The Earhart Project is testing the hypothesis that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan landed, and eventually died, on Gardner Island, now Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati. Now in its 24yh year, a major underwater search is planned for 2013.
One of the most significant aircraft in the history of naval aviation was the Douglas TBD-1 “Devastator” torpedo bomber. A revolutionary design when introduced in 1935, the type played a key role in the critical opening months of the Pacific War at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. Today, no example of the Devastator survives in any museum or collection.
In the summer of 2007, a Lockheed
P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft, presumed to be USAAF serial number 41-7677,
emerged from the sand of a beach in Wales where it crash landed in 1942.
The aircraft, largely intact and remarkably free of corrosion, is one
of the most significant WWII-related archaeological discoveries in recent
history.
One of TIGHAR’s primary missions is to promote awareness and recognition of
the various forms of preservation so that decisions by pilots,
managers and curators can be made from an informed perspective
and so that the aviation enthusiast public can better appreciate
and support their efforts.
On May 8, 1927, WWI heroes Charles Nungesser
and François Coli took off from LeBourget Field near Paris aboard
their biplane l’Oiseau Blanc (the White Bird) bound nonstop for New
York. Had they succeeded, the subsequent course of aviation history would
have been very different. Instead, a frantic but fruitless search for the
missing flyers dominated the headlines until Lindbergh’s takeoff just
twelve days later. The French tragedy set the stage for the American triumph.
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