************************************* From Ric Yes. That was joke. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:07:46 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Kelly Johnson's Headwind Chart MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook But they probably did know what the wind was, they even reported it once over the radio. Noonan could calculate the wind between two fixes at night or by temporally flying three headings and measuring the drift on each heading with his drift meter during the day. This was all standard practice. gl ************************************************************************* From Ric They certainly THOUGHT they knew what the wind was or they wouldn't have been able to say "We must be on you..." at 0742 (1912). It seems equally certain that SOMETHING got screwed up because they sure as hell weren't where they thought they were. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:11:10 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Angus Murray Would the moon and venus have definitely been visible and usable some time between dawn and 19:12 GMT assuming one was above any cloud? Regards Angus. *************************************************************************** From Ric I don't know about Venus but as I recall the moon was in its last quarter and was awkwardly positioned behind them, and by conicidence would have provided the same 157/337 LOP as the sun - so that's not much help. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:41:43 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Tom King Alan asks: Tom were any of his cadavers cremated? We were told that the Anatomy Dept. followed the wishes of the next of kin, where known, so some were cremated and some weren't. We were very interested in whether cremation was the option of choice if there WEREN'T any next of kin, and I THINK the answer to that was "no," but I could never get it entirely straight. I expect that a thorough inspection of the Anatomy Dept's records would give us the answer, but we didn't have time for that during the '99 Fiji Bones Search. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:50:58 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From PBS Ric says: "Do you have specific familiarity with wartime Fijian colonial procedures or are you guessing based on your own familiarity with procedures in a completely different context?" My reference to 'standard procedures' referred to Tom King's comment earlier that "standard operating procedure is... disposing of surplus cadavers through burial in local cemeteries..." My use of that reference may be out of context, however. For what it's worth [usually not too much], I am familiar with the usual US medical and pathology procedures for handling this kind of material, and have some knowledge of how the procedures changed here and in Europe over the past couple centuries. I have NO knowledge of Fiji standards and practices, however. If I sail there on vacation and ask about it, can I deduct the trip on my taxes? [pardon the humor]. PBS ************************************************************************ From Ric If you join TIGHAR and I assign you that research task then, yes, your expenses directly connected with the research should be tax deductible. If you decide to stay on in Fiji for the some sightseeing or scuba diving those expenses would not be deductible. Check with your tax adviser, of course. Oh, and your activites on TIGHAR's behalf must not have "any significant element of personal enjoyment". This is seldom a problem on TIGHAR expeditions. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:55:28 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Buried Bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Tom King PBS says: I think it's a fair guess those 'events' eventually also pushed the bones underground. Unimportant castaway remains would have been disposed of with the local standard procedures for burying human remains. I think it's very likely that the "events" were responsible for whatever happened to the bones, but I don't think it follows that the remains would have been disposed of according to local SOP. Around the time the last entries appear in the bones file, such well-known events as Pearl Harbor and the Japanese invasion of (and British withdrawal from) the Gilberts took place; less well-known is the fact that in Fiji there was the expectation of imminent Japanese invasion, which brought about the mobilization of defense forces, later the stationing of a large New Zealand contingent and awhile later American forces on the island, and the storage of a lot of important stuff in caves. At about the same time, the High Commissioner, Sir Harry Luke, was replaced with a much more warlike Governor/High Commissioner, who let everybody know quite promptly that there was a war going on and that its prosecution was government's highest priority. We don't know (yet) what kinds of shake-ups there were in the WPHC bureaucracy surrounding this replacement, but they may have had much to do with the fact that files like that on the bones discovery end in an unresolved sort of way. Not only were personnel and priorities doubtless shifted around, but the records themselves may well have gotten squirreled away for safekeeping in caves and bombproofs. As for the bones, I'd guess that their disposal would depend on how they were explicitly or implicitly classified, at least in the minds of Hoodless and his colleagues. Were they thought of as (1) the remains of an indigent deceased person, or (2) as archaeological specimens, or (3) as items held in trust for Government, or (4) as something else? Were different things done with each such category? Probably, but we don't know what they were. I'd speculate that items in the (1) class would have been disposed of as PBS suggests, while items in the (2) class would have wound up in caves along with (perhaps) the collections of the Fiji Museum (whose skeletal collections Kar Burns checked, to no avail). Items in class (3), "Being Held For Government," might have wound up in a totally different place. We just don't know, but there are obviously lines of research to be pursued. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 14:33:40 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Relative bearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Angus Murray Would all and sundry agree then that the upshot of all this seems to be that if there was any large deviation from course by the time they reached Howland, it certainly occurred between the last nighttime fix and Howland. Furthermore, it did not occur between that fix and any shot of the sun whether at dawn or later unless the deviation was due only to uncompensated-for drift rather than flying an incorrect heading? Regards Angus ******************************************************************** From Ric It seems certain that certainly is not a word we can use with certainty when we're talking about events about which we have so little certain information. We do know that Fred's usual practice was not to order numerous mid-course corrections to keep the flight tightly on the planned route but, rather, to make a single big correction toward the end of the trip. In this case, the last opportunity he had to get a multiple-star fix from which to calculate the needed end-of-trip correction would probably be well before dawn and, therefore, before he could get a good handle on the wind using his drift meter. He could easily have been "angling" in toward Howland from either side of the straight-shot Great Circle route from Lae when he got his sun-shot 157/337 LOP. If you think this sounds pretty sloppy and prone to error, you're right - but remember that Fred was counting on DF for fine-tuning the approach to Howland. Fred's hands-off style is one of the more interesting things we've learned from studying charts he used on other long overwater flights. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 14:36:59 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Sacred Cow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Herman De Wulf For Mike The Constellation you refer to was a VC-121E and was President Eisenhower's mount. President Truman initially used FDR's VC-54C "Sacred Cow" until a new aircraft became available. This was a VC-118, which served from 4 July 1947 until May 1953. The VC-118 was in fact a customized DC-6 (C-118 to the military). This aircraft was named "Independence" after Harry Truman's hometown in Missouri. President Eisenhower's VC-121 was named "Columbine III". As jet aircraft became available US presidents changed to more modern equipment and in October 1962 President J.F.Kennedy began using a VC-137C (customized Boeing 707), named SAM 2600 (SAM stood for Special Air Mission). The aircraft's had a distinctive look designed by Raymond Loewy on President Kennedy's request. The aircraft was used by later presidents until the advent of the VC-25A (Boeing 747). The VC-137 remained in service however, being used as a stand-by aircraft that followed the President wherever he travelled in the VC-25A. It was even replaced by another VC-137 in 1972 but eventually retired in 1990. US presidents occasionally used smaller mounts on short trips, including a U-4B (twin prop Aero Commander) and a VC-6A (twin turboprop Beechcraft King Air). Since the days of President Kennedy presidential aircraft were referred to as "Air Force One" when the president was on board. This is the call sign used for ATC identification when the President is on board. LTM (who never got a ride in one of these magnificent airplanes) ********************************************************* From Ric We now return to our regularly scheduled Earhart Forum. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 14:39:08 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Kar Burns on TV MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Dave Porter in Detroit Ric, While channel surfing during the news hour one night last week, I ran across an interview of TIGHAR's own Dr. Kar Burns, who seems to be involved in the investigation of Chandra Levy's remains. It was very nice to get a face and voice to match up with the infrequent, but always interesting forum posts from Dr. Burns. LTM, who thinks it's great that pros like Dr's King and Burns, and Mr Glickman of Photek take time off from their real jobs to help TIGHAR. Dave Porter, 2288 (still the only Detroit TIGHAR) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 14:40:23 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Moon LOP MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Angus Murray I gather that the time required to work up a sun sight into an LOP was about 15 minutes. Since a moon sight requires more complex calculation, how long would this take? Since the moon at this time must have been crossing the nodal line at the plane of the ecliptic to give the same LOP as the sun, might this have simplified the calculation, or would one still have to go through all the motions to reach this conclusion and a 157/337 line? Regards Angus ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 14:43:55 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Relative bearing for Angus from Carol Dow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Carol Dow << What do you mean by the "time of her disappearance" - >> Dear Angus, Nice answer to the E-mail. I'll have to admit I lost track of what I meant by "time of her disappearance." Also, the item that really started me on this line was how Earhart and Noonan could have seen the mining lights at Nauru Island from a distance of approximately 200 nautical miles (straight line measurements from Lae to Howland). The only answer has to be Earhart swung the airplane slightly north of course and then came back on a new heading. Then again, I have no experience using GNC maps. WACs and Sectionals is all I have ever known. I have never flown international over open water although I have had several offers one of which was to the North Pole and back. Can you imagine flying Dallas-Addison to the North Pole and back? How thrilling. Those guys in Dallas and their Bonanzas....anything goes. Around the world? Nothing to it. Elgen Long does a good job of keeping me off guard with all his assumptions. Carol Dow ******************************************************************* From Ric Could have seen the mining lights at Nauru? Who ever said they saw the mining lights at Nauru? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 14:45:09 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Relative bearing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Carol Dow Ric, For Alik There was an E-mail to Angus about veering North. Alik, hope you noticed that one. Also, The History Channel placed a big Red "X" approximately 150 miles north and slightly west of Howland Island as the point where Earhart splashed down. I don't know where that came from, but I suspect Elgen Long had something to do with it. Carol Dow ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:29:26 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Betty's Radio MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Tom Byer l would disagree with Eric, Zenith radios were more prevalent than Scott. Scott radios were purchased only by the very well-to-do. One model sold for about $750, a fortune in the 1930's. By contrast, a Zenith might sell new for $100. Scott's advertising slogan was, "...if you can find a better radio, buy it" Tom ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:39:22 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From JHam 2128: I can't get the Itasca PDF files to open. I downloaded the latest Adobe Acrobat and it still didn't work. I'm using a PC with Explorer's latest version. blue skies, jerry *********************************************************************** From Ric I just tried it and it worked fine. I'm running a MAC G3 and using Explorer via AOL and Acrobat Reader 4.0. You may have just gotten a bad download. Anybody else having trouble? Incidentally, we've just changed the introduction section to make it clearer that there are full, page-by-page plain English translations of both logs linked to the Background section. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:41:04 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Suzanne >Any url mentioned on the forum has to be >manually entered into your browser OOPS that's not true. Most email software these days "recognizes" URLS and automatically turns them into an active hyperlink, thus all the URLS I see in the forum are indeed "clickable." As Gary said, since this posted one had a blank space, it did not "work" in his software. Most of the time it works. It depends on your formatting at the other end. Sometimes forum posts have double spacing, sometimes they don't. ************************************************************** From Ric Thanks. I stand corrected. I didn't realize that. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:42:36 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alik I think there is some confusion about what we are talking about here. It may be my confusion. The original question was in response to a prior sentence, which is quoted here: "If I understand Gary correctly, the 157/337 LOP could be obtained from an observation of the sun anytime from sunrise until an hour and eight minutes later." The subject of the sentence is "LOP", so the reader asks, "or simply pre-computed, yes?" referring to pre-computing an LOP, not an "azimuth", or bearing to the Sun. They are not the same thing. Yes, of course you can pre-compute an azimuth, but to "pre-compute" an LOP is non-sensical as an LOP is an ordered set of latitude-longitude pairs of *your* position *at the moment and place* where you measured the angle between the horizon and the celestial body. Obviously, only one of them can be your actual position. But the whole point of an LOP is to narrow down your possible positions to a single line, *at the moment and place* at which the measurement was made. It makes no sense to 'pre-compute' that the night before in Lae, New Guinea. The sextant, or bubble octant, is what calculates the angular separation between the horizon and the celestial body (what you - and most navigators - term "altitude"), and if that could be pre-determined in order to calculate an LOP (in Calculus we say that the function f "depends" on theta) why bring it along on a voyage in the first place? Obviously, the time and place of the measurement are co-dependent. Are we beating the proverbial dead horse now? Preaching to the choir? In like fashion to gl, if you are not interested in the details you can ignore the rest of this: The calculations you outline above are simply the trigonometric properties of an azimuth, taken as a function of the various "errors" that enter into an LOP calculation and the position of the intended destination (and for God's sakes please close your functions' domain with parerenthesis; e.g. sin(x) :-)). In my previous post, "theta" referred to HS, corrected (for dip, IC, etc.) to HA, corrected for "altitude" (read theta, or angular separation of the horizon and the celestial body) HO, and finally HC which corrects for seasonal tilt, in navigator's parlance. Your "altitude" relation is, in my earlier drawing example, the sine of the opposite side of the right triangle. So, yes, I concur that this calculation can be done in advance, I'm just not sure that is what the poster was actually asking about (or if he knew exactly *what* he was asking). Alik ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:43:46 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alik > I don't know about Venus but as I recall the moon was in its last quarter and > was awkwardly positioned behind them, and by conicidence would have provided > the same 157/337 LOP as the sun - so that's not much help. > Yep, yep. Just verified the location of the moon myself. Opposing celestial bodies do not offer a point of intersection... That actually explains a lot (why didn't AE report a DR adjusted 'exact' fix?). Alik ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:45:07 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Moon LOP MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alik I have not personally done a moon-shot, but sun and star shots can be banged out in about 5 minutes, with modern calculators. With pencil and paper, and assuming the fair degree of numeracy that you would think a navigator would possess, it should take no more than 10 minutes to do a single sun-shot, provided any calcs that *can* be done in advance are. The speed of a moon shot is really just a question of numeracy and how fast you can flip the pages of an almanac. It probably would take two or more additional minutes. The angular measurements are about the same in time and complexity. That being said, I have never shot anything in a moving aircraft, but I've 'heard' it isn't that bad with a bubble sextant if the pilot holds the plane steady. As for the LOP with opposed moon and sun, no, there is nothing about the moon that would speed up the sun-based LOP (sun-shot). Alik ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:48:52 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: More Info. for Angus and Ric from Carol Dow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Carol Dow Ric and Angus, The only thing I can do is quote the historians Goldstein and Dillon's book entitled "Amelia" which reads as follows, pgs. 230-231: "Anther bit of information helps place the Electra in this time period. T.H. Gude, director of police on Nauru, had just bought a new 12 valve Atwater Kent Radio set and was following Amelia's flight with great interest. On the evening of July 2, the Gudes were entertaining guests at dinner. Much to his wife's annoyance, Gude kept tuning in to pick up any messages from Amelia. Between 10 and 11 P.M. local time, he heard her calling Harold Barnes, the officer in charge of the Nauru radio station. She called several times and said she could see the lights on Nauru. The lights she referred to were the lights strung out along the 2/1000 foot cableway situated on top of the mountain to permit mining at night. Barnes was not on duty at this time, but Gude believed one of the operators was. The Nauru radio station was not on the air 24 hours a day, but for specific periods only. Gude's receiver was much more suitable to receiving radio broadcasts than was Radio Nauru's telegraph receiver that cut off the higher modulating frequencies and distorted the speech. Gude was quite sure the Electra went down somewhere between Nauru and the Gilberts. Nauru was not on Amelia's strip map, but they knew about the island and it's lights, thanks to Nauru official's initiative." And so the book goes on about a wire they sent to Lae, New Guinea, before the departure. Then this part cuts in: "Gude picked up Amelia's broadcast between 1100/2 and 1200/2 GCT, about an hour after her ship in sight message. We do not know whether, after passing Ontario, Amelia and Fred continued on their direct course to Howland or detoured to the neighborhood of Nauru to check their position." From there the book goes into doubt as to whether they altered their course because of night time visibility of the Nauru lights. The footnote from the book refers to a Letter, T.H. Gude to Frank Holbrook, 15 December 1969, courtesy of Safford; Flight into Yesterday, p. 35. I personally am not in agreement with the distance between the direct line of flight and Nauru Island. I'm getting approximately 200 nautical miles which means they would have had to have detoured to see the lights. Then again, I'm not accustomed to measurements on GNC charts so I can't verify that figure. However, a direct line of flight would have indeed taken Earhart and Noonan almost directly over the island of Tabiteau in the Gilberts. No question about it. That's all I know about it, and I probably made mistakes. So, over to you. Carol Dow *********************************************************************** From Ric Goldstein and Dillon were just rehashing Saffords work and Safford was never able to provide documentation for his claim that Gude heard Earhart. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 11:54:24 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting th sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Alik > Congratulations. You've just managed to re-open a can of worms that we've > examined and re-canned about a hundred times. Take a look at the TIGHAR > webiste FAQ at http://www.tighar.org/forum/navigation.html and if you have > any disagreements with it we can fight them out here with the help of our > other celestial navigators. > Hmmmm. I'm not sure to what "can of worms" you refer. I have read the web page. Can you be more specific? Alik P.S. thanks for the compliment, but I'm a gravitational physicist (Penn State), not a navigator :-) ********************************************************************* From Ric Over the years, explanations and arguments about LOPs and how they relate to the Earhart disappearance have been a constantly recurring theme on this forum. I finally put together a FAQ that, we hoped, would provide a satisfactory and accurate explanation that the lay reader could understand. If it's not right, we need to know that. If it is, I'd rather discuss topics that actually move the investigation forward. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:02:56 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Relative Bearing Grease? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Tom Strang Celestial Navigation Forum: Does anyone have an extra can of relative bearing grease laying around, not being used? The grease would help all this celestial navigation speculation go down easier - word of caution, some of us lay people, our eyes are starting to glaze over on navigation speculation - getting back to dealing with known facts pertaining to the AE/FN flight would keep our interest in this forum and your efforts. Respectfully: Tom Strang ******************************************************************* From Ric Point taken Tom. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:05:57 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Ring MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Ross Devitt Don't almost all pictures of Noonan show what appears to be a metal pen in his pocket? Th' WOMBAT *********************************************************************** From Ric Fred often carried a Parker pen in his shirt pocket. Castaways, unfortunately, often forego the pen - and the shirt. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:14:08 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Radio Log Project - Glossary MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Cam Warren Ric - Hate to be picky, but WGEN is not a "commercial [radio] station in Mariposa, California". As far as I know - as a native Californian - there is NO such town there. If there was, and it had a radio station, it would have a "K" call sign. However, WGEN was the call sign of the S. S. Mariposa, most likely from an eastern U.S. port. Aside from that, kudos to Pat - and whomever - for putting together a nice readable list. Cam Warren ******************************************************************* From Ric You're absolutely right. The 1937 Berne's List shows S.S. Mariposa owned by the Oceanic Steamship Company and having the call sign WGEN. The ship called the Itasca late that morning to ask if Earhart had arrived yet. Itasca replied, "Not yet." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:15:13 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook The only time of the day on July 2, 1937 in the vicinity of Howland that a moon shot would have produced a 157-337 LOP was between 1620 and 1626 Zulu or 0450 and 0456 Itasca time well before the arrival of NR16020 in that vicinity. This makes it very unlikely that AE was refering to a moon LOP. gl ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:17:38 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Moon LOP MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook Not at all. It takes about 1 minute to get the data from the almanac including interpolation for values between the tabulated, hourly values for the moon or the sun. Check it out yourself, go to http://www.geocities.com/fredienoonan/ then go to "resources" and then to the "nautical almanac for 1937." Navigators would schedule their shots to take place on the hour to avoid even this little bit of interpolation. The actual computation of the computed altitude and azimuth takes about 2 minutes using H.O. 208 which was the table used by Noonan. This pre computation could have been done prior to take off and Noonan could have written a table of pre computed altitudes and azimuths or a graph of the same. It was common practice to do the computations at 20 minute intervals and to plot the results on graph paper with straight lines joining the points so that the pre computed altitudes could be determined for intermediate times. Go to http://www.geocities.com/fredienoonan/ and then to "topics" and then to "pre computed altitude curves." So only about 3 minutes of computation total. The computation was done before taking the shot so as to reduce the time from the shot until the LOP was plotted. Noonan only had to compare his sextant reading with the pre computed altitude and plot the LOP. This takes takes less than a minute after completing the shot. In using the landfall procedure it is not even necessary to plot the resultant LOP as it would have been already plotted through Howland extending 157 and 337 from the island. Noonan only had to compare his sextant reading with the pre computed altitude which would tell him instantly if he was on the LOP and, if not, then how far off he was and which way he needed to correct to get on to the LOP It is no more difficult working a moon sight than a sun sight. The only additional step, which takes about 15 seconds, is to look up the correction for "Parallax in Altitude" and to apply it to the pre computed altitude. The moon would have been in a position to produce a 157/337 LOP in the vicinity of Howland only between 1620 and 1626 Zulu or 0450 through 0456 Itasca time well before AE reported it. gl ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:20:00 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting the sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Gary LaPook The "cut" of the LOPs derived at Howland Island on July 2, 1937 for the sun and moon lines varied between 59 degrees at 1830 Z to 125 degrees at 2100 Z and back down to 69 degrees at 2400 Z which would provide acceptable "cuts" for accurate celestial fixes at anytime during that period. These cuts were not all the prefect 90 degrees but all are well above the minimum 15 degree cut stated in "Weems" 1938 edition on page 281. There has previously been a concern stated that the moon was too high in the sky to be measured with the sextant as it was above 75 degrees when they arrived in the vicinity of Howland. However, by 1945 Z its altitude was below 70 degrees and got progressively lower as the day progressed while the altitude of the sun got higher. Both of their altitudes stayed below 70 degrees between 1945 Z and 2400 Z (presumably the tanks dry point); both were below 65 degrees 2015 Z through 2300 Z; below 60 Degrees 2030-2230 Z; and below 55 degrees 2100-2200 Z. The only time of the day on July 2, 1937 in the vicinity of Howland that a moon shot would have produced a 157-337 LOP was between 1620 and 1626 Zulu or 0450 and 0456 Itasca time well before the arrival of NR16020 in that vicinity. This makes it very unlikely that AE was refering to a moon LOP. Gary LaPook ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:22:46 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Detroit TIGHAR MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Jeff Lange For Dave Porter Dave, I'm in Ypsilanti, MI. Only 30 miles from Detroit, so I figure I should count too. I also agree that it is great to have dedicated professionals who give of their time and talent to help us out. Keep up the good work! Jeff Lange ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:30:53 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: Shooting th sun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Marty Moleski > From Ric > Over the years, explanations and arguments about LOPs and how they relate to > the Earhart disappearance have been a constantly recurring theme on this > forum. I finally put together a FAQ that, we hoped, would provide a > satisfactory and accurate explanation that the lay reader could understand. > If it's not right, we need to know that. ... I think I understand Alik's distinction. A "line of position" can be derived from any celestial sighting, not just the sun. The LOPs are blurry (plus or minus some amount, depending on the precision of the instruments and the accuracy of the observations). Three LOPs that cross each other give you a pretty good triangle of probability of where you were when the sightings were taken. Two LOPS that cross each other give you a less accurate estimate of your postion. One LOP gives you a blurry line that you were probably on at the time of the observation. From reading tables, Fred could predict that when he saw the dawn the next day, the azimuth would be more or less 157/337. What he could not predict would be the time at which he would make that observation. Knowing what time it was when he saw the rising sun is the crucial information that would tell him where they were over the face of the earth, and therefore where to draw the LOP on his charts. I argue that (for whatever reason) Fred either did not or could not get a revised fix later in the day, because the last message received reports that he and AE were using 157/337 as their search path. Marty #2359 ***************************************************************** From Ric I think most of us understand those points and thank you for summarizing them without using any Greek words. I agree with your conclusion. I have also learned, in the course of these discussions, that people LOVE to talk about things they know about and have a bit of a tendency to see their area of expertise as the crucial factor in any problem. That's probably understandable, but unfortunately it tends to lead to endless speculation that just burns bandwidth (and patience) without really advancing the investigation. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:31:42 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Bob Brandenburg Jerry's problem may result from the the files been compressed using Stuffit, which accounts for the .sit extension on the file names. The files can be "unstuffed" by using the Aladdin Expander, which is available as freeware from Aladdin Systems at www.aladdinsys.com . LTM, Bob ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:33:06 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Dave in Fremont- The problem is the *.sit format posted on the forum. To open the files with a PC, you need to get and install the StuffIt Expander, then the files will decompress just fine. Same thing happened to me. Just one of those interesting differences between Planet Mac and Planet PC. Dave ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:34:38 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Dave in Fremont- Ooops! I forgot to mention that the download for the StuffIt Expander is a freebie on the web:) Dave *********************************************************************** From Ric Sounds like we should provide a link in the bulletin. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:42:47 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum Sender: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum From: "Richard E. Gillespie" Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From Ron Bright Ric, Will the Bulletin be coming out in regular Tighar Bulletin mail? I can't get it either. Ron Bright *********************************************************** From Ric No, the plain English translations depend upon color-coding that we can't reproduce in TIGHAR Tracks' black and white format. What about the bulletin can you not get? *********************************************************** From Suzanne JHam2128 (Jerry) said: >I can't get the Itasca PDF files to open. I downloaded the >latest Adobe Acrobat and it still didn't work. I'm using a >PC with Explorer's latest version. ------------- Suzanne Astorino replies: Jerry, another way to see the PDF file is to go to the link, and RIGHT click. From the menu that pops up, choose "Save Target As" and the normal "save as" box will open for you to save the file to a directory (folder) on your hard disk. You also might need the free software "Aladdin Stuffit Expander for Windows" to uncompress the file. Maybe your computer does not recognize the ".sit" file extension. You can download that free "lite version" of the software here. It's 4MB. http://www.stuffit.com/expander/ The most current version of Adobe Acrobat Reader is 5.0.5 (8.5 MB) for those who want to upgrade from older versions. Congrats to Ric and Pat for all the hard work on this recent project. Suzanne ********************************************************* From Ric And apologies for any difficulties PC users are experiencing. I guess we should put up some instructions and a link. We MAC-types sometimes forget what life is like PCers. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:45:22 EDT Reply-To: The Amelia Earhart Search Forum