Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 11:24:08 EST From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: Tech Trive (radios) Mike Everette wrote: > I believe Hue has a little too much faith in the "cleanliness" of this > transmitter's output signal. Not quite my position. As i tried to point out, it is the transmitter + the antenna characteristics which determine, which harmonic number gets out. This antenna characteritic i'm talking about is electrical, like your CB base antenna is 50 ohms, supposedly resonant, without off resonance reactances that prevent it from taking power from a 50 ohm line ( just for an example. ) Whether the antenna is good, or effective, in "getting out", that is a whole different question, to be solved after the first. > This scenario says, that if the antenna's physical length was altered, the > result may well have been (yeah, yeah, I know, speculation, but bear with > me) that the antenna's new parameters fell outside the normal range of > adjustment, for the "book values" of inductance and capacitance in the tuned > circuitry. Mike, how much altered? 100% ?? The discussion of the schematc, in the tech book, describes a series capacitor for antennas longer than resonance. Because of the recurring cyclical impedances of antennas as you extend them, for example, the point is: there is NO antenna too long! You put a series capacitor in it and presto, the transmitter sees an antenna with a workable characteristic. You cannot have an antenna too short ( from a matching perspective, i do NOT mean, you can have an antenna very short and it still gets out! ) With a quite short antenna, say 10 foot, the antenna goes right to the top of the tuning coil, that's it! This is precisely the way the US Army's armored car radio BC-1209 had its circuit - the vehicle whip antenna went right to the coil top. (This was very bad for harmonic standpoint - radiated everything - but understand - the situation changes when you have a longer antenna, like on an aircraft- around 40 foot, say - because then the antenna impedance is not necessarily a static high impedance - but cycles thru a range of high/ low impedances, for different harmonics - meaning some "work", some don't. Clear as lentil soup? ) I note also that the Navy's type GF aircraft transmitter uses basically a similar type of circuit as the WE, and it was used with everything from trailing antennas to short whip antennas in vehicles. Please forget the "altered antenna was wrong" idea! > (And yes, I am aware that Cam Warren is of the opinion that the antenna was > reworked by PAA in Miami and the length returned to something near normal... > maybe so; but he doesn't have any definitive proof of this being done. I've > asked. For now at least, I choose to assume the Gurr modification, which > had lengthened it, stayed intact.) > > Of course it was "made it work," but the "fix" may have employed component > values resulting in an incorrect L-C ratio (amount of inductance, vs. > capacitance) in the circuit. While resonance could be attained, the > incorrect L-C ratio could enhance the potential for harmonics to make it to > the antenna and be radiated. You need to forget the footage change and we need (maybe) to figure out the antenna resonances. ( In a complex antenna like this, i think there will be several.). What i'm saying is, the antenna characteristics the harmonics face, if they're similar to the characteristics the fundamental channels face, then the harmonics have a prayer of distance range. Otherwise, they are going to be strictly local near-field phenomena. If the antenna is low impedance resonant, and the tuning circuit of the transmitter for that corresponding main channel is high impedance setting, the harmonic will be so far mismatched that you can forget any path loss calculations, there's practically nothing to start with. Okay, so continue to believe something was "wrong with the antenna", "transmitter set to a harmonic", etc. Don't believe me - i'll prove it to you (but you'll have to be patient :-) When Pacific aircraft were heard on the west coast USA, this is how likely how it happened, with the simplest explanation, and one that follows my reasoning above. The aircraft reeled out a resonant length antenna, because this was easiest to load up into the transmitter - At 3x the frequency, i.e. the 3rd harmonic, the antenna impedance is practically the same - and the same transmitter coil setting is "approximately right" for the harmonic, too. It gets radiated. > This scenario didn't consider the possibility that the transmitter MIGHT > have been so maladjusted that it could have been dumping more of its power > out on a harmonic, than on 6210 (especially). You're saying "put out more harmonic than fundamental" ? Pretty radical idea, if i got it right. I'd say even , far out. As in too far out. > Not saying this DID happen; I > am suggesting it MIGHT have, though the probability of this being the case > and going unnoticed does seem kind of low... maybe. But it is a > possibility, and could offer an explanation for why she was not heard on > 6210 at the critical moment. Wonder how much she had actually used 6210, > prior to this; and with what results? > > The matter of the condition of welds within tubes, condition of solder > joints and grounds, component tolerances etc inside the transmitter is most > assuredly not "grabbing at straws." Rather, it was brought up in an effort > to illustrate why apparently identical radio equipments, of the same design > and off the same production line, can behave very differently in operation. > Been there, done that, seen that many times over. Okay- but we are not talking Heathkit quality here. Bad solder joints, bad tubes anything, still has to meet these antenna constraints. > But look at how Bob Brandenburg's SNR analysis has been disdained. I think Bob can defend his SNR work himself. I don't think either you or Bob have made any convincing case that sufficient power was supplied to the antenna to even take seriously a consideration of signal over distance. Wishful thinking doesn't do it either. > It appears that the only "acceptable proof" would be a spectrum-analysis of > one of these Western Electric transmitters, loaded into an antenna identical > to what AE used. Even that would not be 100 per cent conclusive, but it > would come darn close. Yes- either analyzer, or poor man's method, frequency selective voltmeter. > Any other test conditions (different transmitter, different antenna etc) will > show some interesting things; but those results will necessarily reflect a > different set of conditions from what we are really interested in. Depends whether you need an absolute re-creation, or a go/ no go test. Hue Miller ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:35:32 EST From: Ron Berry Subject: antenna I admit I do not understand a lot of the talk about radios, but I would like to bring up something that keeps popping up in my mind. On the final take-off part of an antenna was lost off of the aircraft. My questions are first, could the trailing antenna have been left in a position so that part of it was extended and as a result broken off during the take-off roll? Then if this did happen could an adjustment be made in flight to compensate for the length of the wave emitted by the broken antenna? Could this be the reason that AE could not receive on 6210 or what ever the correct wave was? We know that an antenna part was found on the runway after their take-off. It was later proved that the suspected belly antenna was still intact. ************************************************************************** From Ric The airplane had no trailing wire antenna during the second World Flight attempt. If it was later proved that the belly antenna was intact, I'm not aware of such proof. We do not "know" that a length of antenna wire was found on the runway. We have only a second-hand anecdotal account of such a discovery. The antenna that was lost during the takeoff was the fixed belly antenna. There really isn't much doubt about that. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:44:12 EST From: Bob Lee Subject: Re: Weather info I didn't mean to intimate that the actual storm that the PBY's flew into had anything to do with AE and FN. It just struck me that someweather *could* be a cause for a navigational error. I am just trying to put the castaways on Niku by following the 157/337 LOP logic; not finding Howland/Baker and yet finding Niku a few hours later. An excellent navigator, a decent pilot, no known mechanical or human problems -- reports of decent weather -- a difficult leg that should motivate the sharpest of senses -- and yet a problem. I think I will look into this a bit more. I'll also budget for membership and the CD. Thanks Randy. Ric, great forum. Look forward to more participation. Bob Lee ************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks Bob. You might want to take a second look at your asumptions: >An excellent navigator with a demonstrated tendency to be "loose" in his navigation . >a decent pilot, who was apparently clueless about radio navigation >no known mechanical or human problems except a missing antenna and the Coast Guard's refusal to heed Earhart's admonitions about only sending voice and using Greenwhich time. >-- reports of decent weather yes >a difficult leg that should motivate the sharpest of senses indeed >and yet a problem. Several in fact. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:50:01 EST From: Carol Dow Subject: Re: Weather info Randy, As I understand the convergence zone, the weather is coming in at both sides of the equator would you agree with that statement? Northern zone is clockwise circulation, southern zone is counter clockwise. Where they meet is the problem, the circulation pulls the hot humid air into a turmoil with reverse flows and all that jazz. That's all I know about it except that the weather forecast out of Honolulu was for a dangerous local rain squall about 300 miles out of Lae and scattered heavy showers remainder of the route. A transmission by Earhart, the first of Amelia's hourly broadcasts heard at Howland on 1415/2 GCT, produced only the intelligible words of "cloudy and overcast," so I understand, but I'm not so sure Ric would agree with that statement, knowing Ric, because I have a habit of quoting from books, for lack of any better information (Ric cringes). Have to run. It's New Year's. Have a blast everyone. Stay safe. Better things ahead in 2003.....no more Iraq or something or other. I have a nephew who flies F-16s for the AF and formerly was based on the USS Abraham Lincoln(F-18s). Got news for you, we're already at war. Ask the pilots. That's an experience seeing a SAM missile coming up off the ground aimed at yours truly. Time to go dancing. Okay Ric you can now shoot at Carol (again). Toodles. Carol Dow ************************************************************************* From Ric Just one tiny correction. "Cloudy and overcast" does not appear in the original ITASCA log. It was added by Commander Thompson when he wrote his butt-covering "Radio Transcripts Earhart Flight" report. ================================================================ Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:50:59 EST From: Ron Reuther Subject: Re: More Signals - worth another look Hopefully someone can determine Achilles accurate position and movements on 9 July 1937 and surrounding dates. Ron Reuther ================================================================ Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:52:14 EST From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Weather info Ric wrote: >My point was that the weather encountered by the PBY should have had no >bearing on the Earhart flight. Would you agree? Oh, absolutely! The ITCZ was at least 250 nautical miles north of Howland, and had no effect upon Earhart's flight whatsoever. What is interesting to speculate is that it may have had an effect upon her next leg to Honolulu, if she ever landed on Howland. ================================================================ Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 12:58:41 EST From: Dick Greenwood Subject: Re: Wreck Photo // ACCESSIBLE L10 BRADLEY AIR MUSEUM, WINSORLOCKS , CT.. NOT AWARE OF COWLING AUTHENTICITY, HOWEVER. BUT APPEARS TO HAVE HAD METICULOUS ATTENTION. DICK GREENWOOD(NON MEMBER) ************************************************************************** From Ric We're on fairly intimate terms with c/n1052 at the New England Air Museum on Bradley Int'l. The airplane is a 10A and therefore has smaller cowlings than the larger-engined 10E. ================================================================ Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:14:30 EST From: Edgard Subject: cowling size of E-model Does anybody know what model is the Lockheed 10 on the basement floor of the Science Museum in London, and from where does it come. This is not indicated in the museum, as I was there 3 days ago. It is of course in perfect shape, but I have no idea about the various changes it underwent during it's life. ************************************************************************* From Ric C/n 1037 is the only known Model 10B (Wright R-975 engines) and was delivered to Eastern Airlines on Sept. 24, 1935 as NC14959. It had a long service life flying for a variety of operators in the U.S. until it was acquired by the Science Museum in the early 1980s. ================================================================ Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:17:25 EST From: Daryll Subject: Re: ON BEING LOST II Alan Caldwell wrote: >.......Don't be confused by my "not as lost" comment. I just mean I >don't think they were as horrendously far away as some would like to >place them. The Marshallites want them to be so far off course to the >north that Mili Atoll would be just a hop and a skip." Alan, you just keep poking the stick into the cage...... I'm just not going to let you make that off-handed comment concerning an opposing AE theory unchallenged. You have continuously asked for supporting evidence concerning the Marshall Island theory on a Forum that doesn't permit that topic. I have AND will send to you a VHS tape (for a VCR) of my 281 flight simulation experiment. Length about an hour and forty min. I call it an experiment because it is reproducible on a home computer. I will take you along and show you how the Mili Atoll splash-down could have occurred. 1. The tape (simulation at normal speed) will show you Howland island at 1000 ft., with a 20 mile visibility setting I will take you out-of-sight of Howland (about 25 nm NW) on the 337 LOP. 2. I will enter a circling holding pattern at 2X normal simulation speed, ("we must be on you") and set the GMT clock at 19:12 GMT and hold until 19:30. The time spent at this holding point accounts for Itasca log entries 07:42, 07:58, 08:00. 3. At 19:30 I fly 337 until I reach "point AE", at which point I turn to 281 and proceed to Mili Atoll at 8X normal simulation speed for a dead stick landing. I want to point out to you, that I start PLAN "B" about 25 nm NW of Howland. Is that TOO far to you in your terms of being lost?? I would also like to point out that the arrival at Mili in this experiment was 6.1 hours later (130 TAS) in real time. Giving a total flight endurance time of 25.1 hours from Lae. One hour more than the Itasca thought they had, within Oscar's long range numbers and reinforced by Kelly Johnson's memory years later when he said they should have had 1500 miles left in endurance when they got to Howland. I will submit this tape as evidence based on the fact that it is independently reproducible and using the hind-casting process that is used in air-accident investigation and post loss messages points to Mili Atoll. You can subscribe to the Chaos theory if you like, it is really the only defense that you have. Don't ever say that "us/we" conspirators never offered any evidence to support our position. Daryll ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:25:03 EST From: Angus Murray Subject: Re: Wreck Photo Ron Berry wrote: > The idea is a good one but you do not need an E-model. All other > measurements of the aircraft were the same just line up on any points that > are present and in sight of any model of that time. Then it would be plain > to see the difference. Take into account the model, so that if the cowl is > larger or smaller the difference would be easy to spot. Model airplanes are > not the real thing, and any measurements off of one would be suspect in my > book. What Ron says is true. It does not require a 10E cowl to make the comparison because the apparent prop length can be used as a means of establishing distance, (as the 10A has the same prop), even though a 10A cowl is a different external diameter from the 10E. Of course apparent prop length is affected by angle, especially the height at which the wreck photo was taken and the relative angle of attack of the wing. Getting the angle right will not be quite so easy but it can be got close enough for our purposes because the differences in cowl opening seems to be more than slight. Once one had established the difference in size relative to a 10A it would be easy to decide if the difference corresponded to that between a 10A and a 10E or not. I agree with Ron on the dangers of relying on accurate dimensions from a model, however good it is. Regards Angus. ************************************************************************** From Ric Tell ya what I'll do. I'll run the original comparison you did past Jeff Glickman at Photek and ask him if there's any way that such a glaring discrepancy in apparent opening sizes could be an optical illusion. If he says yes we'll spend some time getting a more precise comparison. If he says no, that's good enough for me. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:34:39 EST From: Tom Riggs Subject: Re: Betty In response to Tom Byer's suggestion that Betty may have heard a 1937 radio program dramatization, Ric wrote: >There were two March of Time broadcasts that dramatized an imagined radio >conversation between Earhart and the ITASCA. The first show was broadcast on >July 8, long after most of the reported post-loss messages were received. We >don't know what day Betty heard what she heard but we do know that March of >Time was a half-hour show and Betty heard sporadic transmissions for an hour >and three quarters. It is possible the producers of the March of Time radio show (Time magazine??) may have recorded the July 8, 1937 and subsequent broadcasts, or created scripts used by the actors to read their character parts. If any such documentation still exists in their archives and could be obtained, it would be simple to compare the radio show script to what Betty wrote in her notebook to see if there are any similarities. However, my opinion is that if the broadcasts were dramatized radio conversations between AE and the ITASCA, the dialog most probably would have contained numerous direct references to obvious words like "ITASCA", "Howland", "airplane","gasoline", etc. I may have missed something, but I don't recall anything Betty wrote in her notebook using any of these obvious words that logically would have been included in a dramatization. In addition, what Betty heard seems more to be dialog between two people (e.g. AE and FN) interacting with each other at the same location, not dialog between people located in different locations (e.g. AE and ITASCA). Therefore, it seems improbable to me that Betty was hearing the March of Time broadcasts. Tom Riggs #2427 ************************************************************************* From Ric Some time ago several of our researchers made a considerable effort to obtain a transcript of the March of Time broadcast from a private collector ( I don't believe the show was in any way affiliated with Time magazine) but, as far as I know, they were not successful. I agree with you. There is nothing about Betty's notebook that supports the notion that she heard the March of Time broadcast and much that argues against it. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:36:46 EST From: Angus Murray Subject: Re: Weather info Randy wrote: > Oh, absolutely! The ITCZ was at least 250 nautical miles north of Howland, > and had no effect upon Earhart's flight whatsoever. Is this analysis based on historical evidence of the position of the ITCZ for a particular day in July1937 in the western Pacific? The ITCZ moves north and south on a yearly basis dependent on El Nino/La Nina and although 1937 was a "neutral year" in this respect, it also moves as much as 300 miles north or south on a daily basis. So I don't see how you can state this with such assurance. Regards Angus. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 13:46:41 EST From: Alfred Hendrickson Subject: Re: Wreck Photo Ric wrote: >I'll get a research bulletin put together as soon as I can >get to it but I think we can finally consign the Wreck Photo to the >dustbin of history. In the dustbin? Dang! I really liked that photo, too. It's a good thing he study was done, because the wreck photo cowling and AE's cowling look the same to me. (I will refrain from asking how sure Angus is of his conclusions!) Does anyone know why Grace McGuire won't let anyone near her 10E? What's her story? Why can't she loosen up a bit? - Alfred Hendrickson *************************************************************************** From Ric I'm apparently more comfortable with Angus' comparison than he is. As for Grace McGuire, her tale is far beyond my meager storytelling abilities. Let it suffice to say that the Earhart legend seems to draw "characters" like moths to a flame. I'm probably one too. Are you? (mad laughter) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 11:56:28 EST From: Alfred Hendrickson Subject: Re: Wreck Photo Yes. You could probably accurately label me a "character". Others do. The two current Earhart research efforts going on that have my attention are those of TIGHAR and those of Nauticos (see also Long). There are characters all over the place, it would seem. They have swept the ocean floor for days on end and found nothing. Those guys are just down the road from you, in Maryland, are they not? I read "Amelia Earhart's Shoes". I wanted it to go on for another 1000 pages. LTM, who is a bit of a character herself, Alfred ************************************************************************* From Ric Yes. Nauticos is based in Annapolis, MD but I've never been to their offices. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:02:33 EST From: John Subject: Re: cowling size of E-model The webpage (http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/mmw/electra.asp ) from the London Science Museum shows a Lockheed 10 in flight. Does not state if it is the one at the Museum. Regards, John ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:03:56 EST From: Marty Moleski Subject: March of Time Ric wrote: > Some time ago several of our researchers made a considerable effort to > obtain a transcript of the March of Time broadcast from a private > collector ( I don't believe the show was in any way affiliated with Time > magazine) but, as far as I know, they were not successful. I found Ron Staley, a man who said he would make me a tape of the broadcasts. Unfortunately, he was a friend of Fred Goerner and his widow and was not enthusiastic about the Niku hypothesis. After one long and, I thought, pleasant phone call, nothing else has come of my contact with him. I also called several museums and talked with the CBS archives in NYC. The CBS archives are the best bet, but they are not open to the public. If anyone is affiliated with CBS, they might make more progress than I was able to. From talking with Staley, it seems unlikely that Betty was listening to the March of Time. But as with War of the Worlds, some listeners apparently did think the docu-drama was real. LTM. Marty #2359 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:05:38 EST From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Weather info Angus wrote: >I don't see how you can state this with such assurance. The ITZC location is based upon the various ship logs and PBY navigation from July 2- July 7, and is entirely consistent with the return of the various ships later that month. The ITZC is a broad zone, roughly 50 nm in the north-south direction, and doesn't vary that much on a daily basis. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:21:10 EST From: Adam Marsland Subject: Betty's notebook...the numbers explained? I have spent weeks immersed fascinated with the TIGHAR website, and have read most of what's been posted here, but not having any expertise in navigation, radio or aviation, didn't join the Forum until I thought I might have something useful to add. The most fascinating part of the mystery to me has been the post-loss messages. It seems to me that the "smoking gun" has already been found, in the form of the DF bearings on post-loss messages that were taken by Pan-Am and at Howland which intersect near Gardner Island. To play devil's advocate, can these be explained in any other way than someone transmitting radio messages from Gardner or McKean, both of which were uninhabited in 1937? (if the messages on which the DF bearings were taken were hoaxes, they would have had to have originated from that area, which seems impossible). The most intriguing artifact of all to me has been Betty's Notebook. While intuitively (like "crashed and sank") it seems it must be fake, the incomprehensible nature of the transmission actually speaks for its authenticity. For instance, one known bogus post-loss message was a paraphrasing of "281 north" with a few obvious embellishments. It's hard to imagine a hoaxer adding subtle details such as the cabin of the aircraft being too hot, or FN having to climb over AE to get out. But most of all, I can't imagine a female hoaxer yelling "son of a BITCH!" (as Betty remembers) into a radio mic in that much more refined time. Which brings me to the part of Betty's message which has vexed everyone most, the seemingly incomprehensible stream of numbers. I'm a legal secretary and a musician -- I have a trained ear and have to transcribe things accurately. But even so I've noted that when someone is hurriedly rattling off a telephone number, I sometimes get figures wrong or mixed up (as Betty herself admitted). Also, anyone who has learned a second language knows that the brain has a set of "frequently used words" that it's familiar with. It's much easier for the brain to process a word like "small" than a word like "milieu." If someone heard an unfamiliar word over a poor radio transmission and had to write it down in a hurry, it would be interpreted as a more familiar soundalike word. Thus "NY NY" being Duke of York island or Norwich City makes total sense. With this in mind, I decided to try the TIGHAR investigation method and pursue a hypothesis to its conclusion and in so doing, I may have stumbled across an explanation for that odd stream of numbers. The nice thing about it is, the Forum has the expertise to decide whether it makes any sense or not. I have to stress that I didn't start with any preconceived result in mind, I just followed my idea to see where it went, and where it went fit very closely in with the known set of facts. My idea was this: assuming Betty's Notebook to be the real deal, those numbers would likely be an attempt at giving position. If so, it was probably not a long stream of random numbers but a few sets of numbers repeated over and over and misinterpreted by Betty. If one could find a pattern in the numbers and relate them to something, the remainder of what she wrote down might make sense as Betty's imperfect interpretation of what was actually transmitted. I started by going over the whole set of numbers looking for a repeating pattern. I excluded "South 391065 Z or E" as Ric felt it may have been erroneously been a lat/long position relating to the Lae-Howland leg that Earhart read by mistake. Makes sense, and I have another suggestion to add to that as well (more later). Going over the remainder of the numbers, three cropped up more than once: "158" "36" and "38." 158 drew my notice because "158 mi." is the first thing Betty wrote and it's a standalone number, so it was the most likely to have been correctly interpreted. The number "58" appears again in the very next string of numbers, along with "338." The last two digits of "338," "38," appear again repeatedly. Later, "36" appears several times. The number "30" at the end of the message could have been the beginning of either number: "THIRTY-six," "THIRTY-eight." Then I went over to TIGHAR's map of the Pacific to check those numbers against latitude or longitude. It didn't make any sense in that regard, but as I looked at the map I realized to my shock that those three numbers DID relate to another relevant set of numbers...the LOP. "158" "(3)36" and "(3)38" were all one digit off from Earhart's last reported 157/337 bearing. I have to stress here that the Line of Position never occurred to me...I had the numbers first, and then noticed the correlation. And it fit the facts; the one thing AE would be sure of was that she was on the Line of Position. It would make more sense to broadcast that than a latitude/longitude which might be wrong. It seems likely that their charts of the area would not make it clear whether they were on McKean, Gardner or even Atafu (since Amelia only heard the Itasca once, broadcasting Morse which if I understand correctly carries farther than voice, she may well have assumed from the lack of radio contact with Itasca that she was much farther away from Howland than she actually was). If AE had been told by FN that they should adjust the LOP by 1 degree (more on this later), she may have gotten mixed up on the second digit, broadcasting the 337+1 "338" several times instead of 337-1 "336" (which, given the desperate situation and the euphonious rhyming of "38" and "58" seems logical to me...it's the kind of brainfa*t mistake I'd make even if I wasn't in a life-threatening situation). If we are to believe the Itasca, Earhart broadcast her LOP as one continuous set of numbers..."line 157/337," so I went back to Betty's Notebook with the assumption that she was repeatedly broadcasting "158/338," or "158/336." And again, to my shock, nearly all of the baffling set of numbers now made sense. Let's take it line by line: "158 mi." "mi." could have actually been line, it could have been Betty's interpretation of an otherwise meaningless number, or it could have been two parts of the transmission fitted together with the middle part obscured by static: "158/338 line of position, X miles from..." "58 338" oneFIFTY-EIGHT THREE THIRTY-EIGHT" (...line) "fig 8 - 3. 30 500 Z" "one FIFty-EIGHT (note that Betty instinctively threw in a dash where one would have written a slash) THREE THIRTY eight (or six)..." I don't know what "500 Z" would mean, but I do note that Gardner and McKean are very near 5 degrees (zero zero minutes?) south latitude. "3E MJ3B" I admit I don't have a clue here. "Z 38 Z 13 8983638" Z38 is very close to 338. "Z13" is very close to "THREE-THIRTY (eight or six)." In the third set of digits note the first appearance of "36." From here on in AE uses "36" more often than "38"; it may be that she realized her mistake here and corrected herself, but still made the mistake unconsciously from time to time. It's a bit of a stretch, but 8983638 could have been a misinterpretation of "LINE [9] one fifty EIGHT, three THIRTY-SIX, not three THIRTY-EIGHT." Keep in mind that there was distortion, the transmission was fading in and out, and the information was coming faster than Betty could write it. "3.15" I don't know, although "three" would be the first part of 338 or 336, and 15 the first part of 158. Doesn't make sense though unless here she said "one five eight" instead of "one fifty eight." "3Q rd 36" "THREE THIRTY SIX" "J 3" "One fifty EIGHT THREE thirty (six or eight)" "3630" Not far from a dyslexic "THREE THIRTY SIX." Another possibility, although it runs counter to my hypothesis, is that this is a repetition of the number stream "THIRTY-SIX THIRTY-eight" which appears at the end of the seven digit sequence above. "38-3." "THREE THIRTY EIGHT" backwards. Reversing the numbers again. Or possibly a mishearing of "One fifty EIGHT THREE thirty-six." "3" "THREE thirty-(six)" "30" "Three THIRTY six." So by my count, of 13 sets of numbers, 10 conform to what one might expect from a phoenetic mishearing of the LOP adjusted one degree. Which brings me back to the "South 391065 Z or E" entry. Ric's explanation still makes sense, but also note that the one other thing they would know for sure about their location and would want to communicate is that they are SOUTH and EAST of Howland on the line of position. Could this be an attempt to give position relative to where they thought Howland was when they said "We are on you but cannot see you", e.g. "We are south 391 miles and 65 miles east of Howland" (or, if Betty's later number interpretation is correct, "We are south 309 miles and 165 miles east of Howland.") I don't know the actual mileage from Howland to Niku expressed in those terms, but the proportions on the map seem about right. Would they be able to determine their mileage south and east from where they turned on the line of position based on how long they'd flown on it? And this brings me to the $100,000 question for the Forum: I'm not a navigator, and the whole line of position discussion goes right over my head . Is there any logical reason why Fred would have told Amelia to broadcast a one degree correction from 157/337? If not, then this is all bunk. If there is, I'd bet the farm that she was trying to broadcast their location on an adjusted LOP. OK...that's my first post to the Forum. Bring on the slings and arrows...(and when is the Post-Loss Matrix going to become a reality?) Adam Marsland ************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks Adam. I love it when someone does his or her homework, follows sound methodology, and offers a well-thought out hypothesis. One degree is a very fine adjustment to a course. I can't fly to a tolerance of one degree. I don't know if a Sperry Gyropilot could. I'm hoping to have the Special Report issue of TIGHAR Tracks to the printer by mid-month and be able to mail it out to the membership by the end of the month. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:24:05 EST From: Adam Marsland Subject: addendum/correction From Adam Marsland I realized right after I posted that I myself had gotten mixed up on whether "336" and "338" would be the right number to correspond with 158, and that a true LOP would be 158/338 (not 158/336), which in a bizarre way bolsters my hypothesis I guess. (Told you I was no navigator!) That being said, if a logical reason can be found for making a one degree adjustment from 157/337, would the first two sets of figures in Betty's Notebook being "158" followed by "58 338" qualify as what you folks call a McGuffin? adam marsland ************************************************************************** From Ric Not a McGuffin (the Hitchcockian term for the thing that the protagonists care about but the audience doesn't) but certainly a remarkable coincidence. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:25:43 EST From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Wreck Photo > but I think we can finally consign the Wreck Photo to the > dustbin of history." Ric, this might be an opportune time to drop a note to the guy who supplied the picture and won't provide significant info and tell him thanks for the picture but it clearly has nothing to do with Earhart or her Electra and we no longer are interested in the source or any other information regarding the picture. He may decide to try and prove we're wrong. Alan ********************************************************************* From Ric Mr. Carrington is far far stranger than that. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:33:36 EST From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: ON BEING LOST II > You have continuously asked for supporting evidence concerning the > Marshall Island theory on a Forum that doesn't permit that topic. Daryll, I'm about to poke another stick into your cage. But first, your comment above is not true. If you have an alternate theory and some support for it rather than just tossing out an opinion you better believe the forum will permit it. Ric just gets tired of the same old stuff when there is no support offered to back it up. That just wastes everyone's time. Daryll also says......"Don't ever say that "us/we" conspirators never offered any evidence to support our position." I won't, Daryll, and you're the first to accept the challenge. I welcome it. I DO have a couple problems with the scenario, however. BTW, tell me how you go about putting your FS flight on VHS tape. I think that's pretty cool. OK, first of all 25nm off Howland works. That's not too far lost. I would start being concerned at 50 nm probably. I think FN had too much going for him to be further than that off course. My first problem is that you have the Electra going NW on 337 for 25 nm but AE said "We're running north and south." What happened to the South part? But I'll give you that and just say that at 20.2 hours into the flight they were 25nm out on the 337 degree course out of Howland to start your plan B to Mili Atoll. You change heading to 281 degrees. Is that true or mag? The true course is about 293 degrees from 26.7nm out on 337 on to Mili. The distance is 754nm. At 130k that'll take about 5:47+ hours no wind. The wind at that time BTW was 6K from the East. Where we really have a problem is with the fuel consumption. I understand Oscar's piece about really reducing the consumption. The problem with that is that there is no evidence AE did that and on the contrary it is most certain she didn't. How do we know that? Easy. To reduce power settings to reduce fuel consumption as you suggest she had to reduce airspeed. The two are locked together. She didn't do that. It is clear from the distance traveled and the time enroute that she maintained her planned TAS of 130K. I posted a piece about that some time ago along with the average ground speed and thus the average head wind component. Using KJ's figures on fuel usage and figuring 100 gallons for start, taxi, runup and take off to level off and about 30 minutes we are now at 1000 gallons. Three hours at 58gph, three hours at 49 gph, three hours at 43 gph and 10.7 hours at 38 gph leaves the Electra with 143.4 gallons at 20:43Z, the time AE said she was running north and south and still blaring away at strength 5 AND an hour after she said she was running low on gas. That amount of fuel at 38 gph will last 3.77 hours and at 130K will take AE about 490 nm to dry tanks. That'll get her about 264 nm short of the grass strip on Mili which wasn't there in 1937. Now compare my guesses with the actual fuel usage of the "Daily Express." That 10E used an average of 48 gph on a 22.5 hour flight. you can see if that was the case here with AE's plane she would only have 130 gallons reserve and at 48 gph she could stay airborne 2.72 hours or about 350 nm. I don't know why the Express was not more economical but that was the case. All the figures for AE's flight indicates a little better mileage but I can't see any way to get the plane all the way to Mili. I'm still eager to get your tape and try the flight myself. As a side note all the Marshall stories vary and some have the plane crashing near Mili but most have the plane flyable at Saipan. Both possibilities can't be. The main story has the duo ditching at Saipan which can't possibly be. The story identifies AE and FN being brought to shore and FN wearing a short sleeve sport shirt. Find me such a picture. The guy wore long sleeve shirts, the kind that usually have a tie as an accessory. Small point of course. They also destroy all the evidence they "find." The brief case disappears. All the AE photos they found vanish. The Electra is burned in its hanger OR it is towed out of the hanger, drenched in gasoline and set afire OR it is dragged out, strafed and blown up. Two of those stories cannot be true and that means ANY two. If any two cannot be true why should any of the three stories be given credibility. I might add that in each case a small group of witnesses claim their version is true. See the problem? No evidence and all the witnesses at variance with each other and still no way to get the plane to the Marshall's that I can see. To the Gilbert's, possibly but not to the Marshall's. Also don't forget AE, herself, said she was running low on fuel and that was at 7:42 local. If I thought I could get my plane to a safe landing field some place I would certainly do it but Mili didn't have a strip any more than the Gilbert's or the Phoenix group did. Heading there wasn't going to help. Why would they try for Mili Atoll? Why wouldn't they head to the nearest land given there were no airfields? I'll confess I don't know off hand what I would have done without being there at the time and actually knowing the conditions. SE was the easiest navigation . The Gilbert's were certainly an option with a slight tail wind but again the bottom line was they were looking for a reef or beach to set the plane on so why not the closest one? The Gilbert's option was closer to dry tanks than the Phoenix Islands and I would want enough gas left to look for a landing area, check it out and still have gas to run an engine for the radios. Seems to me the smart choice was the Phoenix Islands. One last comment. There is no more reason to believe AE was north of Howland than to think she was south of the island. The wind was ESE at about 6 to 10 Knots and if they were going to fly an offset they would have offset to the South so the first turn would be NW and then a run back to the SE where there was the only hope of finding land - Howland, Baker, the Phoenix group. To the NW there was nothing for 770 nm. Alan ************************************************************************ From Ric Just to confirm Alan's statement. We'll be happy to present a valid case for a hypothesis other than the Niku hypothesis if someone can come up with one. The problem we keep running into is that that the proponents of other hypothesis don't understand what a valid case is. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:33:49 EST From: Ron Berry Subject: Re: Wreck Photo // ACCESSIBLE L10 What are the measurements of the possible cowlings. I have an Electra 10 and possibly two in my neighborhood. One in Tucson and one in Chandler Arizona, I am thinking of trying the experiment. ************************************************************************** From Ric The Electra in Tucson is a 10A. I'm aware of no Lockheed 10[E] in Arizona. If you really want to do this experiment you should not know the results you're after beforehand. We don't know the dimensions of anything in the Wreck Photo because there is nothing to scale it to. If we assume that the plane in the Wreck Photo is a Lockheed 10 then the prop should be nine feet long - but we don't know that the plane is a Lockheed 10. All we can do is look at cowling dimensions relative to prop length. The best we can do is determine that the ratio of prop length to cowling diameter is the same in the Wreck Photo plane and a Lockheed 10. We've already done that with regard to external cowling diameter. It's the internal (opening) cowl diameter that seems to be the problem. I suggest that you take your photo of the plane in Tucson and compare it to the Wreck Photo and then come up with what you think the cowling dimensions of a 10E should be. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:38:53 EST From: Ron Berry Subject: Re: Wreck Photo Jeff did assure you (Ric) that his measurements were well within the guidelines that you set up for his photographic assessment when he confirmed that the "wreck" was an Electra 10E. Although you and I don't agree about certain aspects of the aircraft in the photo, I believe it is a long range Electra with camera equipment in the nose section. I am not saying that the "wreck" is AE's aircraft like I once believed, but it is a long range aircraft in a tropical looking area. **************************************************************************** From Ric Jeff did not confirm that the aircraft was a 10E. All we could confirm is that the ratio of prop length to external cowling diameter was the same as a 10E. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:41:02 EST From: Angus Murray Subject: Re: Weather info Randy Jacobson wrote: > Angus wrote: > >I don't see how you can state this with such assurance. > > The ITZC location is based upon the various ship logs and PBY navigation > from July 2- July 7, and is entirely consistent with the return of the > various ships later that month. The ITZC is a broad zone, roughly 50 nm in > the north-south direction, and doesn't vary that much on a daily basis. Since we are interested in July 2nd and the ITCZ can vary greatly day by day, only reports from that day are useful. Were there any reports between Nauru and Howland? Reports from Itasca , Myrtlebank. Ontario, tell us little about this leg. I quote from http://www.tpub.com/weather2/9-25.htm The zone of disturbed weather may be as little as 20 to 30 miles in width or as much as 300 miles. Under typical conditions, frequent rainstorms, cumulus and cumulonimbus-type clouds, and local thunderstorms occur. Violent turbulence may be associated with these storms, and cloud bases may lower to below 1,000 feet, or even be indistinguishable, in heavy showers. Their tops frequently exceed 40,000 feet. See also http://www.planearthsci.com/products/Hurricanes/tutorial%20pieces/Stages_of_Hurri%20cane_Dev/ITCZ/ITCZ.html for a map of the ITCZ in July (Fig 2). The date-line runs along the l/h edge of the pic where it shows the ITCZ to dip down close to the equator. See also: http://www.npmoc-sd.navy.mil/references/forecasters_handbook/tropical_ocean.shtml In spring, the North Pacific High starts its northward movement. By July, the East Pacific High is at its northernmost position and the mean position of the ITCZ is along 10N. (Note this is the east Pacific). Although climatology indicates a gradual movement of the ITCZ from one month to the next, the daily movement is irregular and spasmodic. Daily migrations of the ITCZ can be as much as 100 to 300 miles northward or southward. So there is little doubt that the ITCZ can indeed vary in position on a daily basis by a large amount and that it can also be far wider than 50nm. Regards Angus. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 13:41:44 EST From: Ed Subject: Re: Betty's notebook...the numbers explained? Fine job by Adam, I think he's on to something. I'm still convinced that Betty's notebook holds the key to what happened. Maybe Adam's approach could be applied to some of the other portions of the transcript not numeral in scope. LTM Ed of PSL #2415 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:22:41 EST From: Paige Miller Subject: Marshall Islands Darryl responds to Alan's statement "The Marshallites want them to be so far off course to the north that Mili Atoll would be just a hop and a skip" with a description of his Flight Simulator results. No one doubts that you can fly from Howland (or somewhere nearby) to Mili Atoll using Flight Simulator. However, for AE to do so raises some questions. So, Darryl, as Ricky Ricardo would say "Splain me somethin' " AE is flying over the Pacific, she comes to the place where she expects Howland to be, and she cannot find it. Nor can she find Baker. Let's assume that at some point she chooses to end her search for Howland or Baker, and go somewhere else. What are her choices? 1) Gardner/McKean; 2) the Gilberts; 3) the Marshalls. Let's look at the pros and cons of each choice. For Gardner/McKean, the pros are that they are the closest land, and AE has already established a 157/337 LOP which will take them within a few miles of Gardner and McKean. The cons are that the islands are uninhabited and thus rescue is questionable. For the Gilberts, the pros are that the islands are inhabited, under control of a friendly (in the political sense) nation, and you can get there by flying due west; the cons are that they are further away than Gardner and McKean. For the Marshalls, the pros are ... well I can't think of any ... and the cons are that they are farther away from Howland than either Gardner/McKean or the Gilberts, and they are under the control of a politically unfriendly nation, and AE has no way of establishing the exact heading to get to the Marshalls. Thus, I can make a logical argument for someone in AEs position chosing to try to find either the Gilberts or Gardner/McKean. I cannot see how someone in AEs predicament would chose the Marshall Islands. Darryl (or others), could you explain? As a side issue, if AE did fly to Mili Atoll, the closest point in the Marshall Islands to Howland, how did she get the exact heading needed? Paige Miller #2565 LTM (who never liked the name "Marshall" anyway) It's nothing until I call it -- Bill Klem, NL Umpire If you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance -- Lee Ann Womack ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:23:54 EST From: Kerry Tiller Subject: Re: Wreck Photo // ACCESSIBLE L10 Ric wrote: > The Electra in Tucson is a 10A. I'm aware of no Lockheed 10 in Arizona. Uh, Ric, if Tucson isn't in Arizona I've been paying taxes to the wrong state for 30 years. (I assume you meant there is no Lockheed [Electra] 10E in Arizona.) For Ron Berry; Who has a Lockheed Electra in Chandler? (I thought the only things in Chandler were mobile homes and pick up trucks.) LTM (who knows what state she's in) Kerry Tiller ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:25:49 EST From: Tom Riggs Subject: Re: Betty Ric, I believe Tom Byers is correct that there is a connection between Time Magazine and the "March of Time" radio show broadcast in 1937. With a bit of internet searching, I was able to find this radio history article explaining the connection. Unfortunately, no mention of the Earhart/ITASCA dramatizations. For what its worth, I'll contact Time Magazine to see if they have any (free) archival information. Tom Riggs #2427 ________________________________________________ March of Time Early radio news was usually nothing more than dramatized documentary of events. Live recordings were unheard of and technologically difficult if not impossible. Rather than simply report events, radio producers felt dramatizing the events would bring the news home more effectively. By 1928, Roy Edward Larsen was the General Manager of Time Magazine. It was Larsen who, as Circulation Manager, increased sales of the magazine from 25,000 to 200,000 in a few short years. Media theorist, Marshall McLuhan, referred to Larsen as an "electric man," sensitive to the latest modes of communication and its impact on society. Larsen involved Time in radio as early as 1924 with a sustaining program called Pop Question. Then in 1928 in cooperation with radio executive, Fred Smith, he began issuing throughout the country over 33 stations daily releases of ten minute news briefs, Larsen called NewsCasts. The following year they supplemented these NewsCasts with electrical transcription dramas, ten minutes in length, called NewsActing which featured professional actors and sound effects of current news. The two were combined into a fifteen minute show (read releases and acted news)in 1929 and offered free of charge to radio stations in exchange for advertising for Time Magazine. Though successful, the Smith/Larsen team proposed to Henry Luce a more robust program financed by Time. Larsen was aware of new competition on NBC in the form of the Lowell Thomas vehicle sponsored by Literary Digest. For their new production, Larsen and Smith pulled their title and theme music from the Harold Arlen song, "The March of Time." One of the earliest of this type of drama, the Newsacting became the March of Time with narrator and dramatized news events produced by Roy Larsen, who later became president of Time, Inc. First heard on CBS on March 6, 1931, the show was broadcast on Friday nights and sounded very much like the movie newsreels. Like the newsreels, the show was built around a narrator who lead listeners into the dramatized events. Of narrators, there were three during the shows run: Ted Husing, Harry Von Zell and one of the longest "voice of Time" was Westbrook Van Voorhis (pictured above left). Because the events were dramatized, an attempt was made to use actors imitating the actual voices. Many listeners thought the actual voices were being heard. During those early years, we heard "Adolph Hitler" "Edward VIII" and "Bruno Hauptmann" among others. The actors were chosen for these roles based on their ability to closely duplicate the actual person. Sometimes an actor was required to listen from a library of records with 30-second soundbites of the actual personality, or view the March of Time's newsreels and listen to the voice.Many of the actors went on to other fame including Agnes Moorhead, Nancy Kelly, Jeannette Nolan, Art Carney, Orson Welles, Peter Donald, Edwin Jerome, Maurice Tarplin, Kenny Delmar, John McIntire and many more. To prepare each show required 1,000 man-hours of labor, 33 hours for each minute of broadcast time; 500 hours for news research, writing, and re-writing by Editor Willam D. Geer and his seven assistants; 40 hours of clerical work; 60 hours for music rehearsal; 400 hours for rehearsal of cast and sound crew. The musical director was at different times, Howard Barlow and Donald Voorhees; Ora Nichols provided the sound effects. Even historical accuracy and pronunciation was checked by Harry Levin. The program was brought together by director Arthur Pryor, Jr. (and also Don Stouffer). By 1939 the show was still not making money. In fact it was sustained partially with the help of William Paley's Columbia Broadcasting System. Because of the loss of money, Luce decided to suspend the series. But in 1941 it returned with a new format (you can hear the new format in the Pearl Harbor clip), one that sounded much more like the newsreels that were popular with movie fans. This was how radio listeners got their news at the time. The idea of simply broadcasting the news was too new, and for many, boring. Following the development of this series one gets a sense of the changes taking place in radio news at the time. By 1940, the dramatized versions were being phased out and news actualities broadcast from other countries were beginning to be heard. The "news reporter" was more and more becoming prominent. Partly due to the change in technology, the events of the time, and the idea that an eyewitness could best tell listeners what was happening, radio news was forming itself into the media broadcasting with which we are all familiar. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:28:51 EST From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: McGuffins Ric wrote: > Not a McGuffin (the Hitchcockian term for the thing that the > protagonists care about but the audience doesn't) but certainly > a remarkable coincidence. Our forum is chock full of McGuffins. They're easy to identify. What is hard to identify is which of us are protagonists and which of us are audiences. I never know whether to care or not. Alan ******************************** I ain't touchin' this one. Pat ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:29:53 EST From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Betty's notebook...the numbers explained? Adam Marsland wrote: > OK...that's my first post to the Forum. Bring on the slings and > arrows...(and when is the Post-Loss Matrix going to become > a reality?) Adam, you did what I have had almost no success in getting folks to do. You offered an idea and gave your reasoning for that idea. I haven't had time to look at your posting in depth as it is after one in the morning and my aching body (played tennis all day) is about to collapse in bed. I DID note very innovative thinking. Good logic. For a first post you did great. The ideas need pursued. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:31:39 EST From: Phil Tanner Subject: Re: Betty's notebook...the numbers explained? Really enjoyed Adam Marsland's posting. From a British perspective, I have always read things like "Z 38 Z 13 etc" as being pronounced "zed 38" etc. This is a simple question, but: - do international aviation telecommunications use "zed" or "zee"? I have always understood that English is the language of international air traffic, but I've never stopped to think if it has to be British English. - whichever, were things the same in 1937? - or would/does it depend where in the English-speaking world you were from? LTM Phil Tanner 2276 **************************** Hoo boy, good questions. We can certainly find out how it is now. But in 1937? Anyway, Skeet, all youse guys who fly/flew the big ones across the ponds, what is the convention? Pat ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:35:47 EST From: Adam Marsland Subject: Re: Betty's notebook...the numbers explained? I'm glad I did better on my first post than that fellow that said "why don't you just find the bones and DNA test them???" I'm get the list on digest, and my post therein was liberally sprinkled with stray coding (probably the result of writing it in Word and then pasting into an e-mail) so it was pretty hard to read. If anyone wants I can send them a cleaned up version; just e-mail me at adamghost@aol.com. (If it's OK to post an e-mail address here) Can someone refresh my memory as to what the time it was at Niku/Howland when Betty heard the transmission? Was it early morning? ************************************************** The stray coding is a function of Microsoft inserting itself into everything. Does that even if you try to turn everything off, or generate it as plain text. You almost have to use your email program to write your mail for the digest. It's a nuisance. Email addresses are fine. We don't post them ourselves, but anyone who wants to include his/hers in the body of a posting is more than welcome to. And to the substantive question: About 10 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. Pat ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:37:02 EST From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: March of Time Marty Moleski wrote: > From talking with Staley, it seems unlikely that > Betty was listening to the March of Time. But > as with War of the Worlds, some listeners apparently > did think the docu-drama was real. Off topic, but sort-of related. One of the things that happened with the Orson Wells Mercury Theater program was that there was a popular music program being aired on another station at the same time that the drama started, and that show did not end until 15 minutes after the _War of the Worlds_ began, so a lot of people tuned in after it was already in progress, and did not hear the introduction by Wells. ltm jon ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:42:55 EST From: Harry Poole Subject: Re: Betty's notebook...the numbers explained? I would like to congratulate Adam Marsland for his excellent approach to help solving the meaning behind the notes found in Betty's notebook. I have tried a somewhat different approach. In my attempt to interpret the material, I have divided all of the notes into my best guess as to which were said by Amelia, which I show in Red, and which statements were by Fred, which I show in Blue. Next, I divided all of the statements into those which I believed were meant to be transmitted to the world, and which were most likely just comments between the two. I then study each independently. While my complete analysis is not finished, I would like to share several thoughts. First, when you concentrate only on the internal discussion statements, there is a strong implication that Amelia is trying to get Fred to help her communicate to obtain help, while Fred is only interested in leaving the airplane, which is filling with water. This, among many other clues, led me to the belief that Betty's reception was most likely on July 2, 1937, since if the plane fills with water, it will short out the radio and perhaps sink off of the reef or sand bar it was on. My specific comments on Adam's posting are: I agree with the general thoughts that: >the incomprehensible nature of the transmission actually >speaks for its authenticity. No one who was planning a hoax would use that material. Furthermore, if the actual transmission was on July 2nd, as I think it was, no hoax or radio play could have been all ready written. >the part of Betty's message which has vexed everyone most. >the seemingly incomprehensible stream of numbers. His further comments on jotting down common words and transcribing numbers in error is certainly apropos. I also looked at a repeating pattern with a slightly different idea in mind. In my approach, I used the near matches of several sets of number sequences to provide a check bit approach. Where they don't actually match exactly, I look at which numbers were transcribed in error or which were left out. That has led me to a "corrected" set of numbers, which obviously are only guesses at this time. Adam said: >158 drew my notice because "158 mi." is the first >thing Betty wrote, and it is a standalone number, >so it was the most likely to have been correctly interpreted. Making the assumption that it was important, I looked at what it could mean if it represented 158 miles. It seems that the distance between Winslow Reef and Howland is about 158 miles. And it certainly seems that if Amelia made a landing there, it would cause the airplane to fill with water. I am not saying that is the correct interpretation, as there are many problems with a potential landing on Winslow Reef, only that it was a possibility. The biggest problem in my mind with the Winslow Reef scenario (and there are many) is that it would imply that there were no further post loss messages after Betty received her reception, and I believe there were other later valid messages. We are all waiting for Ric's post loss analysis. One final thought. We have all wondered about the transmission of Marie, especially since it was repeated many times. My working hypothesis is that was a poor transcription by Betty of the word mayday, which could be expected to be repeated many times. I welcome Adam, and other members of the forum to work with me off the forum to solve the mystery of what Betty's notebook means. You may contact me at hhpoole at sprynet.com. Harry Poole ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 11:47:55 EST From: Herman De Wulf Subject: Re: wreck photo I gave it a try. If the Lockheed 10E propeller has a diameter of nine feet, then one blade is 4.5 ft. (measured from the spinner centerline). On the enlarged picture on my screen I measured this 4.5 ft blade to be 6 cm. Therefore the total length of the propeller is 12 cm. The opening of the engine cowling is 4 cm (give or take 1 mm). Which means the engine opening is 1/3 of the total propeller length. In other words, if the propeller is 9 feet long, the 10E engine opening is 3 ft. I wish I could see the picture of the wreck everyone is talking about. I couldn't find it on the Tighar site. Perhaps I didn't look where it is. LTM ************************************** Try http://www.tighar.org/TTracks/13_1/wreckphoto.html http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/bull11_21_97.html http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/bulletin10_10_98.html Pat, who knows where *everything* is :-) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 12:18:14 EST From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Wreck Photo // ACCESSIBLE L10 Ron Berry's post jogged something in my memory. Several years ago (I think it was when you were getting ready to have Jeff Glickman do the analysis of the wreck photo) didn't you run across an actual set of 10-E cowling sections? The Smithsonian sticks in my mind, but I'm not sure. As I recall there was some discussion on the forum about how surprised you were to find them, and they were even labelled. If I have time later on I'll try to look it up in the archives. If my memory is correct, is it possible that in your notes you might have the dimension of the opening, or the distance from the edge of the opening to the outside of the cowling? If you don't, that might be a source for such a measurement if one of the Tighars is close by there. ltm jon **************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks for jogging my memory. Yes, I have those numbers. C/n 1130, a late Model 10A, partially rebuilt as a 10E Special replica, and now in storage at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, has with it a set of 10E cowlings (no idea where they found them). I have photos and measurements of both the outside diameter and the opening diameter. The question is, if Ron thinks he can come up with the diameter of the cowling openings in the Wreck Photo (assuming that the prop is nine feet long), should I release the "correct" measurement before he does his experiment? I don't think it's any big deal either way so I'll be happy to abide by whatever the forum thinks is the best way to proceed. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:15:26 EST From: Reed Riddle Subject: Re: Wreck Photo // ACCESSIBLE L10 Ric wrote: > The question is, if Ron thinks he can come up with the diameter of the > cowling openings in the Wreck Photo (assuming that the prop is nine feet > long), should I release the "correct" measurement before he does his > experiment? I don't think it's any big deal either way so I'll be happy to > abide by whatever the forum thinks is the best way to proceed. You should keep the numbers to yourself until Ron (or anyone else) does the measurement and comes up with a value for you to compare. That way, you ensure that there will be no bias in the measurements. In fact, it would probably be best if several people took a shot at the measurement, using whatever tools they have at hand, and all sent in their method and results. We won't be as good as the professionals, but we should be able to come up with a reasonable average to compare. Reed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Reed L. Riddle Associate Director of Whole Earth Telescope Operations Iowa State University Department of Physics & Astronomy Email: drriddle@qwest.net Homepage: http://www3.iitap.iastate.edu/~riddle/ "This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received actual instructions on where to go and what to do." -- Angela Chase, "My so-called life" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:16:31 EST From: Carol Dow Subject: Re: Marshall Islands Spies For: Paige Miller, How the Electra could have wandered into the Marshall Islands could have only been the result of storm conditions enroute (a guess). The Japanese mandates in 1938 (one year later) were crawling with Japanese submarines, surface raiders, supply ships, observation balloons, searchlights, seaplane carriers, and preparations for making war - ref: Vincent Astor's letter to FDR from the cruise of the Nourmahal. Vincent Astor and his friends from the "room" at Harvard, of which FDR was a member, was a high level intelligence gathering system. In fact, Vincent Astor became a master spy in WW II and reported directly to ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence). Not only that but British intelligence was known to be active in the area of the Gilbert Islands. Their objective was Japanese activities in the Marshall Islands. If Earhart landed in the Marshalls, she would have waked into an area of intense spying activity. It's no wonder the Lexington Battle Group with its three destroyers was denied permission to search the Marshalls. Absolutely, Earhart should have headed for the Gilberts. Another isolated island such as Gardner-Nikumaoro makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why should AE and FN go looking for islands just like the one they couldn't find? Not only that but you have to consider Baker Island was just to the south of Howland, and they could not find either one of them. Two islands close together. Gardner sounds like a pilot's nightmare...nothing there, no ships, no fuel, and maybe no radio, and no Baker Island nearby. Whew....that would be putting it mildly. An archipelago such as the Gilberts with strings of islands (and very visible flying eastbound with the sun at your back) would have been a welcome relief for lost aviators such as AE and FN. Too bad, Gunga Din. A little tennis, eh what? You're on. Pat, if you post this e-mail, the letter Vincent Astor wrote to FDR from the Nourmahal is on file at the FDR Library in Hyde Park, New York. There was a rumor that Naval Intelligence had broken the Japanese codes, and FDR was particularly interested in the Marshalls because of the Earhart loss and a suspected military buildup. FDR requested Astor to cruise the Marshall Islands with his cousin Kermit Roosevelt aboard, but the Japanese refused the Nourmahal permission to enter the Marshall Island Mandates. If Earhart wandered into that mess, I hate to think of the end result. To say she would have been a tremendous liability is putting it mildly. Carol Dow ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:18:28 EST From: Herman De Wulf Subject: Re: Betty's notebook...the numbers explained? To Phil Tanner Interesting question! Today it's neither zed nor zee but zulu. That has been decided upon by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in or around 1946. Before that there was the WW II alphabet used by the Western Allies, according to which z was pronounced zebra. It would indeed be interesting to know how the English radio alphabet was spelled before WW II. I believe each country used its own, based on its national language. The French still use theirs for domestic use. It is also used in the French speaking countries of North Africa and I believe in French speaking Canada. However, English is used in international traffic. For the benefit of those who are not sure what this is all about, here is a comparison of the two English language alphabets. WW II: Able, Baker Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Item, Jig, King, Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle, Victor, Whisky, Xtra, Yoke, Zebra. ICAO: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Gulf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Union, Victor, Whisky, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. LTM ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:21:09 EST From: Tom King Subject: Re: Adam's post Adam's post -- which I think is a truly exciting analysis -- is a good example of the strength of the Forum as a research tool. Only someone with Adam's particular combination of experience and expertise -- and organization of brain -- could make such sense (even if it turns out not to be true) of what to most of us looks like a lot of gobbledigook. Great stuff! And Harry's independent analysis suggests that maybe it's time for a group to be organized, a la the Noonan Project, to focus specifically on interpreting the notebook. Betty's Bunch? ************************************** I am sure it would be quite interesting to work on... but the problem is, no matter what it would be speculative. We can't know, unfortunately, what was "really" meant. I remember that we spent a large amount of time at a team meeting (some years ago) on the 281 message, and eventually gave it up as unknowable, however fascinating. Pat ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:21:43 EST From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Wreck Photo // ACCESSIBLE L10 No, Ric. Let's get results first so that nothing gets contaminated even inadvertantly. Alan Caldwell ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:22:41 EST From: Daryll Subject: 281 Simulation Ric wrote: >Just to confirm Alan's statement. We'll be happy to present a valid case >for a hypothesis other than the Niku hypothesis if someone can come up >with one... uhhh.....is this another trick.....Ric ?? Why do I get the feeling like "Little Red Riding Hood" skipping down the wooded path?? For Alan: >...BTW, tell me how you go about putting your FS flight on VHS >tape. I think that's pretty cool....[AC] You need a video card in your computer with "TV out" to convert the graphics to analog. My nVIDA card (www.eVGA.com) has both S-VIDEO and an RCA output jack. After hooking up a dubbing cable to the VCR you have to set your "ADVANCE" display settings on the computer to "CLONE". With "CLONE" you see the graphics on the computer screen and TV at the same time. >...OK, first of all 25nm off Howland works. That's not too far lost. >I would start being concerned at 50 nm probably. I think FN had too much >going for him to be further than that off course....[AC] I reviewed my simulation more closely it was probably closer to 17-20 nm out for discussion purposes. This was, in my opinion (and close to others), their closest approach to the Itasca & Howland. >...My first problem is that you have the Electra going NW on 337 for >25 nm but AE said "We're running north and south." What happened to the >South part?...[AC] We know they weren't at Howland, so there was a 50/50 chance they were either north or south if we accept the use of the LOP as Noonan was using it. An "offset" used in navigation was to elongate the target on the sun-line so you had a better chance of finding a small target in day time. Baker island to the SE of Howland (~35nm) would have given a fix on Howland if they would have seen it because it was visible from the LOP. >...But I'll give you that and just say that at 20.2 hours into the >flight they were 25nm out on the 337 degree course out of Howland to >start your plan B to Mili Atoll....[AC] It was 19:12 - 19:30 GMT that they could have been in that area. 19:28 GMT she said "WE ARE CIRCLING". In the "hind-casting" process I didn't pick Mili Atoll, Goerner did. BUT he really isn't the first source of naming Mili Atoll in connection with AE. Eric de Bisschop did in his "bottle message" of Oct. 1938. >...You change heading to 281 degrees. Is that true or >mag?.....[AC] What the video shows is at 19:30 GMT AE transmitted ("...WE RECEIVED YOUR SIGNALS...") they turn the airplane to the NW (337). I put an overcast ceiling in the simulation at 3000 ft because I cannot rationalize why else they were at 1000 ft looking for Howland. I turn to 281 at "Point AE" (derived at from hind-casting). I make the turn by watching the Lat & Long read-outs at the top of the screen. BY coincidence of using the simulation, the turn is made very very close to 20:13 GMT the time of their last recorded transmission. The computer was keeping track of time that I couldn't in my own mind. You should KEEP in Mind that the turn to 281 was a course to SOMEWHERE. If they were out of sight of Baker to the South, 281 would bring them into the Gilberts. If they were North of Howland AND Noonan knowing how much time they spent on the LOP at 130 kts, that time & speed gave a distance that could be applied to an Off-set from Howland where a 281 course would bring them into the southern Marshalls. 281 was a figure that only Noonan could figure out using his own observation of the winds AT the time. The winds are the biggest factor in what happened. >...You change heading to 281 degrees. Is that true or mag? The true >course is about 293 degrees from 26.7nm out on 337 on to Mili. The >distance is 754nm. At 130k that'll take about 5:47+ hours no wind. The >wind at that time BTW was 6K from the East....[AC] Your are mixing FLAT chart information into a ROUND world computer simulation. True and Magnetic only have a meaning if you know where you are and are wanting to go some place in particular. They were LOST and AE's job was to keep the airplane going straight, what instrument would you use?. The numbers 281 were recorded on July 5th. Does that mean Noonan had AE fly that exact number (281) or did Noonan transmit 281 after reviewing his flight track that got them to where they were? I don't know. I do think that 281 was used to orient whoever received the message to the known sequence of events . I used a 17 kt east wind. That was the recommended average wind from Lae to Howland. I felt I had to use some kind of a wind. NO wind just moves "point AE" closer to Howland. >...Where we really have a problem is with the fuel consumption. I >understand Oscar's piece about really reducing the consumption. The >problem with that is that there is no evidence AE did that and on the >contrary it is most certain she didn't. How do we know >that?........[AC] The heart of Oscar's studies (I felt) was the reduction in aircraft weight as the flight progressed, until it was below GW. Like an anorexic, the airplane was feeding on its own weight. >...To reduce power settings to reduce fuel consumption as you >suggest she had to reduce airspeed. The two are locked together. She >didn't do that....[AC] Altitude is also locked into the equation. Maintaining a given airspeed as aircraft weight is reduced, would cause the airplane to gain altitude. If the airplane is trimmed, you would naturally reduce power to maintain a given altitude which was also part of AE's job. The lowest gph that I've seen you use was 38 gph. Without looking up Oscar's numbers for hours 20-27 I think he was using around 31 gph, I'll have to look it up. Why don't you re-do your numbers following Oscar's studies? >...That'll get her about 264 nm short of the grass strip on Mili which >wasn't there in 1937.....[AC] In the simulation I set the fuel tanks in the Baron at 55% at 19:12 GMT. During the let down to Mili, from 10,000 ft, I had planned on landing at the simulated coral airstrip. I opened the fuel load window to see what the gauges couldn't tell me. I had zero fuel. I closed the window and the engines fell silent. The simulation offered a smooth enough beach surface to do a dead stick wheels down landing on the lagoon side of the largest of the islands in Mili Atoll. I won't go into anything after splash down or why history just can't document ALL historical events. >...One last comment. There is no more reason to believe AE was north >of Howland than to think she was south of the island....[AC] It's 5050 right? A flip of the coin right? You should know that trust plays a major part in crew interactions. You learn to trust somebody, which AE had to do with Noonan. Noonan would tend to do things to reinforce her trust in him. A note worthy (for AE) example of that was the Dakar crossing. You can argue that that wasn't a north off-set, but what AE remembered was that they were north of Dakar and she was wrong and Noonan was right. Noonan would plan the same northern off-set for Howland just to maintain AE's trust in him. The flip of the coin entered into another decision at 19:30 GMT. They (AE?) decided that the direction they were flying down the LOP was the wrong way. AE's trust in Noonan ended at 19:30 (0800 Itasca) GMT. If there was any truth to the "Half Hour Of Gas Left" that time would have been 19:42 GMT. Sooo the simulation has them turning 337 at 19:30. I watch the Lat & Long for "Point AE" and the clock keeps ticking. When I turn to 281 it was 20:13 GMT. I put some bad weather into the simulation on the 281 track. I did that mainly because of the PBY reports a day later about the weather it had encountered. It just might be in the ITCZ. The Lat & Long read-outs look like start at; N3 degrees 35 min E 179 degrees 20 min end at N4 degrees 20 min E177 degrees 20 min. >...I'm still eager to get your tape and try the flight >myself....[AC] Since you didn't include your address am I supposed to send it to Ric?? He can look at it if he likes. Daryll ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:23:39 EST From: Alan CaldwellSubject: Re: Adam's post Ric writes: > One degree is a very fine adjustment to a course. I can't fly to a > tolerance > of one degree. I don't know if a Sperry Gyropilot could. When I was flying for SAC my nav would often ask for a half degree right or left on precision runs. Usually he'd get a complaint from me or the other pilot. He would not acknowledge our gripe but ask for three and a half degrees right followed quickly with a request for three degrees left. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:25:00 EST From: Jack Clark Subject: Weather info For Angus Murray You ask if there were any weather reports from Nauru to Howland. You may be interested to go to the Forum Archives and read my posting of 9th May/2002. This contains a weather report from Ocean Is. for 2/July/37 at 2000 Local time obtained from the British Met Office Archives at Bracknell, Berkshire, U.K. The time of the report would I think be around 3hrs. prior to AE/FN passing that area. I believe the report indicates that the ITCZ would not have been having any influence on the weather on that day. Jack Clark #2564 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:25:37 EST From: Doc Holloway Subject: Zee, Zed, or Zulu? When I was flying around Europe and the Mediterranean back in the early 1960's it was ZULU; never ZEE or ZED. It's still the same today here in the U.S. The phonetic alphabet of WW II would have used ZEBRA. I'm afraid I can't help with the middle of 1937 as I was only three months old! LTM Doc ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:27:30 EST From: Shane Brinkman Subject: Re: wreck photo All this talk about a wreck photo reminded me about a photo I got on ebay. You must have a ton of these photos. It is alleged to be the belly flop in Hawaii on the first attempt around the world. I put it on my webpage, and it will be there for about a week if you want to save it to your hard disk. (My webpage has nothing to do with A.E. or anything of interest to anyone.) http://www.in1.org/electra.jpg ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:28:01 EST From: Dan Postellon Subject: Cowl measurements > long), should I release the "correct" measurement before he does his > experiment? Please wait. This should be good. Dan Postellon TIGHAR#2263 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:32:35 EST From: Dave Porter Subject: Pensacola 10E cowlings "...late model 10A at Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola...has a set of 10E cowlings (don't know where they got them)..." They got them from a USCG veteran who was once assigned to the WW2 Loran station on Gardner Island, of course. Sorry, couldn't resist, & LTM, Dave Porter, 2288 we will say Ni(ku) to you until you appease us ********************************** Where's my shrubbery? P ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:33:03 EST From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: cowling measurements I don't see any problem in releasing the dimensions ahead of time. It's not going to change Ron's findings. > The question is, if Ron thinks he can come up with the diameter of the > cowling openings in the Wreck Photo (assuming that the prop is nine feet > long), should I release the "correct" measurement before he does his > experiment? I don't think it's any big deal either way so I'll be happy to > abide by whatever the forum thinks is the best way to proceed. I do suggest having Jeff Glickmann run an independant look-see as well. (No disrespect to Ron!) and I'm sure he still has the original hi-res scans of the photo that he used to map the outside diameter. Who knows? He may have already done a measurement of the inside diameter in his original examination, but because we weren't discussing that aspect of the cowling, didn't mention it at the time. ltm jon 2266 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:33:46 EST From: Jon Watson Subject: Pensacola cowlings > Thanks for jogging my memory. Yes, I have those numbers. C/n 1130, a late > Model 10A, partially rebuilt as a 10E Special replica, and now in storage at > the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, has with it a set of 10E > cowlings (no idea where they found them). Didn't I read someplace that they purchased those cowlings at a village abandonment clearance sale on some little island in the south Pacific? ltm jon **************************** I guess great (?) minds think alike.... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:34:22 EST From: Ron Berry Subject: The wreck photo I have studied the Wreck Photo by using a super imposed grid system over the picture. There some things I have been reluctant to mention because I don't want to sound like a nut. The first is the aircraft in the picture looks as if it has been on fire, because of the way the metal is shaped on the leading edge of the wing inboard of the starboard engine mount. A very close inspection shows at the point of separation the metal is very straight like a lot force was brought to bare from the inside of the wing. There was a lot of fumes involved in the explosion to cause the metal to separate like that. Fuel tanks were the source of the fuel,but they were near empty, if they would have been full the wing would have a little split and the metal around the area would be melted. The split would be much smaller and the edges of the torn metal would be bent inward, if the tank was full of fuel. Basically the rule is the more fuel that is in a tank the less air there is to let the fuel burn, so it burns with less force. The second thing really puzzles me, is the starboard motor mount has some sheet metal bent forward and down with two holes in it. I have looked at a lot of pictures of engines that have been removed and in the process of being removed, and this sheet metal is not present. The only thing that I can guess at is that it is the leading edge of the wing behind the motor mount. Somehow it has been bent down but after the engine was removed. Because the Firewall supports would cause the leading edge sheet metal to distort from the pressure of an explosion. This can't be outside skin of the aircraft because there is no sheet metal with the holes that are present on the skin. If anyone has any ideas let me know. The next thing that if have found on the photo is a structure, I have tried to not consider it a structure but its just there, it is on the right hand edge of the picture just above the dense tree line. The top corner of the building blocks the view of the palm frowns. It looks like a control tower to me. I can't determine where though. Some of you that have been in the tropics help me find this place. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:36:09 EST From: David Kelly Subject: Cowling measurements Perhaps we should hold a book on the size each of you come up with :) Regards David Kelly David J Kelly & Associates Suite 104A 511 Pacific Highway St Leonards NSW 2065 Phone: 0421 336 173 ***************************** Proceeds to TIGHAR? P ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:37:12 EST From: Tom Riggs Subject: Re: Betty's notebook...the numbers explained? Adam Marsland wrote: "I'm glad I did better on my first post than that fellow that said "why don't you just find the bones and DNA test them???" Adam...I'm not sure which fellow you are referring to, but if you are referencing a forum posting I made quite some time ago about bones allegedly belonging to AE/FN brought back to the United States by a team in the 1960s, then you need to read the book "Amelia Earhart Returns From Saipan" to understand the logic behind my posting. DNA testing was not available in the 1960s. My only point was, if the alleged bones are still in the U.S. (as the book indicated in 1968) and could be located, a simple test using today's easily obtained DNA technology could provide data to prove or disprove the book author's claim. Tom Riggs #2427 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 10:39:45 EST From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Marshall Islands Spies The US Navy and State Dept. did not ask the Japanese to search the Marshalls at all. As for a better source for Japanese activities throughout all of their islands, including the Marshalls, I would recommend that Carol Dow read Mark Peattie's Nan-Yo: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese in Micronesia, 1885-1945. ************************* I would also recommend this book to anyone interested in what was going on in the pre-WWII years in the Pacific. 1988, University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 0-0248-1087-2 Pat ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:41:21 EST From: Ron Berr Subject: Re: Wreck Photo // ACCESSIBLE L10 Do you want me to close my eyes while you show everyone else? The inside measurement of the opening of the cowl of a model A is 36" and the outside is about 50". I did not say that is was going to tell you the measurement, all I said was that I was thinking of comparing the two. If you have the measurement and are holding it back then your blocking progress, the correct measurement may help someone put together some kind of puzzle. Were not a bunch of kiddies trying to pass a quiz in forth grade. I have the correct measurements on a set of plans that I have done a lot of work from. ************************************************************************** From Ric That's right Ron. "Were not a bunch of kiddies trying to pass a quiz in forth grade." Fourth graders would probably be more literate. We're trying to apply sound methodology to a very difficult problem. "Double blind" tests are the scientific standard for the type of experiment you and others were proposing. It is my understanding that the objective of the proposed experiment was to see whether the dimensions of the cowling opening in the Wreck Photo (assuming a nine foot propeller for scale) match the cowling opening of a Lockheed 10E. (Measurements of a 10A cowling are irrelevant.) For such an experiment to be "double blind" the researcher should not know ahead of time the answer he is after (the dimensions of either cowling opening). LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:46:28 EST From: Danny Brown Subject: wreck photo cowling interior diameter I estimated it to be 3 feet 2 inches by using Photoshop. However, on the 17-inch flat-panel LCD display of a new iMac, the wreck photo looks much more like a composite than an unaltered photographic print. It looks much different than when viewed on a CRT display. Dan Brown, #2408 ******************************************************************** From Ric Okay. We have 38 inches. Anybody else? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:51:54 EST From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: Adam's post Adam's analysis, although a credible attempt to make sense of these phrases and numbers, is too full of assumptions, of interpretations, and of speculations of what "AE" actually said or meant, or what Betty deciphered and copied to provide any any significant conclusion. My opinion of course. We have been debating and rearranging Betty's numbers and words for the past two years. My suggestion is to give Adam's interpretations to Betty and have her comment. Maybe they will stir some corner of her memory, which occasionally can happen.For instance, did she hear New York and write it N.Y. or what? Perhaps her recollection could clear up many of notations so Adam's work deserves a review by Betty. Previously, Ric has interviewed Betty at length and she has provided her anecdotal "clarifications" to the written entries as best she could. On many questionable entries, she was quite frank and honestly stated she couldn't remember. Hence all we can do is speculate and guess forever, but we will never know what the actual words were. Ric has stated that the document must stand as written. Equally open to further explanations, are Earhart saying W40K or WOJ, uncle, Bob, airport, Hello Bud, and suitcase in the closet, that appear in the notebook. Those words don't seem to fit the context of AE's aircraft filling with water in an emergency situation. Contrary to Adams conclusion that she was attempting to broadcast their KNOWN location with a revised, "adjusted" LOP, just doesn't make sense. Why not "KHAQQ calling Itasca,we are on an Island/atoll about 380 miles southeast of Howland", rather than provide only a LOP. Nothing fancy.. Maybe a guess at their latitude and longitude. Theorectically, they had several hours to check their position before landing. Finally,rearranging numbers reminds me of Gervais's attempt to get AE to the Phoenix Islands. He rearranged the letters in Guy Bolam to spell out the Phoenix Island group, then rearranging them to come up with a number sequence that gave the exact lat/long of Hull Is, where Lambrecht landed looking for AE. [She reportedly wasn't there] LTM, Ron Bright ************************************************************************** From Ric I have to agree with Ron on this one. Trying to "decipher" Betty's notebook is basically a Talmudic exercise. When all is said and done, all you've have is opinion. There may well be smoking gun evidence of a sort in the post loss radio signals but it won't come from interpretations of the phrases heard by the shortwave listeners. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 11:53:59 EST From: J. Dubb Subject: Re: wreck photo Since forum members are going to be doing all this research on the wreck photo, is it possible to release a higher quality image to work with? The overall image has limited detail. from Jdubb ******************************************************************** From Ric This thread started with my assertion that the Wreck Photo has been shown to be not worth worrying about. We'll put up a new research bulletin as soon as I can get to it. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:25:37 EST From: Tom King Subject: Re: Adam's post Pat says... "I am sure it would be quite interesting to work on... but the problem is, no matter what it would be speculative. We can't know, unfortunately, what was "really" meant." Of course we can't, but speculation can lead to propositions that can be tested. Example: Gallagher says the skull was buried, and we conclude that it must have then been excavated. We speculate that the hole on the Seven Site was where this happened. We can then dig the hole and (maybe) find out. OK, so we dug the hole and DIDN'T find out, but there's more to be done with the hole, and in digging it we found the burn features and animal bones. The whole project's been full of this kind of thing. I have no idea what a detailed analysis of Betty's notebook, by a variety of different brains, might yield, but the mere fact that it would be "speculative" doesn't strike me as much of a reason not to try it. ******************************************************************** From Ric I see Tom's point, but I have a hard time imaging what sorts of things might arise from interpretations of Betty notebook that might be testable. We've already noted the obvious ones: - Was AE known to have something important stashed in a suitcase in her California closet? Not that we've been able to determine so far, but if we discovered that she did would it prove that Betty heard AE? - Was "N.Y., N.Y." really Norwich City mistaken for New York City, or Duke of York mistaken for New York? Maybe. But how could we ever know? - Is the entry "S 309' 165*E" really 3 degrees 9 minutes South latitude, 165 degrees East longitude and therefore the unpublished assigned station of USS Ontario? Maybe. But like the suitcase in the closet, it doesn't prove anything. - Is "Marie, Marie" really Mary Bea, Mary Bea (Noonan's wife)? Maybe, but how could we ever be sure. Conjuring interpretations for the recollected (or in Betty's unique case, documented) words and phrases heard by the shortwave listeners is uncomfortably like interpreting the results of a psychic reading. It's easy to bend what is vague into something significant. That said, if there are those who want to work on it I certainly have no objection. Maybe something will come out that would lead us to something solid (just as interpreting Gallagher's cryptic descriptions of where he found the bones led us to the Seven Site). After all, if a psychic tells the police "You'll find the body near water." and that prompts them to check the swimming pool and they find the body - what the heck. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:26:18 EST From: Ric GillespieSubject: Alternative hypotheses Daryll wrote: >>Just to confirm Alan's statement. We'll be happy to present a valid case >>for a hypothesis other than the Niku hypothesis if someone can come up >>with one... > >uhhh.....is this another trick.....Ric ?? >Why do I get the feeling like "Little Red Riding Hood" skipping down the >wooded path?? Another trick? When did I ever trick you? You have stated your hypothesis that the airplane flew to Mili Atoll. TIGHAR has stated its hypothesis that the airplane flew to Gardner. Others have stated the hypothesis that the airplane went down at sea. Anybody want to state a hypothesis that the airplane was abducted by space aliens? Nobody knows for sure what happened and nobody is going to prove what happened by showing that a particular hypothesis could have happened. What we need to see is evidence (clues, hints, enticing coincidences, whatever) that point to what really DID happen. So far, as far as I know, all that has come out to support the Marshalls hypothesis is a mishmash of contradictory tales of the South Pacific and fanciful interpretations of rather ordinary documents and photographs. In short, you're going to have to come up with something better than a string of assumptions that let's you get a simulated Beech Baron to a simulated Mili to get space on this forum. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:32:09 EST From: Carol Dow Subject: Re: Marshall Islands Spies Randy Jacobson wrote: >The US Navy and State Dept. did not ask the Japanese to search the >Marshalls at all. First of all I don't believe the above statement. Without reading Nan-Yo I have an eerie feeling it is in direct conflict with Astor's letter. The Japanese were such nice pleasant peace makers.... baloney. Carol Dow ************************************************************************* From Ric What the U.S. government did and did not ask the Japanese to do is a matter of historical record whether you want to believe it or not. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:43:12 EST From: Adam Marsland Subject: them dry bones and W40K With the forum's forbearance, and acknowledging that Mr. Gillespie is correct in terming such discussion as largely speculative, I have one other question relating to Betty's Notebook. It was written somewhere at one point that "W40K" happened to be coincide with the call sign of a now-deceased HAM on the same wave of propagation as Betty. There was an second hand anecdote that W40K had actually had a conversation with AE ("I talked to her"). All good as far as it goes, but what I don't understand is this: if the HAM in Florida were hearing AE on a harmonic of her broadcast frequency, how could they possibly have a two-way conversation? The frequency she was heard on would be completely differently from her broadcast/reception frequency, right? I don't know anything about radio, so I may be missing something really obvious here. Tom Riggs wrote: >>I'm glad I did better on my first post than that fellow that said "why don't >>you just find the bones and DNA test them??? > >Adam...I'm not sure which fellow you are referring to, but if you are >referencing a forum posting I made quite some time ago about bones allegedly >belonging to AE/FN brought back to the United States by a team in the 1960s, >then you need to read the book "Amelia Earhart Returns From Saipan" to >understand the logic behind my posting. DNA testing was not available in the >1960s. My only point was, if the alleged bones are still in the U.S. (as the >book indicated in 1968) and could be located, a simple test using today's >easily obtained DNA technology could provide data to prove or disprove the >book author's claim. If I remember correctly, this was just a fellow who wandered on, posted one inane sentence, and was never heard from again. *************************************************************************** From Ric I'm as puzzled as you are about how Carroll's HAM call sign ended up in Betty's notebook. Maybe it's just a strange coincidence. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 10:44:21 EST From: Simon Ellwood Subject: Re: Wreck Photo Jdubb writes:- >is it possible to release a higher quality image to work with? The > overall image has limited detail. I still have a reasonably hi-res copy on my website at:- http://www.cv990.demon.co.uk/wreck Click the Wreck photo for a larger image. LTM Simon Ellwood #2120 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:08:53 EST From: Alfred Hendrickson Subject: Wreck Photo I have a very nice photo of AE's 10E, and I make the inside dimension of the cowl ring at 38". I also have a copy of the wreck photo, and, from it, I make the inside dimension of the cowl ring at 38". In short, they match. My algorithm could probably be called "low-tech", but I'll go with it. "That's my story and I'm sticking to it" - Collin Raye (Sorry, Ric. I'm the one who brought this whole thing up!) LTM, who probably loves the wreck photo as much as I do, Alfred Hendrickson *************************************************************************** From Jdubb Here is my 2cent estimate for the inside diameter of the cowling. For methodology I placed the higher res photo of the wreck engine into a drafting program (Microstation) and superimposed an ellipse on the major components. I assumed a prop length of 9ft and did some averaging of the various ovals due to the "fuzziness" of the photo. The results: assuming the prop length ~ 9ft wreck photo outer cowling diameter 53.88in wreck photo inner cowling diameter 38.88in ratio inner/outer ~ 0.722 Assuming this is a true 10e, then the true outer diam would be 53.50in and the inner diam would be 38.63in. But, measuring the cowlings on the "last takeoff" photo disproves that assumption. Last takeoff photo ratio inner/outer ~ 0.794 10E cowling diam 53.50in photo analysed 10E inner diam ~ 42.48in Almost a 4in diameter difference. Just as Angus Murry concluded, and Ric stated, the wreck photo is NOT a 10E. Ric, how close did I come to the true 10E inner dimension? Jdubb *************************************************************************** From Angus Murray Using the very poor resolution website photo, I determined the wreck cowl internal diameter as 37.5".There is not much point in putting any error limits on these measurements if we can get a better resolution photo. From measurements of NR's cowl in a rather better photo, I determined that to be 35.8". The diameter from another photo of NR I modified to illustrate the difference gave 36.45. There is likewise not much point wasting too much time estimating NR's cowl diameter if we can measure an R1340 cowl direct (which I believe has been done).However, it is a useful exercise to see what variation arises from analysing different photos. Here there is a 0.65" difference. >I'm apparently more comfortable with Angus' comparison than he is. Actually I just like doing things properly. We are only talking about a difference in diameter of perhaps 1.5". Thats just 0.75" either side. Estimating the position of the tips of the propellers (to get scale) and the edge of the cowl are not straightforward due to the photograph quality. There is perspective and distortion (in the original print and on screen) to consider. Finally, apparent diameter can change depending on brightness and contrast. The two photos of NR give measurements differing by 0.65". If both the wreck measurement is wrong by 0.65 and the NR measurement wrong by 0.65", we have nearly made up the 1.5" difference. If one espouses the scientific method, and for the comparison to be taken seriously, one must use the best resolution photo available and take all the factors into account to arrive at a best estimate with appropriate error limits. Regards Angus. PS. A second reasonable quality photo of NR gives a diameter of 35.9", in good agreement with the other good quality pic (35.8"). My guess is that the cowling inner diameter for both 10A and 10E will be the same at 36". A. *************************************************************************** From Ron Berry If Ric can find the measurements of the cowl then anyone can. That is anyone that is as super human as Ric. That is meant in a good way. ************************************************************************* From Ric If you say so. Thanks, but my cape is at the cleaners. *************************************************************************** From Ron Berry Ric I already gave you my measurements on the wreck in July of this year in a letter that I wrote to you, so you have my best considering the photo that we have to work with over the net. I believe that the wreck photo was not taken on Gardner Island, so the past few weeks I have changed my focus to where a photo like that of a long distance Electra could have been taken. *************************************************************************** From Ric Sorry. I can't find cowling measurements anywhere in the paper that you sent to me. ************************************************************************* From Dave Bush Regarding the cowl opening dimensions vs the prop dimensions - do both the inner and outer cowls have the same opening dimension, or is that different just as the outer cowl dimensions differ? LTM, Dave Bush **************************************************************************** From Ric Okay gang. Here are the measured dimensions (the envelope please). The exterior diameter dimension of the 10E cowl is 53 inches. The opening diameter of the 10E cowl is 40.5 inches. The exterior diameter dimension of the 10A cowl is 47 inches. The opening diameter of the 10A cowl is 33 inches. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:28:50 EST From: Ron Bright Subject: Notebook start time I don't want to belabor the notebook issue, but there is a debate when Betty first started writing in her book. In your original post in 2000, you said she started writing about 3pm, St Pete time. Quit about 6:00 pm But in her book, p. 3 , (your p. 53), there is "since 4:30" written at the top, then over a bit is "5:10". Some beleive the book started at 4:30 pm. Can you recall your interview about when the book started. I am guessing your 3pm estimate based on your interview was the real start time. LTM, Ron Bright ************************************************************************ From Ric No. The original 3 p.m. estimate was Betty's initial ballpark guess. When we really sat down and began asssessing each entry it became clear to Betty that her notation on the third page "since 4:30" reflected her realization at some point that it might be important to make note of when the reception began. "4:30" might not be accurate to the minute but it should be pretty close. The "5:10" on the same page may be the time that signals stopped for a while and Betty didn't know if they would resume or it may be when signals resumed after a break, or it could be the time she turned the page. No way to be sure. The notations "5:30" and "1 hr." on the top of the fourth page mean that it is now 5:30 and she has been hearing Amelia for one hour. Betty is quite sure of that. The "6:00" at the top of the fifth and last page, Betty believes, indicates the time at the start of that page and the "ended at 6:15" is self explanatory. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:39:38 EST From: RC Subject: 1937 RADIO LINGO F.Y.I. From one who flew prior to '37 & for an airline thereafter .. his comments: Very few beyond airlines had radio xmtrs. but a few did have 200-400 recvrs. so they could hear towers and radio ranges for wx. Since hardly any plane had a 3105 or 6210 recvr, the only way a pilot could hear another's radio lingo was to be in a tower or at a range station .. which was not uncommon, or listen on short wave .. very boring unless near an airport because xmsns were few and far between. Xmsns. were mainly in 'conversational english' but slang did develop. The most fequently used word was, 'Repeat'. [static, weak signal, etc.] Some Capts. were chatty with various towers and ranges, jokes etc. Frowned upon but done. Reports to their co. on HF were more business like but still informal and unstructured. Almost all position reports and clearances were via company radio. Co. HF was the only frequency(s) that were, talk/receive on same freq. Other pilots of the same company could of course listen to each other on the co. freq. and they did, including passing both business [wx, etc.] and personal comments back and forth. Due to static, and other reasons, it became a rule to identify the sender at least on co. freq's. 'Jones, flt 2 at 5,000, ...' Lots of, 'Hi Jim', or such when a voice was recognized. Not until the war were some general guide lines adopted, and it was not until well after the introduction of the jets that the co's. and the FAA became very serious about standard language .. request reentry .. for descent clearance, imitating celebrities voices .. Arthur Godfrey, Jimmy Stewart, etc ..and all sorts of topical slang, disappeared in a hurry. He had never heard of any 'international radio procedure' prior to the war. More to the point, he said that he was sure ICAO* had a history of the subject of 'international radio and procedures'. Someone more familiar with researching the web can look into that. Cheers, RC [who entered the airline scene post war] * Intn'l. Civil Aviation Org. An official org. of the countries to establish uniform procedures. Also IATA is the Int'l Air Transp. Assoc .. the group of int'l. airlines ... *************************************************************************** From Ric Fascinating. Context is everything in historical research and the entire aviation radio experience has changed so much since 1937 that there is a great tendency to make assumptions based upon the way things are now. I wonder... did pilots really use the inflectionless (if that's a word) sing-song voice style so common in aviation movies of the '30s? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:50:13 EST From: Ron Reuther Subject: Re: Marshall Islands Spies Ric, Carol, Randy, Enclosed are some comments that may be helpful regarding circumstances in the Marshall Islands in 1937 and possiblity of Earhart and Noonan being there. Vincent Astor's letter to Roosevelt in 1938 is quite revealing. Astor was chairman of the "room', Roosevelt's private secret intelligence group. Several other prominent and influential people were also members. As reported in Day of Deceit, The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinnett, that USN Lt. Cmdr. Arthur McCollum composed an 8 step action memorandum which was intended to engineer a situation that would mobilize a reluctant America into joining Britain's struggle against the German armed forces then overrunning Europe. Its eight actions called for virtually inciting a Japanese attack on American ground, air, and naval forces in Hawaii, as well as on British and Dutch colonial outposts in the Pacific region. On October 7, 1940 the memo was given to two of Roosevelt's most trusted military advisors: Navy captains Walter S. Anderson and Dudley W. Knox who inturn gave it to Roosevelt. Beginning the very next day, with FDR's involvement, McCollum's proposals were sytematically put into effect and Pearl Harbor occured a little more than a year later.. Stinnett also says that Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes [he was a Captain and commander of the Lexington in 1937 under the overall command of Earhart search commander, Lexington Group commander Capt. J.S. Dowell , Comdesron Two aboard the Lexington), as early as December 11, 1941 when he was then the Navy's Director of Communications in Washington, DC, "instituted a 54 year [that would carry us to1995 when many of the people involved would have died and thus be unavailable to talk] censorship policy that consigned pre-Pearl Harbor Japanese military and diplomatic intercepts and the relevant directives to Navy vaults." According to Stinnett, two weeks after Japan surrendered in August 1945, the Navy blocked public acccess to the pre-Pearl Harbor intercepts by classifying the documents TOP SECRET. Even Congress was cut out of the loop. The Navy's order was sweeping: it gagged the cryptographers and radio intercept operators. Fleet Admiral Ernest King oversaw the censorship. He threatened imprisonment and loss of Navy and veteran's benefits to any navy personnel who disclosed the success of the breaking of Japanese codes. The above discussion illustrates the risks Roosevelt was willing to take in comparison to a modest aerial observation by Lexington aircraft of the Marshall Islands from beyond the 3 mile limit or whatever it was. Even a flyover of those relatively sparsely populated and widely spaced islands could be imagined as willingly authorized by Roosevelt in his multiple and intense desire to find Earhart and to find out about Japanese military acitivities in the Mandates. You will note that the Lexington was relatively very close to the Marshall Islands, i.e., about 200-300 miles, in her published search route. I don't know what the ground ("water") rules were about entering adjacent/territorial waters to foreign lands/islands during that time, but it is possible that legal limits were close to shore, say 3-10 miles. I believe they were similar up until 40-50 years ago when they may have been extended to a greater distance. Even though Howland was a U.S. Territory in 1937, there are reports of foreign ships coming up close to the island (within sight) unexpectedly and unannounced at that time. Some of them were reported as Japanese. An aircraft carrier could stand off an island at considerably greater distance and launch aircraft which would perhaps be less noticeable from an island (and less obviously intrusive). The aircraft could maintain 3-10 miles offshore outside the territorial limits and still observe quite a bit of and about the island from a reasonable altitude. As we know Australia's Smiths' Weekly in their October 16, 1937 edition said that we [the US Navy] took advantage of the Earhart search to make a flyover/scrutiny of the Mandates. Strippel in his book Amelia Earhart, the myth and the reality, 1972, says on page 93, " It is also highly probable that both the US Army and Navy carried out photo reconnaisance missions over the Mandates earlier" [than November 27, 1941 when such a mission by two B-24s was ordered [but did not fly the mission] by General Hap Arnold. Iinterestingly Strippel also says that when Jackie Cockran visited Tokyo in September 1945 and found files on Amelia Earhart, the section bore no further notation about Earhart after the supposed crash near Howland. I had not heard that before. As far as I can recall no one since has mentioned that]. In United States Defense and Trans-Pacific Commercial Air Routes 1933-1941 submitted by Francis X. Holbrook as a dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History at Fordham University, New York, 1969 on page 185 there is this interesting information: "Finally, during the air sweeps conducted by the Lexingtons's squadrons, several of the Japanese islands in the Marshalls were flown over." Holbrook cites as his source of this information "Pomeroy, p. 156. United States Congress, Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack, Hearings, Part 37, Proceedings of Hewitt Inquiry, Washington, D.C., United States Government Printing Office, 1946, pp. 1136-1144. Orange Activity in the Mandates in 1940. The document shows that some intelligence information on these islands was gotten in 1937." I have just reread a letter from Robert Stinnett, author of Day of Deceit, The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, to me dated March 16, 1994. In part he says: "Nevertheless, I have discovered secret USN documents where a special Naval Task Force was engaged in 'survey' of the Central Pacific Isles from Jan to July 1937. Perhaps AE was part of this schedule." I am attempting to contact Stinnett again on this issue. Rear Admiral Ellis M. Zacharias in his book Secret Missions published in 1961 says referring to his arrival in command of the cruiser Salt Lake City in a raid on Wotje Atoll in the Marshall Islands in WWII: "We could not help recalling the previous extensive efforts to gain information of this area through visits of our ships and the opposition of our own state Department to these 'controversial' issues." War Plan Orange by Edward S. Miller, 1991, is a must read for consideration of US-Japanese concerns in the Mandates pre WWII. There are other books in addition, that give different and contrary views to Mark Peattie's Nan-Yo. As you know so well, the so-called "historical record" has to be interpreted, and compared to other records, i.e., the official Coast Guard and Navy search conclusions and the data that Tighar and others have dug up and interpreted! Ron Reuther ************************************************************************** From Ric There are often discrepancies among historical documents and historians are often forced to decide which contemporaneous record is more reliable. A classic case is comparing Commander Thompson's report of the Earhart Radio Transcripts with the actual Itasca radio logs. However, one can not credibly challenge the "historical record" by citing undocumented claims and speculation by later authors. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:57:49 EST From: Ron Reuther Subject: more re Japanese militarism in the Marshalls Stripple refers to the article by Lt. Gen. Masatake Okumiya, Japanese Air Self Defense Force (Ret.) entitled "For Sugar Boats or Submarines" which was published in the August 1968 issue of US Naval Institutes Proceedings and which proclaims that the Japanese did not fortify their Pacific mandated islands. Stripple also refers to Francis X. Holbrooks February 1971 article, also in the Naval Institute Proceedings, entitled "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight", but doesn't say that Holbrook actually confirms "no fortifications." Indeed in Holbrook's PhD Thesis submission that we have refered to in earlier messages Holbrook actually cites official US Navy records which list a Wotje landing field completed in 1937 and a Building in Progress - a submarine base? - on Eniwetok in 1936. In the UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, The War in the Pacific, SEIZURE OF THE GILBERTS AND MARSHALLS by Philp A Crowl and Edmund G. Love, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, WASHINGTON, D.C. , 1955, I quote: "From 1934 through 1941 the Japanese undertook considerable construction activity in their island possessions, allegedly for nonmilitary purposes. According to the testimony of Capt. Hidemi Yoshidqa, IJN, who was intimately connected with naval construction in the mandates, this program was aimed primarily at the building of 'cultural and industrial facilities.'" [How about the secondary aim?!! - RR] "Under the category of 'cultural and industrial facilities' were listed such items as ramps and runwayus for aircraft , wireless stations, direction finders, meteorological stations, and lighthouses. These improvements, :Yoshida claimed, were necessary for safe navigation, promotion of commerce [with who? - no westerners for sure!! - RR], and other peaceful pursuits." "Unquestionably many of these installations could be employed for commercial pruposes. It is equally true that their nature was such as to permit an easy conversion to military uses, if the situation so demanded. It also appears certain that the Japanese made a deliberate effort to disguise military construction projects in the cloak of harmless peaceful endeavors." Ron Reuther ************************************************************************ From Ric What has any of this got to do with Amelia Earhart? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:18:39 EST From: Gary LaPook Subject: Re: Marshall Islands The 157/337 LOP cannot provide any guidance to Gardner because the azimuth of the LOP changes as the sun moves across the sky. It was 157/337 for only about one hour after sunrise and then shifted in a counterclockwise direction. By the time the Electra could have reached Gardner, say about 2240 Z (figuring on flying at 130 knots and departing Howland's vicinity immediately after the "157/337" radio message at 2014 Z) the azimuth of the LOP would have changed to 126/306 which is 33 degrees away from the true course of 159 to Gardner. This would take you more 190 NM north east of Gardner. As Ric has admitted, they only had dead reckoning and a compass to follow to Gardner, not a LOP. Since this is the same type of navigation that they would have followed to the Gilberts, Mili, or any place else, your statement about the availability of a LOP does not provide additional support for the Gardner hypothesis. gl **************************************************************************** From Ric I'll confess that this is the kind of posting that really frosts me, but I'll try to be nice. Advancing an LOP through an intended destination by dead reckoning and then flying that line, again by dead reckoning, if the destination does not appear was a standard, recommended procedure. TIGHAR has never said or implied otherwise. Earhart herself said she was "running" on the 157/337 line - not some other line that would lead to the Gilberts or the Marshalls. The Navy recognized the legitimacy of the procedure in 1937. That's why they sent the Colorado to search for her down the 157 line. Saying that I "admit" that "they only had dead reckoning and a compass to follow to Gardner, not a LOP." is either a gross misunderstanding or an egregious misrepresentation. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:27:14 EST From: Angus Murray Subject: Re: Weather info Ric/Jack/Randy, What is the sum total of weather information in the Howland area for the whole of July 2nd 1937? Was there any weather info available from Canton for this day? Regards Angus. ********************************************************************* From Ric We have the hour-by-hour decklog weather observations of the ITASCA and a noontime weather observation (with some winds aloft information) by Richard Black on Howland. There was nobody on Canton. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:39:48 EST From: Alfred Hendrickson Subject: Still more on the Wreck Photo I have some more observations and questions about the wreck photo. I will appreciate your thoughts. Things we know: The wreck photo shows a wrecked twin-engined plane in a tropical setting. The proportions of prop-length-to-cowl match the 10E close enough for some, but not for others! (They match close enough for me; I don't think we can expect to get a precise distance, without error, given what we're working with.) Ric: Have all of the other 10E's and all of the Ki-54's been accounted for? In other words, is there anything like a strong probability that the wreck photo shows another 10E, or a Ki-54, or some other possibility? If planes other than AE's are ruled out, in my judgement, the very existence of this photo supports the Niku Hypothesis. It certainly does not prove it, but it supports it. As to the question of scale, suppose I said that the prop length of the plane in the wreck photo is 8'. Or 7', or 10'. Does this introduce other twin-engine planes as possibilities? In other words, is the assumption of the 9 foot prop reasonable? The other concern I have is this: Is there any chance the photo is a fake? Does TIGHAR have in its possession the original of this photo? If not, does anyone know where it is? Thanks, - Alfred Hendrickson ********************************************************************** From Ric >Have all of the other 10E's and all of the Ki-54's been accounted >for? No. >In other words, is there anything like a strong probability that >the wreck photo shows another 10E, or a Ki-54, or some other >possibility? Yes. >In other words, is the a