Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 08:49:30 -0400 From: Mike Everette Subject: Earhart's transmitter The schematic diagrams for AE's transmitter, which I used in preparing my analysis of the equipment, are indeed not "originals;" rather, their source is the Morgan book from 1939. Morgan, however, credits Western Electric, the equipment manufacturer, as the source of the diagram of the modified transmitter. I have searched, without success, for an original Handbook of Maintenance Instructions for this equipment. I would have liked to have this original source, when doing my research. Bob Brandenburg has also searched for it, unsuccessfully. We wanted to find this in order to facilitate research into the circuit parameters that may have contributed to harmonic radiation from the transmitter, in connection with post-loss signal research. If anyone has access to this Handbook, i would very much like to examine it, and would be happy to pay a reasonable fee for a complete copy. When doing my research for the technical analysis in the 8th Edition, I used what was available -- the best I could find. I still believe this information to be bona fide, in the absence of better evidence. Having some years' hands-on experience with radio communications equipment, and seeing how technical documentation evolves (and by extension, the pace of said evolution and publication), I present the following scenario. The transmitter modifications were engineered and carried out in the late winter/early spring of 1937. The documentation was formalized by WE, subsequent to the work being done; probably by the summer of 1937. The Morgan book was compiled sometime between the spring and fall of 1938. Western Electric submitted the information they had on hand at the time of the author's query. WE, at least by some time in 1938, had begun to offer a CW-capable version of the 13-series transmitter to the market. The modifications, I believe, were substantially the same as, and probably identical to, those made to AE's transmitter. Primary reason why I believe this: If the modifications had been thorough and based upon the state of the art for CW-capable aircraft transmitters of the period, they would have been better thought out with respect to transmitter keying and control. Besides, this radio had originally been designed as a voice-only transmitter intended for domestic air-carrier use. A version incorporating CW would mainly appeal to a "niche market," therefore there was little need to improve upon the original modifications. The Morgan book was copyrighted and published some time during 1939... based upon information that was probably at least a year old. Remember, preparing a book for publication was a lot more lengthy process in the pre-computer age. For these reasons, I stand by my position on the validity of the information in these diagrams. However, if antecedent evidence can be produced, in the form of an actual drawing with a date on it, I would love to examine it. If the antecedent evidence indicates a need to revise my position and conclusions, I'll do so. No problem. My work is based upon the best information available to me. And a diagram always carries more evidential weight than a letter written 25-30 years after the fact, no matter who the writer. 73 Mike E. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 09:09:25 -0400 From: Don Iwanski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 This is where I picked up a picture of the skin. http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/41_WheelofFortune/41_Wheel.html What I wanted to know is on the interior side of the skin, the framework to which this skin was attached, that perhaps it left an impression on the skin. I was curious to know how wide the impression was to give an idea of what size framework the skin was attached to. Another interesting piece of information would be about the remaining rivet. How long was the rivet? Is it possible to tell how thick the framework was it was attached to. Regards - Don I. ********************************************************************** From Ric Okay, I see what happened. The WOF Bulletin is actually double-loaded on the website. We'll fix it. To answer your question: The "etching", such as it is, on the interior surface suggests that the skin was riveted to stringers that were one inch wide. The stringers in the belly of the Lockheed 10 are channel sections that are one inch wide. The length of the rivet shaft of the "AN455 AD 3/3" rivet is 3/32s of an inch long. That what the "3/3" means. The head is 3/32s of an inch in diameter and the shaft is 3/32s of an inch long. In other words, these are itty-bitty rivets. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 09:18:21 -0400 From: Mark Guimond Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Just a few thoughts off the top of my head: >From Ric (Re.Tom Strang's question) > >Don't feel bad. It's a very complex subject. > >It was the opinion of the NTSB and a prominent FAA accident >investigator that the interior surface of the skin was struck by a >powerful fluid force thus blowing the fragment outward. Would not this analysis rule out the possibility of artifact 2-2-V-1 coming from the nose area? A crash would have hamered the skin inwards against the stucture, not blown it out. Additionally, the skin would have been severely wrinkled, as if beaten with a large ball-peen hammer, on condition of a sufficiently high impact speed. Furthermore, such an impact speed would most likely have proven fatal to anybody in the cockpit, seeing as how the occupants' only restraint would have to come from near-useless lap belts. As far as I know, the L10's were not equiped with shoulder harnesses. A more gentle (survivable) nose-up ditching at the stall speed would not likely rip loose sheetmetal from the nose area, whichever the direction of the fluid force. Nor could the item come from the aft fuselage or tail area since the hydrodynamic piston effect required to blow it outward would necessitate the massive high-velocity ingress of water through the fuselage. Had the L10E been equiped with a perspex nose like a bomber, which disintegrated on impact, this might be conceivable. But this was obviously not the case. Even if there had been such an unlikely ingress (through the cockpit?), the long-range tanks that took up much of the mid-fuselage volume would have acted as baffles, preventing any of the required ram effect. Comments? ************************************************************************ From Ric I agree. If this skin came from the Electra then the aircraft neither crashed nose-first nor ditched in the ocean. The apparent failure of this piece of skin requires that the aircraft be held relatively immobile while being struck by a considerable fluid force (i.e. water). What is really neat about 2-2-V-1 is that it fits the very scenario that we have hypothesized from numerous independent sources. The airplane was landed successfully on the reef flat, remained intact for several days while radio distress calls were sent, and was subsequently pounded and washed off the reef by rising tides and surf. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 13:27:00 -0400 From: Herman De Wulf Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Could it not be that the damaged fuselage part was simply covered by a new sheet to restore the airplane's streamline without removing the dented piece? I've seen this having been done on Boeings 737 and Airbus A320s that had been damaged on the apron by ground support (catering) vehicles. LTM (who believes the most dangerous place for an airplane to be is on the ground) **************************************************************** From Ric The Repair Orders say what to do but not how to do it. Under "Fuselage Repairs" they say: "Replace entire right hand bottom skin from slanting bulkhead to Sta. 293 5/8." (The "slanting bulkhead" is the bulkhead that divides the cockpit from the cabin. Sta. 293 5/8 is just aft of the cabin door.) The Repair orders also say: "Replace inboard 8 inches of left hand bottom skin from main beam to Sta. 293 5/8. Lap old and new skins at stringer." So what you have are new belly skins on the right-hand side and a long 8 inch wide strip of new skin beside the keel on the left-hand side. There's no mention of replacing stringers and there are no specific instructions about how to rivet the new skins on to the old stringers. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 13:31:33 -0400 From: Angus Murray Subject: Re: MCW? Mike said: > My work is based upon the best information available to me. And a > diagram always carries more evidential weight than a letter written > 25-30 years after the fact, no matter who the writer. You ignore the fact that protoype equipment is more often than not different in some respect from the production version. The WE13CB was made with commercial considerations of cost effectiveness, ease of use, and many other factors in mind. Many of these were matters of secondary consideration in modifying AE's equipment. There is simply no justification for assuming AE's transmitter was the same. Moreover look again at what Tinus says: "I had been a radio operator aboard ship in my younger days and knew the importance of being able to communicate at 500 kc over the oceans. It was my thought that many ships throughout the world had 500 kc radio compasses and could probably better obtain bearings if the key were held down for an extended period while radiating modulated CW (MCW)". Note that Tinus does not mention the MCW modification casually in passing. He makes a specific point of explaining his reasoning as to why "modulated CW" was an advantage - ie for "better obtaining bearings". From his experience "in his younger days" he would have been similarly well aware at the time of making the modifications to AE's set, that MCW would be a distinct advantage over CW. Again: "A simple modification also enabled transmission to be made on CW or MCW, as well as voice, and a telegraph key was provided which could be plugged in, in addition to a microphone for voice communication." He states that the modification was "simple". Bell probably had off the shelf access to ready made sub-assemblies which were used in other equipment that Tinus could incorporate to achieve either modulation or chopping of the carrier without significant customisation. Whether that was so or not, if in Tinus's view this was a simple modification and it was one that experience told him was worthwhile, there would have been little reason not to incorporate it. DF, as AE was to discover to her cost, and as Tinus recognised, was a very important asset to the flight. The upshot of all this is that it would be surprising after what Tinus said if he did not incorporate MCW into his modifications, whether or not his recollection was accurate. Regards Angus ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 14:29:53 -0400 From: Don Iwanski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 There has to be some reason they used #3's in this area as opposed to using #4's. In exterior skin sections if there's enough edge distance to use a beefier rivet over an itty bitty one, I think Id use the beefier one unless directed otherwise. The exterior skin is subject to allot of stress and it does not seem rational to use such a small rivet although it is allowed. It seems more like this piece of sheet metal would be like an interior door panel but you've concluded its exterior skin. My conclusion: A very interesting piece of sheet metal you have there. Don I. ************************************************************************ From Ric I agree with you that it's unusual, but all you have to do is crawl under the tail of any Lockheed Electra and you'll #3 rivets in .032 skin with the same parallel stringer structure we see evidenced on the artifact. When we were initially trying to find alternative sources for 2-2-V-1 I haunted air museums with ruler in hand making an absolute pest of myself ("Excuse me but would it be possible to put a stepladder up next to this airplane? I need to measure something."). If you do that enough you begin to get a feel for the rivet sizes and patterns used on various aircraft sizes and even by different manufacturers. The more I looked the more convinced I became that we have a piece of a repair made to a Lockheed 10. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 14:40:29 -0400 From: Carl Peltzer Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 As someone who does some of these repairs, drilling out a bunch of rivets is not a big problem especially when they did the repairing in the factory where it was built and had the right repair parts and jigs there. I'd believe in this case that they had the time to remove and replace the skin correctly. ****************************************************************** From Ric Nobody said the original rivets were not drilled out and I agree that the factory should have been well-equipped to do the repairs, but photos of the assembly line for new construction show that the fuselages and center sections were built in separate jigs and then mated. Re-jigging Earhart's airplane for repair was simply not an option. Numerous photos of NR16020 under repair confirm this. Time was also a factor. There are lots of stories about how Earhart pushed Lockheed to get the work done quickly and made a royal pain of herself, frequently visiting the shop and pressuring the front office. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 16:06:13 -0400 From: Marty Moleski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 > ... there are no specific > instructions about how to rivet the new skins on to the old stringers. Would one want to hit or miss the old rivet holes on the existing stringers? Marty #2359 ************************************************************************ From Ric Good question. So you drill out the rivets and remove the damaged skin. Now you want to rivet a new skin to the existing stringers. Having drilled out the rivets it seems like the old holes would now be too big to accept the same size rivet. Seems like you either have to drill new holes or go to a rivet with a bigger shaft diameter. I'm sure there's a standard procedure. I just don't know what it is. What say ye A&Ps? Let's have some Airplane Repair 101. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 19:47:06 -0400 From: Alfred Hendrickson Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 I've drilled out a few rivets. My experience was, I did not need to drill through the material that was being joined by the rivets. I only needed to drill enough of the rivet end away to render the rivet ineffective. Then, I pushed the old rivet out. There was no change to the hole size. A new rivet, the same size as the old one, could have been installed in the hole. LTM, who, as you know, was really Rosie the Riveter, Alfred Hendrickson, PE TIGHAR Sponsor Member #2583 ******************************************************************* From Carl Peltzer You drill the head of the old rivet using a smaller size drill than the shank [diameter] of the rivet. Most of the time I can do it well enough that the old one will fall out. Also there's a small centering dimple on the top of all rivets to make this easier to drill it out. ******************************************************************** From Ric The dimple might serve well for that purpose but that's not why it's there. A dimpled river head indicates a rivet made of A17ST alloy. Other materials are indicated by other marks, for example, a 17ST rivet has a raided dot. A 56S rivet has a raised cross. The A17ST dimpled rivets are, by far, the most common type used in primary structure. The existing rivet in 2-2-V-1 is a dimpled A17ST. *************************************************************** From Don Iwanski Replacing the skin and channel underneath. One would probably go with what was called out on the original drawing. Replacing the skin and leaving the original channel. You would probably want to step up your holes to the next oversize. I was reading something before I left work today. It had to do with typical skin and web repairs. In .032 skin (or web) if you were to do a repair the minimum fastener requirement was a #5 rivet. Now this is if you are using a filler and doubler, or just the doubler. And you can do this repair using just one row of rivets. (Most repairs call out a double row of rivets.) But then I got to thinking about how things were in the 1930's. Were many of the standards that we use today in place back then? I would seriously doubt it. There were probably allot less restrictions used back then and the mechanic who was making the repair most likely went with the original design if it was practicable, possibly not even needing any more authority than his own judgment. Today it's a more complicated process. And some other things came to mind about this piece of sheet metal as well. #3 fasteners were probably original design and not part of a repair process. The #5 holes could be where the repair met the original design in some way or could be part of the original design as well where the skin crosses over onto a thicker frame. The structure where this skin was attached which have the #3 holes. I could be wrong here but it seems that structure couldn't be more than .032 thick as well or that size rivet would not fit. It would not be long enough to travel through the skin and through the channel and leave enough to be bucked. Even if it's a U-Channel, at .032 that is really thin stuff for structure. Probably not from an area which makes up the aircraft's primary framework but possibly from and interior section underneath floor boards, inside of the wheel wells. It really is hard to say. And a last thought about the remaining rivet, I think it was in an inaccessible area as to why it was improperly bucked. Regards - Don I. ********************************************************************** From Ric Interesting comments. I'll be very interested to hear what you think when we get the Research Bulletin up on the website and you see how the Lockheed 10 was put together and how the artifact compares with that structure. ************************************************************************ From Mark Guimond If they are flush rivets, you have to drill them out. If they are protruding-head rivets, you can slice them off with a hammer and sharp chisel applied along the skin surface, then push the rivet shank through, preserving the original holes in the stringers or other underlying material. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 19:56:07 -0400 From: Reno Lauro Subject: Possible problems I have been following the most interesting forum ever. I am an Aerospace Education officer with Civil Air Patrol and work mostly with cadets. This forum is a gold mine! I have, just about in one sitting, read the book" Earhart's Shoes" and found it fascinating. I have one comment to make. A few weeks ago I found a paper back book called "The last flight" witch was a compilation of AE letters sent to her husband from every airport she could send cablegrams back to the states. These were published by AE husband after her disappearance. I was intrigued to the fact that AE reported that, on her leg from Brazil to Africa they did not hit the targeted land mass at the planed spot but rather several hundred miles South. AE also reported that on her last leg in the pacific, her navigator had difficulties receiving the radio beacon signals, on the ground I presume, to properly set his chronometer to Zulu time. I was thinking that, the first error of several hundred miles off course on AE's Atlantic crossing, then on the last and most crucial leg, the navigator could not set the chronometer to Zulu time, could be of crucial importance specially when time is the most important element for celestial navigation. AE did not elaborate whether on the Atlantic crossing, the chronometer was a factor on the navigational error. If in did the chronometer time was wrong, then the sunrise time and line of position would put them more than a few hundred miles off from where the thought they were. This may account for the very weak signals received by the navy at the expected contact time. Humbly submitted, Reno PS: great job all of you! ************************************************************************ From Ric "Last Flight" was creatively edited and expanded before publication. Using it as a source requires considerable caution and cross-checking with primary sources. Little or no celestial was done on the South Atlantic crossing because the aircraft was in cloud for most of the trip. The chart Noonan used on that flight is now at Purdue University and suggests that the navigation was entirely dead reckoning. Noonan did have trouble while they were in Lae getting time signals with which to check his chronometer but he did succeed in getting two good time checks before they departed. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 19:58:10 -0400 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: MCW? So far I am not seeing definitive proof as to what modifications were or were not made. I also have not found definitive proof the Electra did NOT have a key aboard. All I am seeing is "likelihood." There is no value to probabilities in these issues. They make for good arguments but the bottom line has to be a simple yes or no to these issues. Only then does the answer have significant value. For example there are keyed messages in the post loss group. If we can definitely prove AE did not have that capability we can dismiss those messages. Saying she likely did, probably did, rationally did doesn't permit a decision on the matter. So far the answer is we don't know and all the rehashing of what almost certainly would have been done or not done doesn't help one iota. It's black or white and gray won't cut it. Alan ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 10:21:30 -0400 From: Rick Boardman Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Having trouble finding a pic of this item on the website. Where can mere mortals see this panel? And do I read this right that you believe the panel was blown off the Electra by the sea? ************************************************************************ From Ric Mere mortals can see a small picture of 2-2-V-1 in the "Location, Location, Location" section of the "Wheel of Fortune" research bulletin (http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/41_WheelofFortune/41_Wheel.html) ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 10:22:47 -0400 From: Rick Boardman Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 And do I read this right that you believe the panel was blown off the Electra by the sea? ************************************************************************ From Ric That's correct. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 10:25:09 -0400 From: Mike Everette Subject: Re; MCW? Angus Murray wrote: > Mike said: >> My work is based upon the best information available to me. And a >> diagram always carries more evidential weight than a letter written >> 25-30 years after the fact, no matter who the writer.>> > > You ignore the fact that prototype equipment is more often > than not different in some respect from the production > version. I'm not "ignoring" anything. I am saying, and I still maintain, that in the absence of better evidence, this looks like a pretty darn good record of what was done to that rig. Nor do I disagree with you, that "prototype" equipment often differs from production versions. But before you assume that this diagram reflects a later, "more refined" production version, please consider these two points. 1. The control circuitry is very awkward. The radio does not incorporate "break-in" keying, but must be manually switched from receive to transmit condition before it is Morse-keyed; then it must be switched back to receive at the conclusion of a transmission. Indeed, the control switch that performs this function is labeled "CW-Phone." (see the diagram) In other words, the operator is actually switching the radio from CW mode, back to voice mode, to receive. The confusion potential is high, for an untrained operator. 2. There is no circuitry provided to furnish a CW side tone, to allow the sending operator to monitor the keying. (Nor is there any sort of source for a modulating tone, for MCW or tone modulated telegraphy). In the information available to me, I don't see a provision to "un-mute" the receiver, when the transmitter is keyed; so this form of signal monitoring isn't available either. In fact, direct monitoring of the transmitted signal off-the-air was definitely not the practice in aircraft radio, most of the time. The side tone was used for this. Both break-in and CW side tone would have been standard features of an aircraft transmitter designed for CW use. These mods are definitely add-ons. In summation: Please find me some better evidence, in the form of an actual Western Electric diagram or maintenance manual, and I will be more than happy to look at it. I'd jump at the chance, in fact. It would answer a number of questions. If the evidence calls for a revision of conclusions, then I'll gladly do this. Until such time as this surfaces, I don't see any point in debating this any more. It's beginning to take on a tone that I don't find good; kind of akin to "a-c modulated" CW, in fact. And a diagram STILL beats a letter. No matter who wrote it. Especially if the letter isn't contemporaneous. 73 Mike E. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 10:29:09 -0400 From: Davyflyer Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 HI, DavyFlyer AMS2 from Navy with P5M Martins 1962. When we had a skin damage to hull, we drilled only the heads out and not into the shank. So not much if any damage to hull ribs. Thus, the same size was used in replacement. ************************************************************************ From Ric How did you line up the holes? Was the new skin pre-drilled or did you drill the new skin by going in through the back (i.e. through the old holes)? ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 11:35:30 -0400 From: Tom King Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 For Rick Boardman >And do I read this right that you believe the panel was >blown off the Electra by the sea? > >************************************************************************ >From Ric > >That's correct. But -- perhaps inaccurately reading some skepticism into Rick's query -- it's not so much a matter of being blown off (sorry, Mom) but blown OUT. Lots of water enters the airplane very fast, has to get out, blows out the spot represented by 2-2-V-1. ************************************************************************ From Ric Let me be even more specific. We're not talking about something like leaving a water balloon attached to the faucet until it bursts. We're talking about something akin to hitting a particular part of the interior surface of the belly with a sudden blast from the world's biggest fire hose. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 11:36:29 -0400 From: Tom King Subject: Re: Possible problems To Reno -- PS -- Thanks for your kind words of encouragement. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 11:54:07 -0400 From: DavyFlyer Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 HI, We used sheet stock, cut it for area, held it in area by hand to get 4 corners drilled to lock into place with fasteners, then drill back into panel from stringer side, using holes as a guide. Never took it to the bench to drill. to much chance of miss align drill, and also took extra time, because with these flying boats, a lot of work was done on the ramp. DavyFlyer ************************************************************************ From Ric Yeah, that makes sense. In this case (if we're right about where this piece of sheet came from), the original skin was riveted in place along the keel of the airplane with a staggered double row of #3 rivets with a pitch of 1.5 inches and was a riveted to four parallel stringers with a single row of #3s with a pitch of 1.5 inches. When the damaged skin was removed and new skin put in place (so the theory goes) the staggered double row of #3 rivets along the keel was replaced with a staggered double row of #5s. The new skin was stitched to the four parallel stringers with single rows of #3s as before except the pitch was tightened to 1 inch. Does that sound reasonable? ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 12:09:10 -0400 From: Marty Moleski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 > ... In this case (if we're right about where this > piece of sheet came from), the original skin was riveted in place along > the keel of the airplane with a staggered double row of #3 rivets with > a pitch of 1.5 inches and was a riveted to four parallel stringers with > a single row of #3s with a pitch of 1.5 inches. When the damaged skin > was removed and new skin put in place (so the theory goes) the > staggered double row of #3 rivets along the keel was replaced with a > staggered double row of #5s. The new skin was stitched to the four > parallel stringers with single rows of #3s as before except the pitch > was tightened to 1 inch. It sounds as though that would mean hitting an old hole every third rivet (depending on the location of the first repair rivet): 1" -- new hole 2" -- new hole 3" -- hits second 1.5" rivet 4" -- new hole 5" -- new hole 6" -- hits fourth 1.5" rivet Of course, if the first new rivet was drilled 1/4" away from an old rivet hole, all of the new 1" rivets would miss all the old holes. Or so it seems to me. Marty ************************************************************************ From Ric I agree. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 14:07:45 -0400 From: Don Iwanski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Double rows of #5s? I didnt see that in the picture. I saw a single row. I dont' know if any of the other AP's would agree but usually the staggering doesnt come from the factory but is part of the repair process when doing skin repairs and such. Modern day SRM repairs call out to stagger the rivets which increases the strength of the repair as opposed to adding double rows. ************************************************************************ From Ric The presence of a second, but staggered, row of #5s is strongly suggested by the failure pattern but none of the holes of a second row are actually present on the artifact. Staggered rows of rivets are quite common on the Lockheed 10. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 14:50:11 -0400 From: From David Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 I do not generally comment until I see a point missed.... 1. "A fluid force". Air is a fluid. An explosion involving combustible material is a fluid force. A "fluid" force does not necessarily involve liquid per se. 2. In sheet metal replacement holes in structure are located by means of a hole finder. Simply put, this is a tool "similar" to two 12" hacksaw blades held together with a rivet or screw through the two holes at one end of the of the two hacksaw blades while the lower hacksaw blade has a rivet bucked or epoxied through its' remaining hole. For instance a #3 (3/32") rivet would be bucked to present a #4 (1/8") shank for 1/8" holes to be found. The length of the legs of the "hole finder" depend on how far you have to "reach" into blank sheet metal. The lower hacksaw blade is then inserted under the replacement sheetmetal with the rivet entering the hole in the existing structure. Then the hole finder "legs" are held true and a pilot drilled through the remaining top hacksaw blade hole into the repair sheetmetal. Once drilled to size a Cleco will hold the replacement sheet metal in place while further holes are "found". Aircraft sheetmetal workers have a variety of tools of this kind of different lengths as a means of accomplishing or overcoming the "blind" problem. 3. Rivet heads should never be chiselled off as one of your scribes suggested. This leads to scratched skin and elongated rivet holes. This is especially true in pressurised aircraft where scratches on the skin would create stress risers and lead to skin failure. That would be very bad practice and is not acceptable. 4. Common practice is to drill rivet heads off until they flick off either using the dimple on so marked rivets or to use a spring loaded centre pop to lightly indent a rivet head as a guide while drilling. The same spring loaded centre pop will then be used to shock out the rivet tail leaving the original hole for a replacement rivet of the same size. Either that or a light blow to remove the rivet tail. Sometimes over-zealous bucking will have stretched the hole and in this case where several holes are stretched an assessment is done as to whether to "upgrade" to an oversize rivet. Hope this helps your discussion. Longtime Framie. ************************************************************************ From Ric Thanks. Before long we'll all be able to repair our own airplanes. From all of these discussions it appears evident that replacing damaged skin can often (but not always) be accomplished using the same stringer holes without "upgrading" to a larger size rivet. The deciding factor seems to be how well the integrity of the original hole has been preserved and I would expect that depends to some degree on the nature of damage that caused the skin to need replacing in the first place. In the case of NR16020, the groundloop in Hawaii and resultant gear failure slammed the airplane down on it's right-hand underside with sufficient force to require the replacement of the entire right wing outboard of the engine and the 180 degree skidding slide on the right-hand side of the belly meant that almost all of the skins on that side of the belly had to be replaced. I wonder if that kind of side load on the rivet heads might produce the kind of elongation of the holes that you caution against in paragraph #3 above. You are, of course, correct that a "fluid" force does not necessarily involve liquid. Air is a fluid but the kind of force required to do the damage we see to the artifact must be truly explosive. The metal exhibits none of the tell-tale pitting that results from the detonation of an explosive device. We considered a fuel-air explosion but there's none of the discoloration that is typical of such events and it's hard to construct a scenario where an explosion due to, for example, a fuel leak would be so localized as to only blow out one small section of skin. LTM, Ric ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 15:01:06 -0400 From: Seth Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 I've been a lurker for several months now, and I've really enjoyed watching the forum. I hope I'm going about this in the right way to post a message.... This piece was not entirely blown out though, was it? more like one (or two) edge(s) were blown out, then some settler wanted the piece of metal and chiseled it to the point where they could bend it back and forth repeatedly until it broke off. That's how I understand it from what I've read on the website. Also....I haven't heard much talk about the piece of plexiglass, the curvature of which matched up with Lockheed 10 specs. To me that is one of the pieces that is most supportive of Tighars theory. (Although it has been a while since I've read the website). Anyway...hello to everyone...keep up the good work. I better get back to lurking.... Seth ************************************************************************ From Ric You're correct that two edges of the piece failed virtually instantaneously from an explosive event. The third may have torn from natural forces (surging water) or it may have been hacked free by human action. We're not sure. The fourth edge failed from fatigue after cycling back and forth (surging water or human action?). In other words, we're not sure whether the piece tore completely loose from the plane or was salvaged from the plane by a person. It's an important point because if we say that the piece was removed by someone other than AE and FN then the wreck must have been to some degree accessible at least a year and a half after July 1937. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 15:01:55 -0400 From: Don Iwanski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 I feel a need to correct myself here. My statement regarding SRM repairs is not correct. Some repairs call out to stagger a single row of rivets, and other repairs call out using double rows. A staggered row of rivets could offer much more strength in certain areas over a double row, just depends on the area. Sorry about the misleading statement there. ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 09:13:57 -0400 From: Don Iwanski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Have you considered this piece of sheet metal coming from any of the flight control surfaces? ************************************************************************ From Ric We've considered every part of the Electra and every part of every other airplane that was anywhere near that part of the world. We've been struggling with this thing for 13 years. ************************************************************************ From Tom King >It's an >important point because if we say that the piece was removed by someone >other than AE and FN then the wreck must have been to some degree >accessible at least a year and a half after July 1937. The wreck or SOME PART of the wreck. It needn't have been a huge piece, and it could have been coughed up during a storm event and salvaged by the colonists shortly afterwards. In other words, there doesn't have to have been some large part of the airplane lying around for Maude, Bevington, the Kiwis, et al to miss. ************************************************************************ From DavyFlyer Ric, a lot of it I forget, sizes ect. but the bottom line is, if what your saying would make it stronger, and felt for some reason to beef the area up, and is not restricted to tolerances for some reason, then we would do something like that for a repair. DaveFlyer ************************************************************************ From David I am led to make a statement again......in response to the comment contained in the last paragraph of your reply where you say that: >The metal exhibits none of the tell-tale pitting that results from >the detonation of an explosive device. We considered a fuel-air explosion >but there's none of the discoloration that is typical of such events and >it's hard to construct a scenario where an explosion due to, for >example, a fuel leak would be so localized as to only blow out one >small section of skin. I once went to a crashsite and was faced with one huge expanse of sheetmetal about 25 feet or more across. For a moment I could not identify the aircraft until I found a distinctive gear leg and a distinctive vertical stabiliser. I realised then that the entire wing sheetmetal had blown apart at the trailing edge due to an explosion and rested on the ground basically flat except for the leading edge ripple. The aircraft had been a B-24 which had hit a hill on returning to base with low tanks. I recall that the metal had been flash seared but the exterior paint was still there and interior metal was in places, bright and shiny after 40-odd years. You only have one small section of skin, there could have been other sections of skin which you have not found on Gardner or on Sydney for that matter. Was not the C-47 crash on Sydney accompanied by a fire and metal scavenged later by the occupants of the island ? The metal bookcase you found came from a B-24, what happened to that B-24 or if not fitted to a B-24, where is the rest of that particular aircraft or did the bookcase come from the C-47 ? Aircraft were also repaired at Canton whilst in transit to the SWPA. Hope this helps your discussion. Longtime Framie. ************************************************************************ From Ric You raise some important points. You're correct that 2-2-V-1 is the only relatively intact section of airplane skin we've found at Gardner. We've found plenty of other bits of airplane aluminum but they're all clearly scraps left over from airplane debris that has been cut up and used for local purposes. The few pieces we've been able to identify are all B-24 parts. Many of those pieces have coraline deposits on their surface that suggest that they were once submerged in relatively shallow water (less than 100 feet) for at least a year. No B-24 ever crashed at Gardner but during WWII a B-24 crashed on the reef at Canton Island. All aboard were killed and the wreck , in about 60 feet of water, was judged to be unsalvageable. My best guess is that the B-24 parts we've found on Gardner are from pieces of wreckage that washed ashore on Canton after the war and were picked up and brought home to Gardner by some of the many Gardner residents who worked for the airlines on Canton in the early 1950s. You're also correct that there was a wartime C-47 crash at Sydney Island. The airplane burned and the wreck was reportedly scrapped-out by the locals. As recently as 2000, a prop blade from that wreck was brought back to Tarawa (where it was shown to me by the Kiribati government in 2001). Oddly enough, however, none of the identifiable airplane parts we've found on Gardner is from a C-47. 2-2-V-1 does not come close to fitting anywhere on either a B-24 or a C-47 nor, as far as we can tell, does it come close to fitting anywhere on any other types that came through Canton. What is interesting, however, is that all three of the artifacts that seem to be from the Electra (2-2-V-1, the dados, and the piece of plexiglas) have coraline deposits like the B-24 pieces suggesting that they too were underwater for at least a year. Returning to your original point: >You only have one small section of skin, there could have been other >sections of skin which you have not found on Gardner or on Sydney for >that matter. We've never been to Sydney, but we've spent rather a lot of time on Gardner. If, in fact, 2-2-V-1 is only one of many such chunks of skin from an airplane that was shredded by the surf it strikes me as odd that we haven't found more. It puzzles me even more that of theoretically dozens or even hundreds of such pieces that are supposedly kicking around we just happen to find the one that lines up with a place on the airplane where water could come crashing through the cabin door (or the window in the cabin door, fracture the plywood floor (with dados attached), and blow out the section of belly skin that most closely resembles the many aspects of 2-2-V-1. LTM, Ric ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:12:37 -0400 From: David Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 You earlier posed the question of the reason for the replacement belly skins after the Luke Field groundloop and opined that the skins might have been replaced due to the 180=B0 slide causing elongation of the rivet holes by side loading. I suppose you also opined that this would cause an upgrade to a larger rivet size. I am not too familiar or have knowledge of the structure of the fuselage of the Lockheed Model 10 except what I see in photographs. What I do know about that aircraft is that it has a massive centre section spar. To impart a side loading onto the fore and aft rivet lines in the belly skins and as per your question of whether this would elongate the holes in the skins, I would say "no". This due to the fact that to impart such elongation or tearing of the skins at the fore and aft rivet lines on the belly skins of the fuselage would require that the centre section spar be flexed in an upward manner and looking at the size and construction of the spar I would say that it would not flex in this manner even in the fall off its' perch and onto the stbd outer wing panel. Also with an upward flex, the centre section wing skins would have been buckled on their upper surfaces and looking at a photo in Carrington's book, those c/section skins look pretty thick to me (on Page 88) and it would be very expensive to replace those even on one side. Also note the half-pipe section reinforcing on the inside of the upper wing surface, also used to prevent flexing in that area. The damage to the belly skins on the starboard side would be more likely done by debris impact from the No.2 nacelle and landing gear forks/mudguards or mainwheel if bits became detached. The photographs of the Model 10E display underslung engines whose nacelle lower limit dimensions (butt lines) are lower than the bellyskins of the fuselage. In fact the post groundloop photos show the aircraft belly just off the ground. It would take a lot of metal to be worn away from the No.2 nacelle, from the engine cylinder heads and from the landing gear pivot arrangement before the belly contacted the ground. Aerial mast rip-outs alone would cause a headache and it would be cheaper to replace a whole skin in those areas. Weight would have also been a consideration, repairs are heavier than original fit and six pounds is one gallon of gas. If the Model 10 had light sheetmetal keelbeams instead of extruded al.alloy angle sections then it would be possible for the belly skins to have pulled some rivets and to have damaged the keelbeams as well leading to section replacements and possibly bigger rivets. Page 36 Carrington's book shows what look like channel section sheetmetal beams to me. I read that you have the repair orders. If keelbeams were replaced then it was a bigger job than I thought and well worth the money. Hope this helps your discussion, Longtime Framie. ************************************************************************ From Ric To clarify my speculation: I think the rivets along the keel beam were upgraded from #3s to #5s but I think the rivets used to attach the new skin to the parallel stringers were #3s, as in the original, but the pitch was tightened to one inch and the old rivet holes were not used. Transcribed below are the repair orders for the fuselage (some of the numbers on the original are illegible). The keel of the Model 10 was an I-beam with lightening holes as far back as Sta. 320 - the aft end of the lavatory. As you can see, except for a piece of channel up forward of the main beam (what you refer to as the "centre section spar") the repair orders do not call for any of the stringers, much less the keel, to be replaced or repaired. As to what caused the damage that necessitated the replacement of the right-hand belly skins, we have about a dozen photos of NR16020 on its belly at Luke Field. The lower portion of the right-hand vertical stabilizer is clearly deformed inward toward the centerline of the aircraft. I don't know any that can happen without the belly skins in the area we're talking about also contacting the ground. *** *** *** *** FUSELAGE ASSEMBLY Make following repairs: 1. Smooth dents in nose skin 2. Replace #42443 - Flare cover - 2 req'd. 3. Replace #41659 - Pitot masts - 1L-1R req'd. 4. Replace first and second panels of bottom skin from Sta. 66 to slanting bulkhead on right side only. 5. Replace entire right hand bottom skin from slanting bulkhead to Sta. 293 5/8. 6. Replace left hand bottom skin from a point 9 1/2" aft of slanting bulkhead to main beam - rivet new skin in place with double row of rivets similar to joint in slanting bulkhead. 7. Replace inboard 8 inches of left hand bottom skin from main beam to Sta. 293 5/8. Lap old and new skins at stringer. 8. Replace dump valve chutes. 9. Replace three antenna masts aft of main beam - 4??16, 4301V-1 each req'd, 41???-11 req'd. 10. Replace #42153 ventilator as required on bottom skin 11. Replace or straighten # 4???? - Channel - on right side forward of main beam. 12. Add .040 24 ST Alclad plate 3" wide on right side of fuselage running from the shear beam to a point 1/3 rivets; 1-1/4 C-C: 3/8 edge dist. ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:24:51 -0400 From: Ted Campbell Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 You indicated that a bulletin will be posted concerning this artifact. When you do would you please add a sketch of where you think it came from on the plane - to give us some idea of how accessible this panel would have been from the inside of the plane in order to back drill the rivet holes into the new (repair) skin. This would also allow us to hypothesize what could have caused the burst of energy required to peel the skin back - for example: If the skin area is fairly close to the area damaged (we think) during the takeoff at Lea (see the film and the "puff" of dirt) this may have provided a scoop for water entry during the landing at Gardner. Furthermore, I am still looking for something, not necessarily a fuel/air mixture, which could have caused a blast that damaged the skin from within the aircraft - like a ruptured oxygen tank, a ruptured hydraulic accumulator, a ruptured spare tire/wheel assembly, etc. I would think that it would take one heck of a blast of air or fluid to tear the panel off the ribs/stringers in the manner that has been described; subsequent to the landing at Gardner sea water wave action just doesn't get me there. I think that we have to come up with some ideas that create a "pressure vessel" between the cabin floor and the outer skin that can be pressurized to a point where skin failure is the result - a large scoop of water might do it. Any "water bomber" mechanics out there? These guys might be able to give us an insight to what forces are imposed on the water tanks during the filling process. I am talking about the aircraft that scoop up water from lakes while fire fighting. This thread has added zeal back into the forum. Ted Campbell ************************************************************************ From Ric The bulletin will include lots of photos and diagrams to illustrate the hypothesis, but I can tell you that there is no reason to think that there was any kind of pressure vessel under the floor of the aircraft in that area. Any damage caused during takeoff would necessarily be from the outside inward. I can't see any way that scooping action of water during landing would result in the damage we see on the artifact. Whether or not the impact of sea water could do the job need not be a matter of debate. The dimensions of the cabin door and the cabin window are known. It should be possible to calculate the force of a known volume of sea water striking a known surface area and determine if that force would be sufficient to cause the failure of a known structure. ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:30:25 -0400 From: John Barrett Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Maybe a simpler way to describe the force of the water would be to look at the way a beach house gets destroyed during a storm. Water weighs 8 lbs per gallon. You take a few thousand gallons of water moving against a structure and you have a tremendous amount of force being applied instantaneously. I'm sure everyone has seen storm coverage on the news where a beach house disintegrates from wave action. In some that I've seen, the water will blast through the interior and out of the windows like a fire hose, tearing the structure apart. In the case of an airplane where the hull is pretty much sealed with the exception of the entry hatch and maybe a cockpit window, there is no where for that water pressure to exit. Even with smaller wave action, the cycling of pressure, no pressure, etc from the waves will eventually stress the skin until something weakens and fails. Once the piece is torn loose enough to hang in the water it would be moved back and forth by wave action until it breaks off. I would think a piece of the plane's belly skin would be a likely place for this to happen. For starters, it may have been damaged in the landing and already have been loosened. Second, if the plane is sitting on its gear and high enough above water to run an engine to charge a battery for the radio to be used, wouldn't it be logical to believe that with a worsening sea that the waves would also beat against the belly, furthering any damage? Then when a big wave gets in the cabin door....kaboom, your fluid explosion knocks the piece loose to hang in the wave action. I believe there were probably a lot more pieces with similar signs of failure. Too bad you can't conduct an experiment and put a similar plane on the reef flat where AE may have landed and test your theory. Too much cost and too many environmental concerns along with the contamination of the area with extraneous airplane parts. It would be neat to see what happens though. Anyhow, back to my lurking. Keep up the good work. LTM, who insists it isn't lurking until you've been caught. John Barrett ************************************************************************ From Ric An interesting point: A belly skin can't be blasted out of an aircraft sitting on its belly on the reef. There's nowhere for the skin to go. The airplane must be held relatively immobile but the belly must not be tight up against a solid surface. ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 09:27:33 -0400 From: Christian D. Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Re: >*** *** *** *** > >FUSELAGE ASSEMBLY Make following repairs: > >1. Smooth dents in nose skin etc... So, are these repairs only for the fuselage? Is there another order(s) for other repairs? Weren't the engines upgraded? May be because the cylinder heads were damaged by ground contact? If all the plane weight had been taken by the belly, wouldn't the damage there be much more than just the skins? I.e. framing also? My 2 cents. Christian D ************************************************************************ From Ric There were separate repair orders for the center section but nothing referring to the engines. We know from the Bureau of Air Commerce Inspection Report completed at the time the repairs were signed off on May 19, 1937 that the aircraft emerged with new propellers and new prop hubs but the engines were the same ones the airplane always had. We don't know to what extent they had to be repaired but looking at the prop damage from the Luke Field wreck I would be very surprised if at least the starboard engine did not suffer crankshaft damage. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some stringer damage but the repair orders do not call any to be replaced. ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 10:52:53 -0400 From: Christian D. Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Ric wrote: > An interesting point: > A belly skin can't be blasted out of an aircraft sitting on its belly > on the reef. There's nowhere for the skin to go. The airplane must be > held relatively immobile but the belly must not be tight up against a > solid surface. I don't know anything about airplane construction, but as they are very lightly framed, I'm curious as to how likely a piece of skin could be "blown out"??? If there is enough force to break the sheet metal in tension (more or less), at both ends apparently, isn't that many times what it takes to first collapse all the framing and just crumple the whole thing like a ball of paper? Also it is a bit hard to imagine how the fuselage (part of it) could be quite firmly held in place while wave action does its thing, and that again the whole structure is not just flattened FIRST? Or could the fuselage have broken off just behind the main beam, and the rear part of the fuselage could have ended up wedged in the outer edge of the reef (in between the famous "fingers") with the open forward end facing the surf, like a funnel? The airplane tail could have assured that the rear fuselage was upright, and then it was held by the sides in the reef crevice, while the belly skins were free to expand out... Puzzling... Another question is about geometry: if this panel is about rectangular, and assuming it is submitted to a somewhat uniform extreme pressure, which sides of the rectangle would give first? The short sides, or the long sides? I suppose it would also depends on how much the surrounding framing would distort. All of this is probably more likely if we have balanced blasting forces ALL ROUND the frames, i.e., the funnel position, as above... The funnel position would pretty well ASSURE that the broken sides would be fore n aft. As well: wouldn't there be a good chance one single side would give first, and then, because of a big gap there, relieving the blast pressure, the opposite side of the rectangle would never have to let go? Is there any indication that the first side to let go was mostly under pure tension, while the second (opposite) side to let go had a fatigue (back n forth pull of the surf, once there was an opening at the first side) component to its failure mode??? A very slightly curled edge perhaps? A last remark: of all the small bits of un-identified aluminum found, are there any that are possibly Electra skin, but also have the characteristic compound curvature? In the funnel position, there would have been lots of such scrap metal used by the colonists. Christian D *************************************************************** From Ric We're getting an awful lot of speculation based upon one little photo. I'm working up a research bulletin for the website as quickly as I can and I'm trying to make sure that it includes all the maps and diagrams and photos everyone needs to make their own assessment. There are features and aspects about this piece that we have not discussed and may have a significant bearing on any analysis. I want to give everyone the complete picture, to the extent that we know it. It's sort of a big job but I'm hoping to have it done later this week. To answer Christian's last question, no, the little pieces of aluminum found in the village do not exhibit the compound curve seen in 2-2-V-1. ************************************************************************ From Dave Bush Seems that some people are under the impression that this piece was blown out of an intact aircraft. It could just as easily have been ripped off after the aircraft had other water damage, leaving larger openings allowing more water to enter in a shorter time span resulting in a greater force. PS - you said water weighs 8 pounds per gallon, but it is actually 8.345 pounds per gallon. The .345 may not seem like much, but multiplied by 1000 gallons it makes a 345 pound difference. Do you want a 345 pound weight dropped on you? Much less the other 8000 pounds. Yours, Dave Bush ************************************************************************ From Dan Postellon Ric wrote: >I think the rivets along the keel beam were upgraded from #3s to #5s >but I think the rivets used to attach the new skin to the parallel >stringers were #3s, as in the original, but the pitch was tightened to >one inch and the old rivet holes were not used. This might explain why that particular panel failed. If extra rivet holes were drilled, you have a "tear along the dotted line" type of weakness in the keel beam, and the skin may be more likely to detach there, than on a section with fewer holes. Dan Postellon *************************************************************** From David I have been looking at the Lombardo picture of the skin specimen on the "WoF" bulletin. 1. If that piece of 0.032" skin had been blown off in a fluid force explosion you would not be able to measure the rivet holes as 3/32" rivet holes. More like they would be 3/16" holes as the rivet heads would not let go without dimpling or "puckering" the skin surface as they pulled through. The holes would appear as dimpled holes and they do not look like that to me in the photo. The skin around the rivet holes looks unaffected as if the heads were removed, or, if it has been in the sea, corrosion could have weakened the rivets so that they would shear off under a side load with a sharp object (as per M. Guisson). Are there any scratch marks alongside the holes? 2. One hole in the top right hand quarter has cracks around it and the hole looks a little larger than the rest (2nd row from the right). This indicates to me that someone had a little bit of trouble getting that head off and wrastled the sheet loose. Do the cracks indicate outbound shear failure ? Betcha they do. 3. The right hand edge is not quite straight and I have to ask if there are machine marks on the edge because if someone used a hacksaw, heavy knife or a rotary saw to cut that edge there will be marks. The right hand edge looks to be consistent with a man made cut which is not straight. The RHS row of rivet holes do look larger, maybe up to #5 (5/32"). 4. The left hand edge with the ragged "V" edges is consistent with someone trying to pull it off after removing some rivet heads just inboard from the edge but I disagree that the rivet lines were staggered. The indications to me were of two parallel lines of rivets at equal spacing and the same pitch without stagger, as the remnant which is outside of the obvious rivet line on the left hand side indicates (in the sawtoothed gaps) that rivets were there before it was torn off. 5. The top edge is also ragged and being 0.032 could have been torn off by strong hands once a crack had started. A microscopic exam would show if it failed in shear. 6. The bottom left hand edge is bent under and this indicates to me that this was the last attached point of the sheetmetal (not the LHS) and I would stretch my arm and say it failed in fatigue. A lab test would prove that by the intergranular structure effects. 7. I disagree that a massive wave force would remove this piece of skin. The pitch of the rivets would hold that skin on like Superglue, something else made those rivets let go. Looks to me more like a man made removal than anything else. Wrecks I have seen removed from the sea (and on beaches) after many years do not exhibit this kind of depiction as in the Lombardo photo. Rivets are strong, that's why they are there. From experience, I conclude from viewing the small photograph that the removal was man-made. In an explosion, possibly fuel/air (and we are taking here of pre-war aluminum not post war derivative alloys of higher strength), initially the heat generated would tend to blow the skin outwards between frames and stringers like a rising pie before the rivets let go. Then the rivets let go, enlarging the rivet holes and shear forces tear the skin outwards. The very fact that you have in "inward" bend in the bottom LH quarter is not consistent with that. The biggest fire hose in the world (wave action) would not do to that sheetmetal as what is depicted in the Lombardo photo. The sheetmetal would first corrode by salt action and then the edges between heavier frames and stringers would fail in shear. Galvanic action, however minor, over the years in the differences between the rivet metal content and the sheetmetal content maybe would see the rivet heads pop off but the holes would also suffer and would not be able to be measured accurately as #3 holes (0.093"). Next size up is #4 (0.125"). It does not matter that it may have been in the sea for a short period, say one or two years, the salt would still be active unless the metal was treated chemically to arrest the salt action. What I see in the photo is not a piece of aluminum which has been in the sea for a long time. What I see is a piece of aluminum affected by exposure to salt air. Two different things. Bear in mind that all natives in the South Pacific walk around with long steel bushknives which are great tools for opening cans to trimming beards. Let's have a bigger picture of the artifact on your website so that all interested persons can have a better look. Hope this helps your discussion. Longtime Framie. ************************************************************************ From Ric You make a lot of categorical statements about what would and would not happen under various conditions. Maybe you're right. I don't have any way to judge the validity of your opinions but, pending your examination of better photos, I can answer some of your questions. >1. ... The skin around the rivet holes looks unaffected as if the >heads were removed The resolution in the small photo is not sufficient to see it but there is significant dimpling around the rivet holes where the heads were blown off. The size of the small rivets is not in question because one of them survived and is still present. >...Are there any scratch marks alongside the holes ? Yes there are, but only on the interior surface and only in a few places. This is one of the aspects of the piece we have not yet discussed. It does appear that the stringers, or broken sections of the stringers, were removed by human action. >2. One hole in the top right hand quarter has cracks around it and >the hole looks a little larger than the rest (2nd row from the right). >This indicates to me that someone had a little bit of trouble getting >that head off and wrastled the sheet loose. Do the cracks indicate >outbound shear failure ? Betcha they do. There are three places where the skin surrounding a rivet hole is cracked. Referring to the photo on the website, one place is at the seventh rivet down in the second row from the right. At that point the skin has failed outward in what almost looks like an "exit wound". Under low angle lighting it can be seen that there is an irregular line of dents and bulges running diagonally across the skin that gives the impression that the piece had something very heavy (a coral boulder?) land on it at some time AFTER the stringers were removed. The "exit wound" is exactly in line with this line of damage and appears to be a dent that broke through. There are no scratches on the interior surface in this area. The other two cracks are in the third line of rivets (counting right to left. Rivets #9, 10 and 11 (counting down from the top) are joined by a crack. Again, the row of dents runs right through this area and again there are no scratches on the interior surface. Rivet hole #13, however, has cracks running diagonally across it and there are several deep scratches running across the hole on the interior surface. >3. The right hand edge is not quite straight and I have to ask if >there are machine marks on the edge because if someone used a hacksaw, >heavy knife or a rotary saw to cut that edge there will be marks. The >right hand edge looks to be consistent with a man made cut which is not >straight. The RHS row of rivet holes do look larger, maybe up to #5 (5/32"). There is much more detail to that edge than you can see in the website photo. Best to see what you think when you've had a closer look. The rivet holes along that side are identical to the other rows of complete holes. >4. The left hand edge with the ragged "V" edges is consistent with >someone trying to pull it off after removing some rivet heads just >inboard from the edge but I disagree that the rivet lines were >staggered. The indications to me were of two parallel lines of rivets >at equal spacing and the same pitch without stagger, as the remnant >which is outside of the obvious rivet line on the left hand side >indicates (in the sawtoothed gaps) that rivets were there before it was >torn off. You may be right about parallel rather than staggered lines of #5s but the NTSB metalugists were unequivocal in their judgment that the scalloped ripping pattern is very characteristic of sudden catastrophic failure, not man-made tearing. I remember noting exactly the same kind of failure pattern on a much larger scale in a photo of the Aloha Airlines 737 that lost its cabin roof in flight. >5. The top edge is also ragged and being 0.032 could have been torn >off by strong hands once a crack had started. A microscopic exam would >show if it failed in shear. The NTSB examined it closely and determined that it failed in shear. As they described it to me at the time, the initial point of failure was in the upper left corner of the piece (as shown in the website photo) and progressed across the top and down the left side in a fraction of a second - BANG! >6. The bottom left hand edge is bent under and this indicates to me >that this was the last attached point of the sheetmetal (not the LHS) >and I would stretch my arm and say it failed in fatigue. A lab test >would prove that by the intergranular structure effects.>> No question about it. It failed in fatigue after cycling back and forth at least twice against a rigid edge. >7. I disagree that a massive wave force would remove this piece of >skin. The pitch of the rivets would hold that skin on like Superglue, >something else made those rivets let go. Looks to me more like a man >made removal than anything else. Wrecks I have seen removed from the >sea (and on beaches) after many years do not exhibit this kind of >depiction as in the Lombardo photo. Rivets are strong, that's why they >are there. We may have a two stage sequence of events - one natural and one human- that accounts for the removal of the skin. I'll be interested to hear what you think after you have more information. LTM, Ric ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 11:01:47 -0400 From: Herman De Wulf Subject: engine damage I don't know about 1937 but if you smash your propellers they way AE did back then, you'd be required to have your engines replaced or at least removed for crankshaft inspection. LTM (who maintains airplanes are safer in the air than on the ground) ************************************************************************ From Ric I don't have any direct experience with R-1340s but I know that back when I was settling claims in gear-up landings there is no way I wouldn't insist that the crankshafts on those engines be "dialed" for any bending and X-rayed for cracks. That starboard side prop in particular looks like big trouble, it's forward curl indicating that it was pulling lots of power when it hit the pavement. I've never seen any records detailing whatever engine inspection and repairs were made but the engine serial numbers did not change. ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 11:19:02 -0400 From: Mark Subject: other questions 1) Re. 2-2-V-1: I think this poor horse has pretty much been beaten to death and back again. Short of another expedition to Gardner locating additional material that can be more definitely attributed to an L10, we seem doomed to never know for certain. Any trips planned? 2) There is still one thing that has retained my curiosity. You may have dealt with it in the past: the corroded 12-foot long steel item that Emily described as having come from the wrecked aircraft. There were no clear descriptions of the dimensions other than the length, or of the shape, as far as I recall. Is there any such steel item known to be in the L10 structure? 3) Was the tide known for certain to be low when the assumed landing took place? 4) Is the beach firm enough to allow a near empty L10 to land without ground looping, especially in the hands of a pilot who is exhausted, trying to control panic, and whose skills under the particular circumstances were not those of an old pro, according to many sources. I know from watching many no-payload landings and takeoffs of CF-TCC (L10A No.1112) that with a good breeze down the runway it can almost float down. On t/o, by the time the throttles are all the way forward, the tail is up, and within seconds and what seems only a few times its own length, the wheels are off. My former boss use to fly it a lot in the 50's. He also came in one day, (that was 20-plus years ago), asked me if i had seen the documentary on Glenn Miller the night before, then said "I think I'm the one responsible for killing him" He was a Lancaster squadron leader, and gave the order to salvo the bombs in the Channel when the weather forced them to abort. Checked his logbooks: right place, right time. Eventually corroborating testimony came from other RAF vets around the world, and they did another documentary on it. Have a good day, y'all. ************************************************************************ From Ric >1. Any trips planned? Niku V is tentatively planned for the summer of 2005. It's always a question of funding. >2. Is there any such steel item known to be in the L10 structure? No, not exactly as she describes it, but if we say that her basic impressions are reliable (a rusty shaft with a round object on the end) but that her judgment of dimensions was a bit off (seeing at a distance of at least 600 feet away) what she describes is not unlike a landing gear leg with wheel still attached. >3) Was the tide known for certain to be low when the assumed landing >took place? We've been able to determine that the tide was low during the window of time that the aircraft could have arrived at the island. We're still refining the calculations of just how low the tide was and how long the reef flat was dry that morning. >4) Is the beach firm enough to allow a near empty L10 to land without >ground looping It would depend upon how much sand there was on the beach at that time (it varies), but there is no reason to think that a landing was made or attempted on the beach. All of the available evidence points to a landing on the reef flat. LTM, Ric ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 12:51:21 -0400 From: Ron Berry Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Lets consider that the aircraft got down on the dry reef, and was able to taxi under very bad conditions, to an area that was fairly close to the beach. There something happened that got them stuck on the reef. The reason that I say taxi is because they could not land straight in toward the beach, the reef is to narrow. The aircraft then sits there a few days and the wave action from high tide is busy destroying it. My question is would the wave action have enough power to rip parts of the skin off of the ribs that they were attached to? Another thing I would like to point out is that this airplane has been exposed to the elements for a long time, and that damage could have occured anytime after the landing. That airplane was designed to take off, and land, on rough runways. That is the reason it had the big, fat tires. The dust that is present on takeoff doesn't seem to have any big projectiles in it. It just looks like a dry spot on the runway. Do we know if it rained that morning at the airport in Lea? If so that could just be a deep pot hole full of loose dust that just got wet on the surface, and when the tail wheel hit it it broke the surface, and cause the dry dust to boil up. LTM, mother could always find a little dust on everthing Ron 2640 ************************************************************************ From Ric We have enough to deal with without digging up dead horses. - Any taxiing on the reef flat has to be limited to the fairly narrow (ball park 100 foot wide) strip of "landable" reef surface near the ocean. There is no reason to speculate that the aircraft got anywhere close to the beach. It couldn't. If it landed on the reef it stayed out near the reef edge where the waves break. - Anybody who doesn't think that waves can tear an airplane apart needs to learn more about airplanes and waves. - The puff of dust in the Lae (not Lea) takeoff film first erupts under the centerline of the airplane well ahead of the tail wheel. ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 15:53:02 -0400 From: Angus Murray Subject: Re DeBisschop Darryl This quote may interest you: from http://riptx.riptx.net/mermaids.htm 1956-57- In mid-1956 Eric de Bisschop, a 65-year-old adventurer, attempts to sail from Tahiti to Chili in a replica of an ancient Polynesian raft, a bamboo vessel christened Tahiti-Nui. He believes the ancient Polynesians crossed the Pacific and colonized South America , the opposite of what Thor Heyerdahl suggested with his Kon-Tiki. "At midnight on January 2, 1957, in latitude 32* South and longitude 144* 15' West," as he writes in Tahiti-Nui (1957), "I came off watch, handing over to my young friend Alain." The raft has been sitting dead in the water for twenty-four hours, "on a marvelously flat sea without a breath of wind." De Bisschop dozes for a while but returns to the deck to relieve himself. He finds crewman Alain staggering around and gibbering like a lunatic. The young sailor eventually gathers his wits enough to say that "I heard a noise coming from forward, a fairly loud noise followed by others not so loud, exactly as if a large dolphin of the same size as those we tried to harpoon the other day had just accidentally jumped on board and was thrashing its tail trying to get back into the sea." Alain intends to spear the "dolphin" before it damages the bamboo railings, but "the large dolphin, or what I had thought to be a dolphin, had in one bound taken up a position that was quite abnormal for a fish, it was standing upright." The Creature leaps at Alain, knocking him down and plunging back into the sea. De Bisschop writes: "I could see, quite clearly, on his bare arms, sticky and luminous, the strange scales of a fish." He informs the press via radio that a "mermaid" has visited the raft. Sounds like de Bisschop had a fertile imagination. Regards Angus ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 09:07:12 -0400 From: Don Iwanski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Do you have any info on what caused the dent in the right front nose section? ************************************************************************ From Ric I don't know what dent you're talking about. The repair orders say "1. Smooth dents in nose skin" but the photos taken at the accident scene don't show any dents in the nose. Perhaps the dents were caused during recovery and shipment of the aircraft back to California. In any event, they had to very minor. As I'm sure you know, dents in airplane skins don't usually get "smoothed". You usually have to replace the skin. There is an Earhart myth that says there was a dent in the Electra's nose but it's only a reflection of the engine cowling on the side of the nose. ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 09:17:54 -0400 From: Don Iwanski Subject: Re: engine damage At VT-27, Corpus Christi Texas 1982 we had a T-28 on landing have a false nose gear down indication and the Maintenace Officer who was the pilot sat the nose down on the prop. We changed some cowling and the propeller but there was no engine change. The T-28 was built like a Sherman tank. The propeller looked a mess, it was all bent up around the cowling but with minimal structural work, that aircraft was flying shortly thereafter. ********************************************************************** From Ric It's not uncommon for engines, especially big engines like the T-28's, to suffer "sudden stoppage" without bending or cracking the crankshaft PROVIDED that the crank was not delivering significant power to the prop at the time of the stoppage. Props that hit the ground at idle thrust, as in a landing accident, curl backward. Prop blades that contact the ground while "pulling" generally curl forward. In the Luke Field wreck the prop blades on the left-hand engine are curled rearward and the blades on right-hand engine are curled forward. ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 09:24:16 -0400 From: Tom Strang Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Appears we are nit picking the small stuff with this panel project - The engines appeared to have been repaired and serviced well enough to get close to Howland on 2 July 1937 - Anybody can replace engine parts, as long as the structure that supports the ID plate is ok, then you can call it the same engine - As far as paperwork goes, old time recip mechs were never known for their paperwork skills, but they sure knew how to put the crap that came though their door back together. Speaking of craftsmenship - Was NR16020 post Luke crash repair carried out on the regular Lockheed production line or on a service line? If only a few airframe mechs where assigned the repair task and they remained with the repair as a group, you may find an identifier because true craftsmenship leave footprints in the sand it touches. Just food for thought. Respectfully: Tom Strang # 2559 ********************************************************************* From Ric The period during which NR16020 was under repair (April/May 1937) was one of Lockheed's busiest times for production of the Model 10 and the new Model 12. Photos of Earhart's airplane under repair show it up on sawhorses in what appears to be the right rear corner of the shop. ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 09:33:24 -0400 From: Christian D. Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 > 1. ... The skin around the rivet holes looks unaffected as if the > heads were removed,... > The resolution in the small photo is not sufficient to see it but there > is significant dimpling around the rivet holes where the heads were > blown off. The size of the small rivets is not in question because one > of them survived and is still present. If the wave action was more like into a funnel (say directed into the rear end of the fuselage), the forces are more symmetric all around the circumference of the fuselage, and there is little side pull on the rivets. We mostly have a "slight" outward pull on the rivets coupled with major tension in the skin > of dents and bulges running diagonally across the skin that gives the > impression that the piece had something very heavy (a coral Could this instead be the remaining signs (after someone had roughly flattened the piece) there had been a diagonal fold, after the 2 consecutive sides had let go? > The NTSB examined it closely and determined that it failed in shear. > As they described it to me at the time, the initial point of failure > was in the upper left corner of the piece (as shown in the website > photo) and progressed across the top and down the left side in a > fraction of a second - BANG! Well: if it failed in shear alone because of surf action, why would that panel, hanging on 2 consecutive sides, NOT fold over along some diagonal as soon as the next wave??? Or are we (again) talking about a ONE-TIME explosion? That's seems quite interesting to me: if that 2-sides instant failure happened under fluid pressure, wouldn't the rectangle fold over along the diagonal, and there should be some sort of crease left? If no crease, then those 2 sides must have failed under plain tension in the skin (may be even diagonal tension, to get the ripping to start in that upper left corner)?!?!?! And NO fluid pressure/wave action that would surely have bent the rectangle soon after its 2 sides were free. But then what? How to explain it? Some wave action for the oil-canning. Then the (piece of) wreck on the reef edge shifts and gets leveraged b the surf, and the skin lets go in pure tension because the WHOLE structure is stressed, not just that panel. And last the human salvage part. Could we postulate the plane was pushed over the reef edge by some easterly (thunder) storm? Would the tail follow or lead? The tail surfaces remain jammed high up in one of the reef canyons, with the nose seaward and down? Some wave action for the oil canning, but ultimately the surf acting on the wings/fuselage front, would twist the structure and snap the skin in pure tension? Some oil-canning would remain visible. If the plane got jammed in the reef more or less right side up, the twisting would be likely to induce diagonal stressing in the belly skins. By the way, Ric: what is the depth of the dishing of that panel? Is it one single general dishing, or do we have signs of different "dishings" between all the rivet lines? May be some of the center lines of rivets popping earlier on? Regards. Christian D ************************************************************************ From Ric Again I have to suggest that you save your speculation until you have some information to base it on. There is evidence of only one "dishing". It is only along the longitudinal axis, is quite uniform, and it amounts to roughly 1.5 inches at the deepest point. ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 13:37:15 -0400 From: Herman De Wulf Subject: Re: engine damage - off topic Further to bent propellers, I'd like to remind that during WW II British fighter planes s like the Spitfire, the Hurricane and other tail draggers had wooden propellers. They could be mass produced by thousands of cabinet makers throughout the country and offered the advantage of flying to splinters when an aircraft was inadvertently put on its nose in a bad landing. No time was lost in removing engines for crankshaft inspection. By the way the RAF TBO (Time Between Overhaul) specification was 250 hours only. You know why ? Because hardly an aircraft lasted that long in the war. And by that time more powerful models were available... LTM ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 13:44:20 -0400 From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: engine damage Aha! The bending of the props indicate that AE was giving full power to the RH engine while throttling back on the left, contributing to the right turn ground loop. I never noticed the difference in prop bending. ************************************************************************ From Ric Angus and I have been fighting about this off-forum. He contends that the tips on the port-side engine were also bent forward. He's correct that one of the tips on that engine (the outboard one) is bent forward but I maintain that the other one is bent backward a shown in twodifferent photos. Moments after the crash AE told Air Corps Lt. David Arnold that "..the ship seemed to pull to the right. I eased off the left engine and the ship started a long persistent left turn and ended up where it is now." (USAAC accident report, Exhibit "E", page 6) ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 16:20:03 -0400 From: Angus Murray Subject: Re: engine damage The truth of the matter seems to be that the outboard tip of the port engine is bent forward, the inboard tip appears to be bent backwards but the main body of this inboard blade is bent forwards. The sequence of events regarding the bending of the propellers depends on exactly when the props came in contact with the ground. Randy said: > Aha! The bending of the props indicate that AE was giving full power > to the RH engine while throttling back on the left, Because of the groundloop to the left, the starboard engine would have initially contacted the ground when the starboard gear collapsed, the port gear then being raised well off the ground. If the aircraft was travelling forward at this time we might conclude from the forward bending that this engine was still under power. However, this is not at all necessarily the case and indeed is probably not the case. The aircraft may well have been travelling slightly or considerably backwards at this time (and the engine at reduced power or even idle) so bending both tips forward (ie away from the engine). The port gear then collapsed but by this time the aircraft was almost certainly well into rotation and the forward bending tip on the port engine may likewise have been travelling backwards. As the aircraft further rotated and the direction of motion changed the other tip on the port engine was bent towards the engine. A further change of direction resulted in the second bend of the main body of this blade away from the engine (which would occur secondarily- being stronger than the tip - as the engine reached its lowest height) . It might be argued that there is very little time in half a rotation of the propeller for the plane's direction to change much but the prop was probably making intermittent contact with the ground as the reaction forces forced the wing away from the ground causing the aircraft to bounce. The plane may also have been moving fast enough for the port wing to retain some lift. My guess is that the starboard gear collapsed when the wheel could no longer achieve rotation ie the aircraft was travelling completely sideways. The bending of the prop tips probably occurred after this, when the aircraft was starting to travel backwards. One can therefore not conclude that the starboard engine was under power. Indeed Long says in effect that AE cut the power as the port wing rose (and the plane rotated in the vertical plane on the starboard gear). I don't know his source for this but Ric may well know. AE is unlikely to have opened the throttle of the throttled back port engine after the blades hit the ground nor would it then make any difference, so the double bend in one blade is likely to be associated with the changing direction of motion after both gear legs had collapsed. Regards Angus. ************************************************************************ From Ric I'll agree that your scenario offers a possible alternative to explain why three of the four blade tips are curled forward. I don't know how Elgen Long knows that AE cut the power as the port wing rose. There's no mention of that in the Army report and AE did not claim to have closed throttles when she talked to Lt. Arnold immediately after the accident - but then Elgen seems to know all kinds of unknowable things. ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 09:34:30 -0400 From: Randy Jacobson Subject: groundloop AE said: "I eased off the left engine and the ship started a long persistent left turn and ended up where it is now." So easing off on the left hand engine caused a left turn? That seems counter-intuitive...I thought she had a right-hand ground loop. ************************************************************************ From Ric Here's the entire statement: "The ship functioned perfectly at the start. As it gained speed the right wing dropped down and the ship seemed to pull to the right. I eased off the left engine and the ship started a long persistent left turn and ended up where it is now. It was all over instantly. The first thing I thought of was the right oleo or the right tire letting go. The way the ship pulled it was probably a flat tire." ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 09:56:17 -0400 From: Carl Peltzer Subject: Re: engine damage Today's 4 and 6 cylinder aircraft engines have a relatively long crankshaft compared to a really short one on a P&W Wasp, so bending of something that short is most likely not a problem and I'll bet that a teardown wasn't necessary at all. *********************************************************************** From Ric Interesting point. ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 11:11:23 -0400 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 I can see some are having trouble visualizing how a small panel could "blow" off of the Electra. Most are probably thinking of an intact plane and struggling to see how this could occur. The artifact 2-2-V-1 could have come off after the plane had been broken apart to even a great extent. For example assume the Electra was in many pieces scattered across the reef and a small section of maybe 4 or 5 feet, containing 2-2-V-1, was pinned against or between other objects and was pounded by heavy waves, blowing the "patch" away. HOW it happened is the least of our concerns. Alan ************************************************************************ From Ric The problem I have with any scenario that has the Electra blasted into many, many 2-2-V-1 -like pieces is that, for all of our searching, we've only found one piece of sheet metal on Nikumaroro - our old friend 2-2-V-1. It is, of course, possible that lots other pieces of sheet metal came ashore and were found and cut up by the locals for fishing lures and inlays for carved wooden boxes and so forth and all got used up except for 2-2-V-1 that didn't get used at all. It's also possible that there are many more pieces of sheet buried along the shore or in the village that have somehow escaped our metal detectors. And it's also possible that of all the pieces of sheet metal, only 2-2-V-1 made it ashore and the rest were carried away to the briny deep. But none of those possibilities strike me as very likely. What makes more sense to me is that 2-2-V-1 is fairly unique and that relatively few pieces of sheet were blasted or torn from the aircraft. ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 12:45:13 -0400 From: Alan Messenger Subject: Re: groundloop If you take the power off the left engine on a twin, its like giving the right engine more power and therefore you turn to the right. My experience is that groundloops caused by assymetric power tend to be quite gentle as compared to groundloops caused by a taildraggers natural tendency to swing on takeoff or landing. Its a bit odd that she would let a 'long persistant turn ' of any direction build up so that it became uncontrollable and ended in a groundloop. ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 20:38:15 -0400 From: Alan Messenger Subject: Re: Groundloop That's not right either! I meant to say, its like giving the right engine more power and therefore you turn to the left! ************************************************************************ From Ric Too late Alan. The forum takes no prisoners. In the few hours between your first posting and your correction we received the following goose pile. ************************************************************************ From Oscar Boswell That's not correct, is it? ************************************************************************ From Harvey Schor I thought that,on a twin with the power off the left engine,the ship will tend to turn to the left. harvey,2387. ************************************************************************ From Angus Murray If you apply a forward force greater to the right wing than that to the left, the left wing will lag behind due to drag and the aircraft will turn to the left as its heading changes. ************************************************************************ From Alan Caldwell No twin I've ever flown did that. Pull power back on the left engine and the plane turns left. Most pilots I've flown with used engine differential to steer on the ground. Alan ******************************************************************** From Marty Moleski That doesn't sound right. More power on the right should drag the right wing faster than the left, yawing the nose to the left. Or so it seems to me. Marty #2359 ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 20:39:14 -0400 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Ric wrote: >What makes more sense to me is that 2-2-V-1 is fairly unique and that >relatively few pieces of sheet were blasted or torn from the >aircraft. I tend to agree. I think the plane stayed basically intact. My scenario of a multitude of pieces was solely to get folks to think outside the box on how the artifact separated from the plane. Visualizing a completely intact airplane makes it harder to see how the part could have been blown out. Alan ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 14:08:44 -0400 From: John Harsh Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 One for the crashed-and-sankers. Is it possible the sheet could have been loosened in a ditching and blown out by air pressure as the aircraft sank? ************************************************************************ From Ric Not unless Earhart was really flying the XC-35, Army's experimental pressurized Electra. Anyone who has ever flown an unpressurized airplane in a heavy rain storm can tell you that they're about as watertight as a screen door. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 14:50:11 -0400 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 John Harsh asked: >One for the crashed-and-sankers. Is it possible the sheet could have been >loosened in a ditching and blown out by air pressure as the aircraft sank? John, don't you think the radio messages from AE rule out a ditching since the plane could not transmit without the right engine running? Now I understand the proponents of ditching or crash in the ocean are disregarding a great number of radio calls in order to keep their theory alive. If you will read through the archives you will see their theory does not hold water. Pun intended. Alan ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 15:04:27 -0400 From: Christian D. Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 > The artifact 2-2-V-1 could have come off after the plane had been broken > apart to even a great extent. For example assume the Electra was in > many pieces scattered across the reef and a small section of maybe 4 or 5 > feet, containing 2-2-V-1, was pinned against or between other objects and was > pounded by heavy waves, blowing the "patch" away. I'd tend to disagree: although I don't quite know how "stiff" the Electra framing is by itself, I rather doubt the huge force necessary to "blow" one piece off would not just collapse/flatten/pancake/drape/fold the whole 5 feet section, against the underlying reef/whatever, WELL before all the rivets let go, or the skin snaps. According to the experts "bang" theory; now if the rivets corroded away or worked loose through years of fatigue stress, then it would be different. Personally the only other 2 options are for that "funnel effect" where the force is balanced ALL around the framing, or some lab set up where there is a quite strong framework to act die-like in supporting precisely the 4 edges of the panel, while the center is punched out with several tons (off the cuff guesstimate) of force. This force on 22v1 alone; for the whole 5feet/whatever, we are talking many tons, and the section would have been draped on the coral like a wet tissue, well before any small panel was blown off -I think... What size exactly are them stringers? > HOW it happened is the least of our concerns. How it DID, may be, but what IS possible is quite interesting to evaluate! > The problem I have with any scenario that has the Electra blasted into > many, many 2-2-V-1 -like pieces is that, for all of our searching, > we've only found one piece of sheet metal on Nikumaroro - our old > friend 2-2-V-1. It is, of course, possible that lots other pieces of > sheet metal came ashore and were found and cut up by the locals for > fishing lures and inlays for carved wooden boxes and so forth and all > got used up except for 2-2-V-1 that didn't get used at all. That seems MOST likely to me, given 20 plus years of colonists presence; they could hardly get too much of it. I'd doubt they possessed 22v1 and didn't use it before long! Again: Niku wasn't cordonned off as a crime scene ever since 1937. Regards Christian D ************************************************************************ From Ric If NR16020 was blown apart from "funnel effect" and lots and lots of pieces of sheet metal came ashore to be eventually cut up and used up by the locals (which is what I understand you are proposing), I wonder what happened to all the other junk that makes up an airplane? Stringers, ribs and bulkheads; miles of tubing, wiring and hoses; radios, fuel tanks and flooring. I've seen several Electras under rebuild and have been astonished at the sheer volume of junk that is stuffed into overflowing cardboard boxes or just lies in piles around the periphery of the work area. ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 19:49:18 -0400 From: Christian D. Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Ric wrote: > If NR16020 was blown apart from "funnel effect" and lots and lots of > pieces of sheet metal I don't know that lots of pieces would part at the very same instant (same surf wave), and the more the blown/split panels, the weaker the "ramming effect" would become... > came ashore to be eventually cut up and used up > by the locals (which is what I understand you are proposing), I wonder > what happened to all the other junk that makes up an airplane? > Stringers, ribs and bulkheads; miles of tubing, wiring and hoses; > radios, fuel tanks and flooring. I've seen several Electras under > rebuild and have been astonished at the sheer volume of junk that is > stuffed into overflowing cardboard boxes or just lies in piles around > the periphery of the work area. That's not what I am saying, Ric; I'm saying that whatever quantity of sheet metal ended up recovered would have been used up fairly rapidly, and I for one would not be surprised you could not find too many pieces left on the island. (Except for never-found hidden/buried stuff). As for what happened to the stringers/skeleton, good point: I often wondered about it. If indeed the wreck had been accessible to the colonists, I can see them salvaging lots of pieces like the skin, but I would expect to have some of the less useable stuff like a skeleton left behind; but where would that have gone? STILL buried in the sand/vegetation somewhere? Unless it fell back over the reef edge... By the way: what is the knowledgeable "framies" opinion on whether a big chunk of fuselage would be flattened by the force needed to blow a piece of skin off, before said piece gets punched out, OR, how likely it is for the structure to be quite strongly supported in its natural environment just right for 22v1 to be blown off? Christian D ****************************************************************** From Ric Good, informed speculation about what happened to the airplane is important to our planning. If there is reason to believe that the airplane was blown or pounded into many pieces that subsequently washed ashore, or if there is reason to believe that the wreck remained somewhat accessible for a period of time after the island was settled and it was people, rather than wave action (or a combination of both), that tore it apart - then it would seem reasonable to devote considerable resources to searching the formerly-inhabited part of the island for surviving artifacts in the hope that one or more might be found that is conclusively identifiable. If, on the other hand, analysis of the material that has been found gives us reason to believe that relatively few pieces of wreckage came ashore then a concentrated search of the village is a waste of time and resources which might be better spent elsewhere (at the Seven Site for example). Following the same logic, if the few pieces of Electra-attributable wreckage we have found can be explained without theoretically ripping the airplane to pieces then it follows that the there may be much more of the airplane to find in the deep water immediately adjacent to the reef than we had previously assumed. The prospect of a more or less intact fuselage and center section (as opposed to a scattering of aluminum confetti) opens new doors in the consideration of practicable search technology and technique. In the course of seven expeditions to Nikumaroro we have spent many hours combing that village for anything of interest. We have not, I hasten to say, subjected all or even a significant fraction of the village to a centimeter-by-centimeter, hands-and-knees inspection but it is fair to say that most of the formerly-inhabited ground has been closely eyeballed. Very little aluminum has been found and the pieces that can be definitely identified as airplane debris number perhaps a dozen. The place simply does not look to me like the site of a former aircraft salvage and disassembly operation, nor is the adaptive use of airplane parts something that many of the former residents recall, and of all the servicemen we've talked to who interacted with the local population before, during, and after WWII only one - John Mims - remembers anything about them having and using airplane parts. For those reasons I find myself leaning more and more toward the idea that the Electra went over the reef-edge pretty much in one piece. If it then sank deep enough to be protected from waves and currents, even in storms, it follows that it should still be there. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 09:12:30 -0400 From: Dave in Fremont Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Ric writes: >For those reasons I find myself leaning more and more toward the idea >that the Electra went over the reef-edge pretty much in one piece. If >it then sank deep enough to be protected from waves and currents, even >in storms, it follows that it should still be there. Ric, this brings to mind some things I've wondered, but never asked about. 1. Do we have any knowledge or evidence concerning the density and/or rate of coral growth on Niku? 2. If your guess is correct, wouldn't coral growth have not only "welded" the remains to the existing reef but also, by this time, virtually obscured any "readily" visual evidence? 3. Regarding coral growth, have TIGHAR divers ever ventured near the Norwich City wreck to determine the effects/extent of coral growth over pieces of the ship's wreckage? I only mention this because of the relative close proximity of the loss of Norwich City (1929) and the Electra (1937). I'm sure all this has been taken into consideration, but I've never seen it mentioned. LTM, Dave (#2585) ************************************************************************ From Ric Coral grows only in warm, sunlit, shallow water. The TBD Devastators we recently surveyed in Jaluit lagoon (an environment not unlike that at Niku) have been in the water since February of 1942 and provide an informative example of what might be expected of Earhart's Electra under similar circumstances. On of the TBDs is at a depth of about 50 feet. There are a few large coral growths on the airplane but its shape and recognizability as an aircraft are by no means obscured. The other TBD is at 125 feet. At that depth the amount of sunlight is greatly reduced and coral growth is noticeably more stunted than on the shallower airplane. My guess is that for the Earhart Electra to have sunk deep enough on the reef slope to have escaped the effects of storms it is, by definition, also deep enough to be subject to minimal coral growth. Our divers have examined and filmed the Norwich City wreckage that is in shallow water (less than 100 feet). The wreckage has some coral growth but is still recognizable. What is surprising is how little wreckage there is. The whole aft half of the ship broke off in a storm that hit the island in early January 1939 (as documented in before and after photos taken by the New Zealand survey party that was there at the time) but our divers have never seen anything but a few scattered pieces of debris. We can only surmise that the stern traveled down the steep reef slope to depths we have never explored. ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2004 09:13:18 -0400 From: John Harsh Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 For Alan I'm not necessarily a proponent of crashed and sank, I'm just wondering why the artifact is singular. - JMH 0634C ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 08:32:59 -0400 From: Troy Carmichael Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Ric, I think your theory of what happened to the Electra is actually a compromise that supports both the Niku and crash-and-sank theorists . Yes, it crashed (on Niku reef) and, yes, it sank in the ocean. Now everyone except for the Japanese-capture theorists can be happy! (alas, if only.....) Daniel Troy Carmichael TIGHAR #Something Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere incompetence. ******************************************************************** From Ric I guess the Japanese can still come to Niku and capture them after the airplane sinks. Something for everyone. ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 09:47:14 -0400 From: Mark Subject: Wise sayings Troy says; >Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere >incompetence. "There are no great mysteries. There is only great ignorance" (A word to the teen-aged rebels amongst our readers - never say that to a devout nun until AFTER she has graded you, trust me!) ************************************************************************ From Ric I resisted (but only briefly) the temptation to point out that there appears to be such a thing as malicious incompetence. ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 11:30:05 -0400 From: Marty Moleski Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Ric wrote: > I guess the Japanese can still come to Niku and capture them after the > airplane sinks. Or drop the Electra remains off the edge of the reef at Niku after they've killed AE & FN and stolen all of the military secrets from the Flying Laboratory. [Just pretending, for a moment, to be a conspiracy nut. There is no artifact that will keep people from clinging to weird theories.] Marty #2359 ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 11:39:00 -0400 From: Alfred Hendrickson Subject: Re: 2-2-V-1 Ric wrote: >I find myself leaning more and more toward the idea that >the Electra went over the reef-edge pretty much in one piece. If it then >sank deep enough to be protected from waves and currents, even in storms, it >follows that it should still be there. I really like the idea of NR16020 sitting just off that reef in nearly one piece! I (and many others, I'm sure) have wondered about this for a long time. I posted a question on the topic of searching underwater on 1-16-2003 (See Forum Archives for January 2003). Tom King gave a detailed answer to my post, which he began by stating "I'm sure Ric is tired of answering this one". I was left with the impression that an underwater search had already been thoroughly debated a long time ago, and was simply not practical. Ric, the question I have is this; If there is a decent chance that this is worth checking out, does this cause you to consider directing effort to an underwater search? LTM, Alfred Hendrickson, #2583 ************************************************************************ From Ric In a word, yes. The cost is still a major concern but we're presently re-examining the options. By the way, a TIGHAR team is presently in the wilds of northern Idaho examining the wreckage of a 1936 Electra crash. ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:59:21 -0400 From: Tom Strang Subject: Itasca log Itasca's last recieved KHAQQ radio transmission at or about0843 2 July 1937 Howland time ends with "we are running north and south line" - Is this the correct word layout as written in the Itasca radio logs? - Any ambiguity between the rough and smooth radio logs as to word layout? Respectfully: Tom Strang # 2559 ************************************************************************ From Ric If you go to http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/37_ItascaLogs/PDF.html you can download a PDF of the original rough log. The entry you're looking for is in Position 2 Page 3. ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 11:11:46 -0400 From: Ted Campbell Subject: Bulletin #26 Lost Antenna II Still trying to come up with an alternative to wave damage and 2-2-V-1. When I looked at the above bulletin and tried to get a better understanding of when (and how) AE may have lost that belly antenna I see something that's a little puzzling. In the photos used in the above bulletin you will note that the loop antenna is at right angles (loop faces the photographer) to the centerline of the aircraft. However, if you go to the moving film of the take off at Lea the loop appears to be aligned (facing forward) with the centerline of the aircraft. If you look carefully at the moving pictures you can see the loop facing forward during AE/FN getting into the plane, as they taxi out and I think as the plane passes at right angles to the photographer during takeoff. This antenna orientation appears to be collaborated by Alan Board's photo shown in Bulletin #20 which also shows the takeoff at Lae. If my view is correct then it seems that the photos used to argue the point that the antenna departed the aircraft at takeoff and also could have caused the "puff of dirt" is a little hard to understand. However, if the photos in Bulletin #26 were from an earlier period e.g. upon arrival at Lae -which seems to be collaborated by the photos in Bulletin #27 (the arrival and a right angle loop) -or some other time before the final takeoff then we may have another case for Artifact 2-2-V-1 and the "puff of dirt." Suppose that AE lost that belly antenna upon landing at Lae or during some other landing/takeoff and it was decided to fix it while at Lae - they had the Guinea Airways technician and the Chater Report indicates that they did carry out testing and calibration of the "long wave" in the hanger and in the air on July 1- could they also have used a piece of the onboard sheet metal i.e. artifact 2-2-V-1 during this process. Could 2-2-V-1 have come loose during takeoff and caused the "puff of dirt"? It may be in order to revisit the photos that were used in the missing antenna analysis, also see if other photos of AE's arrival show there was indeed an antenna upon getting to Lae. Finally, the original analysis of the pitot tube may correct after all - it could have been bent upon arrival. Ted Campbell ************************************************************************ From Ric I'm afraid I don't follow you. The loop antenna over the cockpit was rotatable using a knob on the cockpit ceiling. The fact that its orientation is different in various photos means only that somebody turned the knob. The belly antenna that was lost on takeoff was a wire that ran from the starboard pitot mast aft through a mast under the center section and terminated at another mast under the cabin. It is that last aft-most mast that was apparently knocked off during taxiing and, we think, ended up being dragged along the ground by the wire. The puff of dust in the takeoff film may be the dragged mast snagging in the dirt and ripping the rest of the wire free. The photos clearly show that all of the antennas and both pitot masts were intact and unbent when the airplane taxied out for departure and that the belly masts were gone and the pitots still unbent when the airplane came back by on its takeoff run. ======================================================================== Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 14:57:18 -0400 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Itasca log Tom Strang wrote: >Itasca's last recieved KHAQQ radio transmission at or about 0843 2 >July 1937 Howland time ends with "we are running north and south >line" N ES S" The raw message actually reads, "WE ARE RUNNING ON LINE As you can see the end of the line was typed at the end but above the first part. My question is what does "N ES S" mean? What is the "ES" part? We have taken that to mean "and" but is that so? Alan ************************************************************************ From Ric "ES" is radio operator's shorthand for "and". The way the log entry is written is ambiguous. The entry can be interpreted as either "WE ARE RUNNING ON NORTH AND SOUTH LINE" or "WE ARE RUNNING ON LINE NORTH AND SOUTH". ======================================================================== Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 09:58:37 -0400 From: Ted Campbell Subject: Lae takeoff Let me try again. TIGHAR explains that the "new" Alan Board photo (Bulletin #20) was taken at the same time of the motion picture Lae takeoff. This "new" photo gives TIGHAR a better view of the underside of the plane and has been used to come to the conclusion that the antenna was lost at takeoff. However, if you look at the loop antenna's orientation in the Alan Board photo and compare it with the antenna's orientation in the motion picture (at the same location on the runway) you will see that they are different. Therefor, the Alan Board and the motion picture takeoff photos had to be taken at different times. What I asked was: 1) Is it possible that the Alan Board photo was taken during the arrival at Lae and therefore shows that the antenna was lost in an earlier flight? 2) Has TIGHAR analyzed any of the other photos taken upon AE arrival at Lae to see if the antenna was there? 3) Given that AE had radio problems upon arrival at Lae - the Chater Report - and some photos show there was no antenna at some time while at Lae (at arrival, while in the hanger, etc. or during takeoff) is it possible that repairs to the belly area were carried out at Lae using the artifact 2-2-V-1? 4) Should we revisit the Lost Antenna analysis? Ted Campbell ************************************************************************ From Ric Okay. I see what you're saying, but I disagree that the loop antenna is oriented differently in the still versus the motion picture photography. The open end of the loop is facing forward. The Alan Board takeoff photo that Photek analyzed shows the airplane in a three-quarter view and the loop appears as an ellipse. That photo could not have been taken during landing because the airplane was never in that attitude during landings (numerous photos and newsreel films show that Earhart made full stall three-point landings like everyone else in those days). Other photos show the Electra in the hangar at Lae and the belly antenna is clearly visible. Analysis of the film shows that the antenna is present when the airplane taxis out for the final takeoff but is not there when it comes back past the camera on the takeoff run. ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 08:45:50 -0400 From: Tom King Subject: Columbia, MO I find that I'll be teaching in Columbia, Missouri on August 16-18. If any Forumites (or others) in that area would like me to give my ever-popular 1-hour (plus Q and A) slide show on the Nikumaroro Hypothesis and TIGHAR's efforts to test it, I'd be happy to devote an evening to doing so. I'll probably be flying in and out of St. Louis, so perhaps something could be arranged there, too. Just let me know (at TFKing106@aol.com) before I make my reservations. LTM Tom ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 13:42:00 -0400 From: Eric Subject: Two Amelias One of the more intriguing threads in the Goerner book is the one about the two Marines Everett Henson, Jr. and Billy Burks who claimed that, under the direction of a Marine Field Intelligence Officer named Griswold, they dug up the remains of two people on Saipan in 1944. Before departing with the recovered bones, Griswold dropped the name Amelia Earhart and told them not to discuss this incident with anyone. Goerner goes to great lengths to explain how he cross-checked their individual accounts to verify that their statements matched. (The two Marines had been out of touch with each other for 20 some years when Goerner first spoke with them and therefore could not have agreed in advance what they would tell him.) Using the information Henson and Burks provided, he located the Intel officer Tracy Griswold, who had recently retired as a Major from the Marine Corps Reserve. While Griswold claimed not to remember the grave incident or Henson and Burks, he did acknowledge that his family was connected with the Griswold Stove Manufacturing Company, a bit of trivia that Henson had remembered from the 1944 incident and passed along to Goerner. Griswold requested that Goerner come to his home in Erie, Pennsylvania to talk in person, but apparently Goerner never did so. Ric has acknowledged that, in his opinion, Goerner was an honest man, so I think it is safe to assume that his interviews with Henson, Burks and Griswold took place as he described them. If the accounts of the two Marines are to be believed, then it appears that, under some official directive, the remains of two people were recovered on Saipan in 1944 (The story about the finding of a grave containing a man and a woman was also told to Goerner by Marine Colonel Justin Chambers, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who apparently heard about it while serving on Saipan at about the same time as Henson and Burks.) Exhuming human remains under such circumstances would tend to indicate that the deceased had some connection to the U.S. Government either as employees, agents, or someone who had rendered the country a great service. It would also tend to indicate that someone within the Government had knowledge that they were buried on Saipan and where they were buried. (According to Henson and Burks, Griswold had notes or a map that showed where the graves could be found.) Since the Earhart family never acknowledged that Amelia's remains were repatriated, it is logical to assume that, if two bodies were in fact recovered on Saipan, they were NOT those of AE and FN. (This would account for researchers not finding any official supporting documents about this incident under Earhart's name.) Working backwards, these remains might well be those of the two people that Josephine Blanco Akiyama and the rest of Goerner's witnesses claimed to have seen in Japanese custody on Saipan. (It is unlikely that, in 1937, any of these witnesses knew who Amelia Earhart was or what she looked like. And as Tom King has pointed out, there were no doubt other Americans in the vicinity of the Marshall Islands in 1937.) In a separate, but perhaps not unrelated thread, Goerner describes interviewing another Marine named Jackson who had recovered a suitcase and a diary with Earhart's name on it on the Island of Namur, Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands. These items were taken to the Regimental Command Post to be turned over to Military Intelligence. The gist of Jackson's story was independently collaborated by Victor Maghokian, a former Marine Captain who had no connection to Jackson. According to Maghokian, the natives told him that a white man and white woman had been on Kwajalein Atoll in 1937 and then were taken away by the Japanese. Maghokian also heard that a diary and some other personal items had been found on Kwajalein that were supposed to have belonged to Earhart. Goerner also heard this from Chester Nimitz, who referred him to Marine General Harry Schmidt who had commanded a part of the Marine Forces during the invasion of Kwajalein in 1944. After waffling back and forth, Schmidt ultimately declined to discuss what he knew with Goerner, implying that he was sworn to some code of silence. Since the Earhart family never acknowledged that any of her personal items were returned to them, it is logical to assume that, if these items were in fact recovered, they might not have been what they seemed to be. Taking all of the above into consideration, here is a somewhat plausible scenario that might help to explain where most of the "Japanese capture" stories had their origin: In 1937, at the time of the World Flight, two Americans, a man and a woman, were in the Marshall Islands, gathering intelligence on Japanese military activities. Among her personal belonging, the woman had items that she could use to represent herself as Amelia Earhart if necessary. The two ultimately ended up on Kwajalein, where they were arrested. From there, they were taken to Saipan where they were seen by Josephine Blanco Akiyama and Goerner's other witnesses. The Japanese determined that they were spies and the pair eventually died or were executed on Saipan. They were buried in an unmarked grave near the cemetery south of Garapan. News of their death and their burial site somehow reached the agency they were working for. In 1944, after the Marines had taken Saipan, this agency, working through Marine Intelligence, recovered the remains of their two agents and their personal belongings. It is possible that, to ensure military cooperation and/or to protect the identity of the deceased, the agency practiced some deception, implying that the remains were in fact those of AE and FN. All of the Marines who had any direct knowledge of the recovery of the remains and personal belongings were sworn to secrecy. The remains were returned to the U.S. and reburied under the agents' real names. The "personal belongings" recovered on Kwajalein were destroyed. Eyewitness accounts later collected in the Marshall Islands were (correctly) determined to have no connection to Amelia Earhart. Having now just provided Clive Cussler with an idea for his next book,let me conclude by saying that I have no idea whether or not an official paper trail exists that details the recovery of human remains on Saipan in 1944. I also realize that disproving the Japanese capture theory is not part of TIGHAR's Earhart Project. But wouldn't it be nice if someone reading this posting was inspired to conduct research that ultimately verified that the story told to Goerner by Henson and Burks was based in truth? LTM, Eric, Naval Station San Diego (my new work location) ======================================================================== Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 15:21:34 -0400 From: Angus Murray Subject: Re: Two Ameliais Eric wrote: > Ric has > acknowledged that, in his opinion, Goerner was an honest man, so I > think it is safe to assume that his interviews with Henson, Burks and > Griswold took place as he described them. Unfortunately, one can't really draw this conclusion. Whilst Ric may believe Goerner was honest, there is no doubt that he also believes Goerner's conclusions are completely false and so for the record do I. Further, anyone who makes a study of Goerner's research methods will confirm that he made errors in stating his sources and was confused on a considerable number of matters. I have no difficulty in believing that the interviews took place but I would not put a great deal of faith in how accurately they were reported. For instance - Goerner stated that he had seen information leading him to believe that AE had uprated military spec engines fitted to her plane, increasing the 550 hp by 50%. However there is not a shred of evidence to support this - on the contrary, there is evidence to refute it. He stated that Nimitz had agreed that AE had ended up being captured by the Japs. There is little doubt that Nimitz did n