If there have been studies about the headwinds that contradict these findings can you please point me to the documents that suggest otherwise?
The original flight plan was for 18:00 flight time? I thought it was based upon the Howland to Lae flight plan requiring 17:01 hours?
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 11:58:10 EST
From: Andrew McKenna
Subject: Winds
Observations taken at Howland that morning were:
Surface - ESE at 16 knts
1,000 ft - ESE at 15 knts
2,000 ft - E at 17 knts
Applying these winds to AE flightplan, what effect would we expect on AE's
flight path to Howland? Would she end up farther WNW than expected, or
have I got it wrong?
Were these winds factored into the statistical analysis of most likely
ending locations that was presented to us at the AE Symposium in
Delaware a couple of years ago?
Just curious.
AMCK 1045C
***************************************************************
From Ric
We need to remember that these were the winds at Howland on the morning of
July 2nd. They may or may not resemble the winds encountered hundreds of
miles to the west during the preceding night. Also, whatever the winds,
there is no reason to think that they blew the flight off course. That's
what a navigator does - keep the flight on course by adjusting the heading
to compensate for winds. There is no reason to think that Noonan was not
able to assess the flight's progress by means of star sightings during
the night.
The Monte Carlo projections done by Wagner Associates took all of the
known factors into account but there were way to many unknown factors
to permit a high degree of probability for any location. The best
they came up with was that the flight probably ended up south of
Howland and perhaps a bit short of the line of position passing
through Howland. (Do I have that right Randy?) GL makes the argument that Fred would have planned to intercept the LOP north of Howland. That is a shorter distance to fly, and doesn't involve any "back tracking", so to speak. When Jacobson and others have attempted to reconstruct the flight, do they assume Fred was trying to navigate directly to Howland, or do any of them include an offset?I have been using a 60 NM offset in my examples and the length depends on the time that Noonan got his last fix. If his last fix was at 1627 Z, the report of "partly cloudy," then the maximum uncertainty in his DR was 46 NM using the normal 10% of distance flown estimate of DR uncertainty or 70 NM using the most pessimistic estimate of DR accuracy. If he got a fix later, the the offset would be smaller. During this process you do not abandon your DR. By aiming off to one side by the amount of the estimated maximum error in the DR at the point of interception (60 NM in this example) you have converted a 120 NM uncertainty along the LOP, 60 NM left and 60 NM right, into a 120 NM uncertainty extending 120 NM left and zero right. This ensures that you do not end up to the right of the destination. This allows for the maximum possible error but, in fact, you are more likely to be nearer to your DR position than to the extreme edges of the you intercept your aiming point 60 NM to the left you are not surprised that you don't see the island since it is most likely to be about 60 NM
The argument has been previously made that the flight may have planned to intercept the LOP northwest of Howland, so they turned "right" expecting this would bring them closer. How long would they continue after their right turn before, um, plan-B?
GL makes the argument that Fred would have planned to intercept the LOP north of Howland. That is a shorter distance to fly, and doesn't involve any "back tracking", so to speak. When Jacobson and others have attempted to reconstruct the flight, do they assume Fred was trying to navigate directly to Howland, or do any of them include an offset?I have been using a 60 NM offset in my examples and the length depends on the time that Noonan got his last fix. If his last fix was at 1627 Z, the report of "partly cloudy," then the maximum uncertainty in his DR was 46 NM using the normal 10% of distance flown estimate of DR uncertainty or 70 NM using the most pessimistic estimate of DR accuracy. If he got a fix later, the the offset would be smaller. During this process you do not abandon your DR. By aiming off to one side by the amount of the estimated maximum error in the DR at the point of interception (60 NM in this example) you have converted a 120 NM uncertainty along the LOP, 60 NM left and 60 NM right, into a 120 NM uncertainty extending 120 NM left and zero right. This ensures that you do not end up to the right of the destination. This allows for the maximum possible error but, in fact, you are more likely to be nearer to your DR position than to the extreme edges of the you intercept your aiming point 60 NM to the left you are not surprised that you don't see the island since it is most likely to be about 60 NM
The argument has been previously made that the flight may have planned to intercept the LOP northwest of Howland, so they turned "right" expecting this would bring them closer. How long would they continue after their right turn before, um, plan-B?
to your right. As you fly along the LOP your DR also moves along the LOP getting closer to where the island should be and you expect to see it as you approach that point. Even if you don't see it when you arrive there you are not yet worried because it can still be ahead of you. But as you continue further and further along the LOP after the DR put you over the island you start getting worried. But you must still proceed out the whole 60 NM past where the island should be to be certain that you do not miss the island. At the end of that leg you would know that you have missed the island and would have to deal with that problem most likely planning a standard expanding square search pattern centered on the most likely point for the island. So he would not have flown beyond 60 NM past Howland before turning around and starting a search pattern. He would not have continued SSE any further.
See: https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/discussions/navigation-to-howland-island
gl
The length of this journey was 257 miles from Lae on a 99.07 heading.I have attached a photo of Earhart's compass, it is the object mounted above the Cambridge instrument, above the instrument panel centered in front of the windshield. It has a mark every five degrees and the photo shows it indicating a compass heading of about 300 degrees. Look at this photo and tell me the method you would use to maintain your compass heading of 99.07° or 72.16°, an accuracy of one-one-hundredth of a degree. And just to add some more realism to the question, remember that the compass card dances around a bit in flight.
The heading from her previous report was 72.16, the distance was 652 miles.
Apologies in advance for the length of the post…
As a footnote here, it is not so important that they were actually 200 miles out and headed directly for Howland, what is important is that they thought they were 200 miles out based upon following the flight plan and tracking their time. Since we know that they did not make it to Howland, we can guess at a few possible causes as to why they were not where they thought they were:
1) Inaccurate measurement of time.
2) Inaccurate magnetic course tracking.
3) Inaccurate measurement of ground speed achieved taking in to account head winds and altitude (true airspeed).
I think it is pretty safe to guess that we can rule out #1 and #2 for the most part. Tracking time is hardly debatable and following a compass heading were probably easiest tasks that they were performing.
What you are saying is the equivalent of saying that neither Earhart nor Noonan were capable of pouring piss out of a boot with the instructions printed on the heel.Apologies in advance for the length of the post…
As a footnote here, it is not so important that they were actually 200 miles out and headed directly for Howland, what is important is that they thought they were 200 miles out based upon following the flight plan and tracking their time. Since we know that they did not make it to Howland, we can guess at a few possible causes as to why they were not where they thought they were:
1) Inaccurate measurement of time.
2) Inaccurate magnetic course tracking.
3) Inaccurate measurement of ground speed achieved taking in to account head winds and altitude (true airspeed).
I think it is pretty safe to guess that we can rule out #1 and #2 for the most part. Tracking time is hardly debatable and following a compass heading were probably easiest tasks that they were performing.
Unless they found themselves completely dependent on the magnetic heading once they realized celestial observations were unavailable.
Imagine this for a moment; they lose celestial readings; find a discrepency between the DG (previously calibrated directional gyro) and magnetic compass. What to do? Re-calibrate for magnetic or continue in true course? How accurate (or incaccurate) was the DG's precession? Did they have numbers for both variation and deviation - and if so, how accurately calibrated were they? It seems that the magnetic variation was in the neighborhood of 9 degrees for most of the trip. If that was lost or not accounted for, how far off would they be?
What if Amelia made the human-error of of flip-flopping the 9 degrees in the wrong direction. Since they were in a remote part of the world, it may have been a factor. Reverting back to basic flight navigation for magnetic compensation may not have been something she was accustomed to.
Thoughts?
I read the report from the Waitt search and I have many criticisms of their search methodology. On Page 48-49 their report states that no handy calculators were available to make the conversions between indicated airspeed, true airspeed and ground speed until the invention of the circular slide rule type flight computer E-6B in World War Two. The report is only off by one World War. These devices were developed as early as 1910 and found wide use in WW I. The Dalton MK VII was perfected in 1932 and the Jensen in 1933. These were easy to operate and performed the required calculations. With slight modification the Dalton became standardized as the E-6B in WWII. So AE most likely could have made these calculations by herself in the cockpit. Further. Noonan wrote that he had the Dalton MK VII in his letter to Weems which I have attached.
As far as the computing the true air speed based on altitude goes, what was the common practice of the day? Was it typical to use charts and tables or some simple approach like 2% per 1000ft? Was there any evidence that Fred brought with him a flight computer like the E-6B that would have been available in that era to simplify the headwinds and true air speed calculations? Is there any photographic evidence that such a computer did exist?
^^^^ Yeah - Pretty much! Crazier human-error things happened in the aviaition world every once in a while ... Take Tenerife for instance.Teneriff was much more complex than pouring piss out of a boot or applying deviation and the deviation did not change abruptly after Lae, it was the same 6° East that it had been on the leg into Lae and it gradually changed to 9° East in the vicinity of Howland. And these types of errors are detected and cured every time you get a new fix.
^^^^ Yeah - Pretty much! Crazier human-error things happened in the aviaition world every once in a while ... Take Tenerife for instance.Teneriff was much more complex than pouring piss out of a boot or applying deviation and the deviation did not change abruptly after Lae, it was the same 6° East that it had been on the leg into Lae and it gradually changed to 9° East in the vicinity of Howland. And these types of errors are detected and cured every time you get a new fix.
gl
All the examples you gave lasted only moments, not the hour after hour flight of the Earhart plane where any such error would have had many many opportunities to be recognized.^^^^ Yeah - Pretty much! Crazier human-error things happened in the aviaition world every once in a while ... Take Tenerife for instance.Teneriff was much more complex than pouring piss out of a boot or applying deviation and the deviation did not change abruptly after Lae, it was the same 6° East that it had been on the leg into Lae and it gradually changed to 9° East in the vicinity of Howland. And these types of errors are detected and cured every time you get a new fix.
gl
Taking off without a clearance is not complex. Neither is watching your altimeter as was the case in the 72' everglades crash. Landing gear-up happens every day - its not complex either. Turning on your engine temp de-ice is pretty easy too - which they didn't do in Air Florida 14th bridge during a snowstorm.
Something bone-headed happened!
All the examples you gave lasted only moments, not the hour after hour flight of the Earhart plane where any such error would have had many many opportunities to be recognized.^^^^ Yeah - Pretty much! Crazier human-error things happened in the aviaition world every once in a while ... Take Tenerife for instance.Teneriff was much more complex than pouring piss out of a boot or applying deviation and the deviation did not change abruptly after Lae, it was the same 6° East that it had been on the leg into Lae and it gradually changed to 9° East in the vicinity of Howland. And these types of errors are detected and cured every time you get a new fix.
gl
Taking off without a clearance is not complex. Neither is watching your altimeter as was the case in the 72' everglades crash. Landing gear-up happens every day - its not complex either. Turning on your engine temp de-ice is pretty easy too - which they didn't do in Air Florida 14th bridge during a snowstorm.
Something bone-headed happened!
Teneriff: I don't know how much flying you have done internationally, but even though English is the world-wide language of aviation, controllers who are non-native speakers of it don't it do so well and there have been a number of aviation accidents caused by this and by improper phraseology. The Spanish controller used improper phraseology and instructed KLM to "hold for takeoff." According to ICAO regulations, the word "takeoff" is only to be used in the phrase "cleared for takeoff." The same is true of Netherland and U.S. and all other countries. The other 747 transmitted at the same time covering up the "hold for" part of the controller's transmission. The KLM captain heard "...takeoff" which in all of his 30,000 hours of flying and at least as many takeoffs had meant "cleared for taekoff."
Everglades: L1011 on approach to Miami at night from the west over the everglades where it is as pitch black below you as flying over the ocean. They couldn't get a gear down light to come on and in the process of trouble shooting the problem the captain bumped the control yoke which the auto-pilot interpreted as the captain disconnecting the auto-pilot which is what it is supposed to do when the yoke is moved. The plane descended very gradually into the glades while the cockpit crew were distracted trouble shooting.
None of these were as simple as applying deviation to a true course. Which, by the way, Noonan and Earhart didn't even need to do since Williams had laid out the courses in magnetic degrees, the magnetic courses, having already applied the deviation.
gl
I was right, I had uploaded the Williams strip chart before, here is a link to it (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=549.0;attach=496).
"None of these were as simple as applying deviation to a true course. Which, by the way, Noonan and Earhart didn't even need to do since Williams had laid out the courses in magnetic degrees, the magnetic courses, having already applied the deviation. See attached chart. [ It caused a problem, apparently it was too big of a file.] It was William's strip chart of the Lae to Howland leg. I think I posted it before and I think it caused the same problem then.
[attachment deleted by admin]
I am having trouble with accessing page 2 of this string to modify my post -
I had uploaded the Williams strip chart before, here is a link to it (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=549.0;attach=496).I am having trouble with accessing page 2 of this string to modify my post -
Gary tried to upload another high resolution scan.
I've resized it and am attaching two lower resolutions here (if all goes well).
"None of these were as simple as applying deviation to a true course. Which, by the way, Noonan and Earhart didn't even need to do since Williams had laid out the courses in magnetic degrees, the magnetic courses, having already applied the deviation. See attached chart. [ It caused a problem, apparently it was too big of a file.] It was William's strip chart of the Lae to Howland leg. I think I posted it before and I think it caused the same problem then.
Heath did a lot of good math and analysis in that long work-up - fascinating. Eric's points about errors pique well too, but I tend to think Gary's onto something about the timing, etc. Too much known ground was covered early enough in the flight for AE to have gone that brain dead for hours on end up front (although I agree, crazier things have happened).
Not that I fully agree that the other examples of error are so limited to momentary lapses: the everglades crash is a tragic example of many 'moments' for the crew to have cued-in - but they were all so focused on chasing the gear light that none cued-in during the drift-down. Nobody was 'flying the plane' - tragic, and a lapse of far too many minutes - it can and does happen to the best. FN and AE would not have been immune - I can agree to that.
According to the following page, AE reported seeing a ship in sight at 10:30 GMT.
The Monte Carlo simulation is mentioned quite often. The articles describing it talk about constraints on the results but lack detail on the simulation itself. Is it probabilistic or deterministic? What are the equations of motion? What physics is it modeling and how were the math models derived? What methods/software were used to build it? How was the simulation verified and/or validated? Without knowing more about the tool itself, it's hard to evaluate its results.
Based on the description in the article (http://tighar.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_Simulation_of_Flight), this sounds more like a prediction of position based on radio messages than an actual 6DOF flight simulation resolving the forces and moments acting on the aircraft defining its motion through space. Is that the case?
Another comment is the two figures in the wiki article are too small to read, so I'm not sure what they indicate. Are the scales in latitude/longitude?
Pilots are trained to check their DG about every 10 minutes so Earhart would have caught the errors you are concerned about after only a short period of time. There were actually three compasses in the plane and Noonan had one of his own back in the nav station so his job was to check up on Earhart flying the correct heading that he had given her so another reason that any such error was promptly corrected. In addition to the standard "pilot's" compass mounted above the instrument panel, Earhart had a much more accurate and stable compass mounted on the floor in front of the co-pilot's seat, see attached photos. Mounted directly above this second, aperiodic compass, is the correction card to this compass. Aperiodic compasses were generally called "the navigator's compass" because they were mounted at the nav station of our bombers and transport planes during WW2. Noonan had one of these mounted on the floor under the chart table with a window in the chart table to allow him to see this compass. Aperiodic compasses must be read from above, not from the side as is done with the normal "pilot's" compass. Since each of them had one of these very accurate and stable compasses available it makes you scenario very unlikely. Noonan also had an altimeter, airspeed indicator and an outside air temperature gauge at his station so he could compute the true airspeed of the plane and didn't have to rely on Earhart passing this information back to him. This was a very well thought out navigation arrangement, it had worked for 3/4ths of the way around the world.
Take this scenario for example:
They are in flight, then lose celestial observations due to overcast. No big deal. They revert to dead reckoning using the magnetic compass and directional gyro. The DG suffers a bit more than its usual gyroscopic pression (maybe from a vacum leak). AE corrects for it, but turns the DG needle to one hash-mark (or two) shy of it's actual correct heading. Now they are are off by 10 degrees and don't know it. They fly this heading for an unknown period of time. Not knowing how long they have been flying the wrong heading, they dont know how much to compenstate to get back on course. Fred notices the discrepency. They are now closer to their destination and decide not to make matters worse by trying to counter-correct the problem. But, rather to fly a 'parallel' heading an intercept an offset LOP. Problem now they dont know exactly how far off course they are when reaching the LOP. To compound the problem, say for example, the magnetic compass wasn't swung correctly or a 'typo' was on the correction card. Combine that with unknown wind conditions. Now things are starting to add up in a more complex way - creating a compounding effect. They hit the LOP with as good of timing they have but even it is off slightly by several seconds. Unbeknownst to them, the strip chart has Howland charted erroneously 6 miles too far east.
Things have gotten real ugly real quick!
The Monte Carlo simulation is mentioned quite often. The articles describing it talk about constraints on the results but lack detail on the simulation itself. Is it probabilistic or deterministic? What are the equations of motion? What physics is it modeling and how were the math models derived? What methods/software were used to build it? How was the simulation verified and/or validated? Without knowing more about the tool itself, it's hard to evaluate its results.
Based on the description in the article (http://tighar.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_Simulation_of_Flight), this sounds more like a prediction of position based on radio messages than an actual 6DOF flight simulation resolving the forces and moments acting on the aircraft defining its motion through space. Is that the case?
Another comment is the two figures in the wiki article are too small to read, so I'm not sure what they indicate. Are the scales in latitude/longitude?
GIGO!
They claim "We used a very conservative scenario, one that assumed that Earhart had no means of determining her position, and that the entire flight was made by dead reckoning." This is not a conservative scenario it is a radical one.
It doesn't make any difference how many calculations you may make if you start with a completely unreasonable assumption. This is exactly what the term GIGO means. I did a Monte Carlo simulation that made one quadrillion calculations with a supercomputer starting with the equally unreasonable assumption that they were flying a rocket ship so my simulation shows them 2.3 SM south of the crater Tycho on the Moon. Obviously something went wrong with the navigation but this is not the same thing as saying they did no navigation at all, that they dead reckoned all the way from Lae to Howland. Since Noonan was navigating, his actions, including errors, biases the result away from the DR scenario so the plane is more likely to be anywhere else on Earth than it is to be where your Monte Carlo simulation placed it. Mr. Jacobson engaged in an intellectually interesting exercise but it signifies nothing in the end.
GIGO!
They claim "We used a very conservative scenario, one that assumed that Earhart had no means of determining her position, and that the entire flight was made by dead reckoning." This is not a conservative scenario it is a radical one.
So go create your own simulation that plugs in millions of combinations of numbers for variables constrained by your view of what really happened, and tell us your results.
Randy did his simulation. I find it intelligible and interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing yours.
I concur with Marty.Don't take what I wrote as a personal attack on Mr. Jacobson or his knowledge or qualifications. I used the term GIGO as it is commonly used, if you put invalid data into a computer then the result coming out of the computer is also invalid and has no value.
Disagreement is fine, but a charge of "GIGO" amounts to attack and adds nothing positive to the discussion. This kind of attack chills our forum environment and robs all of us of a higher quality dialogue that we might enjoy.
---
I happen to trust the professionalism of what Jacobson applied in the NR16020 case as relevent and sensible:
-
I concur with Marty.
Disagreement is fine, but a charge of "GIGO" amounts to attack and adds nothing positive to the discussion. This kind of attack chills our forum environment and robs all of us of a higher quality dialogue that we might enjoy.
It's no wonder to me that more than one highly-qualified TIGHAR contributor has stopped working the forum:
What highly-qualified contributor wants their major investment so passionately trampled by attack with so little material basis?
The more I see these impeachment attempts the less objectivity I see in them. I wish it were otherwise, But until the attacker can lay-up a dispassionate alternative - complete with a rational outcome (equal in weight to the Monte Carlo, mind you) it won't carry much weight with me.
I am having trouble tracking down the telegram or letters that were sent requesting that the Ontario was to be positioned "half-way" between Lae and Howland. Were specific coordinates handed to the ship's captain or did the requester rely on the captain to realize the significance of positioning the ship as closely as possible to the flight path? Can someone help me out there?
Do we know if the Ontario was drifting with the engines off? Were crewmen outside specifically listening for the Electra? If they were just kicking back in the bridge, it would be no wonder that they did not hear the Electra.
| Message: | 2 |
| Subject: | Re: Interview with Betty |
| Date: | 11/7/00 |
| From: | Randy Jacobson |
As for the Ontario logs, can you tell me which time zone that they are relative to? Are they local, GMT? Thanks in advance.
Also, do you suppose that if AE and FN spotted the Ontario, they would have assumed that they were on the line and used their position to check their flight progression? Perhaps even adjusted the plan based on spotting the Ontario?
Thanks again for the information. I really appreciate all of these references that you post.
In my haste I tried to jump down in the table to the 2nd of July assuming that the labels at the top were meaningless. Duh.
Noonan also had an altimeter, airspeed indicator and an outside air temperature gauge at his station so he could compute the true airspeed of the plane and didn't have to rely on Earhart passing this information back to him.
There was a second airspeed indicator mounted on the copilot's side of the instrument panel which was the reason for the second pitot tube. Noonan' could have been taped into either one. I don't know if there were two separate static ports for the two altimeters, the copilot had one too, they could have been using just one static port and Noonan's would have used the static pressure line for his altimeter.
Gary,
You stated on an earlier post in this thread:QuoteNoonan also had an altimeter, airspeed indicator and an outside air temperature gauge at his station so he could compute the true airspeed of the plane and didn't have to rely on Earhart passing this information back to him.
Was Earhart using the indicated speed from the port side pitot tube and Noonan was using the starboard pitot tube? Can you give any more details about how Noonan's instruments were hooked up to the main systems?
Thanks.
There was a second airspeed indicator mounted on the copilot's side of the instrument panel which was the reason for the second pitot tube. Noonan' could have been taped into either one. I don't know if there were two separate static ports for the two altimeters, the copilot had one too, they could have been using just one static port and Noonan's would have used the static pressure line for his altimeter.
The idea that the belly antenna was torn off is based on the rear support mast being close to the ground while in the three point attitude, tail on the ground. In this same attitude the pitot tubes are well above the ground (head high, see attached photo) and this continues after the tail comes up.QuoteThere was a second airspeed indicator mounted on the copilot's side of the instrument panel which was the reason for the second pitot tube. Noonan' could have been taped into either one. I don't know if there were two separate static ports for the two altimeters, the copilot had one too, they could have been using just one static port and Noonan's would have used the static pressure line for his altimeter.
This would be very useful to know especially if we believe that the belly antenna was indeed ripped off at take off at Lae. Just as a theory, maybe they did extend the co-pilot instrument back to Noonan and when the antenna was ripped off, this tweaked his readings as compared to what Earhart might have seen.
If this was the actual pitot tube, is it possible that a piece of the back of the tube was sheared off in the process? Could this cause Noonan to read higher indicated air speeds than was reality?
For whatever reason, I believe that they were achieving a ground speed of 124.5 all the way from Lae to where the Ontario was spotted. The timing is too coincidental to be otherwise (my opinion). If you assume they were achieving 150mph after departing from Nukumanu Island (since they reported a head wind of 23 knots), you are somewhat forced in to assuming that the Myrtl Bank was the ship spotted (or some yet unknown mystery ship) even though very little is known about her true where abouts. This would put the Myrtle Bank about 29 miles off the planned flight path, compared to the Ontario at 8 miles off. I suppose you could think that they flew far North of the Ontario and spotted the Myrtle Bank instead but this would infer a major navigational malfunction. This seems highly unlikely since they had a good fix 3.2 hours earlier and were right on the flight line.
Assuming that they did in fact spot the Ontario, which makes a lot of sense since she was only 8 miles north of the flight path, the distance from that point at 10:30GMT to the "200 miles out" message at 17:42 would be about 1077 miles. This would mean that the ground speed achieved was 149.58 mph on the trip beyond spotting the ship to being near Howland. The 150 mph make sense in that this was the original speed desired in the original flight plan. If you disregard the 10:30GMT ship spotted, and calculate the ground speed achieve from Nukumanu Island to "200 miles out" would be about 141.7 mph that does not seem to fit well from what I can see.
So the basic theory is that a speed discrepancy was discovered when the ship was spotted and the data seems to suggest that this could indeed be the case. How the ground speed achieved could have been mis-read or calculated, I have no idea. A damaged pitot tube seems to be a good culprit. Noonan might have ran some calculations, found a huge error and asked Amelia "Hey, what is your indicated air speed?".
Pilots are trained to check their DG about every 10 minutes so Earhart would have caught the errors you are concerned about after only a short period of time. There were actually three compasses in the plane and Noonan had one of his own back in the nav station so his job was to check up on Earhart flying the correct heading that he had given her so another reason that any such error was promptly corrected. In addition to the standard "pilot's" compass mounted above the instrument panel, Earhart had a much more accurate and stable compass mounted on the floor in front of the co-pilot's seat, see attached photos. Mounted directly above this second, aperiodic compass, is the correction card to this compass. Aperiodic compasses were generally called "the navigator's compass" because they were mounted at the nav station of our bombers and transport planes during WW2. Noonan had one of these mounted on the floor under the chart table with a window in the chart table to allow him to see this compass. Aperiodic compasses must be read from above, not from the side as is done with the normal "pilot's" compass. Since each of them had one of these very accurate and stable compasses available it makes you scenario very unlikely. Noonan also had an altimeter, airspeed indicator and an outside air temperature gauge at his station so he could compute the true airspeed of the plane and didn't have to rely on Earhart passing this information back to him. This was a very well thought out navigation arrangement, it had worked for 3/4ths of the way around the world.
Take this scenario for example:
They are in flight, then lose celestial observations due to overcast. No big deal. They revert to dead reckoning using the magnetic compass and directional gyro. The DG suffers a bit more than its usual gyroscopic pression (maybe from a vacum leak). AE corrects for it, but turns the DG needle to one hash-mark (or two) shy of it's actual correct heading. Now they are are off by 10 degrees and don't know it. They fly this heading for an unknown period of time. Not knowing how long they have been flying the wrong heading, they dont know how much to compenstate to get back on course. Fred notices the discrepency. They are now closer to their destination and decide not to make matters worse by trying to counter-correct the problem. But, rather to fly a 'parallel' heading an intercept an offset LOP. Problem now they dont know exactly how far off course they are when reaching the LOP. To compound the problem, say for example, the magnetic compass wasn't swung correctly or a 'typo' was on the correction card. Combine that with unknown wind conditions. Now things are starting to add up in a more complex way - creating a compounding effect. They hit the LOP with as good of timing they have but even it is off slightly by several seconds. Unbeknownst to them, the strip chart has Howland charted erroneously 6 miles too far east.
Things have gotten real ugly real quick!
Regarding "precession" of the directional gyro, pilots are not taught all the details of what they see in the cockpit. There is "real precession" and "apparent precession" but pilots don't know this, only flight navigators are taught to deal with these distinctions. Real precession is cause by friction in the bearings of he gyroscope that causes the DG to change from if setting and this is all that pilots are taught. Real precession is normally very small (unless the DG has been damaged or the bearings are very worn.) What pilots are actually seeing is "apparent precession" which is caused by the rotation of the Earth on its axis. The Earth rotates 15.04° per hour (in inertial space) and even though the gyro is maintaining it's direction in space, since the earth is turning under it, the DG appears to precess in the opposite direction. A plane flying over the North Pole would see the DG precess at this rate of 15.04° per hour. However the rate of apparent precession varies with the sine of the latitude so pilots in the U.S. see their gyros precess about 10° per hour (the sine of 45° latitude is 0.7 times 15.04° per hour equals 10.5° per hour.) The reason I have gone through this exposition is because the sine of zero degrees is zero which multiplied by 15.04 equals zero thus making the apparent precession at the equator, latitude zero, also zero. Since almost all of the precession seen in the DG is actually apparent precession, Earhart's DG would not have precessed much, if at all, since she was flying along the equator.
The first three attached photos show Earhart's cockpit, the aperiodic compass and its correction card. The fourth photo is of an exemplar aperiodic compass, not Earhart's, which has finer graduations on the azimuth scale than Earhart's. We don't have a photo of Noonan's aperiodic compass but it may also have had the finer graduations.
gl
Pilots are trained to check their DG about every 10 minutes so Earhart would have caught the errors you are concerned about after only a short period of time.We dont know for sure. What if she forgot to check for 2-3 times in a row? Or what if she had checked and made a simple interpretation mistake? This is where experimenting with possible scenarios, helps us come up with ideas that generate other ideas to help solve this riddle.
There were actually three compasses in the plane and Noonan had one of his own back in the nav station so his job was to check up on Earhart flying the correct heading that he had given her so another reason that any such error was promptly corrected.I didn't realilze that - thanks for the info. That would have meant three different correction cards too? Hmm... Do we know any more about Noonan's compass? I dont remember seeing referenced in the diagrams, but would like to learn more about it. Of course he didn't have a DG back there - just a magnetic compass - correct?
Real precession is normally very small (unless the DG has been damaged or the bearings are very worn.)This is exactly what I was suggesting. I wasn't very clear in my original post, but I meant that the 'real' precession was being affected by this phenomenon of mechanical failure. What if the DG was experiencing a slight wear, or if a vacum leak was gradually getting worse? Imagine they didn't catch this fact for 30-45min, and found themeselves gradually flying 5-10 degrees off course. When they caught the error (assuming no celestial observations), how would they have been able to get back on the original course line?
Earhart's DG would not have precessed much, if at all, since she was flying along the equator.Under normal circumstances, barring mechanical problems.
So the basic theory is that a speed discrepancy was discovered when the ship was spotted and the data seems to suggest that this could indeed be the case. How the ground speed achieved could have been mis-read or calculated, I have no idea. A damaged pitot tube seems to be a good culprit. Noonan might have ran some calculations, found a huge error and asked Amelia "Hey, what is your indicated air speed?".
I don't know if there were two separate static ports for the two altimeters, the copilot had one too, they could have been using just one static port and Noonan's would have used the static pressure line for his altimeter.
First off, it's hard to misinterpret. Secondly, a precessing DG doesn't affect Noonan's compass. (They did find a note floating on the sea not far from Howland (the Coast Guard covered this up) that said "Amela, get back on course, my compass shows you way off!" ;)We dont know for sure. What if she forgot to check for 2-3 times in a row? Or what if she had checked and made a simple interpretation mistake? This is where experimenting with possible scenarios, helps us come up with ideas that generate other ideas to help solve this riddle.
Pilots are trained to check their DG about every 10 minutes so Earhart would have caught the errors you are concerned about after only a short period of time.
Real precession is normally very small (unless the DG has been damaged or the bearings are very worn.)This is exactly what I was suggesting. I wasn't very clear in my original post, but I meant that the 'real' precession was being affected by this phenomenon of mechanical failure. What if the DG was experiencing a slight wear, or if a vacum leak was gradually getting worse? Imagine they didn't catch this fact for 30-45min, and found themeselves gradually flying 5-10 degrees off course. When they caught the error (assuming no celestial observations), how would they have been able to get back on the original course line?
If ground speed airspeed turns out to be in error, then wouldn't that have caused Noonan to possibly calclate the wrong wind corrections too?
in looking at the recent posts in this thread one thing leaps to the forefront. There "was" an error. When was the "error" detected? When the error was detected would dictate your corrective action, would it not? A gradual return to course if discovered early on, or a dramatic change in course if discovered later on. There were no indications from radio signals of "any" navigation issues being detected. In fact the radio message"We must be on you..." suggests that at least AE thought she knew where she was. Other radio messages give positions like "200 miles out". A sign that they know where they are.That throughout the flight AE was making radio calls reporting "everything is OK" indicates that they thought they knew where they were. Its also my main objection to the Long theory that they opened up the throttles and arrived at Howland with minimal reserves of fuel. Planing a flight with a 35% fuel reserve and then changing it en route to arrive with minimal fuel to spare would have me worried and I definitely would not be reporting "everything is OK".
Another factor that I have been thinking about is that once they departed Nukumanu Island, this was about 0718GMT and I do not believe the sun had set at that point in time. They proceeded 3.2 hours after leaving Nukumanu Island before spotting the Ontario, how much time did that provide for Noonan to perform his celestial navigation? That would be interesting to know.Good point. Couldn't agree more! Curious too. BTW (bit straying from topic), I thought read somewhere that Noonan was doubtful about calibrating his chronometers at Lae because they didn't have a connection to the National Bureau of Standard's timing-signals. Any truth to this does anyone know?
Now why the navigation itself might have failed, that is a different story. I am inclined to believe that they were entering cloudy conditions after spotting the Ontario that worsened as time went on. If we assume that to be true, they might have used DR all the remainder of the trip (1277 miles). As daybreak came, even if the conditions improved from overcast, the stars might have been impossible to spot. So I think it is quite possible that they did not find another reference after spotting the Ontario. What is the magic number again? 10% of 1277 miles? Does this suggest that they were off by a maximum of 127 miles? That is quite a large hole if you ask me. Forced to guess, I would say they were at a minimum of 40 miles off target since they did not spot the Itasca mast or the smoke she was laying out for them that stretch out 10 miles (although I would still like to hear an estimate of how high that smoke rose in the 8mph cross wind).
Firstoff, it's hard to misinterpret. Secondly, a precessing DG doesn't affect Noonan's compass. (They did find a note floating on the sea not far from Howland (the Coast Guard covered this up) that said "Amela, get back on course, my compass shows you way off!" ;)We dont know for sure. What if she forgot to check for 2-3 times in a row? Or what if she had checked and made a simple interpretation mistake? This is where experimenting with possible scenarios, helps us come up with ideas that generate other ideas to help solve this riddle.
Pilots are trained to check their DG about every 10 minutes so Earhart would have caught the errors you are concerned about after only a short period of time.QuoteReal precession is normally very small (unless the DG has been damaged or the bearings are very worn.)This is exactly what I was suggesting. I wasn't very clear in my original post, but I meant that the 'real' precession was being affected by this phenomenon of mechanical failure. What if the DG was experiencing a slight wear, or if a vacum leak was gradually getting worse? Imagine they didn't catch this fact for 30-45min, and found themeselves gradually flying 5-10 degrees off course. When they caught the error (assuming no celestial observations), how would they have been able to get back on the original course line?
RESPONSE
--------------------------------------------
The DG was a new instrument that had very few hours on it so the bearings should not have been worn. Also, the autopilot had it's own gyro that was independent of the pilot's DG so it is unlikely that they would both precess exactly the same amount, any discrepancy between the two would have been quickly noticed by Earhart.
gl
in looking at the recent posts in this thread one thing leaps to the forefront. There "was" an error. When was the "error" detected? When the error was detected would dictate your corrective action, would it not? A gradual return to course if discovered early on, or a dramatic change in course if discovered later on. There were no indications from radio signals of "any" navigation issues being detected. In fact the radio message"We must be on you..." suggests that at least AE thought she knew where she was. Other radio messages give positions like "200 miles out". A sign that they know where they are.That throughout the flight AE was making radio calls reporting "everything is OK" indicates that they thought they knew where they were. Its also my main objection to the Long theory that they opened up the throttles and arrived at Howland with minimal reserves of fuel. Planing a flight with a 35% fuel reserve and then changing it en route to arrive with minimal fuel to spare would have me worried and I definitely would not be reporting "everything is OK".
rc
Very interesting discussion of some of the many variables that can figure into getting lost over the ocean - or finding one's way.
One thing that may help keep things clear is the independence of many airborne indication systems from mother earth and the universe itself: with the exception of magnetic compasses and RDF equipment (and today's GPS, etc.) other indications are based on what the airplane can sense from its environment. An airplane is not a car on a pavement - without outside observations of earth, stars, etc. airspeed and headings provide for no more than dead reckoning. Dead reckoning is subject to drift, headwinds and tailwinds, etc.
Gary's done a great job of describing how both the airborne sensing and external observation elements fit, IMHO, and as a flight instructor he knows them quite well. He's also done a great job of giving clarity to great circle and how its application varies with the latitudes - and why it was negligible in the Lae - Howland case.
He has also ably demonstrated why being off-course mid-route is not such a danger or penalizing thing:
GL -
"For example, flying 2556 SM from Lae to Howland, if you wandered off course 100 SM at the midpoint of the flight it would add only 8 SM to the total route, only three minutes and twelve seconds to the flight. If you find yourself off course you don't make a large change in your heading to get back on the course line that you had drawn on your chart but change heading to head directly towards the destination..."
What needs to be considered also is awareness of that error at an early enough time to correct for it - Gary's statement "...If you find yourself off course you don't make a large change in your heading to get back on the course line..." is a reminder that timely awareness of the error is crucial if one would avoid the need of major correction at the end of the course line. "IF" becomes a large word.
Any number of things can lead to such a large mid-course error - and any number of things can prevent its detection. Most simply perhaps is finding one's self unable to get reliable information from outside the airplane - fixed points on mother earth or in the heavens, for example. Then one is reliant on the airborne sensing as mentioned - proceeding by mag heading and nothing but airspeed and assumptions from forecasts as to winds, and therefore assumptions about speed over the ground. The later that detection is made, the greater the penalty that must be overcome; if not detected with certainty by the end of the course line, one is "lost".
All very interesting. There are so many variables that could have played into AE's and FN's predicament - including the possiblity of unrealized error mid-course and finding themselve with a fairly large penalty - perhaps even of unknown direction - at the end of the course line.
Like most accidents, some combination of things likely conspired to deliver the pair into a loss situation at the end of that line - it could have been instrument error, it could have been a lack of sufficient readings from outside fixed objects for any number of reasons, or a combination of such things.
LTM -
Where was the last calibration - and how accurate was it?
It was night and dark, no moon. Ships are dark things at night, it is amazing that a ship could be spotted at night, was the Ontario shining a spot light?
Although there were no radio exchange between the Ontario and AE, could Noonan have used some type of spotting scope to visually verify that it was the Ontario? Could this have been easily done at 8 sm out at 8,000ft?
I guess you missed my prior post, here is the relevant portion:QuoteIf ground speed airspeed turns out to be in error, then wouldn't that have caused Noonan to possibly calclate the wrong wind corrections too?
Now why the navigation itself might have failed, that is a different story. I am inclined to believe that they were entering cloudy conditions after spotting the Ontario that worsened as time went on. If we assume that to be true, they might have used DR all the remainder of the trip (1277 miles). As daybreak came, even if the conditions improved from overcast, the stars might have been impossible to spot. So I think it is quite possible that they did not find another reference after spotting the Ontario. What is the magic number again? 10% of 1277 miles? Does this suggest that they were off by a maximum of 127 miles? That is quite a large hole if you ask me. Forced to guess, I would say they were at a minimum of 40 miles off target since they did not spot the Itasca mast or the smoke she was laying out for them that stretch out 10 miles (although I would still like to hear an estimate of how high that smoke rose in the 8mph cross wind).
The 23 knot wind was measured in flight by Noonan using his drift meter and that was reported by Earhart to Lae at 0718 Z. We know it was determined by dirft meter because the other way to measured the wind in flight over the ocean is to get two celestial fixes and compute what the wind was between these fixes and that wasn't available because the flight had been flying in daylight so Noonan couldn't shoot the two stars needed for a fix. See how to determine wind in flight here (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/topics/measureing-and-determining-wind-speed-and-direction-while-in-flight). Also see what Noonan wrote about using a drift meter here (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/resources/noonan-article/Noonan1936article.pdf?attredirects=0). Also see what Noonan wrote about measuring the in flight winds between fixes in his letter that I have attached. Here is a link to an example of celestial navigation in flight that includes working out the winds between fixes. (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/other-flight-navigation-information/in-flight-celestial-navigation)QuoteIf ground speed airspeed turns out to be in error, then wouldn't that have caused Noonan to possibly calclate the wrong wind corrections too?
Erik, at this point I think it is difficult to know for sure whether or not achieving the 124.5 mph ground speed was intentional or not. As they made their way around the storms East of Lae, it probably did not matter what ground speed was achieved during the diversion. They flew far enough South and high enough (10,000ft) to make sure they avoided the storms. We know that two legs of this journey was 909 miles and the ground speed was 124.5 mph. I recall reading that Fred had estimate the head winds at 23 knots before he left Lae and this did not change after they had a visual on Nukumanu Island.
From my perspective, once they flew over Nukumanu Island and intercepted the flight path, approaching the end of a segment in the flight plan and they were right on the line, this was probably not by accident. I would have expected them to them resume their original flight plan that did include achieving a 150 mph ground speed going forward regardless of the 23 mph head wind. AE announced her altitude, and headwinds, so it is a bit of a mystery why they would continue at a reduced speed unless there was some other concern or perhaps an equipment malfunction that was undetected. I cannot believe he just poked through the Lockheed documents and thought that this 124.5 mph ground speed was an ideal speed. There was no time to re-compute the entire flight plan on a whim and I have not heard any evidence that he would make such an attempt.
Another factor that I have been thinking about is that once they departed Nukumanu Island, this was about 0718GMT and I do not believe the sun had set at that point in time. They proceeded 3.2 hours after leaving Nukumanu Island before spotting the Ontario, how much time did that provide for Noonan to perform his celestial navigation? That would be interesting to know.
You shouldn't fall into the trap of believing that the times that the coordinates were reported were the actual time at those positions. There is a standard format for oceanic positions reports that goes like this.
There is a bit of a problem here from what I can see so far as the time stamps in the Lae radio log is concerned. The time between reports was only 2 hours yet they traveled 652 miles. For this to be true, they would have had to be traveling 326 MPH (ground speed) between check point A and check point B. This must be incorrect. If we assume that perhaps the first time stamp is incorrect but the second time stamp is correct (7 hours and 18 minutes since departing Lae), this would produce an approximate ground speed of 124.5 mph from as they progressed from Lae to check point A and then to check point B. If we now make the assumption that until check point B was encountered, and a land reference was used to estimate air speed, they were not adjusting for head winds. If we make this assumption, and we add the 23 knot head wind, this works out to an airspeed of 151 mph (at sea level), and a rough estimate of 126 mph indicated airspeed at 10,000ft (2% per 1000 feet).
If we now compare the actual flight plan to when they arrived at check point B, this was at a point about 890 miles on the original flight plan path that had assumed a ground speed of 150 mph, this works out to about 5 hours and 56 minutes en route on the original flight plan. This means that they were behind schedule, 1 hour and 22 minutes according to the original flight plan. What is also interesting here is that looking at the original flight plan, 890 miles out from Lae; they would have been in the 5 segment of the flight plan (assuming that they used the original Howland to Lae flight plan, reversed). This would have been at a point 155 miles out on a 175 mile segment. Assuming that they stayed on the same course and speed as they did from point A to point B, they would have intersected the original flight plan path in 33.2 miles or roughly within 16 minutes where the next segment in the original flight plan would begin.
But no possible failure of the vacuum system could affect the three compasses on board, two of which were aperiodic compasses. You have probably never heard of an "aperiodic compass" before. It has that name because it has no period which means that it is dead steady even in turns and stops on the new heading without any overshoot or any oscillations right or left. It was also called a "dead compass" because it was dead steady. It was developed for utmost accuracy in aircraft and allowed the pilot and navigator to maintain a steady course even without a DG. Normal "pilot's " compasses dance around a bit in flight and have many errors if the plane accelerates or turns which is the reason why the DG was developed in the first place, to provide a steadier heading reference when the pilot's compass was moving around. Many airplanes were not equipped with a DG but instead had an aperiodic compass which also provided a steady heading reference. So, as it turns out, Earhart didn't really need a DG, she could have used just the aperiodic compass mounted on the floor and Noonan also had one of these steady heading references so he could check on Earhart's piloting. They are also extremely easy to read without mistake because you rotate a bezel to the desired heading and simply keeping the plane heading so that the index in the compass is parallel with with the lines on the bezel keeps you on heading. See picture here (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=610).
Either way, both systems were operating on the same vacum - correct? What about a vacum "issue". Even if not, and the autopilot was a "wing-leveler" only, then it wouldn't matter much. It would essentially mean AE was flying by hand adjusting the "wing-leveler" to match DG.
Does anyone happen to have any details on the Electra's pitot/static configuration? Vacum configuration? Or more details on Noonan's compass?
So Richard, if they thought they knew where they were then what happened??? Was FN working with AE? Did they just miss Howland?The plan was for FN to get them close enough for AE to home in on the portable radio beacon on Howland, but the beacon was not working because the battery had been drained and the lack of effective radio communication meant they were on their own. They did not get close enough to see Howland, so they had to implement their alternate plan, and the group of islands and reefs to the SSE of Howland look like the logical place to head for.
got to be a hoax ::)
It was night and dark, no moon. Ships are dark things at night, it is amazing that a ship could be spotted at night, was the Ontario shining a spot light?
Not much of a 'Monte Carlo' in what I've said, but I suspect this mess boils down to something along my beliefs by all I've been able to absorb here.
It was 23 knots, not mph, the wind was 26 mph. The problem with increasing airspeed to maintain the planned ground speed is that the fuel flow increases at a faster rate than the increase in the airspeed so the specific range goes down and they run out of fuel sooner. If that is your theory then that explains why she ran out of gas shortly after her last transmission at 2013 Z. You should be pleased that Elgin Long agrees with you.
If the Myrtle Bank was lighted as described by her Third Mate and sky conditions like-wise as he reported, AE should not have had a problem spotting a ship on a dark sea. Ontario is less clear, but if the intention of her stationing was to be used as a nav-aid then it is probably reasonable that she too was lighted well enough for sighting.I certainly didn't mean that they were running without their navigation lights illuminated which would have been a violation of maritime regulations, but the running lights are not very bright. For the largest ships today the lights are only required to be visible from three nautical miles except for one masthead white light that must be visible from six nautical miles but that light only covers a sector over the bow from two points abaft the beam on each side. This means 22 1/2 degrees behind straight out to the side for the nautically challenged. The red left side running light shines from straight ahead to 2 points the port beam and the green light shines through the same sized arc to starboard. These are also the requirements for airplane position lights. These segments relate to the right of way rules. If you see only a white light then you know your are overtaking and you must stay clear. If you see the red light then you know the other ship is to your right and he has the right of way, you must stay clear. If you see the green light then you have the right of way. This is where they got the standard colors for traffic signals. The masthead light is not visible from behind the ship. These sectors have been required for over a century but the intensity requirement used to be lower. Earhart would have been overtaking Myrtlebank or Ontario from astern so would only have been able to see one white stern light visible only three NM or less.
Whether AE spotted Myrtle Bank, Ontario, or another ship remains completely unclear to me and may never be answered.
LTM -
It's not knots per hour, it is simply knots since a knot is one nautical mile per hour. "Knots per hour" would actually be one nautical mile per hour per hour, a measure of the rate of acceleration.QuoteIt was 23 knots, not mph, the wind was 26 mph. The problem with increasing airspeed to maintain the planned ground speed is that the fuel flow increases at a faster rate than the increase in the airspeed so the specific range goes down and they run out of fuel sooner. If that is your theory then that explains why she ran out of gas shortly after her last transmission at 2013 Z. You should be pleased that Elgin Long agrees with you.
Yes, it was a typo. 23 knots per hour
I am coming to the conclusion that Earhart did NOT see either ship that night. The reports of her radio transmission at about 1030 Z say that she said either "ship in sight" or "lights in sight." It makes much more sense that she was reporting seeing the Nauru lights and they would have been close enough to have been seen from her altitude at that time.
It's not knots per hour, it is simply knots since a knot is one nautical mile per hour. "Knots per hour" would actually be one nautical mile per hour per hour, a measure of the rate of acceleration.
If the Myrtle Bank was lighted as described by her Third Mate and sky conditions like-wise as he reported, AE should not have had a problem spotting a ship on a dark sea. Ontario is less clear, but if the intention of her stationing was to be used as a nav-aid then it is probably reasonable that she too was lighted well enough for sighting.I certainly didn't mean that they were running without their navigation lights illuminated which would have been a violation of maritime regulations, but the running lights are not very bright... Based on this I think we can eliminate the possibility that Earhart saw the running lights of either ship.
Whether AE spotted Myrtle Bank, Ontario, or another ship remains completely unclear to me and may never be answered.
LTM -
What about other lights on the ship? There are very few and those that are on deck are dim so as not to interfere with the night vision of the crew, for instance the bridge is virtually blacked out. What about the lights in the cabins shinning out through the portholes? Most cabin light are mounted on the ceiling just like your lights at home. To someone walking around on the deck of the ship these may appear bright enough but due to the height of the ceiling light and the portholes, which are lower, the light from the cabins can only shine downward, not up toward the sky. They may be visible from the ship or from nearby ships but unlikely to be seen from a plane. In addition, it was about 9:30 at night and many would have gone to bed already, turning off their cabin lights first...
The first time I went to Europe, I took off from Newfoundland in the middle of the night, taking the route to the Azores which is the popular route when weather makes the shorter, northern route, iffy. About an hour after takeoff I started seeing lights ahead of me and I immediately thought, OMG, OMG OMG, I must be way off course, I'm heading towards a large city, I must have gotten turned around somehow. I checked my DG, still 145° and the compass too. The ADF needle was still five degrees right of the tail (I had a crosswind from the right) and this heading had kept me on the 139° radial of the Torbay VOR until I had lost its signal. This was like something out of the Twilight Zone, it didn't make any sense. As I got closer I could see the city spreading out almost horizon to horizon, WHAT IS GOING ON? When I got very close I recognized that I was looking at the the Grand Banks fishing fleet. These boats work all night with extremely powerful white lights for working with the nets. They are exactly like stadium lights or like the lights used for mining guano on Nauru at night in 1937! I've never seen a ship at night while flying over the ocean except fishing boats with the stadium lights.
I am coming to the conclusion that Earhart did NOT see either ship that night. The reports of her radio transmission at about 1030 Z say that she said either "ship in sight" or "lights in sight." It makes much more sense that she was reporting seeing the Nauru lights and they would have been close enough to have been seen from her altitude at that time.
gl
If a human eye can detect a single candle flame at anywhere from 15 to 30 miles,
But Ontario did NOT know that AE was flying over that evening, they never received any message, so they did not send out radio homing signals and they had no reason to show additional lights either.
It would seem common sense that if the Ontario knew that AE was flying over that evening that they would provide some illumination.
While Gary's theory of the guano mining lights is intriguing, I can't buy it for one simple fact - Fred would have figured out what they were in the same way that Gary figured out that he was looking at a fishing fleet, would he not? Because Fred was a pretty competent navigator. So it would not have been, "Ship in sight ahead."It was reported as both "ship in sight" and "lights in sight." In addition, Cude independently heard the transmission and he said "lights" so he breaks the tie making it "lights" not "ship."
Even the few "normal" lights on a ship, at night, on the total blackness of the sea, can show up quite well from an aircraft flying at her altitude. And the Ontario would not have been "blacked out," it wasn't wartime yet.
Monty Fowler,
TIGHAR No. 2189 CER
If the Myrtle Bank was lighted as described by her Third Mate and sky conditions like-wise as he reported, AE should not have had a problem spotting a ship on a dark sea. Ontario is less clear, but if the intention of her stationing was to be used as a nav-aid then it is probably reasonable that she too was lighted well enough for sighting.I think we can all agree on one thing, that no matter how bright a light is it can't be seen if it is sealed in a box made our of steel. A ship's sides are made out of steel so light from inside a cabin can only get out if there is an opening is the steel side of the cabin such as a porthole. See attached diagram. Lights in cabins are normally mounted on the ceiling of the cabin. Light travels in straight lines so if light comes through an opened porthole it will only be seen by someone in a position where he can look in a straight line through the porthole and see the light bulb. With the porthole mounted at a lower height than the ceiling then the light can only be seen by someone whose eye is even lower than the porthole and the light cannot be seen from an airplane.
ANY lights on a ship at night show up extremely well, which is why light discipline was crucial during wartime. Even a lit cigarette could be seen for miles.Yep from the height of a raised periscope.
So, either you are right, that one candle can be seen at 30 miles or the government is right that one candle is only visible at about one nautical mile, my money is on the government's engineers on this one.
well.It sound like you are talking about observing ships from the shore, not from a plane.
As to how ships emit light, I appreciate your efforts, Gary - but in my experience they are simply not credible. I've seen too many ships at sea for too many years of my life here on the coast and in other places to buy any of it. There's far more 'casual' light emitted by ships at sea than you are crediting - even with 'blacked-out' bridges (field of vision from there can have little to do with what alight below or behind, for example; bridges tend to be placed where the weather glass is open to dark sea...).
well.It sound like you are talking about observing ships from the shore, not from a plane.
As to how ships emit light, I appreciate your efforts, Gary - but in my experience they are simply not credible. I've seen too many ships at sea for too many years of my life here on the coast and in other places to buy any of it. There's far more 'casual' light emitted by ships at sea than you are crediting - even with 'blacked-out' bridges (field of vision from there can have little to do with what alight below or behind, for example; bridges tend to be placed where the weather glass is open to dark sea...).
What kind of ships are you talking about, 1930s era freighters and navy tugs or the floating hotels of today with every cabin having its own balcony and sliding patio doors and logo lights shinning on the stack? And your example of the Californian is also an observation made from sea level (on the way to being below sea level) on the Titanic.
gl
Why so much concern over whether AE saw a ship or just 'lights'?
How far from land would Ontario or Myrtle Bank have been when the spotting would have occurred?
Actually apparently I was wrong about Noonan - at least one account says (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Noonan.html) he resigned after conflict over duty times and other related concerns at Pan Am. I thought he had been fired.
But I still wonder why the dirth of news from the back of NR16020. On the first flight he apparently had AE execute some well-determined navigation exercises, like adjusting airspeed to arrive at a fix at a certain time and tracking a DF steer with offset, etc. Maybe Noonan was proving his own metal then, or I suspect more maybe he was seeing what AE might handle. Paul Mantz was of course also in the cockpit...
But with all those colorful skills, why no more about fixes, etc. through AE to Itasca, etc.? Something still seems to be missing.
LTM -
In re-reading some of Gary's posts I believe I understand his thinking on Nauru more clearly: I believe he offered the possibility of an intentional 60 mile offset to north (at end of course) to allow a LOP intercept and then a known track southeast to attain Howland.
She was probably accustomed to answers from the ground too, and none would come this time - the most crucial she ever needed.
But FN - and AE could have been stuck with something else, too. I hate to say it, but I've begun to think about the reason for FN's firing from Pan Am... very ugly of me. Would AE struggle to cover up any problems she may have had with him (http://tighar.org/wiki/Noonan), even to the point of keeping relatively cool as she tried to work a LOP to some sort of landfall at the end of things?
What's missing is any reliable position reports after 0718Z -
WHY?
Is there evidence that the lights would be on at the Guano mines? Was it a 24/7 operation or was there down time and thus 'lights off'?Yes, see attached radiogram.
BTW if AE/FN thought the Myrtle Bank was the Ontatrio how far out would that put them on the final day?
I have attached another chart showing two options for flying from the position reported in the 0718 Z radio transmission to Howland. Flying directly to Howland is 1,716 SM while over flying Nauru to Howland is 1,746 SM, only 30 SM longer, about 12 minutes more flying time, about eight gallons of gas. If Noonan had already been giving thought to a landfall approach to Howland, with the interception to take place northwest of Howland, then flying over Nauru would be even less out of the way since it would be more ON the way to the interception point. In this case it would only be 10 SM longer, 4 minutes flying time and about 2 gallons of gas.Why so much concern over whether AE saw a ship or just 'lights'?
It affects reconstruction of the path of the flight in the middle of night.QuoteHow far from land would Ontario or Myrtle Bank have been when the spotting would have occurred?
Is there evidence that the lights would be on at the Guano mines? Was it a 24/7 operation or was there down time and thus 'lights off'?I have noticed that others have not calculated correctly the distance that the lights of Nauru could be seen from the plane. I am attaching an excerpt from the American Practical Navigator, U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office Publication Number 9, (H.O. 9) including the table for calculating this distance. Earhart reported flying at 8,000 feet at 0718 Z and if she was still flying at this altitude then Table 8 shows the visibility to be 117.8 SM. This is similar to the values posted by others before. However, these other posters did not realize that they also had to allow for the height of the lights. In figuring the distance you can see a light you enter Table 8 with the height of the light and extract the distance that the light could be seen by an observer with his eye at sea level. You then enter the table with the height of the observer and extract the distance that the could see a light that was mounted at sea level. You then add these two distances together to get the distance that the light can be seen from the height of eye of the observer.
AE did send a telegram out stating that they were running late and that she wanted to inform the Ontario. If they had devised an alternative route by that point in time I am sure they would have advised someone on the ground or via telegram. If you are making such a risky journey chances are you would want to tell someone where you are headed in case you do not make it and they need to come searching for you. In that case it would be best to stick to the plan that everyone knew.
One piece of information would tend to contradict a Nauru fly over, the radio logs. First, at 10:30 GMT, they would have still been on an approach to Nauru even assuming 150 mph from the last known position. The 10:30 GMT report from Nauru stated "fairly strong signals, speech not intelligible". At 14:10 GMT the Itasca Bridge reported hearing Earhart, at 14:15 GMT the Itasca radio room reporting hearing her. There was not report from Nauru about the these transmissions suggesting that the Electra was already out of radio range. This would tend to suggest that at 10:30 GMT they were closer to Nauru than they were at 14:10, 40 minutes later. I suppose if you tossed in a radio doughnut hole theory this might still be plausible.
How is 14:10 only 40 minutes after 10:30? It looks like 3:40 to me.
So the island would have been lit up like a quarry or open mine being worked at night which would look different to a few lights on a ship? Glare of flood lights on guano making for a larger area of light, seen at a greater distance. Sure FN would spot the difference.
I have attached another chart showing two options for flying from the position reported in the 0718 Z radio transmission to Howland. Flying directly to Howland is 1,716 SM while over flying Nauru to Howland is 1,746 SM, only 30 SM longer, about 12 minutes more flying time, about eight gallons of gas.
Maybe they didn't think precise position reports mattered.I think I would upgrade this one from "Maybe" to "Definitely" ::)
"Belt and suspenders," he could have both, he didn't have to choose. Because Ontario was planned to send out a radio beacon so they didn't have to aim directly towards the Ontario to come within range of the radio beacon, if they started receiving it then they could turn directly towards Ontario (similar to flying the offset approach to Howland.)I have attached another chart showing two options for flying from the position reported in the 0718 Z radio transmission to Howland. Flying directly to Howland is 1,716 SM while over flying Nauru to Howland is 1,746 SM, only 30 SM longer, about 12 minutes more flying time, about eight gallons of gas.
The assumption you are making in your calculation is that after flying on the approximation of the great circle route to the 0718 Z position, Noonan then abandoned the preplanned flight segments and started from scratch to add time and distance to the route. Only if he decides to do so from 0718 Z does he "only" spend 12 minutes and 8 gallons of gas.
But he could have saved even more by flying directly to the Naura light from Lae.
He couldn't wait to decide the issue until he missed the Ontario and still have the fuel and time economy that you have calculated--nor the blessed assurance that he would be able to find Nauru as a way of finding where he was.
You're not talking about the natural variations from a flight path that happen all the time. You're talking about charting an entirely different course.
I don't see any indication in the radio traffic that supports your contention that Noonan didn't want the Ontario on station around the mid-point of the flight. Quite the contrary.
You don't have to fly directly over a light to use it for a navigation fix. Even the Nauru loom could give usable azimuth bearings from 100+ miles away. I agree with Gary - don't fixate on the straight lines drawn on a map.
If AE said "ship", then I'm inclined to assume they correctly determined they saw a ship. If she said "lights", then the message is ambiguous. Why do the records disagree?
What do we know about the altitude of the mine? The fixed nav light would likely have been on the highest point of land, and on a tower. The mine would obviously have been at some lower altitude.
Also, GL sez: "...The lights on Nauru are 5,600 feet above sea level." According to the telegram, that's the height of the 5000 cp fixed light (singular), not necessarily the lights (plural) from the mining operation. What do we know about the altitude of the mine? The fixed nav light would likely have been on the highest point of land, and on a tower. The mine would obviously have been at some lower altitude.
Stupid question but Wikipedia (font of all accurate knowledge) states the highest point of the island is is 200ft so thats got to be some tall mother of a lighting rig?
That's a wild set of possibilities for different nav paths - and I can see logic in some of it. I can also see strong logic in sticking to a more direct route and relying on distantly visible lights (or their glow), etc.
Whether there was an intentional change enroute, deviation northward, lost-and-found exercise, plenty of unannounced star shots or FN passed-out in the cabin, what bearing does this all have on AE announcing approach to Howland, believing 'must be on' same, and finally describing 'on the line'? Something made her believe those things, but they did not 'bear' out for her, did they?
"Was Noonan a drunkard?" (http://tighar.org/wiki/Noonan) isn't easily dismissed.
Gore Vidal's recollection is 'sobering' to me now:
"Gore Vidal: "Well, just the night before the final flight, she reported in and they had a code phrase, 'personnel problems,' which meant Noonan was back drinking. And my father said, 'Just stop it right now and come home,' and G.P. agreed and said, 'Come back, abort the flight, forget it, come home.' And then she said, 'Oh, no,' and she said, 'I think it’ll be all right,' something like that. So you may put that down to invincible optimism or it may have been huge pessimism."
I'm not saying that to tar poor FN, but it's hard to ignore when we still really can't account so well for how NR16020 failed to appear at Howland after what should have been a fairly basic exercise for a sober navigator like Noonan.
"Personnel unfitness" (or if "personal unfitness") was apparently a very private term devised between AE and GP which seems intended to import real meaning but without bringing negatives to the light in their publicity efforts. What was so dark about it that they didn't want it creeping into the headlines?
If AE did act on this -
- Could she have arrived at a reasonable LOP that would pass 337 - 157 through Howland?
I'll upset at least half the audience here and say I believe she well might have: IF she had a chart in hand with the concept in front of her, she was smart enough to 'get' the concept. I don't know about a time piece, but at least in basic form it is quite within reason that she would have set a time piece as closely to FN's as possible.
Well, duh, what did you expect? Remember what they were doing there, they were shoveling that mountain of guano into ships so it is no wonder that the island is a lot lower today, 75 years later, than it was in 1937.Also, GL sez: "...The lights on Nauru are 5,600 feet above sea level." According to the telegram, that's the height of the 5000 cp fixed light (singular), not necessarily the lights (plural) from the mining operation. What do we know about the altitude of the mine? The fixed nav light would likely have been on the highest point of land, and on a tower. The mine would obviously have been at some lower altitude.
Stupid question but Wikipedia (font of all accurate knowledge) states the highest point of the island is is 200ft so thats got to be some tall mother of a lighting rig?
Right on Chris Nauru has an elevation of 180' above sea level. No mountains or hills. Yet somehow there is a light that is 5600 feet above sea level which is twice the height of the worlds tallest free standing structure. See this Wilipedia link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_the_world#Tallest_structure_by_category
Something seems not right with the reported elevation. Todays tallest guyed masts are tv towers typically topping out at 1330 feet.
"Was Noonan a drunkard?" (http://tighar.org/wiki/Noonan) isn't easily dismissed.
It is infinitely arguable.
JN - Yes, as are so many things about the disappearance.QuoteGore Vidal's recollection is 'sobering' to me now:
"Gore Vidal: "Well, just the night before the final flight, she reported in and they had a code phrase, 'personnel problems,' which meant Noonan was back drinking. And my father said, 'Just stop it right now and come home,' and G.P. agreed and said, 'Come back, abort the flight, forget it, come home.' And then she said, 'Oh, no,' and she said, 'I think it’ll be all right,' something like that. So you may put that down to invincible optimism or it may have been huge pessimism."
Gore Vidal's recollection sounds over-the-top. GP and AE did not talk on the telephone when she was in Lae. Gore is telling the story as if they were. Something is very fishy about that. It makes me think that GV was not an ear-witness.
JN - I considered that - and agree, no, they did not 'speak' the way Vidal 'recalls'. I doubt Gore Vidal was an eyewitness - I think it is more likely that he's recounting something told by his father Gene, the director of the Bureau of Air Commerce, who was close to Earhart and Putnam. He seems to be summing up an understanding of an exchange, perhaps as told by Putnam well after the fact. That would make it about... third hand, if so. He WAS closer to the people involved than you or I though, wasn't he?
I find it interesting: we can see that the first part of his statement is true - the 'personnel problems' comment is accurate enough; did he then go 'over the top' for some reason about the rest of it? You say it 'sounds' over the top; I may see it as a retelling of an understanding - and 'why would he create a fictional outcome of the report? I believe FN's situation may well have had a bearing on the outcome of the flight that followed. Although he was not fired by Pan Am apparently, he left abruptly in protest. What was this guy really like? He could be cool in public - emerged unscathed and unrattled after folding his charts in the Lockheed after it ground looped at Luke Field and stated he was ready for the next flight with AE whenever she was ready; he could also run short on patience and walk away even as people like Musick were trying to get better arrangements for Pan Am crews - after a significant personal contribution to success. He was articulate - and seems to have had some thirst (pardon expression...) for publicity. He moved himself to Texas briefly to establish residence for a divorce before undertaking the world flight, did divorce from Mexico. I'm not trying to indict him - and could not anyway: can't prove anything. I also admire his talents - and to some degree his charm, and regret his loss. But somehow I'm just not getting a sense of a super-stable fellow here. Nope - probably not fair - but I'm not really trying to judge a man who can't answer, just trying to understand what may have gone on.
I also get a reinforced sense of AE being willing to make a concession or two too many for her own good for the sake of completing the flight, against better judgment.QuoteI'm not saying that to tar poor FN...
Why should our inability to account for the loss count against Noonan?
We have unanswered questions. He has unsubmitted answers.
He got them within range to use RDF to home in on the island. That's what he did for Pan Am. If AE hadn't made such a thorough hash out of flight planning and radio preparation, we wouldn't be here today.
JN - AE and FN both have unsubmitted answers. Fred should have been fairly smart about RDF limitations - where was his alarm? This actually goes straight to my thinking about one thing wrong with the flight - flaws in the humans (both) that disabled the outcome.
We think he got them within range to use RDF. How do you know they ever got that close? I'm not keeping score so my opinion doesn't have to count 'against' a dead man.
Nor must it count solely 'against' a dead woman who had her failings, you see -
FN wasn't entirely the victim of AE's hash; he had far more experience in airplanes reliant on RDF than AE did - should I believe he should be so ignorant of the equipment, capabilities and limitations?
She was PIC, for sure - the safety of the flight lies with her; but what was FN doing all that way to not spot a glaring deficiency or two regarding coordination of frequencies, etc.? Can't speak for FN, but if you put my country butt in the back of NR16020 with a trans-oceanic newby like AE up front and no boat bottom under us to navigate that far and home in on a beacon, I'm going to be looking into the arrangements pretty firmly with all I do know, especially after a steller experience with Pan Am, etc. That's a crack in the perception of FN as the perfect navigator: he wasn't that pefect - it's evident to me that he wasn't applying his full acumen to this flight.
A blinding quest for publicity by AE and FN may have been more of the culprit than anything else - and I think both of them had plenty of flaws (there's a little speculation for you - but note I called it what it was).Quote"Personnel unfitness" (or if "personal unfitness") was apparently a very private term devised between AE and GP which seems intended to import real meaning but without bringing negatives to the light in their publicity efforts. What was so dark about it that they didn't want it creeping into the headlines?
They didn't want to spend money to transmit extra words.
I don't believe Gore's recollections about a "secret code" are at all reliable.
JN - Well, it was 'code' of sorts, and it meant something they both apparently would understand, didn't it? But maybe it saved them 40 cents of so from having to say "...dammit George, Fred's drinking again - I need at least 12 hours to stop him and get him to set his watches...". Gee, what better way to get all that 'straight' for the public than a well-observed FN setting his times so deliberately?
That's kind of nice - but of course what ELSE would we expect of FN? Not to ask AE if she bothered to get the radio-stuff straight for that last 60 miles... oh no.
Just a thought.
You know what I think; we each have our thoughts on the matter.
That's all they are - that's all I've claimed.
Point really is: NR16020's crew's behavior.QuoteIf AE did act on this -
- Could she have arrived at a reasonable LOP that would pass 337 - 157 through Howland?
Do you mean to ask, "Could a well-equipped, well-trained pilot dead reckon and fly the plane at the same time?" The answer
is "yes." Wiley Post flew around the world solo, acting as his own navigator, in 1933.
Could Amelia have done so? My own view is "No." YMMV.
JN - No, I asked what I meant to ask (actually more like postulated) - whether AE might have.
But you do admit the possibility of the feat, if not by the particular person (and I take it that you mean you don't believe AE could - you couldn't possibly know that). That's at least two of us...
Post (my favorite Golden Ager) - "MAYBE". You are more optimistic than I am.
Post is a wonderful hero to me. He also cracked-up Winnie Mae more than once (once on a round-the-worlder - first or second I don't recall) - and inadvisably flew off in a Lockheed hybrid with over-sized wing and floats and an undersized tail-plane resulting in a nasty pitch-over after engine loss / stall in Alaska, killing himself and Rogers.
The one-eyed forgotten eagle also had many triumphs - some like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. He was our first 'astronaut' in a great way, considering the time. Great mind and more guts than were good for him. Highly intuitive and apparently persuasive. Maybe even a man of... 'fantasy'... at times -
How else to dream of such goals? How else to pursue greater understanding than to first conceive? How else to get into so much trouble... yes, the risk of 'fantasy' is real, I agree.
Post also never took on a landfall challenge ANYTHING like Howland - he flew a northern, shorter route with greater landmasses to hit. Siberia was no doubt a major effort, but we'll never know. MAYBE.
Shoo-in for AE? NO.
Against the odds? We're still looking for her, aren't we? I'd say "yes - and she apparently missed by enough to at least not spot Howland island".
Possible? MAYBE.
Fly the headings and pray hard for calm air, call in at first light in east, turn right (or left...) at dawn, or after a presumed interval by the clock - and tell the world all is soon to be well... and she believed it. I do believe that.
She was a cool one, whatever else failed her. Better die than look bad, seems to me. Gutsy.
She failed herself and Noonan (even if he was drunk); Howland failed her.
I think maybe Gardner did not.
Big, colorful thing, Gardner. Might have been relatively forgiving that day - imagine doing your best to hang in there on a LOP that you hope will lead to something and stumbling on that big bright lagooned ring just when you need it most.
Hard to say when it might have been spotted, too. I've seen almost nothing among all our strings approaching optic 'looming', etc. although 'dip' in celnav terms has been covered. Funny how things appear - and disappear - on the ocean; the atmosphere is a really weird lens. But I think I've seen more on the effects of islander's testicles giving navigation clues than anything about long-distance visual cues...
Post was really good. He also had some luck at times - who knows...QuoteI'll upset at least half the audience here and say I believe she well might have: ...
No, I'm not upset. Things that are asserted as exercises in fantasy may be dismissed as fantasy. It doesn't take any research to have a brainstorm nor does it take any research to reject a brainstorm.
JN - Didn't think you would be; me either, Marty. But I've learned that some of these harebrained 'suggestions' bring out the color in many of us ;)
Exercise in fantasy? Don't feel so threatened - I've said nothing to even criticize the Gardner landing hypothesis - and in fact have said I believe it as the most likely outcome. Nothing here excludes that possibility.
But, fantasy? Do I really violate the bounds of reason here? I've proceeded more by reason and given observations than by the heart of the poet (wouldn't you know it).
Last time I checked I came to suspect that I am perhaps more rational and capable of critical thought than either AE or FN when they departed Lae... but dismiss as fantasy as you will. Fanciful.
I could go after some other things here and hypotheses as fantasy too - but choose to cling to hope out of 'reason' and in a spirit of seeking to understand what went in history. 'Reason' is a thing of the mind - all you disagree with is not necessarily 'fantasy'.
I'm not claiming any new research in this - but brainstorms (thanks for the credit) can certainly be based on existing material (which I have cited) and reason - as this one is, I believe.
TIGHAR's own hard-won hypotheses are not all based on new 'research' at all so much as on a learning and applying of historic things as much as possible - and then by connecting rational dots by reason. SOMEONE had a fairly 'fanciful' mind to CONCIEVE of some of the things that led to the fruit that's been found - that's the value of 'brainstorm'.
Interesting, but we all have an ox I suppose. It also takes no research to reject a rejection; you have your oxen, I mine.
Well, duh, what did you expect? Remember what they were doing there, they were shoveling that mountain of guano into ships so it is no wonder that the island is a lot lower today, 75 years later, than it was in 1937.Also, GL sez: "...The lights on Nauru are 5,600 feet above sea level." According to the telegram, that's the height of the 5000 cp fixed light (singular), not necessarily the lights (plural) from the mining operation. What do we know about the altitude of the mine? The fixed nav light would likely have been on the highest point of land, and on a tower. The mine would obviously have been at some lower altitude.
Stupid question but Wikipedia (font of all accurate knowledge) states the highest point of the island is is 200ft so thats got to be some tall mother of a lighting rig?
Right on Chris Nauru has an elevation of 180' above sea level. No mountains or hills. Yet somehow there is a light that is 5600 feet above sea level which is twice the height of the worlds tallest free standing structure. See this Wilipedia link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_the_world#Tallest_structure_by_category
Something seems not right with the reported elevation. Todays tallest guyed masts are tv towers typically topping out at 1330 feet.
gl
Hey, I was just going with the idea of shoveling guano. But why not, the birds were doing it for millions of years. The radiogram is pretty clear, it says "5600 feet above sea leve (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=652)l" it couldn't be clearer than that. Ric always says we should only rely on primary docments and this is a primary document. There was the guano trade to the west coast of South America for well over a century where windjammers loaded up with guano for shipment to Europe. The birds had piled it up very high in lots of places.Well, duh, what did you expect? Remember what they were doing there, they were shoveling that mountain of guano into ships so it is no wonder that the island is a lot lower today, 75 years later, than it was in 1937.Also, GL sez: "...The lights on Nauru are 5,600 feet above sea level." According to the telegram, that's the height of the 5000 cp fixed light (singular), not necessarily the lights (plural) from the mining operation. What do we know about the altitude of the mine? The fixed nav light would likely have been on the highest point of land, and on a tower. The mine would obviously have been at some lower altitude.Hey, I was just going with the idea of shoveling guano.
gl
Stupid question but Wikipedia (font of all accurate knowledge) states the highest point of the island is is 200ft so thats got to be some tall mother of a lighting rig?
Right on Chris Nauru has an elevation of 180' above sea level. No mountains or hills. Yet somehow there is a light that is 5600 feet above sea level which is twice the height of the worlds tallest free standing structure. See this Wilipedia link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_the_world#Tallest_structure_by_category (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_the_world#Tallest_structure_by_category)
Something seems not right with the reported elevation. Todays tallest guyed masts are tv towers typically topping out at 1330 feet.
gl
Gary, you gotta be s... ah,
Are you SERIOUS??? 5000 feet worth??? That's one HECK of a pile of bird... DUNG!!! WOW!!! Where did you land on that?
I am utterly amazed... had no idea there could have been enough productive birds in the entire Pacific Ocean since the dawn of time to produce ANYTHING like that!
I thought maybe the telegram had a typo in it. A WWII era picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nauru_Island_under_attack_by_Liberator_bombers_of_the_Seventh_Air_Force..jpg) shows a relatively flat island in 1943, as best I can tell - so they must have moved much faster than the 75 years you suggest...
But I do still see how lights at Nauru could be visible for a long, long way - even at 200' elevation - their glow, if not directly, for that matter.
Think maybe they had a nice, tall "560'" tower by chance? Not bad for a small <200' elevation place like Nauru - would still be a heck of a beacon.
LTM -
(http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cgi-bin/getimage.exe?CISOROOT=/epurdue&CISOPTR=602&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=1600&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&REC=1&DMTHUMB=0&DMROTATE=0&DMSCALE=100)
Amelia said at 10:15am must be on u but can not see u
Amelia said at 12:14pm we are on line 157 337 we are running north and south
337 north
157 south
her saying 157 first tells us she was on the 157 side of the LOP line and she was running north to south meaning she was going south on 157 LOP
from her saying must be on u at 10:15am she had been in the air running south for 2hrs before her last message running north an south
so if they got to were howland was meant to be on map, an it were'nt there, they have then turned right an gone south down 157 LOP which has taken them close enough to see gardner an from a distance seeing ship by reef they probably thought it was the itasca as they wouldnt of known it was a wreck till they landed as they were probably running on fumes an didnt have a chance to do a fly around
just my thoughts on this topic :)
Here's a link to a photo of Nauru in 1943. There's no mountain of phosphate, although some of the web information mentions the "plateau" as the central deposit. By the 1980's, the phosphate mining era was over, leaving a "moonlike" terrain with limestone pillars up to 75 feet tall. This may indicate the deposit was about 75 feet thick. A beacon light in 1937 isn't likely to have been up at 5600 feet as described in the telegram.I was just talking about shoveling guano. :D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nauru_Island_under_attack_by_Liberator_bombers_of_the_Seventh_Air_Force..jpg
(http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cgi-bin/getimage.exe?CISOROOT=/epurdue&CISOPTR=602&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=1600&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&REC=1&DMTHUMB=0&DMROTATE=0&DMSCALE=100)
Amelia said at 10:15am must be on u but can not see u
Amelia said at 12:14pm we are on line 157 337 we are running north and south
337 north
157 south
her saying 157 first tells us she was on the 157 side of the LOP line and she was running north to south meaning she was going south on 157 LOP
from her saying must be on u at 10:15am she had been in the air running south for 2hrs before her last message running north an south
so if they got to were howland was meant to be on map, an it were'nt there, they have then turned right an gone south down 157 LOP which has taken them close enough to see gardner an from a distance seeing ship by reef they probably thought it was the itasca as they wouldnt of known it was a wreck till they landed as they were probably running on fumes an didnt have a chance to do a fly around
just my thoughts on this topic :)
Say this out loud, "west and east;" "south and north;" "three three seven one five seven."
Now try this, "east and west;" "north and south;" "one five seven three three seven."
I think you found that your mouth naturally pronounced the second line while you had to force your mouth to say the first line. There are phrases in our minds that are standard and come out easily like "pork and beans," just try saying "beans and pork." So don't put too much significance on the order of those words as recorded in the Itasca radio logs.
gl
"Gore Vidal: "Well, just the night before the final flight, she reported in and they had a code phrase, 'personnel problems,' which meant Noonan was back drinking. And my father said, 'Just stop it right now and come home,' and G.P. agreed and said, 'Come back, abort the flight, forget it, come home.' And then she said, 'Oh, no,' and she said, 'I think it’ll be all right,' something like that. So you may put that down to invincible optimism or it may have been huge pessimism."
"Personnel unfitness" (or if "personal unfitness") was apparently a very private term devised between AE and GP which seems intended to import real meaning but without bringing negatives to the light in their publicity efforts. What was so dark about it that they didn't want it creeping into the headlines?
If the Vidal observation is reliable the term carried potentially grave meanings - it would be no light thing to cancel plans, and AE resisted it at least on the occasion mentioned by Vidal.
on a compass north is top south is bottomShe said "running on line north and south" (logged as "running on line north es south") That grammatical construction in English using the present participle means repetitive actions, not just one iteration. So this message did not mean just one leg heading north and then followed by just one leg heading south but many of each. Other examples "jumping up and down;" "looking right and left." ( Notice, you never say "jumping down and up.")
337 north
157 south
she said 157 first which mean's she was on the south side of equator on LOP
she said running north to south
not running north from south
and if they didnt add on the extra miles from going round thunderstorm clouds they were probably 60 odd miles short ov howland, when they decided to go down LOP 157 which took them to gardner
No one wants to think that FN had a drinking problem and was incapacitated enough that this contributed to not finding Howland but it must be considered.
I also didn't see him stumble when he helped Earhart climb up the wing in the last takeoff movie.No one wants to think that FN had a drinking problem and was incapacitated enough that this contributed to not finding Howland but it must be considered.
Let's consider this, then, if we "must."
AE sees Fred drinking. She decides that they can't leave because he won't navigate well, and sends the previously-agreed upon code that means, "Fred is drunk as a skunk."
Now, having established her bona fides as an estimator of inebriation and a cautious pilot who thought she was too young to die.
The telegram you quote was from June 29.
The airplane did not take off until July 2.
Apart from the recorded difficulties with the chronometer and weather reports (http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_lae), you are now asking us to entertain various undocumented suppositions:
1) Fred stayed drunk for the next four days, but did get his chronometers set in spite of his intoxication.
2) Only Earhart noticed this condition (we have no evidence of unusually heavy drinking on Fred's part in Lae; many pilots were heavy drinkers in the Golden Age of Aviation; such things do not happen nowadays, of course).
3) Rather than continue to exercise prudent restraint on July 2nd, she cast her fate to the winds and set off to get lost with the drunken sot instead of exposing him to the withering wrath of society. She could not bear to use the secret code again to signal her displeasure to her husband, so she decided to take her chances on Fred sobering up before the real heavy lifting began 20 hours into the flight.
So, now that I have considered what must be considered, what conclusion must I come to?
I doubt Gore Vidal was an eyewitness - I think it is more likely that he's recounting something told by his father Gene, the director of the Bureau of Air Commerce, who was close to Earhart and Putnam. He seems to be summing up an understanding of an exchange, perhaps as told by Putnam well after the fact. That would make it about... third hand, if so. He WAS closer to the people involved than you or I though, wasn't he?
I find it interesting: we can see that the first part of his statement is true - the 'personnel problems' comment is accurate enough; did he then go 'over the top' for some reason about the rest of it? You say it 'sounds' over the top; I may see it as a retelling of an understanding - and 'why would he create a fictional outcome of the report?
What was this guy really like?
How do you know they ever got that close?
He had far more experience in airplanes reliant on RDF than AE did.
If you put my country butt in the back of NR16020 with a trans-oceanic newby like AE up front and no boat bottom under us to navigate that far and home in on a beacon, I'm going to be looking into the arrangements pretty firmly with all I do know, especially after a steller experience with Pan Am, etc. That's a crack in the perception of FN as the perfect navigator: he wasn't that pefect - it's evident to me that he wasn't applying his full acumen to this flight.
I take it that you mean you don't believe AE could have navigated to the LOP by herself - you couldn't possibly know that.
How else to dream of such goals? How else to pursue greater understanding than to first conceive? How else to get into so much trouble... yes, the risk of 'fantasy' is real, I agree.
But, fantasy? Do I really violate the bounds of reason here? I've proceeded more by reason and given observations than by the heart of the poet (wouldn't you know it).
On the TV program "The American Experience" Gore Vidal says that his father, Gene Vidal, was
at the Harold Tribune office with G.P. the night before the departure from Lae. A phone call
came in from Earhart reporting the code phrase "personnel unfitness" meaning that Noonan was
drinking and that Gene Vidal told her not to fly with Noonan but that they would get her another
navigator.
On the show "Vanishings" they also say that she called Putnam from Lae the night before the
departure.
We know that she sent a radiogram to Putnam on June 30th, two days before the departure,
reporting "personnel unfitness,” did she also telephone him with the same information the night
before the departure?
I also looked into the cost of radiograms. As of January 1, 1937 it cost 39 cents per word from
San Francisco to Manila. I doubt that it was less expensive to cable Lae than it was to cable
Manila. 39 cents in 1937 is the same as $5.91 in 2010 dollars. The 40 word June 30th radiogram
cost at least $236.40 in 2010 dollars! She sent a longer radiogram the day before the departure
since the Tribune agreed to pay the cable costs. Her last message was 94 words (including the
address) costing the Tribune at least $555.54 in 2010 dollars!
Putnam was running short of money which is why he had to get the Tribune to pick up the cost of
the last cable. Who was going to pay for the telephone calls to Putnam and to Lockheed?
Bottom line, I don't believe the claims Gore Vidal. Note that this claim is hearsay. Gore Vidal
said his father told him, Gore wasn't actually there. (And Gore Vidal was also the source for the
supposed romance between his father and AE shown in the recent movie so it calls that claim
into question also.)
"Gore Vidal: "Well, just the night before the final flight, she reported in and they had a code phrase, 'personnel problems,' which meant Noonan was back drinking. And my father said, 'Just stop it right now and come home,' and G.P. agreed and said, 'Come back, abort the flight, forget it, come home.' And then she said, 'Oh, no,' and she said, 'I think it’ll be all right,' something like that. So you may put that down to invincible optimism or it may have been huge pessimism."
"Personnel unfitness" (or if "personal unfitness") was apparently a very private term devised between AE and GP which seems intended to import real meaning but without bringing negatives to the light in their publicity efforts. What was so dark about it that they didn't want it creeping into the headlines?
If the Vidal observation is reliable the term carried potentially grave meanings - it would be no light thing to cancel plans, and AE resisted it at least on the occasion mentioned by Vidal.
"Gore Vidal: "Well, just the night before the final flight, she reported in and they had a code phrase, 'personnel problems,' which meant Noonan was back drinking. And my father said, 'Just stop it right now and come home,' and G.P. agreed and said, 'Come back, abort the flight, forget it, come home.' And then she said, 'Oh, no,' and she said, 'I think it’ll be all right,' something like that. So you may put that down to invincible optimism or it may have been huge pessimism."
"Personnel unfitness" (or if "personal unfitness") was apparently a very private term devised between AE and GP which seems intended to import real meaning but without bringing negatives to the light in their publicity efforts. What was so dark about it that they didn't want it creeping into the headlines?
If the Vidal observation is reliable the term carried potentially grave meanings - it would be no light thing to cancel plans, and AE resisted it at least on the occasion mentioned by Vidal.
... Oh, I see, they couldn't get a dial tone.
No one wants to think that FN had a drinking problem and was incapacitated enough that this contributed to not finding Howland but it must be considered.
Let's consider this, then, if we "must."
AE sees Fred drinking. She decides that they can't leave because he won't navigate well, and sends the previously-agreed upon code that means, "Fred is drunk as a skunk."
Now, having established her bona fides as an estimator of inebriation and a cautious pilot who thought she was too young to die.
The telegram you quote was from June 29.
The airplane did not take off until July 2.
Apart from the recorded difficulties with the chronometer and weather reports (http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_lae), you are now asking us to entertain various undocumented suppositions:
1) Fred stayed drunk for the next four days, but did get his chronometers set in spite of his intoxication.
2) Only Earhart noticed this condition (we have no evidence of unusually heavy drinking on Fred's part in Lae; many pilots were heavy drinkers in the Golden Age of Aviation; such things do not happen nowadays, of course).
3) Rather than continue to exercise prudent restraint on July 2nd, she cast her fate to the winds and set off to get lost with the drunken sot instead of exposing him to the withering wrath of society. She could not bear to use the secret code again to signal her displeasure to her husband, so she decided to take her chances on Fred sobering up before the real heavy lifting began 20 hours into the flight.
So, now that I have considered what must be considered, what conclusion must I come to?
No one wants to think that FN had a drinking problem and was incapacitated enough that this contributed to not finding Howland but it must be considered.
Let's consider this, then, if we "must."
AE sees Fred drinking. She decides that they can't leave because he won't navigate well, and sends the previously-agreed upon code that means, "Fred is drunk as a skunk."
Now, having established her bona fides as an estimator of inebriation and a cautious pilot who thought she was too young to die.
The telegram you quote was from June 29.
The airplane did not take off until July 2.
Apart from the recorded difficulties with the chronometer and weather reports (http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_lae), you are now asking us to entertain various undocumented suppositions:
1) Fred stayed drunk for the next four days, but did get his chronometers set in spite of his intoxication.
2) Only Earhart noticed this condition (we have no evidence of unusually heavy drinking on Fred's part in Lae; many pilots were heavy drinkers in the Golden Age of Aviation; such things do not happen nowadays, of course).
3) Rather than continue to exercise prudent restraint on July 2nd, she cast her fate to the winds and set off to get lost with the drunken sot instead of exposing him to the withering wrath of society. She could not bear to use the secret code again to signal her displeasure to her husband, so she decided to take her chances on Fred sobering up before the real heavy lifting began 20 hours into the flight.
So, now that I have considered what must be considered, what conclusion must I come to?
Point 1. Please check times. You noted the telegram was sent the same day as they landed. June 29. They took off July 2. See http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_Lae (http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_Lae) That's three days. Not four. (possible issues with time zones as well).
Secondly, it is documented that FN got his time check and set his chronometers. http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_Lae (http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_Lae). Am I nitpicking? If the standard is to accurately state the facts then we must. Otherwise forum readers will reach the wrong conclusions.
Point 2. How do you know that "only" Earhart noticed this condition? A lack of evidence doesn't mean it isn't true. Who else was to report this? To whom? If heavy drinking was the norm then why would it be note worthy anyway? You're stating an unknown as a fact.
Point 3. You could be absolutely right. You don't know. Neither do I.
These three undocumented suppositions are just that. Undocumented suppositions.
However as I said, a lack of evidence does not mean it didn't happen. We just don't know. But there are noted "suggestions" that FN was a drinker and that this may have been a contributing factor and these "suggestions" need to be examined for the evidence value.
This is testing. You decide after the facts are gathered if it's true or not. Just like a court.
But I suggest you do a disservice to the hypothesis if you don't examine the "suggestions".
In a court case both sides make opening statements/arguments then set about proving and disproving using evidence. The evidence supports one position better than the other. But the evidence doesn't make the statements. And lack of evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen.
In my opinion and respectfully submitted.
"Gore Vidal: "Well, just the night before the final flight, she reported in and they had a code phrase, 'personnel problems,' which meant Noonan was back drinking. And my father said, 'Just stop it right now and come home,' and G.P. agreed and said, 'Come back, abort the flight, forget it, come home.' And then she said, 'Oh, no,' and she said, 'I think it’ll be all right,' something like that. So you may put that down to invincible optimism or it may have been huge pessimism."
"Personnel unfitness" (or if "personal unfitness") was apparently a very private term devised between AE and GP which seems intended to import real meaning but without bringing negatives to the light in their publicity efforts. What was so dark about it that they didn't want it creeping into the headlines?
If the Vidal observation is reliable the term carried potentially grave meanings - it would be no light thing to cancel plans, and AE resisted it at least on the occasion mentioned by Vidal.
Oh, I see, they couldn't get a dial tone.
gl
Harry --
... I don't know how to link it here. ...
Setting up a radio telephone link between the U.S. and Tokyo in 1934 that could carry one call at a time at a price of $597 for three minutes (2011 dollars) does not show that such service was extended to every backwater in the Pacific by 1937. (Except for Earhart aficionados, nobody else has ever heard of Lae and even for the aficionados it wasn't until 1937 that even they heard of Lae.) The link to Tokyo is an example of a "point to point circuit." To set this up AT&T had to build very large antennas designed to send the signal in just one direction, towards Tokyo. These types of antennas are very expensive and cover a lot of real estate. They had to build several, each one designed to be operated on the different frequencies needed at different times of the day. These cover many acres and are usually called "antenna farms" for this reason. These antennas were aimed on an azimuth of 303° to hit Tokyo. In addition they needed powerful radio transmitters, electricity generators, switching equipment to connect to the telephone system and personnel to operate and maintain the equipment. The only reason that AT&T spent the money for this set up is that they expected to make their money back by handling many, many telephone calls between these business centers.... Oh, I see, they couldn't get a dial tone.
Things are starting to look a little more complicated this morning. From the old Forum (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Forum/Forum_Archives/200502.txt):
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2005 10:12:43
From: Mike Juliano
Subject: Re: Phone service to New Guinea
"1934: AT&T inaugurates transpacific telephone service, initially between the US and Japan. Calls travel across the Pacific via radio. The initial capacity is one call at a time at a cost of $39 for the first three minutes."
LTM Mike J.
==============================================
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2005 12:24:27
From: Skeet Gifford
Subject: Re: Phone service to New Guinea
> From Mike Juliano
>
> "The initial capacity is one call at a time at a cost of $39 for the
> first three minutes."
That's about $550 in 2004 dollars.
The Brines letter is reproduced in the forum. The cover wording starts "At this time its provenance is unknown but it appears to be a piece of correspondence from one journalist (“Russ Brines”) to another (Richard ?). If authentic, it contains the first contemporaneous reference we’ve seen to Noonan being a heavy drinker and also provides some interesting insights into the attitude of at least some members of the press toward Earhart’s flight and disappearance."
I have read his before. I don't see anything in the forum that says this letter has been confirmed as authentic. Its a letter or note between two correspondents, unauthenticated So does it fall into your category of undocumented supposition? It is documented as a "reference". Not as evidence. Why is it even in this forum? If we are only to make suggestions with documented evidence then why reprint it here? Is this part of your coherent account information you gathered to form your argument?
I am basing what I have said on what I read here in this forum. You're right about lack of evidence. But lack of evidence isn't enough to say something didn't happen. You know that. The Brines letter is an example of that. You're making a point to me that evidence is important then you point me at this document. It's smoke with no fire. It's not evidence.
I can say that Fred smuggled booze onto the plane and was drinking the whole way from Lae to Gardner. Sober when he set his clocks. In good shape early on the trip and rip snorting drunk at the end. But that's just me "suggesting".
"Suggestions" have no evidentiary value whatsoever. Correct. You have stated in several replies to forum contributors that "What is freely asserted is freely denied". Not always with those words but in principle. But we are allowed to "freely assert" our suggestions. You are allowed to "freely deny" these suggestions. and vice versa.
Evidence can support a "suggestion" or it can destroy it. Now look at your information you say is your coherent account. The same page I provided in my link. Under the "Delayed in Lae" wiki page http://tighar.org/wiki/Personnel_unfitness#.22Personnel_unfitness.22 (http://tighar.org/wiki/Personnel_unfitness#.22Personnel_unfitness.22). So we both used the same reference material.
Granted for different purposes yet I'm called a psychic. Where on that page does it say FN was NOT drinking? It doesn't. Just like it doesn't say he WAS drinking. It just presents information to allow the reader to form their own opinion.
I am not going to further respond to your psychic comments. I read information on and off this forum and form my thoughts based on what I read and see. You may chose to disagree. For instance the light at Nauru being 5600 feet above sea level. I provided links to information that shows Nauru Island that's essentially flat and 180 feet above sea level. I provided another link to the tallest buildings and structures in the world. I believe the 5600 foot tower is a typo. I believe the tower was shorter than 5600 feet. No clairvoyance. Others disagree with me.
It is their right. Just as it is your right to disagree with me. However I suggest the legal system is made up of two sides who both believe they are right. In this forum, who is the judge, providing fair and impartial comments without allowing personal bias and attack to creep in?
Earhart sent out several radiograms making clear to everyone the critical importance of receiving a weather forecast from Hawaii before her takeoff. Yet, the important forecast arrived after the takeoff. Why didn't they just pick up the phone?
Let me see if I have this straight:
Gore Vidal's recollections of something that happened aren't to be accepted because he was 12 years old when they happened ...
, but Emily Sikulis' recollections at age 72 or so about events that occurred 60 years before when she was 12 years old or so are acceptable.
Read the Brines Letter.
... Now what about doing the same thing to establish a "point to point circuit" to Lae that is 1500 miles farther than Tokyo and that nobody had ever heard of. How much telephone traffic could they expect from that circuit? How long would it take, if ever, to get their investment back for the antenna farm aimed on the 265° azimuth to Lae plus the other costs in setting up this circuit? And who was buying the land in Lae for the antenna farm needed at that end aimed at the AT&T station in the U.S. and paying for the equipment and personnel to build it and to operate it? ...
... Now what about doing the same thing to establish a "point to point circuit" to Lae that is 1500 miles farther than Tokyo and that nobody had ever heard of. How much telephone traffic could they expect from that circuit? How long would it take, if ever, to get their investment back for the antenna farm aimed on the 265° azimuth to Lae plus the other costs in setting up this circuit? And who was buying the land in Lae for the antenna farm needed at that end aimed at the AT&T station in the U.S. and paying for the equipment and personnel to build it and to operate it? ...
Lae was a gold-mining center. There was money in town.
Weren't you the one who gave us the stats on how busy the Lae airport was? I've been told to take it easy, so I'll let someone else find that post in the Forum.
Apart from that, we have evidence that AE spoke by telephone with the Herald Tribune from Lae.
"Amelia did not talk to her husband from Lae. She did telephone a travelogue story to the New York Herald Tribune [on 30 June], as she had from nearly every stop on the world flight" ("Part 2 of Ric's Review of Amelia, the movie." (http://tighar.org/smf/../news/news/earhart-project/93-part-2-of-rics-review)).
Gillespie, Forum, 4 Sep 2005: (http://tighar.org/smf/../Projects/Earhart/Archives/Forum/Forum_Archives/200509.txt) "Earhart filed her June 30th story to the Herald Tribune from Lae by telephone, so phone service from Lae WAS available. In theory, she could have telephoned the Coast Guard's San Francisco Division in Oakland. They were maintaining frequent radio schedules directly to Itasca. The problem seems to have been money. Earhart had to pay for the phone calls and, due to the delays in Java, she was running out of cash. After calling in her June 30 story she sent a wire to Putnam saying that if the Tribune wanted more stories they would have to set up an account in Lae. They didn't, and her last 'Denmark's a prison...' story on July 1st was sent as a collect telegram. Maybe it wasn't possible to make a collect international phone call."
Well, not so fast.
Ric claimed that AE did phone in a story from Lae to the New York Herald Tribune (http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_Lae#.22Personnel_unfitness.22). I haven't gone looking for his source yet. But the quotation from Ric reminds me that Putnam was in California. I speculate that the office of the New York Herald Tribune that took AE's press report was in New York.
Confirmed: "Putnam had negotiated an arrangement with the Herald Tribune newspaper syndicate for Amelia to phone, or when necessary wire, the syndicate’s New York office from each destination with a travelogue about her flight and the exotic people and places she saw along the way. Earhart’s bylined story would be carried in the next morning’s paper. For the syndicate this was an opportunity to give Herald Tribune readers a first-person, serialized, near-real-time account of what it was like to travel the world by air. For Earhart and Putnam it was a publicist’s dream come true: coverage of Amelia’s adventures, as told by Amelia, featured in major papers around the country virtually every day for a month or more" (Finding Amelia, pp. 32-33).
Confirmed: There was international telephone service from Lae to the U.S. mainland. But Earhart was low on cash, and it seems that she could not afford to pay for another call to the Herald Tribune after her call on 30 June.
Yes, and it still took until 1939 to set up radiotelephone connections between the gold fields and Lae, and these communications were much more important than an occasional call to the states and also much easier to set up. If Lae ever did set up over ocean radiotelephone equipment, it is much more likely that the antenna was aimed at Australia than at the U.S. since New Guinea was administered by Australia and the gold was NOT being mined by U.S. companies or interests.... Now what about doing the same thing to establish a "point to point circuit" to Lae that is 1500 miles farther than Tokyo and that nobody had ever heard of. How much telephone traffic could they expect from that circuit? How long would it take, if ever, to get their investment back for the antenna farm aimed on the 265° azimuth to Lae plus the other costs in setting up this circuit? And who was buying the land in Lae for the antenna farm needed at that end aimed at the AT&T station in the U.S. and paying for the equipment and personnel to build it and to operate it? ...
Lae was a gold-mining center. There was money in town.
Weren't you the one who gave us the stats on how busy the Lae airport was? I've been told to take it easy, so I'll let someone else find that post in the Forum.
I doubt Gore Vidal was an eyewitness - I think it is more likely that he's recounting something told by his father Gene, the director of the Bureau of Air Commerce, who was close to Earhart and Putnam. He seems to be summing up an understanding of an exchange, perhaps as told by Putnam well after the fact. That would make it about... third hand, if so. He WAS closer to the people involved than you or I though, wasn't he?
He was about 12 years old in the summer of 1937.
I doubt that he wrote these things down.
He was a novelist.
The story has the feel of a well-worn, oft-told anecdote.Quote
I find it interesting: we can see that the first part of his statement is true - the 'personnel problems' comment is accurate enough; did he then go 'over the top' for some reason about the rest of it? You say it 'sounds' over the top; I may see it as a retelling of an understanding - and 'why would he create a fictional outcome of the report?
Because this is something people often do, for various and sundry reasons?Quote
What was this guy really like?
I don't know, and I don't much care.
I don't see any point in doing a psychic profile of Fred in order to determine what he would have done on the flight. You seem to find this of profound significance. I don't.Quote
How do you know they ever got that close?
Because "Radio" Direction Finding (http://tighar.org/wiki/RDF) uses a phenomenon called "radio waves" to help find out what direction a transmission was made from. There were these wonderful things called "radio waves" travelling from the aircraft to Howland for about six hours, (http://tighar.org/wiki/Transmission_timeline) with the signal strength of the "radio waves" growing steadily stronger, which makes the task of those trying to find the "direction" from the "radio waves" are being transmitted easier and easier.
I can, if need be, define "radio," "direction," and "finding" in simpler terms, if need be.Quote
He had far more experience in airplanes reliant on RDF than AE did.
His experience was not from being at the controls of the equipment, but from having messages transmitted and delivered by professional radio operators. How much have you learned about flying from riding in the passenger cabin of modern aircraft?Quote
If you put my country butt in the back of NR16020 with a trans-oceanic newby like AE up front and no boat bottom under us to navigate that far and home in on a beacon, I'm going to be looking into the arrangements pretty firmly with all I do know, especially after a steller experience with Pan Am, etc. That's a crack in the perception of FN as the perfect navigator: he wasn't that pefect - it's evident to me that he wasn't applying his full acumen to this flight.
Amelia had flown as a passenger across the Atlantic.
She had flown the Atlantic solo.
She had flown from Hawaii to California solo.
These are things that some of us like to call "facts." (http://tighar.org/wiki/Earhart) Is there any way to persuade you to use "facts" as a check on your powers of psychic investigation?Quote
I take it that you mean you don't believe AE could have navigated to the LOP by herself - you couldn't possibly know that.
Yes. This was the conviction that I expressed in the English language when I wrote, "Could Amelia have done so? My own view is 'No.' YMMV."
By the word "view," I mean my considered opinion, after spending 12 years diligently reading the materials on the TIGHAR website.
By the expression, "YMMV," I had intended to indicate "Your mileage may vary," which is a common way of saying that I understand you may not agree with the view that I had just expressed.Quote
How else to dream of such goals? How else to pursue greater understanding than to first conceive? How else to get into so much trouble... yes, the risk of 'fantasy' is real, I agree.
I dream pretty much every night. Most of it is dreck.
When I wake up in the morning, if something abides, I'll try to check it against reality.
Wiley imagined the oxygen mask. He then proceded to make it work. Reality confirmed his dream.
He imagined that he could both navigate and fly solo around the world. He beat the record he had set with Harold Gatty doing the navigating. Reality confirmed his dream.
Your fantasies seem not to be testable. We can't build anything out of them, nor do they lead us to look in a different location than Gardner, nor use different techniques.Quote
But, fantasy? Do I really violate the bounds of reason here? I've proceeded more by reason and given observations than by the heart of the poet (wouldn't you know it).
See above for a few "facts" that you failed to include in your dreams, as well as some doubts about the stories you use to make the fire burn more brightly.
I take offense at your personal remark: ...
I'm frankly more saddened than offended, I think, that you should get so personal as to essentially declare me a lunatic - an ignorant spinner of raw fantasy with no touch in fact - a thing which according to your pointed, personal remark I am supposedly incapable of understanding short of an education from you.
Well, it's up to you to judge me a nut or not, just as may all others present judge my writings and being for themselves, but personally it lowers my opinion of your own objectivity, if not sense of basic charity. Too bad, but I can live with it.
Actually, as you seem to understand, I was not speaking of sleeping dreams, but the kinds of dreams some humans have that amount to vision of what may be and working toward greater understanding and achievement through reason and application of 'fact', that's all. I feel for folks who can't do that - and pity those who cannot handle it in others - the world would be dim without it - and devoid of working hypotheses.
Although you have graciously provided some details about contemporaneous communications (many thanks) you see FN as a given quantity and essentially irrelevant as to his personal situation and disposition.
I simply disagree. You too use your opinions just as profusely as you use facts - so, physician, heal thyself. Or, perhaps you simply see my own powers of reasoning as vastly inferior to yours. Well, you are entitled to your opinion.
I get your point that AE is the spoiler by wrecking the end-game RDF scheme (which I understand quite well, but thanks for the offer of the third grade course); FN is off-limits somehow - he apparently could not have failed.
I simply disagree. FN is as much up for review as AE as to how they arrived in their mess, that's all.
Brines - interesting fellow, thanks for that link.
Interesting update on the new / updated "Delayed in Lae" / Brines letter / 'Observations' (http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_Lae) page. That was fast.
I get it now -
As some see it (and I can understand why), if FN is considered disabled at a crucial time in the flight, the LOP cannot have a rational basis.
The LOP must be reliable - AE said she was on it.
No, I agree, we just can't have FN being drunk.
The Brines letter is reproduced in the forum. The cover wording starts "At this time its provenance is unknown but it appears to be a piece of correspondence from one journalist (“Russ Brines”) to another (Richard ?). If authentic, it contains the first contemporaneous reference we’ve seen to Noonan being a heavy drinker and also provides some interesting insights into the attitude of at least some members of the press toward Earhart’s flight and disappearance."
I have read his before. I don't see anything in the forum that says this letter has been confirmed as authentic. Its a letter or note between two correspondents, unauthenticated So does it fall into your category of undocumented supposition? It is documented as a "reference". Not as evidence. Why is it even in this forum? If we are only to make suggestions with documented evidence then why reprint it here? Is this part of your coherent account information you gathered to form your argument?
1) If it is from 3 August 1937, it is the only account we have before 1960 of any accusations about Noonan drinking too much.
2) There is nothing in the letter that disqualifies it as a legitimate source. The Gore Vidal anecdote, by contrast, is undated and is inconsistent with other things we know about 2 July 1937.
3) It is an example of psychic research. If a journalist in Honolulu wrote it, he did not bestir himself to travel to Lae and get real evidence about what actually happened in Lae.QuoteI am basing what I have said on what I read here in this forum. You're right about lack of evidence. But lack of evidence isn't enough to say something didn't happen. You know that. The Brines letter is an example of that. You're making a point to me that evidence is important then you point me at this document. It's smoke with no fire. It's not evidence.
It may be evidence about Fred's habits, if it is authentic.QuoteI can say that Fred smuggled booze onto the plane and was drinking the whole way from Lae to Gardner. Sober when he set his clocks. In good shape early on the trip and rip snorting drunk at the end. But that's just me "suggesting".
Brines claims to have known Fred. You can't make that claim. He doesn't say how he knew him, or when, or where. But there were Pan Am flights into Hawaii, I believe.
Brines is a researchable person. We might find out more about him that would make the letter more or less plausible.Quote"Suggestions" have no evidentiary value whatsoever. Correct. You have stated in several replies to forum contributors that "What is freely asserted is freely denied". Not always with those words but in principle. But we are allowed to "freely assert" our suggestions. You are allowed to "freely deny" these suggestions. and vice versa.
I have entertained your suggestion. I have done a review of what we have in hand. I have discussed what I have found in detail, and explained the inferences I have drawn from that material.QuoteEvidence can support a "suggestion" or it can destroy it. Now look at your information you say is your coherent account. The same page I provided in my link. Under the "Delayed in Lae" wiki page http://tighar.org/wiki/Personnel_unfitness#.22Personnel_unfitness.22 (http://tighar.org/wiki/Personnel_unfitness#.22Personnel_unfitness.22). So we both used the same reference material.
There is two differences I can think of. I'm the author of the page, and I expanded it today.QuoteGranted for different purposes yet I'm called a psychic. Where on that page does it say FN was NOT drinking? It doesn't. Just like it doesn't say he WAS drinking. It just presents information to allow the reader to form their own opinion.
You have added no new evidence to the site, other than to register your suspicions about Fred. That's not "evidence" of any kind.Quote
I am not going to further respond to your psychic comments. I read information on and off this forum and form my thoughts based on what I read and see. You may chose to disagree. For instance the light at Nauru being 5600 feet above sea level. I provided links to information that shows Nauru Island that's essentially flat and 180 feet above sea level. I provided another link to the tallest buildings and structures in the world. I believe the 5600 foot tower is a typo. I believe the tower was shorter than 5600 feet. No clairvoyance. Others disagree with me.
I agree that the 5600-foot light is a conundrum. Thanks for the links. That, too, is a researchable topic. We may be able to find out more about the purpose and placement of that light and find its true height. But the real height of the light won't change much in our imaginative reconstructions of what Fred could have, should have, or would have done.QuoteIt is their right. Just as it is your right to disagree with me. However I suggest the legal system is made up of two sides who both believe they are right. In this forum, who is the judge, providing fair and impartial comments without allowing personal bias and attack to creep in?
Every reader is a judge who decides what they will accept as valid evidence and trustworthy reasoning.
If you're calling for my resignation as a member of the webteam or removal as a moderator of the Forum, please feel free to do so. In that case, Ric Gillespie and Pat Thrasher, acting on behalf of TIGHAR's board of directors, are the judges.
Furthermore, Google indicates that the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center has Brines's papers:
Brines, Russell
Papers, 1924-1982
4 cubic ft. (4 boxes)
Acc. # 08894
Russell Brines (1911-1982) was an Associated Press journalist who covered World War II in the Philippines and Japan and also the Korean War. He was an expert on Japanese and Asian affairs and author of the book MacArthur's Japan.
Collection contains personal and professional correspondence; research files on Japan, Vietnam and communist expansion in Asia; 3 scrapbooks; 1 audiocassette tape of a memorial for Brines in Japan; the manuscript for MacArthur's Japan; photographs of the Allied occupation of Japan after World War II, the Korean War and Brines; and miscellaneous memorabilia.
Perhaps a Tighar member could have a look at these papers and see if anything in them sheds light on whether Brines is a credible source of information of FN's drinking habits.
I did not ask for anyone's resignation. It is one thing to state your case for your opinion as a forum contributor. It is yet another to claim a contributor has crank ideas or is doing psychic research or, as with others, claim they are fantasizing. Forum etiquette should suggest that everyone's comments or posts be respected equally. In particular the administrator should hold himself to the highest standard and set the example regardless of his personal opinion.
I am being told that I have not advanced evidence of FN's drinking.
Where does it state that I must advance evidence of anything?
Are you suggesting that to not advance evidence is some form of failure on my part?
I am not allowed to advance thoughts based on current evidence?
However, lets look at his responses on the Brines letter. He says it may be evidence but it hasn't been proven as such.
It might be someday.
He also says it's psychic research. Well Marty which is it?
I am supposed to say your right and I'm wrong based on that?? Let's agree Marty to disagree.
Many times I have agreed with his statements and position but If Marty gets frustrated by people like me then he has to decide how to handle it. Who raised the idea of him resigning? It sure wasn't me. Read the threads.
A quick Google search turns up a brief obituary of Brines at:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=19820625&id=ESsgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wukDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6295,3418939 (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1320&dat=19820625&id=ESsgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wukDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6295,3418939)
Furthermore, Google indicates that the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center has Brines's papers: ...
Is it normal for places that hold these types of collections to allow researchers to dig thru them?
Sorry, I gotta ask . . .
Irvine Donald, and Jeff Neville: Where do you get the idea that you're gonna be tossed off this forum? No one has suggested or threatened that, have they?
???
For the record, I have no heartburn over that post of mine being removed, it was late at night and I was being quite crotchity. As to Mr. van Asten's situation, it was my complaint I think that led to his ouster. It was not that he was advancing celestial navigation theories that were demonstrably wrong, I had spent lots of time corresponding with him both on line and offline to help educate him about celestial navigation. My complaint was that he was being dishonest and purposefully deceptive in leaving out of a quote, that he claimed supported his position, the middle portion of the quoted material, that he replaced with an ellipsis, that said exactly the opposite. Fortunately I had a copy of the book from which he was quoting. (You can read my complaint here (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,383.msg5129.html#msg5129).) We're all entitled to our opinions and we can advance them with cites to evidence or to logic that supports them. However, this does not include being purposefully deceptive and dishonest in carrying on this discourse.Sorry, I gotta ask . . .I think Gary crossed that line. The posting in question was removed pretty quickly so I have nothing to quote. No evidence. Perhaps he didn't. He can ably speak for himself.
Irvine Donald, and Jeff Neville: Where do you get the idea that you're gonna be tossed off this forum? No one has suggested or threatened that, have they?
???
I have also spoken with other forum members re this situation. Not on the forum. There is a general feeling that speaking out against the TIGHAR hypothesis will bring some form of personal attack. This negatively effects forum input by all members. New and old.
Brines - interesting fellow, thanks for that link.
You're welcome. I'm the one who introduced Brines into this thread. I found the letter by using the search engine (http://tighar.org/news/help/82-how-do-i-search-tigharorg), which is free and available to anyone to use to find things like this on the website.QuoteInteresting update on the new / updated "Delayed in Lae" / Brines letter / 'Observations' (http://tighar.org/wiki/Delayed_in_Lae) page. That was fast.
No, it took an hour of hard work.QuoteI get it now -
As some see it (and I can understand why), if FN is considered disabled at a crucial time in the flight, the LOP cannot have a rational basis.
The LOP must be reliable - AE said she was on it.
No, I agree, we just can't have FN being drunk.
Nothing to that effect is on that page.
Do you understand that it is not appropriate in an argument to impute a position to the other that is different from what the other person has said?
I'm not arguing anything, Marty. I'm not taking that conclusion from the "Delayed" page, either -
It's rather a summary realization of what is evidently very important to you - it dawned on me after considering what you did in your hour of hard work (that was fast).
Just as you have your opinions, that's mine. You, and other readers, are free to decide if the shoe fits, but I'm glad you got the point.
Maybe off-line ... would be more appropriate ...
Well, not so fast.
All of my research confirms that there was no telephone service, either by undersea cable or by radiotelephone (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=665), from Lae to the outside world in 1937. Even local radio telephone service in New Guinea (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11239443)did not come on line until 1939.
It appears the only evidence that telephone service was available between Lae and the U.S. is the story printed in the Herald Tribune that, it is claimed, had been telephoned by Earhart in Lae to the newspaper.
The last chapter of Earhart's book, Last Flight, reprints the two stories printed in the Herald Tribune. The second part of the chapter, beginning with "'Denmark's a prison...'," is the newspaper story clearly sent by radiogram. We know this because we can find this radiogram at the Purdue site. This story was printed in the July 2, 1937 edition of the newspaper. The first half of the chapter beginning with "After a flight of seven hours..." was the earlier story sent to the newspaper and th is story is the one claimed to have been telephoned by Earhart. We can't find a copy of a radiogram for this story but I have found a telegram from the Herald Tribune to Putnam acknowledging the receipt of this story and that first story was clearly sent by radiogram. This telegram is dated June 29 so it cannot be referring to the radiogram for the second story because the radiogram for the second story did not arrive until July 2nd. The June 29th acknowledgment telegram states;
"LAE DISPATCH ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT..."
The word "DISPATCH" obviously did not refer to a telephone call.
"Dispatch" was the commonly used word in the newspaper industry to mean "a story sent in by a correspondent." The dispatch was received late at night on June 29th but early enough for this telegram to be send to Putnam, still on the 29th. So let's say it arrived around 10:00 p.m. New York time. Lae is 15 hours ahead of New York so the message was sent some time prior to 1:00 p.m. in Lae on June 30th, the day after Earhart had arrived in Lae.
I have attached a copy of this telegram. I have also attached a copy of the radiogram containing the second story showing it was received "VIA RCA" from Lae NG (RCA= Radio Corporation of America, an obvious radiogram) on July 2nd at 3:48 in the morning.
This appears to be another case (all too common in scholarship, and well represented in writings about Earhart) of the first person writing a story getting and it wrong and then everyone else just copying off of his paper without going back to the source documents themselves. It looks like decent research because they include cites to their sources, and they usually cite to the original document cited in the secondary source that they are actually using, not revealing that they are only using a secondary source. But since the secondary source got it wrong the error propagates throughout the literature, like a snowball rolling downhill. (TIGHAR is to be congratulated on its instance of references to the original documents.)
The problem with that explanation is that the "ARRANGE CREDIT IF TRIBUNE WISHES MORE STORY" radiogram arrived at 5:53 p.m. which I don't think anyone would describe as "ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT. Prior to 6:00 p.m. is normally called "afternoon" not "night" and certainly not "late night." The confirmatory telegram sent out later on the night of the 29th did refer to this radiogram but also to the "DISPATCH" that arrived later, "late night". They apparently arranged credit in response to the 5:53 p.m. telegram that allowed Earhart to send the "dispatch" later that day.
What is "obvious" to one may not be obvious to another.
Since that same telegram says "LAE DISPATCH ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT. THINK WE HAVE SOLVED CABLE CREDIT DIFFICULTY," it might be referring to the preceding telegram, address both to Putnam and the Tribune, which read, in part: "ARRANGE CREDIT IF TRIBUNE WISHES MORE STORY." The Tribune telegram might mean, "We received the telegram from Earhart that asked us to arrange credit for her." In other words, Putnam does not have to take any further action on that particular request made in the telegram that was sent to both parties.
Since that same telegram says "LAE DISPATCH ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT. THINK WE HAVE SOLVED CABLE CREDIT DIFFICULTY," it might be referring to the preceding telegram, addressed both to Putnam and the Tribune, which read, in part: "ARRANGE CREDIT IF TRIBUNE WISHES MORE STORY." ...
The problem with that explanation is that the "ARRANGE CREDIT IF TRIBUNE WISHES MORE STORY" radiogram arrived at 5:53 p.m. which I don't think anyone would describe as "ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT.
Prior to 6:00 p.m. is normally called "afternoon" not "night" and certainly not "late night." The confirmatory telegram sent out later on the night of the 29th did refer to this radiogram but also to the "DISPATCH" that arrived later, "late night". They apparently arranged credit in response to the 5:53 p.m. telegram that allowed Earhart to send the "dispatch" later that day.
Earhart sent only two "dispatches" to the newspaper, the one in dispute and the second one that was printed several days later. The confirmatory telegram referred to a "dispatch" sent by Earhart from Lae on June 30th, (Lae date and time.) The story printed in the Harold Tribune had the dateline "Lae, New Guinea, June 30th."
What we probably have here is just a simple typesetter's error setting "telephone" instead of the correct "telegraph." These types of errors are common enough today with computerized typesetting and it was even more common on the old linotype machines, (though it was cool watching the hot slugs of lead type come out of the machine.)
Since that same telegram says "LAE DISPATCH ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT. THINK WE HAVE SOLVED CABLE CREDIT DIFFICULTY," it might be referring to the preceding telegram, addressed both to Putnam and the Tribune, which read, in part: "ARRANGE CREDIT IF TRIBUNE WISHES MORE STORY." ...
The problem with that explanation is that the "ARRANGE CREDIT IF TRIBUNE WISHES MORE STORY" radiogram arrived at 5:53 p.m. which I don't think anyone would describe as "ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT.
The man who said "ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT" is Hill, who is located in NYC, and for whom 5:53 PM would be 8:53 PM. I don't know how quickly the Oakland, California, office of the Tribune could relay the telegram to NYC, so it may have come to NYC later than 8:53 PM. I've dated Hill's telegram 29-06 PM EST, but I couldn't see a time stamp in it for when it was sent.QuotePrior to 6:00 p.m. is normally called "afternoon" not "night" and certainly not "late night." The confirmatory telegram sent out later on the night of the 29th did refer to this radiogram but also to the "DISPATCH" that arrived later, "late night". They apparently arranged credit in response to the 5:53 p.m. telegram that allowed Earhart to send the "dispatch" later that day.
I don't think that's right. The credit is mentioned in the "dispatch received" telegram. I believe the credit let AE send the 9-page telegram that is available at Purdue, 01-07 2200A? Lae (I can't make heads nor tails out of the "2200A"). The clue is in the heading: "FAB55 VIA RCA=F NG 570 1/100 PRESS COLLECT 1 2200A."QuoteEarhart sent only two "dispatches" to the newspaper, the one in dispute and the second one that was printed several days later. The confirmatory telegram referred to a "dispatch" sent by Earhart from Lae on June 30th, (Lae date and time.) The story printed in the Harold Tribune had the dateline "Lae, New Guinea, June 30th."
Have you got a scan or a link to the original newspaper article? The way I read the footnote in Finding Amelia, the article was published in the 30 June edition of the Tribune.QuoteWhat we probably have here is just a simple typesetter's error setting "telephone" instead of the correct "telegraph." These types of errors are common enough today with computerized typesetting and it was even more common on the old linotype machines, (though it was cool watching the hot slugs of lead type come out of the machine.)
Yes, it could be a mistake. Another possibility is that there might have been a patch from Lae to the mainland via Nukulau, if there was a telephone line from Lae to Nukulau. It wouldn't be the first time in the story that folks scrambled to get something special for "Miss Earhart."
You have rested your case, but the jury is still out. ::)
Marty
I am seeking out opinions about the approach to where AE and FN thought Howland was. The following questions are based on the assumption that DR was used and FN was not able to obtain a celestial fix.You can begin your descent whenever you want to however to get maximum range you want to do a long slow descent which is why that advice is in report 487. More important is getting an observation of the sun when getting close to the LOP which would require (if there were clouds below) delaying the decent until about 10 to 15 NM short of the LOP and slowing down as necessary. They could actually wait until intercepting the LOP and then spiral down through the clouds to ensure accurately being on the LOP.
1) Assuming they were at 8,000ft for the long haul to Howland, when would they begin their decent? I thought I had read a recommendation, maybe in the 487 report, that a descent should begin at 150 to 100 miles out and power should be maintained during the descent. Can anyone tell me otherwise? Do we have an historical info on how AE handled approaches in the past with specific values for rate of descent or speed?
2) At 19:12 GMT, AE stated "we must be on you". Do we suppose that as soon as the clock was a ETA zero that they stopped in their tracks and started circling or was this perhaps sometime after ETA was zero, some number of miles later? Would they continue on the same heading to see if the Island came in to view? Could the 19:12 GMT report have been transmitted when they decided it was time to give up on the flight line having passed up where they thought Howland was some time ago?
They should go back to where they expected the island to be, say 60 NM, but they shouldn't follow back on the LOP since they have already searched that area but should sidestep and parallel the LOP by slightly less than twice the visibility so as to search that area effectively.
3) If they did give up on finding Howland on the flight path, would they back track (do a 180 turn) to where they originally thought Howland was or would they just begin a search pattern where found themselves after giving up?
After flying back the 60 NM (in my example) and absent aquiring additional information, they should start an expanding square search pattern, or a modification of it, and continue it until finding the island or running out of fuel. The moon was available and might have been visible at their altitude (depending on cloud cover) or they could have climbed above the clouds to shoot it and the sun again. The moon was positioned to give them information on whether they were north or south of Howland. The moon also would have allowed them to know how far from Howland they were when intercepting the LOP.
4) How long do you suppose they sat their circling before taking some action? They searched for a full hour before the final transmission at 20:13 GMT. Would they have been aware of the 10% worst case error in the DR and immediately headed North and South on the 157/337 LOP to determine if they were North or South of Howland?
They had no choice, it was determined by the location of the sun. The LOP runs at right angles to the azimuth of the sun. When the sun rose, and for an hour afterward, the azimuth of the sun was 067° true which causes the LOP to be 90° greater, 157° and it reciprocal, 337°. For a more complete description of the LOP approach process go to my website here (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/discussions/navigation-to-howland-island) and here (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/topics/landfall-procedure).
5) Why choose the 157/337 line anyway? I am not seeing the logic for following this LOP unless their line of approach that was pre-determined ahead of time was 90 degrees out from this line.
Thank you in advance.
Quote from Bruce Thomas -Not especially but only if she was 110% certain that her radio equipment and that of the Coast Guard would be working. But they had had continuous trouble with it, for instance, Noonan complained that it didn't work on the approach to Dakar. The whole flight was planned around have to need a navigator since the realized that radio was not 110% reliable. In the '70s when ferry pilots relied on DR alone to bring them within range of the radio beacon at the destination island, radios were much more reliable than in the '30s. Still, some ferry pilots were never seen or heard from again.
"Amen, Jeff!"
Thanks for your kindness and encouragement, Bruce. Wisdom itself.
Yes, I realize we do seem to re-hash, but the upside as I see it is that we have a number of new and active people here who are trying to get a grasp - that's great news to me. They also tend to bring new thinking into old ideas - something some of the leadership at TIGHAR has encouraged at times.
As to the navigation aspects of this string, I've done some review and came up with a point or two I'd like some help with - if Gary LaPook can help me on this it would be appreciated. From "Noonan Navigation Error" on May 29, 2011:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------No, they didn't plan to rely solely on the radio to find the island but planned on having two separate redundant methods either one of which, all by itself, was capable of taking them to a safe landing at Howland.
I don't buy your argument that AE could have flown without navigating to within RDF range of Howland, but I accept the idea that Fred did provide a backup system of sorts.
The RDF systems we know about are three: Itasca, Howland Island, and the plane. All three failed.
Some more evidence to convince you:
On the flight from Oakland to Hawaii they were able to get radio bearings on stations that were more than 600 NM away.
Pilots ferrying small planes across the Pacific and the Atlantic back in the 1970's, before the advent of LORAN C or GPS, universally did exactly that, they DRed all the way with only an ADF for terminal guidance, relying on DR to be able to get them within the range of the radio beacon at the destination. (I only know of two exceptions to this, one is Ken Gebhart, who now owns the company CELESTAIRE which sells navigation equipment, and myself, we both used celestial navigation.) (see: http://www.celestaire.com/ ) Of course, in the '70s, radio was much more reliable but the range was still the same, the physics of radio propagation had not changed.
The longest leg on the Pacific crossing is California to Hawaii and is about 2100 NM depending on which airport you leave from which is insignificantly shorter than the leg from Lae to Howland. See: http://www.fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx?i=108664&y=200906
So it would not have been unreasonable for Earhart, by herself, alone in the airplane, to rely solely on DR and then trust the radio for terminal guidance, to fly the leg from Lae to Howland if she had been content to have no redundancy, no second independent navigation method that was capable, by itself, to get her all the way to Howland. To have this second, redundant, navigation system on board she need Noonan.
In the end, both systems failed, stuff happens. Similarly, sometimes a skydiver's reserve parachute fails too and he gets killed. Even redundant systems cannot guarantee success.
BTW, the Itasca's radio direction finder did not fail. The Itasca's RDF was not capable of taking bearings on the frequencies that Earhart transmitted on. Since it was limited to 270 to 550 kcs she could have transmitted on 3105 and 6210 kcs until the cows came home and they could not have taken a bearing on her. Itasca informed Earhart of the frequency range of their RDF by radiogram on June 28th and this document is available on the Purdue archive website.
Gary LaPook
Gary, does this mean that in your view AE could have had a reasonable assumption at Lae that if all went well with her radios, etc., FN was good to have but not necessarily vital?
Until recently, I've mostly understood that FN was considered vital to within a short range of Howland (can't quantify how 'short' at moment, but meaning FN would get them 'close') - and I've come think I'm off base in that now.
I've come to believe that DR to near Howland wouldn't have been out of the question (yes, even for AE), especially if one believed RDF was going to work at the end of things. That's not an endorsement of how savvy I believe AE was regarding RDF use...
Now, for one thing, if I am following and recalling my own experience correctly, RDF isn't such a short-range affair (when it works). Duh, I should have realized that - where I am I'm simply more self-bound by the abundance of stations out of a habit of using those that are much closer in nearly all cases (just gotta get out more). Over the open ocean my 'habit' would give way to the one station I needed... and well over the horizon's no big deal for reception / bearing. Might squiggle around in the sky a bit, but eventually would find the station. In fact, DR should keep me reasonably close to track until I could pick up the station a few hundred miles out, then it's a matter of correcting a relatively minor error and tracking in (again, if my set and the station both are working well).
Then, if DR and RDF failed AE, FN was always there, whether in a parallel effort or as a back-up (won't argue which), to ensure a Howland arrival could come together.
I apologize if I'm just re-hashing what I believe you clearly stated above, but that was a while back and I am just trying to be thorough. You guys who did fly the oceans have far more experience than I do with DR and RDF terminal nav, but I 'get' the point and appreciate your thoughts.
Is my take away on this correct?
LTM - and thanks in advance,
Since the leg from Lae to Howland is 2222 NM and the common estimate of DR accuracy is 10% of the distance flown then one could expect to fly the distance from Lae to Howland solely by dead reckoning and still be confident of coming within in 222 NM of Itasca and so be close enough to pick up the radio signal and track inbound to Howland. So if AE was willing to rely only on radio she didn't need Fred. But obviously they wouldn't just rely on radio.
According to Long, they landed at Lae at 3:05 p.m. on the 29th ...
... not much time to do any sightseeing that day since sunset was less than three hours later and they had to put the plane to bed first, check into the hotel etc., and she reported some sightseeing in the first dispatch.
I looked at your table of transmissions. Looking at the disputed dispatch it could not have been sent on the 29th. Read the story as reprinted in Last Flight and you will find her saying "We stayed at a hotel...", past tense, not a present tense, "We stay at a hotel..." or "We are staying at a hotel..." It is clear that this was sent after spending a night in the hotel in Lae so it must be June 30th, not June 29th.
I believe the credit arrangement allowed her to send both of the dispatches from Lae.
By Nukulau in the Fijis, I take it you are talking about a cable landing in Suva.
There were no telephone cables to Suva either from the U.S or from New Guinea in 1937, see chart of cables (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=665).
There were no telephone lines out of Lae to anywhere, which is why it was a big deal when local radiotelephone links were established in 1939.
No, I do not have a copy of the newspaper, I thought that Ric did. I've been working from the last chapter of Last Flight which is a reprint of those two stories. So Ric is working with a secondary source which brings up the possibility of another source for the erroneous byline. If the first person writing a book about Earhart got this wrong, wrote "telephone" instead on "telegraph," then everyone copied from his book as in the other examples I gave.According to Long, they landed at Lae at 3:05 p.m. on the 29th ...
... not much time to do any sightseeing that day since sunset was less than three hours later and they had to put the plane to bed first, check into the hotel etc., and she reported some sightseeing in the first dispatch.
I agree it is a narrow window of opportunity for all of the events portrayed in the newspaper article.QuoteI looked at your table of transmissions. Looking at the disputed dispatch it could not have been sent on the 29th. Read the story as reprinted in Last Flight and you will find her saying "We stayed at a hotel...", past tense, not a present tense, "We stay at a hotel..." or "We are staying at a hotel..." It is clear that this was sent after spending a night in the hotel in Lae so it must be June 30th, not June 29th.
OK. I've removed the quibble. So you do have a copy of the newspaper article?
These were short range radio telegraph links, not the trans-ocean link necessary to reach the U.S. 6,500 SM away.QuoteI believe the credit arrangement allowed her to send both of the dispatches from Lae.
OK. That's conceivable.QuoteBy Nukulau in the Fijis, I take it you are talking about a cable landing in Suva.
No. By "Nukulau" I meant "Rabaul." Don't ask me how I arrived at that inversion. :-\QuoteThere were no telephone cables to Suva either from the U.S or from New Guinea in 1937, see chart of cables (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=665).
You're overworking that chart, which hasn't been properly introduced to us.
It's a secondary source.
The caption says this, with emphasis added:
"Fig. 119. Cable and wireless communications. This map shows cables and the main outline of wireless communication in the Pacific area in 1939. Based on various sources."
That means that the map is not an exhaustive list of "wireless communication in the Pacific." It can't be used to exclude Lae, nor can it tell us when someone in Lae could make a phone call to the U.S. by means of a landline and a patch to a wireless transmitter.
Moreover, it's got a lot of small islands listed.Whatever it is charting, it doesn't sound as though it was the huge, prohibitively expensive operation you outlined earlier.
- Tarawa
- Beru
- Funfuti
- Nauru
- Moumea
Source (secondary or otherwise)?
These were short range radio telegraph links, not the trans-ocean link necessary to reach the U.S. 6,500 SM away.
Remember, "wireless" is short for "wireless telegraphy" which means CW using Morse code. Of course the chart does not exclude Lae from having wireless communications since we know that it did, Mr. Balfour pounding away on his telegraph key. It does show that no telegraph cable went to New Guinea. See the details of the short range radio links (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=672) necessary to get radiograms to and from Lae.QuoteThere were no telephone lines out of Lae to anywhere, which is why it was a big deal when local radiotelephone links were established in 1939.
We are confronted with the difficulty of a proving a negative, that they did NOT have telephone service in Lae in 1937. ...
We have to make reasonable inferences from what we do have such as the announcement of local service to four towns in 1939. A reasonable inference is that these are the first four towns, including Lae, to be linked by radiotelephone, that no such service existed to anywhere prior to this. An unreasonable inference from this would be that Lae had communications with every other town on earth and these were the last four to be reached. Additional support for the logic that there was no telephone service was the lack of any newspaper stories during the heat of the search headlined:
"EXCLUSIVE! PHONE CALL TO LAE REVEALS......."
Since the newspapers, especially the Herald Tribune, would be expected to make such contact, if it were available, the lack of it lends support to the inference that it was not available.
Even in murder trials with the burden of proof being "beyond a reasonable doubt" jurors are allowed to decide that something is a fact, that was not proved by direct evidence, by reasonable inference from the facts that were proved by direct evidence.
No, I do not have a copy of the newspaper, I thought that Ric did. I've been working from the last chapter of Last Flight which is a reprint of those two stories. So Ric is working with a secondary source which brings up the possibility of another source for the erroneous byline. If the first person writing a book about Earhart got this wrong, wrote "telephone" instead on "telegraph," then everyone copied from his book as in the other examples I gave.
Especially with the "NL," "Night Letter" behind the time group.
Meanwhile, FWIW, I've accepted your interpretation that the 29-06 telegram from Hill to Putnam was sent at sent at 11:32 PM. That seems a reasonable interpretation of "FA 11 32" and fits with the boilerplate on the forms that says the time that the message was received should be in the first line.
So you have given this some thought, have you? ;)
Yes, I understand the difficulties of proving a negative (http://www3.canisius.edu/%7Emoleski/proof/provenegs.htm).
QuoteSince the leg from Lae to Howland is 2222 NM and the common estimate of DR accuracy is 10% of the distance flown then one could expect to fly the distance from Lae to Howland solely by dead reckoning and still be confident of coming within in 222 NM of Itasca and so be close enough to pick up the radio signal and track inbound to Howland. So if AE was willing to rely only on radio she didn't need Fred. But obviously they wouldn't just rely on radio.
Gary,
Thank you for the detailed information in the previous post. I have yet to read over both of your links but will check it out after work. I have a simple question about the maximum error of 10% of the distance traveled. In your above example 10% DR results in 222NM. Is this the 'total error' meaning you could be 5% North or South of your target or does this mean you could be 10% too far South or 10% too far North? For example, if you were about to start searching, are the end points to the error window 111NM to the North and 111NM to the South or is it 222NM to the North and 222NM miles to the South?
Assuming that it is 111NM North and 111NM South, and you started searching in the Northerly direction, would you travel the entire 111NM or stop short of the visibility range and turn around to go South? I am guessing on the trip South you would make the offset short of 2 times the visibility range. Would the choice of choosing an Easterly offset or a Westerly offset be arbitrary on your first pass?
Thank you in advance.
There has been concern expressed that clouds could have prevented Noonan from taking star sights that late (1940 Z). They had reported flying at 12,000 feet, which normally is above most clouds. Even if some clouds where higher than 12,000 feet it is unlikely that they blocked the entire sky for hundreds of miles along the flight path.
Too bad she didn't establish two-way communications when she had the opportunity. She coulda asked questions on 3105 (am I getting louder?), and received answers on 7500 (_._ _ or _.).
"Dispatch" was the commonly used word in the newspaper industry to mean "a story sent in by a correspondent." The dispatch was received late at night on June 29th but early enough for this telegram to be send to Putnam, still on the 29th. So let's say it arrived around 10:00 p.m. New York time. Lae is 15 hours ahead of New York so the message was sent some time prior to 1:00 p.m. in Lae on June 30th, the day after Earhart had arrived in Lae.
Yes, that's possible.
- (also dspch) A news item sent to a news organization, as by a correspondent.
- journalism a report sent to a newspaper, etc, by a correspondent
- a news story sent to a newspaper or broadcaster, as by a correspondent
Is it possible that the story was radiogrammed or telegrammed to a shore station and then phoned in from there? Could that be what was heard on the telephone? The telegram station calling with the story rather than someone having to deliver it by paper form.That was how telegrams were delivered near the end of the telegram era, after phone calls became cheap. Prior to that, it was less expensive to put a guy on a bicycle to hand deliver the telegram.
Thanks for pointing out that error to me, I wrote that page a long time ago. I decided to make some improvements to that section:
I also read on your page the following:QuoteThere has been concern expressed that clouds could have prevented Noonan from taking star sights that late (1940 Z). They had reported flying at 12,000 feet, which normally is above most clouds. Even if some clouds where higher than 12,000 feet it is unlikely that they blocked the entire sky for hundreds of miles along the flight path.
I have never seen this 12,000ft altitude figure before. I recall outside of Lae they climbed to 10,000ft but had reduced to 8,000ft by the time they had passed Nukumanu Island. As I recall the telegrams from the guy at Lockheed Martin suggested 8,000ft as the cruise altitude. Can you point me to where this 12,000ft altitude came from?
Am I the only one who jumped to the conclusion that one possible reason for AE to tell Itasca that she was flying North and South on the (157/337) line was to help them DF her position? Her technique may have been lacking, but knowing the direction a target is moving helps establish its location to a DF station.Jump back.
She obviously didn't understand that Itasca could not get a DF bearing on her frequency. Too bad she didn't establish two-way communications when she had the opportunity. She coulda asked questions on 3105 (am I getting louder?), and received answers on 7500 (_._ _ or _.). All she and Fred needed was a time machine and web link to TIGHAR for answers to their navigation questions.
Since the leg from Lae to Howland is 2222 NM and the common estimate of DR accuracy is 10% of the distance flown then one could expect to fly the distance from Lae to Howland solely by dead reckoning and still be confident of coming within in 222 NM of Itasca and so be close enough to pick up the radio signal and track inbound to Howland. So if AE was willing to rely only on radio she didn't need Fred. But obviously they wouldn't just rely on radio.
Gary,
Thank you for the detailed information in the previous post. I have yet to read over both of your links but will check it out after work. I have a simple question about the maximum error of 10% of the distance traveled. In your above example 10% DR results in 222NM. Is this the 'total error' meaning you could be 5% North or South of your target or does this mean you could be 10% too far South or 10% too far North? For example, if you were about to start searching, are the end points to the error window 111NM to the North and 111NM to the South or is it 222NM to the North and 222NM miles to the South?
Assuming that it is 111NM North and 111NM South, and you started searching in the Northerly direction, would you travel the entire 111NM or stop short of the visibility range and turn around to go South? I am guessing on the trip South you would make the offset short of 2 times the visibility range. Would the choice of choosing an Easterly offset or a Westerly offset be arbitrary on your first pass?
Thank you in advance.
Gary,
After reading over your page I am fairly convinced that when you state "within" an amount of error, this describes a radius around the target. Using your 2222 NM and 222 NM error, this describes a circle around the target with a radius is 222 NM.
You seem pretty convinced that FN was able to get a fix at 17:42 GMT as they announced they were 200 miles out. Why is that? If FN was able to get a fix then the fact that they did not make it to Howland seems irreconcilable. I do not think we can entirely ignore the claim by Bellarts who supposedly heard AE state "cloudy and overcast" at 14:10 GMT. Perhaps we need to look at the Itasca weather log a bit closer.
As far as intercepting a LOP NW of Howland goes, it seems that they time stamps in the radio log do not allow for that. It appears that they came straight in expecting to find the Island. As Jeff pointed out, perhaps the plan really was a RDF approach but only when that did not pan out did FN take over to find Howland. AE spent quite a bit of the time on the radio either attempting to take a bearing or have Howland take bearings and she probably wasted a significant amount of time on that effort. Perhaps FN was working out a plan in the meantime but obviously whatever that plan was, it failed as well.
The only way I can make sense out of this statement is that they were flying a modified search pattern with longer legs parallel to the LOP and shorter legs perpendicular to it. Earhart might say that she was flying north and south "on the LOP" when on one of these long parallel legs.
I am also a bit troubled as to why they would have stayed on the 157/337 line an hour after having arrived at where they thought Howland was. It makes sense that they would have started a expanding square search pattern as you suggest but this would not be the case if you were flying on the line N and S on the 157/337 LOP an hour after you had arrived. Perhaps there was not plan or knowledge of how to begin the search pattern since they were lost. Perhaps they did search and going back in the line was a last ditch effort as the fuel started to run very low.
And current regulations require that the pilot use oxygen anytime the cabin altitude is above 14,000 feet and also after 30 minutes above 12,500 feet. You must make oxygen available to the passengers above 15,000 feet. I remember deadheading in an empty plane and I took it up to 17,500 feet without oxygen. It was a Sunday and I was reading the Sunday comics section of the newspaper, and boy were they hilarious!
I can agree that if true it would support that NR16020 should have been above most clouds. But that's also a fairly stout altitude for cruising hours on end, especially at night - the concern would be with crew physiology.
Had AE and FN good reasons (like perhaps to obtain celestial shots) they might well have done so (and if they said they did, I'd agree they must have). It just seems odd that they would do that for any extended period of time, so I too would like to know the source of the "12,000 ft" reference for the flight that night. It would also be useful to understand for how long they may have been at that altitude, if it can be known.
Here are a couple of useful links about flying at atitude -
"The 91 Percent Solution" (http://www.ifr-magazine.com/oxygen-and-hypoxemia.html)
"Oxygen Issues for General Aviation Pilots..." (http://www.copanational.org/PilotsPrimerJan09.cfm)
LTM -
Purdue. (http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=1906&CISOBOX=1&REC=1)Well, not so fast.
All of my research confirms that there was no telephone service, either by undersea cable or by radiotelephone (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=665), from Lae to the outside world in 1937. Even local radio telephone service in New Guinea (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11239443)did not come on line until 1939.
What is the source of the image?
Regarding which way to offset when starting the search pattern you would normally turn in the direction to take you to an area you haven't been through yet, if that is not the situation you normally offset into the wind, in this case to the east. But for Noonan, since they knew the wind was out of the east and they expected a smoke trail that would extend off to the west, it would be less likely that they missed to the west than that they missed to the east by overshooting the LOP because they would have had to have been much shorter of the LOP to miss the smoke, so they should offset to the west when returning to commence the modified square search pattern.
Yup, whether they got the last fix at 1623 Z ("partly cloudy") or as late as 1740 Z, Noonan would have planned a sufficient offset to allow for the maximum likely DR error in the leg from that fix to the interception point. That is the whole point of the landfall procedure, to cure any inaccuracy in the DR. So yes, it makes no sense that they didn't find Howland.
QuoteI am also a bit troubled as to why they would have stayed on the 157/337 line an hour after having arrived at where they thought Howland was. It makes sense that they would have started a expanding square search pattern as you suggest but this would not be the case if you were flying on the line N and S on the 157/337 LOP an hour after you had arrived. Perhaps there was not plan or knowledge of how to begin the search pattern since they were lost. Perhaps they did search and going back in the line was a last ditch effort as the fuel started to run very low.
The only way I can make sense out of this statement is that they were flying a modified search pattern with longer legs parallel to the LOP and shorter legs perpendicular to it. Earhart might say that she was flying north and south "on the LOP" when on one of these long parallel legs.
Purdue. (http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=1906&CISOBOX=1&REC=1)All of my research confirms that there was no telephone service, either by undersea cable or by radiotelephone (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=665), from Lae to the outside world in 1937. Even local radio telephone service in New Guinea (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11239443)did not come on line until 1939.
What is the source of the image?
The following maps are from "Pacific Islands" [Geographical Handbook Series (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/pacific_islands_1943_1945.html)]. Great Britain. Admiralty. Naval Intelligence Division, 1943-1945.Purdue. (http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=1906&CISOBOX=1&REC=1)All of my research confirms that there was no telephone service, either by undersea cable or by radiotelephone (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=665), from Lae to the outside world in 1937. Even local radio telephone service in New Guinea (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11239443)did not come on line until 1939.
What is the source of the image?
That is not the image that you used to exclude Lae as having the capability of providing a telephone patch in 1937. I'm referring to the communications_cable_wireless.jpg (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=555.0;attach=665) from some unnamed secondary source.
I wonder when Gore Vidal first started telling this story. If he told it in the '30s people would have been familiar with the state of communications of the era, including the extremely high cost of telephone calls and the sparsity of overseas phone links, so the story would not have been accepted at that time. If Vidal waited until the '70s, then the state of '30s communications would have been forgotten and he could have gotten away with telling a made up story. Also waiting until after George Putnam had died (1950) and after his father had died (1969), those who could dispute his story were gone. It is fairly common for people to try to insert themselves into famous events, it brings some sense of fame to themselves and this is a possible explanation for Gore Vidal to make up a story like this.
As to its meaning to the case at-hand, I think it's been noted that the Vidal sidebar was a 'third hand' discussion (if that's the root of the need to understand the state of communications between mainland U.S. and Lae in 1937, etc.). Maybe one day Gore Vidal himself can shed more light as a living link of sorts, or maybe not.
LTM -
QuoteRegarding which way to offset when starting the search pattern you would normally turn in the direction to take you to an area you haven't been through yet, if that is not the situation you normally offset into the wind, in this case to the east. But for Noonan, since they knew the wind was out of the east and they expected a smoke trail that would extend off to the west, it would be less likely that they missed to the west than that they missed to the east by overshooting the LOP because they would have had to have been much shorter of the LOP to miss the smoke, so they should offset to the west when returning to commence the modified square search pattern.
I see what you are saying. It would make a lot of sense to look for the smoke rather than the Island itself in this case. My question is did they know that a smoke trail was being laid for them or was that something the Itasca did on it's own? Had they used smoke from a boiler on other occasions? One interesting note I found looking over the logs was a reporter who stated that the smoke trail stretch out for miles and was "low on the water". This is very interesting because we can guess that the range of visibility to the smoke was not improved by the altitude of the smoke.
Both Pellegreno's experience and the Waitt video do not match what Earhart would have seen. Pellegreno was flying above the bases of the clouds and a cloud blocked her way so she turned off to the side. Her navigator, Bill Polhemus, said after wards that if they had punched through that cloud they would have ended up right over Howland. The Waitt video was clearly above the bases of the clouds so the clouds also blocked the view of the island until quite close.QuoteYup, whether they got the last fix at 1623 Z ("partly cloudy") or as late as 1740 Z, Noonan would have planned a sufficient offset to allow for the maximum likely DR error in the leg from that fix to the interception point. That is the whole point of the landfall procedure, to cure any inaccuracy in the DR. So yes, it makes no sense that they didn't find Howland.
Reading over the Waitt Institute re-construction report regarding the 1967 Commemorative Flight.
They were approximately 10--‐12 miles [units not specified] north of Howland Island at the moment they visually acquired the island. Pelllegreno’s account of her thoughts and feelings upon arriving and not seeing Howland, then conducting a protracted search with limited fuel resources, is extremely interesting as a human factors and perational comparison to what may have occurred on AE’s mission. Pellegreno writes a compelling narrative here, one that can not help but evoke a sense of urgency, desperation, and elevated tension. Pellegreno’s flight had the advantage of better navigation equipment, a third set of human eyes, a nearby ship providing good DF bearings, and the luxury of having departed Nauru Island, with a Canton Island destination. With all of these advantages, they nearly missed visually acquiring Howland Island. This account demonstrates the great challenge attempted by Amelia and Fred, and provides a good assessment of the difficulty in visually acquiring tiny Howland Island.
The scale maxed out at "20 NM or more" so you cannot say with certainty that it was 25 NM though it may have been. It is unlikely that it greatly exceeded 25 NM because visibility over the ocean rarely does which is why it was only necessary to have a scale that maxes out at 20 NM or more. Here is a photo of fairly common (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=452.0;attach=171)good visibility conditions over he ocean.
So anything could be possible however AE and FN had one advantage over this flight, the smoke trail.
As a side note, I think that report also solves the question of lighting around Nauru. There is a reference to two 1,000ft cableways on the top of the island, 556 feet above sea level, to permit mining at night. There is also reference from the director of police on the island that the chief radio operator had heard AE say that she saw the lights of Nauru several times. Even though this is the case, I still disagree that the AE spotted the lights of Nauru as this was 2nd hand information gathered after the fact.QuoteQuoteI am also a bit troubled as to why they would have stayed on the 157/337 line an hour after having arrived at where they thought Howland was. It makes sense that they would have started a expanding square search pattern as you suggest but this would not be the case if you were flying on the line N and S on the 157/337 LOP an hour after you had arrived. Perhaps there was not plan or knowledge of how to begin the search pattern since they were lost. Perhaps they did search and going back in the line was a last ditch effort as the fuel started to run very low.
The only way I can make sense out of this statement is that they were flying a modified search pattern with longer legs parallel to the LOP and shorter legs perpendicular to it. Earhart might say that she was flying north and south "on the LOP" when on one of these long parallel legs.
Based on assumption that this was their method of search, long North South legs with short offsets, the only thing that makes sense in my mind is that they overshot Howland to the North and were making North / South passes on a 157/337 magnetic course. If as you say they would have traveled sufficiently to handle the worst case DR error, they would have seen the smoke trail if they were on the Western side of Howland. I believe that this was also the opinion of the captain of the Itasca however as far as I can surmise, he did not expect AE and FN to be searching on the Eastern side of Howland, he assumed they must have been short and missed the smoke trail to the West and North.
I also found logs (Jacobson Database) that suggest that Itasca reported 25 NM visibility range at the time. Looking over other documents, it suggests that the CG used a coding scheme that would not have allowed this to be the case so I am a bit confused as to what the actual visibility was on that day. In any case, I am sure FN came up with his own estimate as to the visibility range.
... It is fairly common for people to try to insert themselves into famous events, it brings some sense of fame to themselves and this is a possible explanation for Gore Vidal to make up a story like this.
The basis for your statement that AE helped GV get the gov't job is?
The only way I can make sense out of this statement is that they were flying a modified search pattern with longer legs parallel to the LOP and shorter legs perpendicular to it. Earhart might say that she was flying north and south "on the LOP" when on one of these long parallel legs.
Thanks, Marty - that is helpful.
The 'vacuum pumps' as a vacuum source was nagging at me -
I checked airplane and engine data sheets - vacuum pumps were installed on 'early' Wasps - a distinction is made on the TCDS E-143 about a difference in drive-types for early and later Wasps of NR16020's type - 'tongue and groove' drive (early) vs. 'spline' drive (later).
That's not absolute proof that NR16020 had vacuum pumps in 1937 - but I don't recall a single picture showing venturis (http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/venturi3.php) on NR16020 in all the views I've seen. If NR16020 had them they would have been prominent enough to be noticed, I think. NR16020 had to have had a vacuum source for sure.
For those who are not familiar, a venturi works (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect) by exploiting the total energy present in the ambient, subsonic slipstream of an airplane in flight: the air mass accelerates as it becomes constrained by the narrow portion which results in a decrease in static pressure, hence 'vacuum' (a relative term; it is really a relative low-pressure area).
Mr. Bernouli as explained in Wiki makes more sense of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli%27s_principle) than I can relate here.
Venturis are great - to an extent: there isn't any free lunch. They impose drag and are subject to failure in ice - and do nothing for running major instruments reliably until sufficient slipstream is present (read: airspeed; propwash alone doesn't do it). Pumps are far more desirable for these reasons.
I'm not aware of AE or FN having any experience with sighting smoke from steam-ship boilers. Was the approach to Howland going to be their first time to see what it looked like?
Interesting. Is it possible, if Itasca was laying down smoke, that the smoke screened Howland from being seen by AE and FN? This is exactly the purpose behind military smoke screens in the first place.
I have not found where Thompson claimed the smoke trail to stretch for 100 miles, but I may be overlooking something.
The deck log gives the time of the "200 mile out" call as 0614 (1744 Z) it then states that smoke was started (probably a short time later) and definitely prior to the next entry at 0645 (1815 Z) of "100 mile out" call.
I do not know why I missed this but on the 'Transmissions heard from NR16020' page:
http://tighar.org/wiki/Transmissions_heard_from_NR16020 (http://tighar.org/wiki/Transmissions_heard_from_NR16020)
It states at 17:42GMT (The 200 miles out message) "Vessel began laying down heavy smoke to assist Miss Earhart.". Is this really the case? I was under the impression that they started the smoke much earlier?
At 19:12 GMT is the "we must be on you" message. That is a time difference of only 1.5 hours. If the wind was out of the East at 8mph (not sure if that is 100% accurate) that would suggest the smoke trail was only 12 miles long. If they searched for another hour, the trail was only 20 miles long (20:13 GMT, last message).
A reporter also stated that the smoke was laying "low on the water". While Thompson noted that the smoke stretched out 100 miles, that observation is not really valid so far as AE spotting the smoke is concerned.
The deck log shows the surface wind speed at 0600, 15 minutes prior to starting the smoke, as Beaufort force 1. At 0700 is is force 2 and at 0800, 13 minutes prior to the last radio call from Earhart, it was force 3. Force 1 is 1 to 3 knots; force 2 is 4 to 6 knots; and force 3 is 7 to 10 knots. See attached Beaufort scales.
- Itasca's deck log mentions laying down the smoke - but never comments on how long that actually continued.
- The smoke was observed to “stretch out for ten miles and not thinning out greatly.”
- Winds for the two hours following were easterly at 7 - 11 knots.
I'm not aware of AE or FN having any experience with sighting smoke from steam-ship boilers. Was the approach to Howland going to be their first time to see what it looked like?At one time there was considerable interest in determining just how far smoke from ships' funnels could be seen. Several studies were done and thousands of experiments performed. I don't have the documents handy but I remember that the result was that the smoke could be seen from a considerable distance. There were two periods in particular when these studies were conducted, 1914 through 1918 and 1938 through 1945. The second set of studies were conducted under the supervision of Karl Doenitz.
gl sez: "...what they thought was a forest fire."
If they thought the smoke would rise up like smoke from a forest fire, then they would have been looking for the wrong shape, especially among scattered clouds (a quick search didn't find any evidence that they even knew the smoke would be produced, so the point may be moot). I agree that they would have followed any clue they spotted, but I'm suggesting that a person searching for "smoke" might be looking for a rising column of smoke, like forest fires produce, rather than a trail of smoke on the water.
To Heath's point, would a trail of smoke be expected to remain visible after an hour and 20 miles? I have no experience with smoke from boilers, only smoke from common sources, such as forest fires.
Interesting. Is it possible, if Itasca was laying down smoke, that the smoke screened Howland from being seen by AE and FN? This is exactly the purpose behind military smoke screens in the first place.That's because you SEE the smoke and can't see the tank or troops on the other side of the smoke that you are SEEING.
I have not found where Thompson claimed the smoke trail to stretch for 100 miles, but I may be overlooking something.
Interesting. Is it possible, if Itasca was laying down smoke, that the smoke screened Howland from being seen by AE and FN? This is exactly the purpose behind military smoke screens in the first place.That's because you SEE the smoke and can't see the tank or troops on the other side of the smoke that you are SEEING.
If they saw the smoke then they would have known something better than the cold blue sea was at the end of the smoke trail and would not have simply ignored it.
I used to fire obscuring smoke rounds with my artillery pieces and when I was a tanker we had red phosphorous smoke grenade projectors that threw out six smoke grenades when you push the button on the ceiling of the turret to hide the tank in an instant cloud of smoke to throw off the guidance of an incoming ATGM (anti tank guided missiles.) But the smoke cloud itself is highly visible. The smoke grenade projectors are those big wart like objects with many holes mounted on each side of the turret in the attached photo. (BTW, the photo is reversed right to left.)
Here is a link to a naval smoke screen (http://www.bosamar.com/combat/escorts.html) being laid by two destroyers, ship not much larger than Itasca, can you see the smoke? Here's another one (http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h99000/h99864.jpg).
gl
Did you operate the FOUR-DEUCE? I ended up as CHIEF OF SMOKE for an M110 firing battery.Interesting. Is it possible, if Itasca was laying down smoke, that the smoke screened Howland from being seen by AE and FN? This is exactly the purpose behind military smoke screens in the first place.That's because you SEE the smoke and can't see the tank or troops on the other side of the smoke that you are SEEING.
If they saw the smoke then they would have known something better than the cold blue sea was at the end of the smoke trail and would not have simply ignored it.
I used to fire obscuring smoke rounds with my artillery pieces and when I was a tanker we had red phosphorous smoke grenade projectors that threw out six smoke grenades when you push the button on the ceiling of the turret to hide the tank in an instant cloud of smoke to throw off the guidance of an incoming ATGM (anti tank guided missiles.) But the smoke cloud itself is highly visible. The smoke grenade projectors are those big wart like objects with many holes mounted on each side of the turret in the attached photo. (BTW, the photo is reversed right to left.)
Here is a link to a naval smoke screen (http://www.bosamar.com/combat/escorts.html) being laid by two destroyers, ship not much larger than Itasca, can you see the smoke? Here's another one (http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h99000/h99864.jpg).
gl
I know what a smoke screen does and why. I used to lay smoke rounds with a mortar while in the infantry to obscure troop movements. However, as you point out, you see the smoke. I have no idea if this was the case and the idea is unprovable but AE and FN didn't find Howland but thought they were near. If FN did his job right, and no radio messages suggest they thought otherwise, then why didn't they see Howland? Maybe they didnt't understand what it was they were seeing. It's not called a smoke screen for nothing. Just an unprovable idea.
Not an absolute requirement, but it helped.
Gary
Chief of SMOKE?? Was that a prerequisite for Law School?
Just joshing , a little humour.
Actually, I am continually amazed at the depth of your knowledge and read all of your posts with interest.
Boy am I dense, I never saw the connection with the current discussion.
Gary
Thanks for tolerating my meager attempt at humour. You are indeed a Class Act.
Did you operate the FOUR-DEUCE? I ended up as CHIEF OF SMOKE for an M110 firing battery.
I have filed this motion to reopen this case based on newly discovered evidence that adds further support to my original evidence. Attached hereto, and incorporated herein by reference, is a true and correct copy of a telegram from George Palmer Putnam to Mr. Hill at the New York Herald Tribune dated June 29, 1937. This court is requested to take judicial notice, pursuant to Evidence Code section 452, that this document is maintained in the archives of Purdue University and is equally available to all parties on Purdue's website here (http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=1905&CISOBOX=1&REC=2).The problem with that explanation is that the "ARRANGE CREDIT IF TRIBUNE WISHES MORE STORY" radiogram arrived at 5:53 p.m. which I don't think anyone would describe as "ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT. Prior to 6:00 p.m. is normally called "afternoon" not "night" and certainly not "late night." The confirmatory telegram sent out later on the night of the 29th did refer to this radiogram but also to the "DISPATCH" that arrived later, "late night". They apparently arranged credit in response to the 5:53 p.m. telegram that allowed Earhart to send the "dispatch" later that day.
What is "obvious" to one may not be obvious to another.
Since that same telegram says "LAE DISPATCH ARRIVED LATE TONIGHT. THINK WE HAVE SOLVED CABLE CREDIT DIFFICULTY," it might be referring to the preceding telegram, address both to Putnam and the Tribune, which read, in part: "ARRANGE CREDIT IF TRIBUNE WISHES MORE STORY." The Tribune telegram might mean, "We received the telegram from Earhart that asked us to arrange credit for her." In other words, Putnam does not have to take any further action on that particular request made in the telegram that was sent to both parties.
Earhart sent only two "dispatches" to the newspaper, the one in dispute and the second one that was printed several days later. The confirmatory telegram referred to a "dispatch" sent by Earhart from Lae on June 30th, (Lae date and time.) The story printed in the Harold Tribune had the dateline "Lae, New Guinea, June 30th."
I rest my case.
gl
The answer to your question is "Yes" they did know smoke was being laid for them as confirmed by the attached radiogram sent on June 19, 1937 at 1340 Itasca time.QuoteRegarding which way to offset when starting the search pattern you would normally turn in the direction to take you to an area you haven't been through yet, if that is not the situation you normally offset into the wind, in this case to the east. But for Noonan, since they knew the wind was out of the east and they expected a smoke trail that would extend off to the west, it would be less likely that they missed to the west than that they missed to the east by overshooting the LOP because they would have had to have been much shorter of the LOP to miss the smoke, so they should offset to the west when returning to commence the modified square search pattern.
I see what you are saying. It would make a lot of sense to look for the smoke rather than the Island itself in this case. My question is did they know that a smoke trail was being laid for them or was that something the Itasca did on it's own? Had they used smoke from a boiler on other occasions? One interesting note I found looking over the logs was a reporter who stated that the smoke trail stretch out for miles and was "low on the water". This is very interesting because we can guess that the range of visibility to the smoke was not improved by the altitude of the smoke.
I have attached another chart showing two options for flying from the position reported in the 0718 Z radio transmission to Howland. Flying directly to Howland is 1,716 SM while over flying Nauru to Howland is 1,746 SM, only 30 SM longer, about 12 minutes more flying time, about eight gallons of gas.
The assumption you are making in your calculation is that after flying on the approximation of the great circle route to the 0718 Z position, Noonan then abandoned the preplanned flight segments and started from scratch to add time and distance to the route. Only if he decides to do so from 0718 Z does he "only" spend 12 minutes and 8 gallons of gas.
But he could have saved even more by flying directly to the Naura light from Lae.
He couldn't wait to decide the issue until he missed the Ontario and still have the fuel and time economy that you have calculated--nor the blessed assurance that he would be able to find Nauru as a way of finding where he was.
You're not talking about the natural variations from a flight path that happen all the time. You're talking about charting an entirely different course.
No reason not to have Ontario there since it gave Noonan a chance to "exercise" the RDF if Ontario was broadcasting, but it wasn't. So from that point they had to have some suspicion of their radio, if they didn't already, but they couldn't be sure if it was their radio or if the Ontario was at fault. Either way, they had no assurance that they could use the RDF to find Howland so this would make the celestial navigation "exercise" over Nauru even more important. This would have been a good point to turn around when they didn't hear Ontario since they were putting all of their eggs into one basket. (Well worth adding just a few extra miles to the flight, don't you think?)
I don't see any indication in the radio traffic that supports your contention that Noonan didn't want the Ontario on station around the mid-point of the flight. Quite the contrary.
From 8,000 feet the horizon is 117.8 SM away to which you add the distance the light can be seen at sea level for the 560 foot high light which is 31.2 SM making a total visible distance 149 SM.
The formula is 1.32 times the square root of the height. For 8,000 feet this equals 118.1 SM. Then you do the same for the height of the light, 560 feet which produces 31.2 SM. "Put 'em together and what have you got?" 149.3 SM.From 8,000 feet the horizon is 117.8 SM away to which you add the distance the light can be seen at sea level for the 560 foot high light which is 31.2 SM making a total visible distance 149 SM.
I believe the maximum distance that they could have seen the lights at 560ft from 8,000ft is 121 SM, but that is not really significant.
Earhart was taciturn based on the dearth of radio transmissions.
Your theory requires that they flew directly at Nauru from the 7:18 GMT report. If they did this wouldn't you expect more radio traffic between Nauru than a single report ("a ship ahead") at 10:30 GMT as they would have been in radio range of Nauru for an extended period of time?
This also negates any value of the flight plan that accounted for magnetic variances. I think that area is really neglected in the conversations about the significance of the flight plan and why you would want to stick to it.
No it doesn't. My point is that he would take a celestial observation over Nauru so that he could compare what he computed for his celestially derived position with the known correct answer, the location of Nauru, so he could make sure everything was working right.
This also negates FN's ability to take celestial observations. If he had this excellent track record of doing so, why would he need a land reference? As I recall the Ontario logged that the weather conditions were very good (40 mile visibility) and he should have easily been able to take readings.
Yes, it is just you.
Maybe it is just me but this would seem to be more the behavior of a navigator gone rouge, completely abandoning the flight plan and all the preparations that preceded it.
The formula is 1.32 times the square root of the height. For 8,000 feet this equals 118.1 SM. Then you do the same for the height of the light, 560 feet which produces 31.2 SM. "Put 'em together and what have you got?" 149.3 SM.
Earhart was taciturn based on the dearth of radio transmissions.
Applying magnetic variation is trivial and pilots and navigators do it all the time.
Noonan, to slavishly follow a strip chart drawn by a less qualified person for a different flight, a flight FROM Howland TO Lae?
Of course you can add the two distances together, in fact, you must. I posted excerpts from THE standard navigation text on this subject before and, for your convenience, I am attaching it again. This text explains how you compute the range of a light, taking into account the height of the light and the height of the observer. Take a moment to read it and look at the diagram at the bottom of the page. Take a look at my prior post (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,555.msg8186.html#msg8186).QuoteThe formula is 1.32 times the square root of the height. For 8,000 feet this equals 118.1 SM. Then you do the same for the height of the light, 560 feet which produces 31.2 SM. "Put 'em together and what have you got?" 149.3 SM.
You cannot just add the two together. Try again.
As I said, applying variation is trivial, and every student pilot masters this requirement prior to their first cross-country flight, usually within 20 hours of their first flying lesson, during which time the student has also spent a little bit of his time learning to fly the airplane too.Applying magnetic variation is trivial and pilots and navigators do it all the time.
If everything is trivial, why even create a flight plan? I suggest that it was not trivial and the fact they did not make it to Howland as proof.
Because he was hired as a navigator. This does not give him liberty to create a flight plan as he saw fit on a whim. If this were the case, I am sure that this would have been communicated in one form or another. I see no evidence that this was the case. The fact that they made it back to the flight line at 7:19 GMT contradicts this theory. If you took a match to the flight plan, there was no reason to head back to the flight line. If FN was so expert as to trash the flight plan, and head to Nauru, the heading from 5:19 GMT to 7:19 GMT makes no sense at all.
Interesting argument about diverting to Nauru. I don't buy it.Can you describe how Noonan's taking the normal celestial sights, that were already part of the plan, only this time taking some of those sights over a brightly lit island that they could find just by ("go to the light, Luke" ) following the lights in from 150 miles out, which provided a reliable visual checkpoint, provided compounded opportunties for error ?
Too much construct, too little motive for AE and FN to have done it when I look at the whole context. Why would FN drive extra complexity into the effort? As 'simple' as it is for the navigator making a pure case here, it also would drive many more opportunities into the flight for error.
Is that the sum of your point, Gary? That FN pressed an exercise into the flight which compounded opportunties for error - and that the pair finally got caught in that web somehow?
Although the 0718 Z position is on the direct line from Lae to Howland it is also on the line from the 0519 Z position over Choiseul to Nauru.
Interesting argument about diverting to Nauru. I don't buy it.Can you describe how Noonan's taking the normal celestial sights, that were already part of the plan, only this time taking some of those sights over a brightly lit island that they could find just by ("go to the light, Luke" ) following the lights in from 150 miles out, which provided a reliable visual checkpoint, provided compounded opportunties for error ?
Too much construct, too little motive for AE and FN to have done it when I look at the whole context. Why would FN drive extra complexity into the effort? As 'simple' as it is for the navigator making a pure case here, it also would drive many more opportunities into the flight for error.
Is that the sum of your point, Gary? That FN pressed an exercise into the flight which compounded opportunties for error - and that the pair finally got caught in that web somehow?
gl
"Thrash their night vision," I put that in the category of "grasping at straws." Have you ever flown over lights at night, say over a large city? Oh, I guess not, because if you had you would have "trashed your night vision", lost control of the plane and crashed and died and wouldn't be posting on the TIGHAR Forum. I'm still laughing about this one. :DInteresting argument about diverting to Nauru. I don't buy it.Can you describe how Noonan's taking the normal celestial sights, that were already part of the plan, only this time taking some of those sights over a brightly lit island that they could find just by ("go to the light, Luke" ) following the lights in from 150 miles out, which provided a reliable visual checkpoint, provided compounded opportunties for error ?
Too much construct, too little motive for AE and FN to have done it when I look at the whole context. Why would FN drive extra complexity into the effort? As 'simple' as it is for the navigator making a pure case here, it also would drive many more opportunities into the flight for error.
Is that the sum of your point, Gary? That FN pressed an exercise into the flight which compounded opportunties for error - and that the pair finally got caught in that web somehow?
gl
Yes -
Just as you seem to see that it somehow adds assurance, it also distinctly adds more variables than just following the lubber and verifying along the way with celestial - more heading changes, more points for AE to process, etc. There's also the not so minor point of needing to consider if one really wants to trash their night vision over the sea by approaching that flame of light at Nauru, like a moth - not to mention what it might do to FN's ability to take clear shots for some time. I believe you helped describe the mining lights yourself earlier - or if not, think about it. Not good.
Not that I think I need to defend the idea - I think it's more logical for someone floating these variation theories to put up strong reasons, not just possibilities, if they expect them to stand.
The problem with your theory is that none of the position reports from Earhart match any of Williams' meticulously computed by hand, using log/trig tables, positions on the great circle course from Lae to Howland, see attached. (I checked his work and his and my points are exactly the same except for one point where they differ by only one-tenth of a minute in latitude. It's lots easier to do with a calculator.)
I personally don't brlieve any position reports given by AE. I believe she was just reading positions off of the reciprocal Williams information for a particular time into the flight and presenting them as her position.
Doesn't anyone else find it curious that FN is never heard giving any position information? I do.
... you can't really attack Gary's hypothesis if he doesn't state it. ...
... you can't really attack Gary's hypothesis if he doesn't state it. ...
It's not at all hard to figure out.
He thinks that they did a box search for Howland, then splashed and sank.
The whole box searched has to be located to the west of Howland, though what its
north/south endpoints would be is an open question.
In brief, they came down nowhere near Niku.
He thinks that they did a box search for Howland, then splashed and sank. ...
In brief, they came down nowhere near Niku.
... but it needs to come from Gary to be more than someone guessing at it. If you are quoting a post from Gary then please post the link.
He thinks that they did a box search for Howland, then splashed and sank. ...
In brief, they came down nowhere near Niku.
That may be what you think Gary's theory is Marty,
Yes, that is what I think Gary's theory is.Quote... but it needs to come from Gary to be more than someone guessing at it. If you are quoting a post from Gary then please post the link.
If I had a single post, I would post the link.
I've been involved in the Forum since 2000. Gary has been involved since 2002. I'm pretty sure I've read everything he has written at least once. I've visited his website a few times. He has mentioned the grid search several times in this Forum in recent months. He doesn't think they came down at Howland, Baker, or Gardner. I don't think any of his renavigation puts them east of the 337-157 line through Howland, so that means to me that the search box was west.
He thinks that they did a box search for Howland, then splashed and sank. ...
In brief, they came down nowhere near Niku.
That may be what you think Gary's theory is Marty,
Yes, that is what I think Gary's theory is.Quote... but it needs to come from Gary to be more than someone guessing at it. If you are quoting a post from Gary then please post the link.
If I had a single post, I would post the link.
I've been involved in the Forum since 2000. Gary has been involved since 2002. I'm pretty sure I've read everything he has written at least once. I've visited his website a few times. He has mentioned the grid search several times in this Forum in recent months. He doesn't think they came down at Howland, Baker, or Gardner. I don't think any of his renavigation puts them east of the 337-157 line through Howland, so that means to me that the search box was west.
Shouldn't he say for himself what he believes rather than you and others guessing at what it is?
Shouldn't he say for himself what he believes rather than you and others guessing at what it is?
My impression is that he HAS said it.
I imagine that his final version will have more calculations in it, based on fuel considerations.
Start at the end and work backwards.
- At what time would they run out of fuel, all things considered?
- How big a rectangle could they search with that fuel after starting the search close to the 337/157 message?
- How close could that rectangle be to Howland?
Shouldn't he say for himself what he believes rather than you and others guessing at what it is?
My impression is that he HAS said it.
I imagine that his final version will have more calculations in it, based on fuel considerations.
Start at the end and work backwards.
- At what time would they run out of fuel, all things considered?
- How big a rectangle could they search with that fuel after starting the search close to the 337/157 message?
- How close could that rectangle be to Howland?
Shouldn't he say for himself what he believes rather than you and others guessing at what it is?
My impression is that he HAS said it.
I imagine that his final version will have more calculations in it, based on fuel considerations.
Start at the end and work backwards.
- At what time would they run out of fuel, all things considered?
- How big a rectangle could they search with that fuel after starting the search close to the 337/157 message?
- How close could that rectangle be to Howland?
Well, if he has said it, it's not that clear to me, but I haven't been following Gary for as many years as you. I guess I'm more piqued by what he said he'd provide.
I respect Gary's knowledge very much, but all the calculations can only carry you so far in figuring out what happened to the flight. I can understand the temptation - there is definitely a mathmatical finality to what finally happened to the flight - but the problem with discerning what it is means you would have to consider millions upon millions of tiny variables and permutations, and then discard the ones that don't work...
The closest we humans can probably get to that is something like the Monte Carlo analysis. Maybe that's what Gary has in mind. He didn't agree with much of the assumption used in the well-known one done for TIGHAR so maybe he'll do his own with inputs that suit his beliefs better.
But even the Monte Carlo is but one element in a comprehensive theory - there are so many other clues to be considered even after one gets the plane into whatever vicinity of Howland one thinks reasonable - and then it's 'what happened next' - in the face of stuff like 'we are on the line', the fact of lands to the SE, certain of the findings on Niku, to name a few.
Interesting. It would just be interesting to see all the bloviation on navigation actually take the discussion forward instead of in circles... the box search is growing kind of stale.
LTM -
I believe Marty replied that there are no links or posts that Marty can refer us to which states Gary's position. So this is Marty's impression of what he believes Gary is saying. His impression comes from reading Gary's posts and reviewing Gary's own website. Gary hasn't stated his position. This is why I think it important for Gary to clarify his position because he now has others giving their impression of it. This isn't good because we know that on this forum you can post a comment that is then interpreted, or misinterpreted, as fact or be misquoted. I'm sure Gary will want to clear this up before too many others start giving their impressions. Marty also stated that "I imagine that his final version will have more calculations in it, based on fuel considerations". So Marty imagines (thinks?) Gary will come forward with his final position. We just have to wait for it.
This has been available for years (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/discussions/debunking-tighar-s-theory).
https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,384.msg4114.html#msg4114 (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,384.msg4114.html#msg4114)
March 18, 2002 (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Forum/Forum_Archives/200203.txt)
The closest we humans can probably get to that is something like the Monte Carlo analysis.
Gave a position of 4.33oS, 159.7oE. This was the position either at or prior to 0718GMT.
Yep, and why no message, "we have abandoned our search for Howland and will now proceed towards the Phoenix islands?"
Why not more messages from AE to that effect? Why wouldn't the last heard message be something more like 'we are in a box search pattern...' instead of 'we are on the line...'? How does Gary arrive at the 'west of Howland' constraints Marty mentioned (with, understandably, at least the n - s end points still being in question)?
I have finally been able to decipher the Monte Carlo simulation printout, it was difficult since you can't read out the scale on the sides of the diagram. The key for figuring out what you are looking at is the "H" and the "B" in the two squares representing Howland and Baker. Based on the spacing of these two squares and the fact that these islands are about 36 NM apart makes it clear that each square represents 6 NM, one-tenth of a degree, and the scale appears to be in the form X.x° also confirming this.
I respect Gary's knowledge very much, but all the calculations can only carry you so far in figuring out what happened to the flight. I can understand the temptation - there is definitely a mathmatical finality to what finally happened to the flight - but the problem with discerning what it is means you would have to consider millions upon millions of tiny variables and permutations, and then discard the ones that don't work...
The closest we humans can probably get to that is something like the Monte Carlo analysis. Maybe that's what Gary has in mind. He didn't agree with much of the assumption used in the well-known one done for TIGHAR so maybe he'll do his own with inputs that suit his beliefs better.
LTM -
Yep, and why no message, "we have abandoned our search for Howland and will now proceed towards the Phoenix islands?"
Why not more messages from AE to that effect? Why wouldn't the last heard message be something more like 'we are in a box search pattern...' instead of 'we are on the line...'? How does Gary arrive at the 'west of Howland' constraints Marty mentioned (with, understandably, at least the n - s end points still being in question)?
Back to you.
gl
I have finally been able to decipher the Monte Carlo simulation printout, it was difficult since you can't read out the scale on the sides of the diagram. The key for figuring out what you are looking at is the "H" and the "B" in the two squares representing Howland and Baker. Based on the spacing of these two squares and the fact that these islands are about 36 NM apart makes it clear that each square represents 6 NM, one-tenth of a degree, and the scale appears to be in the form X.x° also confirming this.
I respect Gary's knowledge very much, but all the calculations can only carry you so far in figuring out what happened to the flight. I can understand the temptation - there is definitely a mathmatical finality to what finally happened to the flight - but the problem with discerning what it is means you would have to consider millions upon millions of tiny variables and permutations, and then discard the ones that don't work...
The closest we humans can probably get to that is something like the Monte Carlo analysis. Maybe that's what Gary has in mind. He didn't agree with much of the assumption used in the well-known one done for TIGHAR so maybe he'll do his own with inputs that suit his beliefs better.
LTM -
After examining the diagram, I now agree with TIGHAR, the Monte Carlo simulation produces the most accurate estimate of the position of the aircraft at 1912 Z. Of course this means that they couldn't have landed on Gardner. ....
gl
Why wouldn't the last heard message be something more like 'we are in a box search pattern...' instead of 'we are on the line...'? How does Gary arrive at the 'west of Howland' constraints Marty mentioned (with, understandably, at least the n - s end points still being in question)?Yep, and why no message, "we have abandoned our search for Howland and will now proceed towards the Phoenix islands?"
Back to you.
gl
Why not more messages from AE to that effect? Why wouldn't the last heard message be something more like 'we are in a box search pattern...' instead of 'we are on the line...'? How does Gary arrive at the 'west of Howland' constraints Marty mentioned (with, understandably, at least the n - s end points still being in question)?Yep, and why no message, "we have abandoned our search for Howland and will now proceed towards the Phoenix islands?"
Back to you.
gl
See information covered in the forum section "Radio Reflections". This question has been asked many times in the past and many possible answers given. In particular see http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,333.0.html. The 3105 donut theory and Lt Coopers report in particular. Links are in that section. Switching to her daytime frequency and all of the issues on that topic is one of the possible reasons for the silence. You have likely read this information before since you have been a member since 2002. Are you throwing up a smokescreen to cover the fact you still haven't presented your theory on what happened?
Hi Jeff. New ground is good. No question as that is how TIGHAR got involved in this in the first place. And the idea that a box search is the right thing isn't wrong either. Its not likely that AE and FN got to a spot on the map, looked down and said "Oops. Missed Howland so lets fly south right away." Isn't it likely that some type of informal search be made by AE and FN? Probably not as well thought out as Gary, the US Coast Guard, US Navy and AirForce would do but something at least. Not too long of course because you dont want to burn all of your fuel reserve looking and then crashing and sinking. Not when you know a set of islands lies to the south. The MC simulation calculates the possible points where the last transmaission was heard from. (If I got that wrong please correct me Jeff). but it gives some locations more weight than others. Like the lottery you can't write a software program that will calculate the winning numbers. You can give an indication what numbers "MAY" come up but thats all. Thats what the MC simulation is to me. Way better than a guess but its its still only a "simulation" based on variables.Could be done Irv, if it was waterproof of course :) I expect the last entry would read something like this "we're lost" ;D
But either way the MC simulation doesnt question why they missed Howland. Only where they "might" have been when they made the last radio transmission. They may have flown in an everwidening circle to search for Howland for 30 minutes or an hour after that. We dont know anything for a fact except they didnt land on Howland.
"If" its proven they landed and died on Gardner then you know for a "Fact" that they turned south to the Phoenix Islands group after missing Howland but not why they missed it. I don't think we will ever know that unless a castaway diary is uncovered. Give the guys in the ROV thread some more film and I am sure they will find the diary. Perhaps even read what it says to us.
I should have added "by using dead reckoning as Ric agrees was the only method they had to navigate to Gardner" making the complete statement: "Of course this means that they couldn't have landed on Gardner by using dead reckoning as Ric agrees was the only method they had to navigate to Gardner"After examining the diagram, I now agree with TIGHAR, the Monte Carlo simulation produces the most accurate estimate of the position of the aircraft at 1912 Z. Of course this means that they couldn't have landed on Gardner. ....
The closest we humans can probably get to that is something like the Monte Carlo analysis. Maybe that's what Gary has in mind. He didn't agree with much of the assumption used in the well-known one done for TIGHAR so maybe he'll do his own with inputs that suit his beliefs better.
LTM -
gl
Is this then your theory on what happened to AE and FN? "Of course this means that they couldn't have landed on Gardner.". Why " of course"? There are many possibilities as to what happened.
I have finally been able to decipher the Monte Carlo simulation printout, ... "H" and the "B" in the two squares representing Howland and Baker. Based on the spacing of these two squares and the fact that these islands are about 36 NM apart makes it clear that each square represents 6 NM, ...
I respect Gary's knowledge … all the calculations can only carry you so far in figuring out what happened to the flight. ...discard the ones that don't work...
The closest we humans can probably get … the Monte Carlo analysis. Maybe that's what Gary has in mind. He didn't agree with much of the assumption used in the well-known one done for TIGHAR so maybe he'll do his own …
LTM -
… I now agree with TIGHAR, the Monte Carlo simulation produces the most accurate estimate of the position of the aircraft at 1912 Z. Of course this means that they couldn't have landed on Gardner. ...I drew the 157° line through Howland that goes to Gardner but the simulation shows that they were unlikely to be closer than at a 55 SM offset from there with a higher probability …more than at a 100 SM offset. ... … very difficult for them to see the island.
gl
Then nothing from AE for another 43 minutes, despite numerous attempts by Itasca to raise her, this at 2013Z -
" TIMEBZ: 2013
LITERAL: KHAQQ TO ITASCA WE ARE ON THE LINE 157 337 WL REPT MSG WE WILL REPT THIS ON 6210 KCS WAIT,
3105/A3 S5 (?/KHAQQ XMISION WE ARE RUNNING ON N ES S LINE
TRANSLATION: EARHART TO ITASCA: WE ARE ON THE LINE 157 337. WE WILL REPEAT THIS MESSAGE WE WILL REPEAT
THIS ON 6210 KCS; WAIT; SIGNALS HEARD ON 3105 KHZ WITH VOICE AND SIGNAL STRENGTH 5… SOURCE: BELLARTS RECORD NO.: 851"
Besides, who else left all that stuff on Gardner?
LTM -
If FN was able to gain a more reliable position as the sun rose higher in that last 43 minutes to an hour of searching, then the direction of the search might logically have been improved – eastward. I believe that is likely, and that placement well could have improved toward the east by the time of the 2013Z call ('on the line') – and therefore closer to the LOP we think of as through Howland / Gardner vicinity.
If not, then we could well be stuck with a discouraging westward placement, as Gary suggests.
WE ARE RUNNING ON N ES S LINE or WE ARE RUNNING ON LINE N ES S sounds a whole lot more like a description of some sort of a search pattern than a statement that they are flying to the Phoenix Islands.
gl
If you can’t find Howland, and aren’t sure where you are, then you can’t “dead reckon” to the Phoenix group. If you know where you are with enough accuracy to be certain you’re near Howland, then why fly 300 miles (short of gas) towards the Phoenix group, when you know there’s a landing strip and ship and radios and people to help you nearby? Why wouldn’t you keep searching for Howland? That’s the argument against landing on Gardner.
Radio transmissions after they must have stopped flying indicate they were on land. That’s the argument against splash and sank.
Reconcile those conclusions for me, and I’ll tell you what I think happened. There is no requirement for me or Gary or anyone else to say “what I believe”. What’s wrong with “I don’t know”? The facts will hopefully tell us the eventual story of what happened, but they take a long time to find and sort out and verify, and we just don't have enough facts to draw a conclusion yet.
Other than the MC simulation, the logic behind we do not have access to, what evidence is there of falling short of Howland? Is there any? So far I have yet to see any compelling evidence that this is the case.
QuoteOther than the MC simulation, the logic behind we do not have access to, what evidence is there of falling short of Howland? Is there any? So far I have yet to see any compelling evidence that this is the case.
They didn't make it to Howland - that's pretty compelling.
Whether they fell short, overflew, or flew by we can still wonder. But it seems odd that they might have not only missed it themselves, but not been detected by those watching if they ever overshot or flew by within 10 miles or so anyway.
QuoteQuoteOther than the MC simulation, the logic behind we do not have access to, what evidence is there of falling short of Howland? Is there any? So far I have yet to see any compelling evidence that this is the case.
They didn't make it to Howland - that's pretty compelling.
Whether they fell short, overflew, or flew by we can still wonder. But it seems odd that they might have not only missed it themselves, but not been detected by those watching if they ever overshot or flew by within 10 miles or so anyway.
The fact that they did not make it does not translate in to they were short of the island. There are many other possibilities as well.
The way I see it, if they were in one of these green areas (see picture) they had a pretty good chance of finding Howland assuming that they had some clue where they were when they began an improvised search. On the other hand, if they really had no clue if they were North or South, short or long, they could have easily missed the island while searching.
For example let's say the were on the West edge of the box to the North and searched to the North on the first leg of their search. If they then traveled further West, they would have missed the island when searching South. The room for error was slim if they chose the wrong direction to search, North-South or East-West depending where they really were at 19:12 GMT.
If they were short of the yellow line, or long on the blue line, their odds of finding Howland get slim unless you were to get lucky in search.
The yellow line is about 48 SM West of Howland, the Blue is about 33 SM East of Howland. The large red circle is about 128 miles in diameter and would represent the DR error if they had not had a fix since the Ontario.
But if they knew they were on the LOP then they could just follow it to Howland which is much closer and that is where all the goodies are.If you can’t find Howland, and aren’t sure where you are, then you can’t “dead reckon” to the Phoenix group. If you know where you are with enough accuracy to be certain you’re near Howland, then why fly 300 miles (short of gas) towards the Phoenix group, when you know there’s a landing strip and ship and radios and people to help you nearby? Why wouldn’t you keep searching for Howland? That’s the argument against landing on Gardner.
Radio transmissions after they must have stopped flying indicate they were on land. That’s the argument against splash and sank.
Reconcile those conclusions for me, and I’ll tell you what I think happened. There is no requirement for me or Gary or anyone else to say “what I believe”. What’s wrong with “I don’t know”? The facts will hopefully tell us the eventual story of what happened, but they take a long time to find and sort out and verify, and we just don't have enough facts to draw a conclusion yet.
"If you can’t find Howland, and aren’t sure where you are, then you can’t “dead reckon” to the Phoenix group." -
Actually, yes you can - IF you are fortunate enough to be on a line of position (but not knowing how far north or south along that line you are).
I've said this many times before and people either don't get it or are purposefully avoiding dealing with this fly in the Gardner ointment. This time I will draw you a picture. Contrary to the "don't know how far north or south they are" argument, Noonan certainly did, just by dead reckoning, to a level that would keep them from flying down to Gardner. Even using the unrealistic assumption that they dead reckoned all the way from the Ontario, then the maximum expected D.R. error is 110 NM (128 SM), 10% of the 1100 NM from Ontario to Howland, so they would not have proceeded more than 110 NM south from the D.R. position of Howland before turning around and going back to the north, searching for Howland. However, it is much more likely that they got a fix around 1623 Z, or even later, making the maximum D.R. error only 46 NM, see Landfall procedure navigation to Howland Island. (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/discussions/navigation-to-howland-island) But the plane was not being flown by an automaton, Noonan knew how far they had flown since the last fix and would have allowed the appropriate offset for the intercept point on the sunline LOP. So, even if it was just dead reckoning all the way from the Ontario, then Noonan would have aimed 110 NM, at least, to the north-northwest of Howland which would ensure that they did not end up south of Howland at the point of intercept. They would then fly 220 NM south-southeast along the LOP looking for Howland so, worst case, if they missed the island and if they had been at the maximum D.R. error to the right point of interception, they would still not proceed more than 110 NM further to the south-southeast before turning back to the north to execute a search pattern. But what if there were actually a much larger error in the DR than expected, wouldn't they have ended up much further south? Well that brings in Baker, 38 NM south of Howland. In order to miss seeing both Howland and Baker, and with 20 NM visibility, they would have had to have been an additional 58 NM off to the right of the DR course in order to pass so far south of Baker so as to not be able to see it. This would be a total DR error of 168 NM, 15% of the distance flown from Ontario and 26% of the distance flown from a 1623 Z fix. It is highly unlikely to have such large DR errors. Based on the statistics of navigation, (appendix Q in the 1977 edition of the American Practical Navigator) there is only one chance in 370 of being 15% off course and only one chance in ten-million of being 26% off course! And, as is likely, if Noonan added an additional safety margin to his offset then missing both Howland and Baker is an even more remote possibility.
"If you know where you are with enough accuracy to be certain you’re near Howland, then why fly 300 miles (short of gas) towards the Phoenix group..." -
Because you may not 'know where you are' with regard to how far north or south you are from Howland. You may THINK you are south, so you fly north for a given search period; if that fails you turn back and hope you're actually north after all - but if you don't find Howland flying south, you eventually do find landfall.
If you are concerned with the lights interfering with Noonan's night vision making it more difficult to shoot stars then he could hunker down in the back on the plane and so shield his eyes from the lights while still allowing him to look upwards through the window and take star sights. If your concern is for Earhart's vision then she can do what we all do, close one eye until leaving the lighted area and she could also put the plane on auto-pilot since the auto-pilot didn't have any eyes to be bothered by the light."Thrash their night vision," I put that in the category of "grasping at straws." Have you ever flown over lights at night, say over a large city? Oh, I guess not, because if you had you would have "trashed your night vision", lost control of the plane and crashed and died and wouldn't be posting on the TIGHAR Forum. I'm still laughing about this one. :DInteresting argument about diverting to Nauru. I don't buy it.Can you describe how Noonan's taking the normal celestial sights, that were already part of the plan, only this time taking some of those sights over a brightly lit island that they could find just by ("go to the light, Luke" ) following the lights in from 150 miles out, which provided a reliable visual checkpoint, provided compounded opportunties for error ?
Too much construct, too little motive for AE and FN to have done it when I look at the whole context. Why would FN drive extra complexity into the effort? As 'simple' as it is for the navigator making a pure case here, it also would drive many more opportunities into the flight for error.
Is that the sum of your point, Gary? That FN pressed an exercise into the flight which compounded opportunties for error - and that the pair finally got caught in that web somehow?
gl
Yes -
Just as you seem to see that it somehow adds assurance, it also distinctly adds more variables than just following the lubber and verifying along the way with celestial - more heading changes, more points for AE to process, etc. There's also the not so minor point of needing to consider if one really wants to trash their night vision over the sea by approaching that flame of light at Nauru, like a moth - not to mention what it might do to FN's ability to take clear shots for some time. I believe you helped describe the mining lights yourself earlier - or if not, think about it. Not good.
Not that I think I need to defend the idea - I think it's more logical for someone floating these variation theories to put up strong reasons, not just possibilities, if they expect them to stand.
I did give good navigational reasons to confirm their position and their navigational methods and equipment by a slight deviation off the straight line (which they hadn't been following up to that point, anyway) adding only about 10 NM to the flight distance. To me, your counter-arguments seem contrived and not compelling, but YMMV ;)
Keep up the good work, I like these discussions.
gl
The word was 'trash' - and yes, I've flown at night - and navigated on the surface at night - and had my night vision 'trashed' by other vessels and landmarks, and have avoided it for good reason. The latter case is better. Crash and burn really wasn't the concern, so your comment is a bit highhat - although it's happened to some; I had more in mind ability to get clear shot of heavens, other lights that may appear on the ocean (I find your skepticism on spotting ships highly questionable, and a need to deviate toward Nauru weak), and AE being able to stay on the ball over a dark sea.
However, it is much more likely that they got a fix around 1623 Z, or even later, making the maximum D.R. error only 46 NM, see Landfall procedure navigation to Howland Island.
So, even if it was just dead reckoning all the way from the Ontario, then Noonan would have aimed 110 NM, at least, to the north-northwest of Howland which would ensure that they did not end up south of Howland at the point of intercept.
I did recall finding something on on the Internet and perhaps even the TIGHAR website about claims that AE was heard by the Nauru radio operator several times claiming she was seeing the lights of Nauru. This must have been discounted for some reason as it is not presented in the radio transmissions pages on this site.
All very good points above, Gary, thanks.I also remember going down the ICW in Texas (the "ditch" is pretty narrow) making "one toot" passes with barges and towboats at night. The "close one eye" technique sure pays off.
I don't disagree - those things can be done, and I never saw it as a fatal hazard (you can review my remark on it if you like). I just saw it as a reason to avoid from my experience. I've flown over cities and plenty of dark countryside at night, and some over the ocean. As to the ocean, most of that experience was on the surface - open dark sea at night - and sometimes inland as well. One of the worst things to encounter on the confined ICW along our coast in darkened regions is an oncoming barge being pushed by a tug with an intensely bright searchlight - far worse than I think NR16020 would have found over Nauru, for sure. The skipper always seems to enjoy washing your own vessel down with that light - and you can guess about what that does as you're trying to share the channel with a multi-hundred foot long barge.
As I have said in previous posts, there was nothing in the messages received to suggest they did not know where they were. Right up to and including the "we must be on you" message they transmitted as though they knew exactly where they were.
I did recall finding something on on the Internet and perhaps even the TIGHAR website about claims that AE was heard by the Nauru radio operator several times claiming she was seeing the lights of Nauru. This must have been discounted for some reason as it is not presented in the radio transmissions pages on this site.
I would be happy to add it to the page that I created and maintained--but not on your say so.
Source with link?
I found the source, it was the Waitt Institute. I am not suggesting adding it to any page if TIGHAR thinks that this is not credible. I knew that I had read this somewhere but could not recall the source. It is also given in their Re-Navigation Report.
http://searchforamelia.org/position-reporting (http://searchforamelia.org/position-reporting)
“A Ship in Sight Ahead”
AE reported seeing “…a ship in sight ahead…” at about 1030 GMT, according to Harold J. Barnes, officer in charge of the radio station at Nauru Island who copied Earhart’s message.(70)
I found the source, it was the Waitt Institute. I am not suggesting adding it to any page if TIGHAR thinks that this is not credible. I knew that I had read this somewhere but could not recall the source. It is also given in their Re-Navigation Report.
http://searchforamelia.org/position-reporting (http://searchforamelia.org/position-reporting)
“A Ship in Sight Ahead”
AE reported seeing “…a ship in sight ahead…” at about 1030 GMT, according to Harold J. Barnes, officer in charge of the radio station at Nauru Island who copied Earhart’s message.(70)
That is already in the Transmission Timeline (http://tighar.org/wiki/Transmissions_heard_from_NR16020), along with a link to an article with Ric's comments (http://tighar.org/wiki/Nightfall_to_Ship_In_Sight#.22Ship.22_vs._.22Lights.22_in_sight) on why he does not think the Cude letter (not a radio log) is a reliable souce.
Barnes was not on duty (http://tighar.org/wiki/Harold_John_Barnes) at the time the flight approached Nauru.
Maybe you didn't understand how flying over Nauru would allow checking his navigation and the accuracy of his octant. All celsetial navigation involves picking a position on the ground and calculating what altitude of a celestial body would be measured from that spot...
There are additional reasons to fly over Nauru. One is to determine the winds at their cruising altitude. You were trained to compute a wind correction angle using a wind vector diagram on your E6-B but few instructors teach the next computation, calculating the winds encountered in flight by using the same vector diagram... Using the Ontario for the visual checkpoint would not allow the same accuracy because of the uncertainty in the position of the ship.
Yet another reason why flying over Nauru was desirable is that it would provide an accurate starting point for the dead reckoning to Howland. The accuracy of dead reckoning can never be any better than the accuracy of the starting position...using the Ontario as a starting position has even more uncertainty than a celestial fix because Noonan could not know, for certain, the actual position of the ship. And, he had to be aware of the possibility of another ship being in the area...
Navigators are expected to use all information available to them for safely conducting the flight. In trans-oceanic navigation it is unusual to be able to take visual bearings on terrestrial landmarks but when they are available, navigators take advantage of them. I'll bet that any WW2 Air Force navigator that flew over the western Pacific would tell you the same thing, that he used every opportunity that presented itself to take a visual observation of islands to confirm and to improve his navigation.
So, compared to the slight cost of less than an additional 10 NM, it was well worth going over Nauru.
gl
...flying over Nauru would allow checking his navigation and the accuracy of his octant. All celsetial navigation involves picking a position on the ground and calculating what altitude of a celestial body would be measured from that spot..."
One [good reason] is to determine the winds at their cruising altitude.
...another reason why flying over Nauru was desirable is that it would provide an accurate starting point for the dead reckoning to Howland...
Navigators are expected to use all information available to them for safely conducting the flight. In trans-oceanic navigation it is unusual to be able to take visual bearings on terrestrial landmarks but when they are available, navigators take advantage of them. I'll bet that any WW2 Air Force navigator that flew over the western Pacific would tell you the same thing, that he used every opportunity that presented itself...
Maybe you didn't understand how flying over Nauru would allow checking his navigation and the accuracy of his octant. All celsetial navigation involves picking a position on the ground and calculating what altitude of a celestial body would be measured from that spot...
There are additional reasons to fly over Nauru. One is to determine the winds at their cruising altitude. You were trained to compute a wind correction angle using a wind vector diagram on your E6-B but few instructors teach the next computation, calculating the winds encountered in flight by using the same vector diagram... Using the Ontario for the visual checkpoint would not allow the same accuracy because of the uncertainty in the position of the ship.
Yet another reason why flying over Nauru was desirable is that it would provide an accurate starting point for the dead reckoning to Howland. The accuracy of dead reckoning can never be any better than the accuracy of the starting position...using the Ontario as a starting position has even more uncertainty than a celestial fix because Noonan could not know, for certain, the actual position of the ship. And, he had to be aware of the possibility of another ship being in the area...
Navigators are expected to use all information available to them for safely conducting the flight. In trans-oceanic navigation it is unusual to be able to take visual bearings on terrestrial landmarks but when they are available, navigators take advantage of them. I'll bet that any WW2 Air Force navigator that flew over the western Pacific would tell you the same thing, that he used every opportunity that presented itself to take a visual observation of islands to confirm and to improve his navigation.
So, compared to the slight cost of less than an additional 10 NM, it was well worth going over Nauru.
gl
I see your points - and these things are logical.
But -Quote...flying over Nauru would allow checking his navigation and the accuracy of his octant. All celsetial navigation involves picking a position on the ground and calculating what altitude of a celestial body would be measured from that spot..."
Shouldn't his octant have been OK after such a check at say, Lae, and perhaps again as the flight passed the Nikumanu Islands?
QuoteOne [good reason] is to determine the winds at their cruising altitude.
Wouldn't that have been possible as the flight passed the Nikumanu Islands?
Quote...another reason why flying over Nauru was desirable is that it would provide an accurate starting point for the dead reckoning to Howland...
I realize that Nauru would put them closer and therefore could reduce the potential error - good point, but again, wouldn't passage past Nikumanu have given confidence and a reliable 'starting' point for DR?
It was about a 400 NM flight so they could expect to hit their coast-in point within 40 NM, and most likely less. They were aiming for a large island so had the opportunity to correct their flight path when they made landfall. I suspect the compasses borrowed from the Navy were the aperiodic type that I have mentioned before.QuoteNavigators are expected to use all information available to them for safely conducting the flight. In trans-oceanic navigation it is unusual to be able to take visual bearings on terrestrial landmarks but when they are available, navigators take advantage of them. I'll bet that any WW2 Air Force navigator that flew over the western Pacific would tell you the same thing, that he used every opportunity that presented itself...
I don't doubt that - from beginning to end of flight ("DON'T STOP NAVIGATING"), but I also wonder how often they actually sent birds zig-zagging like that to do it. Given a healthy octant (maybe it wasn't by then - maybe FN dropped it and wanted to check it again, who knows) FN shouldn't have had so much concern at that point.
On the whole, I can see your points and while it works fine and there are some advantages, I just not compelled to buy that they did this. Anyway, if they did, I'm still not clear on what effect it would have had on the outcome - except to somewhat improve their chances by improving the tolerances for DR and giving one additional assurance that the octant was up to snuff.
I've learned alot from studying this. You remind me of a couple of great instructors I had over the years - stand-out guys who encouraged students to learn past the basics and put some good extras in their tool box - great stuff and it makes a difference, especially when things take a turn down sometime.
I just saw a taped interview of the surviving guys who shot down Yamamoto while I was visiting the Air Museum in Seattle. That flight of AAF P-38's DR'd hundreds of mile out over open water - dog-leg pattern to first avoid lanes and land, and then back in to intercept - with nothing more than a watch, strip charts and a borrowed nautical compass from the local Navy guys (I wondered what was wrong with the whiskeys - but I gather that borrowed compass was probably stabilized, etc.). Of course that's less distance, the P38's faster, and those guys were experienced night fighters, but it's still a heck of a feat done by pure DR over a lot of open water.
LTM -
...Contrary to the "don't know how far north or south they are" argument, Noonan certainly did, just by dead reckoning... ...the maximum expected D.R. error is 110 NM (128 SM) so they would not have proceeded more than 110 NM south from the D.R. position of Howland before ...going back to the north, searching for Howland.
...it is much more likely that they got a fix around 1623 Z, or even later, making the maximum D.R. error only 46 NM, see Landfall procedure navigation to Howland Island. (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/discussions/navigation-to-howland-island)
... Noonan knew how far they had flown since the last fix and would have allowed the appropriate offset for the intercept point on the sunline LOP. So, even if it was just dead reckoning all the way from the Ontario, then Noonan would have aimed 110 NM, at least, to the north-northwest of Howland which would ensure that they did not end up south of Howland at the point of intercept.[/i] They would then fly 220 NM south-southeast along the LOP looking for Howland so, worst case, if they missed the island and if they had been at the maximum D.R. error to the right point of interception, they would still not proceed more than 110 NM further to the south-southeast before turning back to the north to execute a search pattern.
...110 NM, at least, to thenorth-northwestSSE of Howland [/b] which would ensure that they did not end upsouthnorth of Howland at the point of intercept.[/i] They would then fly 220 NMsouth-southeastNNE along the LOP looking for Howland so, worst case, if they missed the island and if they had been at the maximum D.R. error to the right point of interception, they would still not proceed more than 110 NM further to thesouth-southeastNNE before turning back to the north to execute a search pattern.
[/b] But what if... a much larger error in the DR than expected, wouldn't they have ended up much further south? ...that brings in Baker, 38 NM south of Howland. In order to miss seeing both Howland and Baker, and with 20 NM visibility, they would have had to have been an additional 58 NM off to the right of the DR course in order to pass so far south of Baker so as to not be able to see it.
This would be a total DR error of 168 NM, 15% of the distance flown from Ontario and 26% of the distance flown from a 1623 Z fix. It is highly unlikely to have such large DR errors. Based on the statistics of navigation, (appendix Q in the 1977 edition of the American Practical Navigator) there is only one chance in 370 of being 15% off course and only one chance in ten-million of being 26% off course! And, as is likely, if Noonan added an additional safety margin to his offset then missing both Howland and Baker is an even more remote possibility.
Now, the second point. If the DR accuracy doesn't convince you then let's shoot the moon. I have pointed out many times that the moon was positioned to provide an LOP that would tell Noonan whether he was north or south of Howland and so would also prevent flying down to Gardner.
Looking at 1912 Z, the height of the moon was 74° 26' at Howland and its azimuth was 328° which produced an LOP running 058° -238° T. (We know that Noonan could take observations at least as high as 75° since he did so on the leg to Hawaii.) Using this LOP, Noonan would have known how far he was north or south along the 157° -337° sun line LOP. I have attached a chart showing a fix using the sun and the moon at 1912 Z. (I am not saying that they were at this fix position, this is just an example of a fix that Noonan could have obtained at 1912 Z.) So, looking at the moon LOP running from the lower left to the upper right, you can see that Noonan could have determined how far they were south of Howland and so would have let then know that they had to turn around to go back to the north to search for Howland.
The yellow moon LOP was calculated from an observation of the moon of 73° 22' placing the LOP, and the observer (Noonan) 64 NM south-southeast of Howland. The white sunline LOP was calculated from an observation of 17° 13' placing this LOP and Noonan 109 NM west-southwest of Howland. From the plotted example fix it is 153 NM on a course of 032° T to Howland. The weather conditions south of Howland were conducive to celestial observation of both the sun and the moon.
Sure, and I would bet money that Noonan did the same kind of sextant check while on the ground at Lae. But it would be a good thing to make another check as late as possible, just before beginning the last, most critical leg, since proceeding along the last leg, past the PNR, was an irrevocable decision. In addition to providing a check of the octant this also provided a check on the chronometer and the tables. He couldn't do the same at Nukumanu because the sun was too low to be observed with any level of accuracy.
One [good reason] is to determine the winds at their cruising altitude.
Wouldn't that have been possible as the flight passed the Nikumanu Islands?
Yes, and Noonan did. That is where they radioed to Lae that the wind was 23 knots most likely computed as a "wind between fixes" starting from a visual fix over Choiseul and ending with a visual fix at Nukumanu. This is why they, again, made a slight deviation, only five minutes of extra flying time, from the straight line from Choiseul to Nauru in order to get an accurate visual fix on Nukumanu to get an accurate wind.
...another reason why flying over Nauru was desirable is that it would provide an accurate starting point for the dead reckoning to Howland...
I realize that Nauru would put them closer and therefore could reduce the potential error - good point, but again, wouldn't passage past Nikumanu have given confidence and a reliable 'starting' point for DR?
It's 1492 NM ("Columbus sailed the ocean blue") from Nukumanu to Howland producing a DR uncertainty of 149 NM while it is only 993 NM from Nauru producing a DR uncertainty of only 99 NM, 50 NM less than from Nukumanu. But think about how this plays out in the end game, ...for 198 NM total to be certain that they had made a complete search. Increasing the DR uncertainty by 50 NM would then require searching along the LOP for 298 NM, an extra 100 NM. And that is if they used the offset, landfall, procedure (which I believe they did.) But, if they did the "straight in and then search both ways along the LOP" procedure, as Ric and others believe, then the extra uncertainty would add an additional 150 NM making it 447 NM total flying along the LOP instead of 297 NM if they had come from Nauru. Well worth the extra 5 minutes flying time to go over Nauru.
P-38's / Yamamoto...
It was about a 400 NM flight so they could expect to hit their coast-in point within 40 NM, and most likely less. They were aiming for a large island so had the opportunity to correct their flight path when they made landfall. I suspect the compasses borrowed from the Navy were the aperiodic type that I have mentioned before.
Simply an opinion
FN was probably inebriated after 2 nights/days partying with the guys at Lae. He prolly wasn't sober when he got on the plane for takeoff. He probably was asleep (or passed out) during the early stages of the flight (perhaps longer) and AE was on her own to fly, radio, navigate, etc.
AE's telegram citing "personnel unfitness" was her way of telling George what was happening and the Brine's letter more than hints at it.
He (FN) prolly had more than one bottle of his favorite liquid refreshmnt along in his kit and prolly took a nip or two or more along the way. Just an opinion.
Twenty eight years after Earhart, in planes carrying all the electronics that Uncle Sam's wallet could buy, B-52 navigators still used celestial navigation as the primary navigational method when flying over the Pacific from Guam to bomb Viet Nam. They still took the opportunity to check and update their navigation with fixes from terrestrial landmarks whenever they were available. I have a attached several pages from a book written by a B-52 "nav" to show that this was the case which lends further support to my position that Noonan would have taken advantage of Nauru to do the same.
Navigators are expected to use all information available to them for safely conducting the flight. In trans-oceanic navigation it is unusual to be able to take visual bearings on terrestrial landmarks but when they are available, navigators take advantage of them. I'll bet that any WW2 Air Force navigator that flew over the western Pacific would tell you the same thing, that he used every opportunity that presented itself to take a visual observation of islands to confirm and to improve his navigation.
So, compared to the slight cost of less than an additional 10 NM, it was well worth going over Nauru.
gl
This will make it easy:
I'd bet you are right about the P-38's - meant to go back and look at what you wrote about the aperiodic compass.
Thanks, Gary.
LTM -
Chater, Collopy and Balfour dispute that he was drinking the night before they took off.
Simply an opinion
FN was probably inebriated after 2 nights/days partying with the guys at Lae. He prolly wasn't sober when he got on the plane for takeoff. He probably was asleep (or passed out) during the early stages of the flight (perhaps longer) and AE was on her own to fly, radio, navigate, etc.
AE's telegram citing "personnel unfitness" was her way of telling George what was happening and the Brine's letter more than hints at it.
He (FN) prolly had more than one bottle of his favorite liquid refreshmnt along in his kit and prolly took a nip or two or more along the way. Just an opinion.
Yes, and Noonan did. That is where they radioed to Lae that the wind was 23 knots most likely computed as a "wind between fixes" starting from a visual fix over Choiseul and ending with a visual fix at Nukumanu. This is why they, again, made a slight deviation, only five minutes of extra flying time, from the straight line from Choiseul to Nauru in order to get an accurate visual fix on Nukumanu to get an accurate wind.
Did it look like this one (http://www.fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx?i=114221&y=201010)?Twenty eight years after Earhart, in planes carrying all the electronics that Uncle Sam's wallet could buy, B-52 navigators still used celestial navigation as the primary navigational method when flying over the Pacific from Guam to bomb Viet Nam. They still took the opportunity to check and update their navigation with fixes from terrestrial landmarks whenever they were available. I have a attached several pages from a book written by a B-52 "nav" to show that this was the case which lends further support to my position that Noonan would have taken advantage of Nauru to do the same.
Navigators are expected to use all information available to them for safely conducting the flight. In trans-oceanic navigation it is unusual to be able to take visual bearings on terrestrial landmarks but when they are available, navigators take advantage of them. I'll bet that any WW2 Air Force navigator that flew over the western Pacific would tell you the same thing, that he used every opportunity that presented itself to take a visual observation of islands to confirm and to improve his navigation.
So, compared to the slight cost of less than an additional 10 NM, it was well worth going over Nauru.
gl
gl
Gary,
I just toured 'SAM 970' (aka old B-707 "Air Force One", when the president was aboard) here in Seattle again. There is of course a fine specimen near you at the Reagan Library. I got a picture of the 'sextant socket' (as it was labled).
There was a dedicated navigation station in the cockpit and overhead in the aisle was an aperture with fixture in place. I'll send it or post it here as soon as can download (maybe tonight) - not very good quality because of the plexiglass all over everything in there - but interesting.
You've probably seen this before. Just thought it was pretty cool to see - and it's a reminder of where we were not so long ago, really.
LTM -
Chater, Collopy and Balfour dispute that he was drinking the night before they took off.
Simply an opinion
FN was probably inebriated after 2 nights/days partying ...
.... Just an opinion.
He looks pretty steady while helping Earhart to climb up on the wing in the takeoff video.
There are many alcoholics who manage to show up sober for work on Monday morning because their jobs depend on it. Not only did Noonan's job depend on his being sober when they departed Lae, his very life depended on it, powerful motivation.
gl
Gary,
I just toured 'SAM 970' (aka old B-707 "Air Force One", when the president was aboard) here in Seattle again. There is of course a fine specimen near you at the Reagan Library. I got a picture of the 'sextant socket' (as it was labled).
There was a dedicated navigation station in the cockpit and overhead in the aisle was an aperture with fixture in place. I'll send it or post it here as soon as can download (maybe tonight) - not very good quality because of the plexiglass all over everything in there - but interesting.
You've probably seen this before. Just thought it was pretty cool to see - and it's a reminder of where we were not so long ago, really.
LTM -
Did it look like this one (http://www.fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx?i=114221&y=201010)?
gl
The mount is in the center of the picture, thse are permanently installed in the overhead. On the right is the Kollsman periscopic sextant, and it is stored in the case on the left. As you come up the stairs and enter the flight deck of a C-130, on your left you will see the bracket that holds the case. Reagan's plane, SAM 27000, is at the Reagan Library and it also has the sextant mount in the overhead in the cockpit. This is the same setup used in B-52s, KC-135s, and many other Air Force planes.
Gary,
I just toured 'SAM 970' (aka old B-707 "Air Force One", when the president was aboard) here in Seattle again. There is of course a fine specimen near you at the Reagan Library. I got a picture of the 'sextant socket' (as it was labled).
There was a dedicated navigation station in the cockpit and overhead in the aisle was an aperture with fixture in place. I'll send it or post it here as soon as can download (maybe tonight) - not very good quality because of the plexiglass all over everything in there - but interesting.
You've probably seen this before. Just thought it was pretty cool to see - and it's a reminder of where we were not so long ago, really.
LTM -
Did it look like this one (http://www.fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx?i=114221&y=201010)?
gl
Very much so! Without some of the stuff - I think only the 'upper' part was there (maybe what they meant by 'socket') - I take it the lower part stows when not in use.
LTM -
I had read the Hooven report before and I just re-read it. Hooven wrote:
You know, too bad FN didn't have more windows, at least - Hooven goes pretty hard on AE in his report (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Hooven_Report/HoovenReport.html): FN crammed in back with small windows, etc., and she insisted on having all RDF controls up front with her - clear to Hooven that she wouldn't allow a man to do that part for her. He also notes that she was a poor student at the RDF familiarization - poor interest. Sounds like took a lot for granted.
I wonder how accurate Hooven's observations were about AE's motives and habits on that front? She was fiercly independent supposedly. But some of his remarks seem harsher than warranted too - I don't think the African coast mis-fall was as he described (seems somebody sorted that out differently later), etc. And of course he saw the Japanese kidnapping as the best reason why they weren't found on Gardner, too...
LTM -
See attached from 1944 U.S. Army Air Corps manual.
Navigators are expected to use all information available to them for safely conducting the flight. In trans-oceanic navigation it is unusual to be able to take visual bearings on terrestrial landmarks but when they are available, navigators take advantage of them. I'll bet that any WW2 Air Force navigator that flew over the western Pacific would tell you the same thing, that he used every opportunity that presented itself to take a visual observation of islands to confirm and to improve his navigation.
So, compared to the slight cost of less than an additional 10 NM, it was well worth going over Nauru.
gl
See attached from 1944 U.S. Army Air Corps manual.
Navigators are expected to use all information available to them for safely conducting the flight. In trans-oceanic navigation it is unusual to be able to take visual bearings on terrestrial landmarks but when they are available, navigators take advantage of them. I'll bet that any WW2 Air Force navigator that flew over the western Pacific would tell you the same thing, that he used every opportunity that presented itself to take a visual observation of islands to confirm and to improve his navigation.
So, compared to the slight cost of less than an additional 10 NM, it was well worth going over Nauru.
gl
gl
This is what Gore Vidal said on a recent TV show:I wonder when Gore Vidal first started telling this story. If he told it in the '30s people would have been familiar with the state of communications of the era, including the extremely high cost of telephone calls and the sparsity of overseas phone links, so the story would not have been accepted at that time. If Vidal waited until the '70s, then the state of '30s communications would have been forgotten and he could have gotten away with telling a made up story. Also waiting until after George Putnam had died (1950) and after his father had died (1969), those who could dispute his story were gone. It is fairly common for people to try to insert themselves into famous events, it brings some sense of fame to themselves and this is a possible explanation for Gore Vidal to make up a story like this.
As to its meaning to the case at-hand, I think it's been noted that the Vidal sidebar was a 'third hand' discussion (if that's the root of the need to understand the state of communications between mainland U.S. and Lae in 1937, etc.). Maybe one day Gore Vidal himself can shed more light as a living link of sorts, or maybe not.
LTM -
So, does anyone know when Gore Vidal first started telling the story about the impossible phone call from Lae to Putnam?
gl
Just how do you think a drift indicator works?
John
What you post is correct and many have said similar things in the past. What I can't understand is the failure to mention the fact that AE/FN had an autopilot and a drift indicator on the plane. Certainly AE would have set the autopilot to maintain her heading (I assume it was slaved to the directional gyro) and checked periodically with her two compasses and the directional gyro to assure that she was "on course". That's standard practice on a plane with autopilot. If ya drift one way or the other, the drift indicator would show that and the aurtopilot would be correcting, that's what they do.
That's what makes a great circle, the true course changes as you cross meridians. For an exercise, use Google Earth to plot a course from Los Angles to London and see the change. A rhumb line course maintains a constant course for the whole flight so you can just add 180 degrees to reverse course. The rhumb line from Lae to Howland is only one-tenth of a nautical mile longer than the great circle and the two are so close together that no navigator could tell the difference prior to GPS.
What gives?
Thanks.
Update - I found this note on a great circle calculator page: "If you need a BACK BEARING from the distant site back to home do the calculation again, you can't just add 180 deg. The reason for this is that lines of longitude are not parallel to one another, particularly towards the north and south pole. The errors are small however near the equator and over short distances."
Did you have one on your plane? Maybe you could figure out to build one that did that, nobody else could. Read these manuals f (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/topics/measureing-and-determining-wind-speed-and-direction-while-in-flight)or the answer to your question.
Gary
My thought re Drift Indicator is that it displays any deviation from the desired course set on the autopilot/DG from say, wind component.
I would be pleased if you would enlighten me, as I am sure you are amply capable of doing. Thanks in advance.
Ok, the next question...Where did you find that number ? Both William's strip map and flight plane give the initial course from Howland to Lae as 257° exactly.
GE calculates a heading of 257.7 from Howland to Lae. The original flight plan shows 257°3' (257.05).
The difference between the two is then 0.65 degrees. While this seems like an insignificant error in the heading, over 2556SM miles, this could lead to a 29SM error over the distance traveled.
Am I missing something?
Another question I have is whether the reversed flight plan suffer from this same small error? Was this perhaps due to tiny errors in trig tables or navigation tables of the day?
Thanks.
Where did you find that number ? Both William's strip map and flight plane give the initial course from Howland to Lae as 257° exactly.
O.K. I see where you got that number. Nobody can fly headings any better than a few degrees which is why the table only shows the courses in whole degrees. I have checked Williams computations of the great circle course and intermediate points and only one of the intermediate points differed by one-tenth of a nautical mile from my calculation done with a calculator, which is amazingly good work on William's part using trig tables. Of course, it was a lot of wasted time since the rhumb line was indistinguishable from the great circle and is a lot less work to compute.QuoteWhere did you find that number ? Both William's strip map and flight plane give the initial course from Howland to Lae as 257° exactly.
It is on the original flight plan, not the strip chart. See attached. See the TC (True Course) at the lower right of the left pane.
While I have not worked with tables for trig functions or navigation tables, I think that is something that I need to study to understand how errors and rounding (perhaps excessive) that maybe have entered in to the data and flight plan. I have always had the luxury of calculators and computers so I have never had to go back to work with slide rulers and trig tables.
Someone told me recently about errors in trig tables that were not discovered until the 60s and were used as references in both engineering and navigation. I Google'd around a bit but did not find anything on the topic.
Gary
Thanks for that info
Appears that "drift indicator" wasn't as simple as a dial with a needle to show drift from an intended heading(course). Bummer.
I assume however that AE would compare her two compasses and the D/G periodically to be sure that the autopilot was holding the set heading. I understand that the desired course/heading would change to stay on Williams' great circle plan.
It is beyond me why anyone would fly a 16 segment great circle route instead of the rhumb line just to save what 10 nm (11.5 statute miles) in 2222 nm (2556 statute miles) ? Boggles the mind
Gary
My thought re Drift Indicator is that it displays any deviation from the desired course set on the autopilot/DG from say, wind component.
I would be pleased if you would enlighten me, as I am sure you are amply capable of doing. Thanks in advance.
Don't know if it has ever been mentioned before but, has the possibility that they overshot Howland island ever been considered?
I have checked Williams computations of the great circle course and intermediate points and only one of the intermediate points differed by one-tenth of a nautical mile from my calculation done with a calculator, which is amazingly good work on William's part using trig tables.
Heath, you did enter the date of the flight didn't you? Just checking.
No, only one-tenth of a statute mile (0.1 SM).
Gary
Thanks for that info
Appears that "drift indicator" wasn't as simple as a dial with a needle to show drift from an intended heading(course). Bummer.
I assume however that AE would compare her two compasses and the D/G periodically to be sure that the autopilot was holding the set heading. I understand that the desired course/heading would change to stay on Williams' great circle plan.
It is beyond me why anyone would fly a 16 segment great circle route instead of the rhumb line just to save what 10 nm (11.5 statute miles) in 2222 nm (2556 statute miles) ? Boggles the mind
Consider the possibility that FN actually used the original flight plan that was incorrect. I am not 100% sure but I believe that the return trip that was laid out has a true course of 77.07 degrees (257.07 - 180 = 77.07). It seems like a simple enough mistake that could have been made and not caught unless you re-worked the flight plan to verify it. As proof I would ask how many people have looked at this flight plan and not found this simple error previously? I did not spot it after looking at it on a spread sheet for a while.First, keep in mind that there is no proof that Noonan used William's plans since Noonan was a more experienced flight navigator than Williams was and most likely did his own computations, not trusting the work of others. I know I would have in his position and I have always done my own computations in the past, I don't rely on anybody else for this type of work.
This would place you at about 106SM North of Howland at 9:12GMT if you were right on the bogus flight line.
You are comparing the variation used by Williams which he got from looking at isogonic lines printed on whatever chart he was using for reference. These are only marked in whole degrees and every navigator knows that these lines are approximate and that variation changes over time. You then compare those with the predictions based on a model of the magnetic field of the earth, these were not measured values, and these predictions are not guaranteed to be accurate. You are going way beyond what the data supports with your computations.QuoteHeath, you did enter the date of the flight didn't you? Just checking.
Yes, sure did. Here are variations for the flight starting at Howland and working all the way to Lae using the coordinates on the strip chart.
9.4833 <- At Howland
9.4833
...
5.4833 <-- At Late
Because Williams just subtracted 180 incorrectly, the variation data is almost meaningless as the magnetic headings are bogus.
You are comparing the variation used by Williams which he got from looking at isogonic lines printed on whatever chart he was using for reference. These are only marked in whole degrees and every navigator knows that these lines are approximate and that variation changes over time. You then compare those with the predictions based on a model of the magnetic field of the earth, these were not measured values, and these predictions are not guaranteed to be accurate. You are going way beyond what the data supports with your computations.
What mistake are you complaining about?
Of course you cannot dead reckon for 2556 SM and expect to find a small island since the uncertainty at that point is 256 SM, that is why Noonan was along to obtain fixes along the way. If he couldn't get fixes they could have turned around, as they had planned to do on the abortive Hawaii to Howland flight, prior to the point of no return and tried again another day.
The variations were critical to establishing the flight plan. As I stated before, I believe that these values are too crude for such an attempt over water where being off by a degree or two over just 1,000 miles could put you out of visual range of such a tiny target as Howland. For most purposes the degree of accuracy was probably fine. My opinion is that flying over such distances over water it was not fine. Variations are important in that if you are unable to obtain a fix to your flight line, and you are using DR, the error in the variations will have a cumulative effect. In this case, an unacceptably high error can accumulate.
As to the point about the strip chart, if you simply subtract 180 from your magnetic headings in the opposite direction, this implies that you are subtracting 180 degrees from your true course heading on the return trip. Is that correct or no? You seem to suggest that this is perfectly valid, I do not believe this is the case.
The numbers that you are looking at are not the great circle courses but the rhumb lines to the next intermediate point.
While you posted that the initial leg from Lae would have a 079.4° true, I believe that Williams assumed a true course of 77.05 that was 180 degrees from the true course to Lae, 257.05. That is why the magnetic heading is 73, which is 253-180. Is that not what is written on the chart for the return flight? Are you saying that this is correct?
The numbers that you are looking at are not the great circle courses but the rhumb lines to the next intermediate point.
Yes, when you reverse each rhumb line segment between the great circle points they are 180 degrees different.QuoteThe numbers that you are looking at are not the great circle courses but the rhumb lines to the next intermediate point.
What I see are the magnetic headings from the flight plan toward Lae which are on the other flight plan document verbatim. What I see on the strip chart is the 180 subtraction of the magnetic headings for those instructions. Why list the magnetic headings for the return path if that was not a plan? I see arrows indicating the direction of travel. I think it is clear he made a mistake.
So you are saying that this is correct?
I still don't know where you are getting your 77.05 from. Look an the strip chart and it shows the initial magnetic course from Lae to Howland is 073° which incorporates the variation of 6° east so the initial true course is 079°. Where I come from, 79 is not the same as 77.05° and is not the reciprocal of 257.05°
Well, I can only say that I believe that you cannot follow the 180 degree reverse instructions for the previously stated reasons.
Since you do not see any issue with this, I would suspect that FN might not have seen the issue either.
I believe that if you consider not the headings, only the 180 degrees reversal of the true course you will see the problem.
Plot a true course of 77.05 in Google Earth from Lae toward Howland and tell me where that lands you.
Are you going to say that this was a mistake yet or no?
See attached.
Clarence,
I am simply looking at the MC values on the return course. They are 180 degrees out from the corresponding segments used for approach.
I am not reading the 259 in the margin, I did not even see that. I will take a look after work.
Are you suggesting also that the MC value of 73 on the first leg from Lae to Howland is correct?
Simple, just back out the variation for each leg and you will find the true course for the rhumb line for that segment of the approximate great circle. The magnetic course shown on the table, line 15, for the first segment from Lae to Howland is 073° the reciprocal of the listed course from Howland to Lae for that segment. Now add the 6° of easterly magnetic variation for that location and you find 079° T.
If you simply subtract 180 degrees from the magnetic course, as shown on the chart for each segment on the return plan from Lae to Howland, this infers/implies/requires that you are subtracting 180 degrees from the true course, do you agree with that statement or no? If not, I would like to understand where you are coming from.
Where are you pulling the 79 from? I know where 79.65 degrees ends up. I am looking only at the MC values on the chart.
Here is the flight plan from Howland to Lae and then from Lae to Howland with two variations, one with a true course of 77.0 degrees, and one with a true course of 79 degrees.I have attached three marked up Williams documents that should make clear how the courses are calculated. I only illustrated the first and last segments. Segment 1 is the first segment for the Howland to Lae direction but the last segment for the reverse direction. Segment 15 is the last segment for the Howland to Lae direction but the first segment for the reverse direction and this is the one that you seem to be confused about.
Regardless of the variation values that he has written in the margins that do not match his true course and magnetic course values, I believe the magnetic variations listed are correct for the magnetic course and the true course he has given.
If you compare the strip chart magnetic course values, they are exactly as given in the table with a 77.0 true course which is simply his true course from Howland to Lae 257 minus 180 degrees which is not correct.
If you plug in a true course of 79 degrees (the correct true course), applying the magnetic variations from the Howland to Lae plan you see a different set of values. For example, the first leg from Lae to Howland would have a magnetic course heading of 75 not 73 as listed on the strip chart (73 MC degrees --------> that way).
Gary and Clarence,
Maybe I am confused about what Google Earth is producing when I draw a line from Lae to Howland and Howland to Lae. Google Earth reports 257.69 degrees from Howland to Lae. I am assuming this is the true course which Williams stated as 257°3' which is 257.05 in decimal that are very close (257.69 - 257.05 = 0.65 degrees). I used 257 in the spreadsheet to keep it simple. Likewise if you draw a course from Lae to Howland, this is 79.65 degrees. For simplicity I used 79 in the spread sheet. I was not attempting to use the true course from the first segment on the Lae to Howland flight but I can see how you thought that was the case. Are you saying that the true course from Lae to Howland is not 79.65 degrees? If this is not the case, I would like to know how to obtain the correct value. From the great circle calculators I have found, they all seem to agree with this value.
As I said in my prior post, Williams did not compute the rhumb line from Lae to Howland, the 078.1° is what I computed. You can see that the initial great circle is 1.3 degrees to the south of that and the final great circle course is half a degree to the north of that which is why it is curved to the south of the rhumb line, convex to the south pole.
I did see what Williams had given for the magnetic variations outside of Lae on the strip chart at 6° and assumed that those value are incorrect as it does not jive with the true course and magnetic course. I also assume that you can just subtract the true course from the magnetic course to the variation that he used in his calculations, not what is given at the top of the strip chart. This was the case for the first 5 or 6 segments in the plan from Howland to Lae then the numbers started to deviate. Is this suggesting that the true course was changing? If you look at the spreadsheet (pdf) you can see that I applied the same magnetic variations in all cases.
I will need to study this more because what you suggested Clarence is that they did not fly on a straight line, and the true course varied with time. My assumption is that the true course never changes, only the magnetic variation is changing. Is this correct that you are saying that the true course did indeed vary as they went along?
Gary, I do not understand where you are obtaining the 258.1° and 078.1° for the rhumb line. Can you tell me how you obtained these value from the Williams flight plan or strip chart? These seem to be the TC values given by Williams with 1 added to one value and subtracted from the other (257°3' + 1, 79°3' - 1).
Thanks.
Clarence,There is a limit at to how precisely you can compute these things and you cannot fly them anywhere close to the level that you can compute them. Considering the accuracy of the starting and finishing points, only to the nearest one nautical mile (and we know the Howland coordinates used by Williams were off by about five NM) it is silly to try to compute these things to the level that you are trying to do. Just because your calculator displays ten decimal points does not justify using them all. Same with the numbers spit out by Google Earth. On a 2500 SM flight, doing the computations to a precision of whole degrees (as Williams tabulates) allows approximately a 40 SM error at the end and to this you have to add in the uncertainty due to the accuracy of the variation data he used. ("Rule of 60," one degree error puts you off course one mile for every 60 miles flown. This is the rule of thumb used by pilots and navigators. A more precise value is one mile off course for every 57.298688 miles flown, but "one-in sixty" is close enough.)
I re-worked the data and used the magnetic variation data on the strip chart as you suggested. Executing the flight plan as given from Lae to Howland, at the end of the line, this would be a point about 19SM North of Howland. This still seems like a pretty crude flight plan if this is correct. Using the NOAA NGDC model data would only put you 3SM closer to Howland.
I am not sure if you use Google Earth but I have attached the executed flight plan both from Howland to Lae and Lae to Howland inside of a .kml file.
Thanks.
On a 2500 SM flight, doing the computations to a precision of whole degrees (as williams allows approximately a 40 SM error at the end and to this you have to add in the uncertainty due to the accuracy of the variation data he used.
I see you have a basic misunderstanding. Plotted on a standard chart, a Mercator projection, the strait line between points, a true course that does not change direction, is called a "rhumb line" and it crosses all intermediate meridians at the same angle so the course stays constant.
You may be putting wholes into the Google Earth application, but I'll guarantee you it doesn't calculate by wholes as it tracks the globe, even if it 'answers' with wholes. Plus, have you compared the island's and Lae's positions (lat - long) on Google compared to the charts of 1937? Could be some slight differences; forgive that if you have / if there are not, just a thought.
The reason I believe Gary makes a big deal about precision is there is no way to work that on the charts on table top or especially in a moving plane, and there is no way that human (or autoflight) can track headings with an airplane anywhere close to what you can get out of a calculator. It's a matter of what's practical.
We all do that when dealing with programming a computer. When I wrote programs to do navigational calculations I often ran into a "division by zero" type of error message caused by a trig function for that angle being zero. This occurred because the human entering the data uses whole numbers. For example if you enter the latitude of two places that are at the same latitude, the direction is 90 degrees and the sine of 90 is zero so using this value is a subsequent calculation produces that error message. The easy solution was to write a loop that tested for this situation and if it occurred have the computer add 0.00000001 to the latitude of the second location so that it wasn't exactly 90 degrees and this kludge has no real effect on the results and made the computer happy.
As for the precision stuff, I am of a completely different mind set. When you write software for a living, you cannot possibly consider and re-consider the practical precision for each calculation that you perform. You would go mad if you attempted to do so. For example, the following constant is used for Pi:
const double PI = 3.14159265359;
This is pretty unisveral in software development. You run your calculations using this value and you do not consider the precision of the particular task in the real world that is being performed, you use the theoretical value.
Or use 355/113ths which produces Pi accurate to six decimal places, 3.1415929 versus 3.1415926 for Pi. It is easy to remember, 11-33-55, split in half between the two "3"s, and slide the first half under the second half and divide.
Heath
Two things
1. I learned in grade school that the answer cannot be more precise than the number of decimal places in the least known of the numbers being used. For example, to use PI to 11 decimal places in calculating a circumference when the diameter is only known to 1 decimal place is nonsense and a waste of time (no matter whether you are using a slide rule, a calculator, or a Cray supercomputer). Use 22/7 ths and you'll be close enough.
The point in discussing the rhumb Line versus the Great Circle isn't the ease of navigation on paper, it is the ease of flying a constant heading versus flying a route of 16 segments and changing headings for each one. Either one will get you there in aout the same time (given the flying speed is the same). Which would you rather fly?
We all do that when dealing with programming a computer. When I wrote programs to do navigational calculations I often ran into a "division by zero" type of error message caused by a trig function for that angle being zero. .....
As for the precision stuff, I am of a completely different mind set. When you write software for a living, you cannot possibly consider and re-consider the practical precision for each calculation that you perform. You would go mad if you attempted to do so. For example, the following constant is used for Pi:
const double PI = 3.14159265359;
This is pretty unisveral in software development. You run your calculations using this value and you do not consider the precision of the particular task in the real world that is being performed, you use the theoretical value.
gl
:)Here is a source for you to learn about (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/)flight navigation as practiced in 1937.
sorry guys my comment was typed wrong, it sounded ok as i spoke it.
but reviewing it now it's a bit disrespectful to you's that spend the time doing all this research so sorry
what i meant was maybe researching navigation methods pre 1937 we may!! or i may understand better how it works
being from a non pilot, flying, sea faring, background i tend to just look at obvious stuff
:)Here is a source for you to learn about (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/)flight navigation as practiced in 1937.
sorry guys my comment was typed wrong, it sounded ok as i spoke it.
but reviewing it now it's a bit disrespectful to you's that spend the time doing all this research so sorry
what i meant was maybe researching navigation methods pre 1937 we may!! or i may understand better how it works
being from a non pilot, flying, sea faring, background i tend to just look at obvious stuff
gl
I'll risk some thread drift to ask a ...... No one was looking out a window for some periods of time, and both of them may have been quite busy with their own duties. At 150 mph, how many seconds was the island in sight? (yeah, I know it's a rhetorical question)
I'll risk some thread drift to ask a seemingly simple question - where was Fred sitting during the 19:12 and 19:28 transmissions?
Was the best place to sit to help look for Howland the copilot's seat? It's also a decent place to get a sun shot. OTOH, it's a bad place to handle charts and perform unplanned calculations - those are easier to do in back. You also can't determine drift from a front seat, if that was important at the moment.
I've seen no indication that the back seat had a radio headset, so Fred couldn't help Amelia with the radio nav or com if he was in back. That would require Amelia to concentrate on the radio instead of looking out the window, meaning Fred was in back with no view ahead, and no direct knowledge of what Amelia was hearing (or not hearing), and may have been busy with his charts and calculations. No one was looking out a window for some periods of time, and both of them may have been quite busy with their own duties. At 150 mph, how many seconds was the island in sight? (yeah, I know it's a rhetorical question)
How far away to you think you can hear a round aircraft engine and the propeller noise? I had lunch today at Camarillo airport and I watched an AT-6 taxi out and take off. This plane has exactly the same engine as Earhart's plane. I was sitting outside and I could see the plane take off and depart to the west. It started its takeoff roll 2500 feet from where I was sitting. I never heard a thing.I'll risk some thread drift to ask a ...... No one was looking out a window for some periods of time, and both of them may have been quite busy with their own duties. At 150 mph, how many seconds was the island in sight? (yeah, I know it's a rhetorical question)
Although no one on Howland or Itasca reports hearing an aircraft there is a possibility that AE and FN were close but just couldn't make out Howland as an island. No vegetation, elevation of 18 feet. A few huts. Clouds, large flocks of birds. You're point might be right John.
There is no evidence to suggest that Earhart’s intended route from Lae to Howland Island was anything but the reciprocal of the original plan. The magnetic variation along the route varies from 6 to 9 degrees East from Lae to Howland.4 Independent verification of magnetic variations during this time period indicate no errors on the part of Clarence Williams. Earhart would begin her flight steering a 73° magnetic (80°True) course, changing over to 68° magnetic (78°True).
Magnetic variation information is not found in the Nautical Almanac nor in the Air Almanac as these books provide information about the positions of celestial bodies. Also, the Air Almanac was not published until several years after the Earhart flight.
There is also the statement about independent verification of the magnetic variation data used by Williams. Can anyone point me to the source material that was used to verify this data? Would this have came from the U.S. Hydrographic Office or the U.K. Hydrographic Dept that was producing the Air Almanac?
An air courier service makes a daily stop at the airport where I work (Grant County, MWH), on their way from Missoula to Seattle. They fly an old Beechcraft B18, which has 2 radial engines (I'm not sure which ones this particular aircraft have - likely P&W R-985's which are smaller and likely less noisey than Amelia's engines). On a still day I can hear them on final approach at a distance of about less than 10 miles. If there is any wind noise at all, they're virtually silent on approach.I'm curious how you estimated the distance of 10 miles. Do me a favor, the next time you watch the Twin Beech take off start you stop watch and time it until you can't hear it anymore. You climb a Twin Beech at about 120 so are you sure that you can hear it for a full five minutes? According to Google Earth I live 11.3 SM from Camarillo airport, which is quite busy and I don't hear any planes in the pattern over there. It is also quite common to have T-6s fly directly over my house, often in formations of several planes, and I don't hear them until they are near. I always go outside when I hear them, I love the sound of round engines. I also plan to do the same experiment, I will start my stop watch-----------------while I was typing this I heard one coming, I went outside, watched it pass over and timed it until I couldn't hear it any longer, 44 seconds. Figure about 1.8 SM at 150 mph.
A minor but important quibble. The uncertainty in celestial fixes is 10 NM (11.5 SM) and very few fixes fall beyond 10 NM from the actual position. The uncertainty of any one LOP is 7 NM or else you could not achieve 10 NM fix accuracy. You can thank Pythagoras for this.
Update - After thinking on it a bit, does it really matter if they flew a GC or rhumb line flight plan? The celestial navigation accuracy is limited to about 15SM, so does it really matter? Perhaps this is splitting hairs? The only real difference is the number of computations to get you back to the flight line if and when errors are detected. Formulas for both exist and were probably available to FN as well.
You spend a lot of time worrying about variation, did you ever wonder how the variation was determined in the first place so that it could be displayed on charts? Actually it is pretty simple, you compute what the true azimuth of the sun is and then measure, with an accurate compass, the magnetic azimuth to the sun and the difference is the variation at that point. Of course, in order to be able to compute the true azimuth of the sun you have to know where you are and in order to get a valid compass reading you must not be near any large metal objects since they distort the earth's magnetic field and give erroneous magnetic compass readings. Then after you get your readings you just connect the points of equal variation and draw in the isogonic lines. To be away from large metal objects you must be standing on dirt, not on the deck of a steel ship. Now you might have noticed that there are not very many spots with dry dirt in the pacific so it is not possible to get many of the variation readings so it is unlikely that you get many with exactly the same variation. So, when you draw in the isogonic lines you end up using a lot if imagination because variation does not necessarily change smoothly between the data points.
There is also the statement about independent verification of the magnetic variation data used by Williams. Can anyone point me to the source material that was used to verify this data? Would this have came from the U.S. Hydrographic Office or the U.K. Hydrographic Dept that was producing the Air Almanac?
I was on the patio, 2500 feet from the end of the runway where the takeoff roll started and the wind was blowing from the west, basically from the airplane to me.
Of course there are factors that affect what you can hear. Gary, was your lunch inside a restaurant or outside? What way was the wind blowing? How close was the runway?
But my point is that you put way to much effort into your computations as they relate to variation, which can not be perfectly known at sea.
Let's say, that when you drive to the airport to catch a flight it usually takes you about one hour to get there but a couple of times it has taken you as long as two hours when traffic was bad. You have to catch a 3 p.m. flight tomorrow to go for a job interview in Chicago for a job that will pay $200,000 a year if you get it. What time will you leave for the airport tomorrow? I'll bet you won't wait to leave your house until 2 p.m. allowing only the usual one hour to get to the airport since you might run into traffic tomorrow and you can't afford to miss that flight. You probably won't wait until 1 p.m. either since tomorrow might be the day to set a new record for a traffic delay so you might actually leave at noon to allow even extra time to get to the airport because of the importance of catching the flight.
I did read a snippet from a book where FN said that 10NM was an implied error. I thought that I had recently read another one of his writings that said that a 15NM error was implied. I will try to dig that up after work today. To run with the rhumb line example for a moment, if you have an assumed error of 11.5SM, and you were directly on a flight line that terminated 15SM North of Howland, does that not imply that a celestial fix cannot tell you if you were 3.5SM or 26.5SM away from your target? Maybe I am missing the meaning of "implied" error. I took this to mean a maximum accuracy.
Here is a letter Noonan sent to Weems saying that 10 miles is the average accuracy.
I should have not used the term maximum but rather average as you suggest. With an average error window of +/- 10NM to 15NM, with an offset of 15SM from Howland, it is understandable why they missed Howland. After everything I have looked at I believe they were very close and not short at the end of the flight.
Here is a letter Noonan sent to Weems saying that 10 miles is the average accuracy.
I should have not used the term maximum but rather average as you suggest. With an average error window of +/- 10NM to 15NM, with an offset of 15SM from Howland, it is understandable why they missed Howland. After everything I have looked at I believe they were very close and not short at the end of the flight.
gl
Timing audibility of a twin Beech - The B18 began its takeoff roll at a distance of a little more than 2 miles from where I was standing to the North of runway 22. From first visible motion until I could no longer hear the engines at all was 2 minutes, 51 seconds. At 120 mph, that's a distance travelled of only 5.7 miles, made even shorter by virtue of taking off somewhat towards me, then turning and departing the vicinity nearly straight away from my position. My previous eyeball estimate method would have assumed it was about 10 miles away when I could no longer hear it or see it, but now I believe it was less than 5 miles. It was very hard to make out against the scattered cloud layer with the naked eye.That seems more reasonable regarding hearing the round engines. It is hard to spot airplanes in flight. I took the deposition of an FAA visibility expert witness, in a mid-air case, who testified that airplanes are rarely spotted at more than one mile. And this will scare you pilots out there, I forced him to admit, all under oath, that a pilot, using the FAA's recommended technique for scanning for traffic, would be unlikely to see an incoming plane prior to the mid-air collision. An incoming plane, closing at 120 knots, would only be visible for 30 seconds from the time it came within the one mile visibility range until the collision. The recommended scanning procedure calls for stopping the gaze for several seconds at spots every 10°. So if you looked out past the right wingtip and then made about 18 stops for three seconds each as you shifted your gaze from the right wingtip, past the nose, and on to the left wingtip scanning a total of 180°, it would take about a minute before you could again look for that incoming collision threat out by the right wingtip that had not been close enough to be seen the last time you looked that way. So you all be careful out there now.
Ambient noise level was relatively low at the time - no other traffic, very light wind, some light industrial noises in the distance. Weather cold (below freezing), scattered clouds at a couple thousand feet AGL, early morning light (<0800). Under the conditions I experienced this morning, a Lockheed Electra flying 5+ miles from my location at 1000 feet would have been impossible for me to spot by unaided eye, or hear be ear.
I just try to be accurate and the 10 mile number is consistent with the standard flight navigation texts and the Federal Aviation Regulations that I referred you to and with my own experience. And it does make a difference in trying to figure out their actions near Howland. Adding 5 NM to the uncertainty, which is a radius around the fix, increases the diameter of the uncertainty circle by 10 NM making the distance needed to search along the LOP 10 NM longer if they used the landfall procedure and adding 15 NM if they didn't.Here is a letter Noonan sent to Weems saying that 10 miles is the average accuracy.
I should have not used the term maximum but rather average as you suggest. With an average error window of +/- 10NM to 15NM, with an offset of 15SM from Howland, it is understandable why they missed Howland. After everything I have looked at I believe they were very close and not short at the end of the flight.
gl
I am not sure that it really matters but wasn't this discussion about the same round trip from Hawaii to California? It would appear that FN certainly said 10 to 15NM in his Pan Am memo. Perhaps he later changed it the phrase when writing Weems who later wrote a book and included Fred's writing or perhaps Weems just edited the book as he saw fit. In any case, I think this is splitting hairs, 10 or 15NM should not change anything.
It is my opinion that FN , after the 1623 GCT, (0423 AM Howland, 0453 AM Itasca) "fix"(400 SM?out), diverted to the offset, landfall, method and altered his course to intercept the 157/337 LOP at about 67 SM (1/2 hour at 134mph)NNW of Howland (or SSE). Then he would have known to turn to starboard(or port)and fly to Howland. In other words, he covered the potential fix and DR error so that he would know which way to turn when they reached the LOP.
it says Earhart's flight path took her 20 miles south of Arorae can that be right ?
have just been reading this on purdue, but if u read down
it says Earhart's flight path took her 20 miles south of Arorae can that be right ?
as its 137 miles from the Lae to Howland flight path, to Arorae Island
or have i made a mistake ?
(http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cgi-bin/getimage.exe?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=3112&DMWIDTH=750&DMHEIGHT=1600&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&REC=1&DMTHUMB=0&DMROTATE=0&DMSCALE=12.5)
http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=3119&REC=15
The standard navigation technique is to start a new DR plot from each new fix. In flight navigation you also plot the DR position brought forward from the prior fix for the same time as the new fix and the difference from the DR to the new fix tells you what the wind is so that you can correct for it. Here is a link to an example (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/other-flight-navigation-information/in-flight-celestial-navigation) of how this is all done. We can also see from Noonan's Hawaii flight chart that he used this standard method.
So using your previous example that the last fix was obtained at 16:23GMT (roughly 400NM out). If FN assumed a 15NM error when the fix was obtained, if he was within the average error margin would he have simply ignored any difference between the fix and his calculated DR position or would he always use this new fix and assume the DR calculation was incorrect?
Assuming that his last fix could at 16:23GMT could have potentially had an error of 15NM, do you then add this value to the DR error around Howland (10% of 400 = 40NM) so that you have a total potential error of 55NM?
For the sake of argument let's say he did find a substantial error at 16:32GMT, say 30NM South of the line at 400NM out would he have computed a correction back to the flight line or would he have just computed a new flight line to Howland? When do you switch over from making your way back to a flight line and computing a new course to your destination?
I just posted an intersting article from Williams on this thread (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,607.msg10910.html#msg10910).I don't know where he came up with an eight degree wind correction angle. The plane was cruising at 150 mph and the inbound course to Howland is 078° true and with a wind from ENE at 24 mph the wind correction angle was only 1.6 ° left so the true heading of the plane would have been 076.4° (call it 076°.) With the wind out of the ESE then the wind correction angle would have been 5.2° (call it just 5°) right and the true heading would have been 083°. Neither of these winds would have caused Noonan to use an 8° wind correction angle.
He basically suggests that a wind correction angle that is not adjusted for a no-wind condition, could put them 180 miles south of Howland.
"If the fliers allowed for a drift of eight degrees, and if the wind died down - so that this correction was not needed at all - they might have gone as far as 180 miles to the south of Howland island."
No because the wind correction angle varies with the angle between the course and the wind direction and this angle will change after you change your heading to head towards Howland.
I understand what you mean about there being nothing magic about the original flight line but it seems that there are two modes that you would be in during a flight, one to get back to a flight line if you are making small adjustments for ease of computation and another if you are close enough to compute a new flight line without much effort.
I had read an article on the net about how to correct course after obtaining a fix and also adjusting for head winds where you perform a couple of calculations to determine the angle back to the flight line then use another angle once on the line to deal with the future expected effect of the head wind given how far you were off the line initially. Would they be using a similar technique during the night as they approached Howland?
It seems that when you compute a new flight line you would not be including this offset angle that attempts to compensate for the head winds. Could you just use the head wind offset angle that you had computed previously for your new course?
Thanks.
Here are the course correction methods that I had mentioned earlier.The method of doubling the drift angle that is shown in the link that you posted is something that we teach student pilots for cross-country navigation by "pilotage" over dry land. This is an approximate solution but works well for getting the student back onto the course line that he drew on his chart. Following the original line drawn on the chart is important for navigation by "pilotage" because the pilot marks visual checkpoints (towns, road junctions, lakes, rivers, railroad tracks, etc.) along that line, measures the distance between them, fills out a planning log with these distances and the estimated time en-route between the checkpoints. In flight the pilot then records the times between the checkpoints to calculate his ground speed so he can figure the time remaining to the destination and decide if he still has sufficient fuel to make it. If a pilot gets too far away from his course line with the planned visual landmarks it is more likely that he will then not recognize features he sees on the ground and then wander even farther off course. You don't use visual check points when flying over the ocean because all the waves look alike. Over the ocean you calculate the wind you have encountered between the fixes or by use of a driftmeter and then use that computed wind to figure the heading that should keep you on the new course line from the latest fix directly to the destination. If you review Noonan's chart for the California to Hawaii flight you will see that this is the method he used.
What if for example that at around 16:23GMT FN was able to obtain a fix and then used this double-track method to compensate for the head wind and after the track was recovered they would have needed to make the following adjustment:
"When the original track is recovered, the correcting heading must be adjusted: take the heading that produced the drift error, plus or minus the original drift angle".
As they progressed from Lae, the winds where ESE until the Ontario then ENE to Howland. This being the case it seems reasonable that they would have discovered this changing head wind direction by taking a fix that would have told them how far off the line they had drifted and FN would then calculate the drift angle and plot a course correction.
Perhaps they might have doubled the drift angle to get back on course and due to their exhaustion from such a long flight might have forgotten to adjust their heading once the flight track was recovered. If this were the case, they might have ended up North of Howland but within the DR error of 55NM.
See attachment.
To give a more concrete example, lets say that at 14:45GMT FN had a fix. 220SM later at 16:23GMT another fix was obtained and a 15SM error was detected. The drift angle would be about 4 degrees. If they doubled this angle over the next 220 miles, and did not make a correction at the end of the 220 miles, they would have ended up about 30SM North of Howland at about 440SM from where they started the original correction.
I just posted an intersting article from Williams on this thread (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,607.msg10910.html#msg10910).I don't know where he came up with an eight degree wind correction angle. The plane was cruising at 150 mph and the inbound course to Howland is 078° true and with a wind from ENE at 24 mph the wind correction angle was only 1.6 ° left so the true heading of the plane would have been 076.4° (call it 076°.) With the wind out of the ESE then the wind correction angle would have been 5.2° (call it just 5°) right and the true heading would have been 083°. Neither of these winds would have caused Noonan to use an 8° wind correction angle.
He basically suggests that a wind correction angle that is not adjusted for a no-wind condition, could put them 180 miles south of Howland.
"If the fliers allowed for a drift of eight degrees, and if the wind died down - so that this correction was not needed at all - they might have gone as far as 180 miles to the south of Howland island."
gl
Oh, you mean Williams made the mistake.I don't know where he came up with an eight degree wind correction angle. The plane was cruising at 150 mph and the inbound course to Howland is 078° true and with a wind from ENE at 24 mph the wind correction angle was only 1.6 ° left so the true heading of the plane would have been 076.4° (call it 076°.) With the wind out of the ESE then the wind correction angle would have been 5.2° (call it just 5°) right and the true heading would have been 083°. Neither of these winds would have caused Noonan to use an 8° wind correction angle.
gl
Unless he made a mistake, or calculated the winds incorrectly.
Oh, you mean Williams made the mistake.I don't know where he came up with an eight degree wind correction angle. The plane was cruising at 150 mph and the inbound course to Howland is 078° true and with a wind from ENE at 24 mph the wind correction angle was only 1.6 ° left so the true heading of the plane would have been 076.4° (call it 076°.) With the wind out of the ESE then the wind correction angle would have been 5.2° (call it just 5°) right and the true heading would have been 083°. Neither of these winds would have caused Noonan to use an 8° wind correction angle.
gl
Unless he made a mistake, or calculated the winds incorrectly.
gl
Yep, that is why you would not just use dead reckoning for this flight but would need a navigator to keep the plane on course. Every time you get a new fix it cures any existing error that has crept in the D.R. position since the last fix and replaces it with a fixed uncertainty of a 10 NM circle surrounding the plotted new fix. And when using the sun line landfall approach, any accumulated uncertainty in the D.R. collapses into a line 14 NM thick (7 NM uncertainty on each side of the plotted LOP) with the line being as long as twice the reasonable maximum uncertainty in the DR at that point.
Given just the assumed error, one can easily see that they could end up 15NM+ off target. Given that the winds were from the ENE, it would also be reasonable that they were compensating for those winds and accidentally under or over compensated for those winds. A couple of 15NM errors and you are out of visual range which is what must have happened. If they were accurately tracking speed, this would place them at certain positions North or South of Howland.
And when using the sun line landfall approach, any accumulated uncertainty in the D.R. collapses into a line 14 NM thick (7 NM uncertainty on each side of the plotted LOP) with the line being as long as twice the reasonable maximum uncertainty in the DR at that point.
A picture is worth a thousand words.QuoteAnd when using the sun line landfall approach, any accumulated uncertainty in the D.R. collapses into a line 14 NM thick (7 NM uncertainty on each side of the plotted LOP) with the line being as long as twice the reasonable maximum uncertainty in the DR at that point.
I understand what you are saying but I do not understand how the accumulated uncertainty collapses. For example, lets say they were 400NM out when they obtained their last fix, how does 40NM collapse to 14NM along the line? I would suspect a total possible DR error with a radius of 54NM and I do not see how this is reduced to a 14NM strip.
Now you have me confused. You wrote, "unless he made a mistake." The he who talked about an eight degree wind correction angle was Williams, not Noonan and not Earhart.Oh, you mean Williams made the mistake.
gl
Or even AE. Afterall, she had the controls.
O.K., I see you came in late. I am not "suggesting" that Noonan observed the sun and derived the LOP, I have been saying that clearly for many years as has everybody else who has studied the navigation. See what I posted here (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/discussions/navigation-to-howland-island)for a more complete explanation. And see standard navigation references available here (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/topics/landfall-procedure). Just where did you think the 157-337 line came from?
Gary,
I believe that I understand everything that you had posted with the exception of determining the LOP. Are you suggesting that the LOP is determined with a celestial (solar) fix? What if there is no way to obtain a fix for the LOP, are you not back to the DR radius of 50NM?
Thanks.
The only way that they could identify being on the 157/337 line is that they got at least one, and probably several, observations of the sun in the vicinity of Howland.
I assume that it was an advanced line of position pre-plotted on a chart and nothing else since they were no where near Howland at sunrise at Howland. Perhaps that was the plan before they diverted around the storm outside of Lae but it did not turn out that way. In my opinion, being on the 157/337 line at 20:13GMT suggests that they could not obtain a fix but since they were already on that line they just continued their search.
I have pointed this out before, there was no sunrise observation, Noonan observed the sun more than a half hour after sunrise, see my fuller explanation here. (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/discussions/the-myth-of-the-sunrise-lop)
I assume that it was an advanced line of position pre-plotted on a chart and nothing else since they were no where near Howland at sunrise at Howland. Perhaps that was the plan before they diverted around the storm outside of Lae but it did not turn out that way. In my opinion, being on the 157/337 line at 20:13GMT suggests that they could not obtain a fix but since they were already on that line they just continued their search.
The only way that they could identify being on the 157/337 line is that they got at least one, and probably several, observations of the sun in the vicinity of Howland.
The band of uncertainty is 14 NM thick centered on the LOP so the maximum error should not exceed 7 NM and should be less most of the time. If they had the correct coordinates for Howland then they should have passed within 7 NM of the island. If they were aiming for the Williams coordinates, about 5 NM west of Howland, then they should have passed within 7 NM of that point meaning that it was limited to 12 NM west of Howland to 2 NM east of Howland. I am suggesting that something went wrong possibly a malfunction of the octant.Quote from: Gary LaPookThe only way that they could identify being on the 157/337 line is that they got at least one, and probably several, observations of the sun in the vicinity of Howland.
If that were true, given the error of 14NM, Howland would have been impossible to miss. Are you suggesting that passed within 14NM and failed to see Howland?
I would suggest that they were simply following a magnetic heading.
The line was pre-plotted and was good as another other heading to search along.Why did they choose such an odd number to pre-plot for the approach to the island, in your theory? The LOP defined by the sunline running 157° - 337° true is better than any other course line since he could take additional observations to ensure staying on this line.
The way the established the line was to fly straight in at Howland. When they did not find it,
they circled then followed the 157/337 line North and South. I would suggest that they then performed a creeping line search where the 157/337 lines comprised the long parallel lines in the search.
As I stated before, I do not believe they were any where near the 157/337 line (North or South of Howland) at the moment of sunrise at Howland.
The 157° - 337° was a true course not a magnetic heading.
Why did they choose such an odd number to pre-plot for the approach to the island, in your theory? The LOP defined by the sunline running 157° - 337° true is better than any other course line since he could take additional observations to ensure staying on this line.
How would they know that they had reached the location of Howland and so know that it was time to start searching?
Of course not! Sunrise at Howland was at 1745 Z which is the same time that Earhart radioed "200 miles out."
My opinion is that the intent was to arrive in the area earlier than they had, possibly with a Northern intercept as was suggested however that appears not to have happened. As you have pointed out on your page, the 157/337 line is only perpendicular to the Sun's azimuth at sunrise. FN had probably pre-established this line of position on his map and that was the intent but it did not work out that way probably due to the delay of bypassing the storm outside of Lae that cost them over an hour of time.
How would they know that they had reached the location of Howland and so know that it was time to start searching?So they determined when they should be at Howland solely by dead reckoning. The problem with this is the uncertainty in the DR position after flying the leg since the last fix. We have been using as an example that they had a fix at 1623 Z and flew about 400 miles after that so the DR uncertainty, including the 10 NM uncertainty in the original fix, is 50 miles, not nearly accurate enough to find the island which is why getting a sun observation was so critical.Quote from: Heath Smith
They tracked their speed since the last known fix and when the ETA was zero that is when they were on the mic stating "we must be on you". I believe the intent was to fly straight in and use the DF to guide them in. When they realized that was not going to happen they circled until they came up with the search strategy.
Of course not! Sunrise at Howland was at 1745 Z which is the same time that Earhart radioed "200 miles out."
Precisely why I believe it was a pre-planned line of position and nothing more. Why travel that line to take further observations? It would depend on the time that you arrived if you wanted to be perpendicular to the solar azimuth at the time of your new fix and that is not what they did. Again, I think it is evident that they never established a new fix while in the vicinity of Howland. The only thing that the sunrise could tell them was that they were on track longitudinally when they were 200NM out at 10,000ft at 17:47GMT.
That is possible that they ended up north of Howland but I they were flying south east towards Gardner then they would have flown into the clear area around and south of Howland which would have allowd them the opportunity to shoot the sun and to shoot the moon, establish a fix, and go back to look for Howland, their planned destination where there was runway to land on.
If they ended up North of Howland, it was cloudy there. They were probably at 1,000ft and would not be above the cloud layer to take further observations. If the sun were obscured by clouds or a higher cloud layer toward the East there may have been no opportunity to shoot the sun or anything else.
That is possible that they ended up north of Howland but I they were flying south east towards Gardner then they would have flown into the clear area around and south of Howland...
It doesn't matter if they knew or didn't know that it was clear around Howland because they can't get to Gardner without passing through this clear area where they would be able to take sights and find Howland. According to Itasca it was clear for a considerable distance to the north so sights were available even to the north of Howland. As to the cloudy area to the north, clouds that appear quite solid from the side and from a distance may be well spread out and allowing celestial observations even in the cloudy area seen by Itasca.Quote from: Gary LaPookThat is possible that they ended up north of Howland but I they were flying south east towards Gardner then they would have flown into the clear area around and south of Howland...
That is assuming that they could see that it was clear to the South. Had they gone North and found themselves in cloudy conditions they might not have known it was clear as the Itasca had observed. Exactly how far North they could have been, well, as you pointed out before, that could have been up to 55NM where the estimate was that the visibility was no more than 20NM North of Howland.
But they can't get to Gardner without passing through the clear area where they would be able to take sights and find Howland. According to Itasca it was clear for a considerable distance to the north so sights were available even to the north of Howland. As to the cloudy area to the north, clouds that appear quite solid from the side and from a distance may be well spread out and allowing celestial observations even in the cloudy area seen by Itasca.
Quote from: Gary LaPookBut they can't get to Gardner without passing through the clear area where they would be able to take sights and find Howland. According to Itasca it was clear for a considerable distance to the north so sights were available even to the north of Howland. As to the cloudy area to the north, clouds that appear quite solid from the side and from a distance may be well spread out and allowing celestial observations even in the cloudy area seen by Itasca.
Considerable distance sounds rather subjective, I will need to re-read the reports of the clouds that day. I do recall that to the North-West and to the North it was cloudy.
I would also assume to the North-East it was cloudy as well since the winds were out of the East.
They reported partly cloudy at 16:23GMT at about 400NM out. It is quite possible they flew in to denser clouds as they approach from the North and we never able to obtain a new fix nor able to see a clearing to the South.
How far out of whack would the octant have to be for them to miss Howland, only about one-quarter of a degree which would make all the observations produce LOPs that are in error by 15 NM. Add the 7 NM uncertainty in normal observation and the plane could pass 22 NM by Howland and not be close enough to see the island. If the octant had a real big error then Noonan should have discovered it because his prior fixes would have been well away from the DR position, significantly more than the expected 10% difference. Flying a standard search pattern would have solved this problem. Remember, Dolittle's plane was lost due to a dropped octant which, on examination by the navigator prior to takeoff, didn't show any apparent damage. It's too bad Noonan didn't take my advice and fly over Nauru to confirm the accuracy of his octant on the way to Howland.
If they did obtain the fix, creating a how could they have missed Howland, again? Given your earlier estimations the area of uncertainty would have to be tiny and impossible to miss. Are you suggesting that they ran out of gas as they approached this tiny area of uncertainty?
If the octant was that far out of whack, how did they make it so close to Howland in the first place?
The 1937 Search The Lexington Search (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Lexingtonsearch.html)And by the same logic, you must also be claiming that the Itasca had some way to determine that the clouds extended all the way out to 230 NM from the Itasca. How do you think they determined that?
Since the Itasca suggested that the most likely location was 337 to 45 true out to 230NM, this would suggest that is where the cloud bank was located. This would be a line to the North-West and the North-East, so it was likely that it was cloudy to the North-East although this was not mentioned specifically.
This may not be the thread to pose this question....if not...my apologies. AND if this has been discussed.....my apologies again. Every flight has an alternate destination.Not every flight has an alternate. Even in airline flying, the most conservative type of flying, you can make a flight to an island destination that does not have a geographically available alternate as long as you have a three hour reserve of fuel if the plane has propellers and only a two hour reserve if it is a jet.
Timing audibility of a twin Beech - The B18 began its takeoff roll at a distance of a little more than 2 miles from where I was standing to the North of runway 22. From first visible motion until I could no longer hear the engines at all was 2 minutes, 51 seconds. At 120 mph, that's a distance travelled of only 5.7 miles, made even shorter by virtue of taking off somewhat towards me, then turning and departing the vicinity nearly straight away from my position. My previous eyeball estimate method would have assumed it was about 10 miles away when I could no longer hear it or see it, but now I believe it was less than 5 miles. It was very hard to make out against the scattered cloud layer with the naked eye.Since starting the idea of timing how long I could hear a plane as a way to estimate how far away a plane can be heard, every time I hear a plane I immediately look at my watch. This afternoon I was walking around my neighborhood and I heard that wonderful sound of round engines and I looked at my watch. I then looked up and saw the B-25 coming towards me, it was flying at about 1,500 feet and about 150 knots. It went directly over me and I again looked at my watch and timed it until I could no longer hear it, one minute and 25 seconds. The plane flew away from me about 3.75 NM during that period. The B-25 has two R-2600 engines which are twice as large (and loud) as Earhart's R-1340s. So I doubt that Earhart's plane could be heard as far away as the B-25.
Ambient noise level was relatively low at the time - no other traffic, very light wind, some light industrial noises in the distance. Weather cold (below freezing), scattered clouds at a couple thousand feet AGL, early morning light (<0800). Under the conditions I experienced this morning, a Lockheed Electra flying 5+ miles from my location at 1000 feet would have been impossible for me to spot by unaided eye, or hear be ear.
But back to the point that I was making, Noonan had clear enough skies to take observations of the sun and moon from at least 40 NM north of Itasca continuing well south of Itasca so would have been able to obtain such sights if they were preceding in the direction of Gardner. These observations, would have shown them that they were closer to Howland than to any other island so that the logical thing for them to do was to fly a search pattern to locate Howland.
The reason for using the landfall (offset) approach is to know for certain what side of the destination you are on when you intercept the LOP so if he ended up north then it was on purpose and he knew to fly a course of 157° true.Quote from: GaryBut back to the point that I was making, Noonan had clear enough skies to take observations of the sun and moon from at least 40 NM north of Itasca continuing well south of Itasca so would have been able to obtain such sights if they were preceding in the direction of Gardner. These observations, would have shown them that they were closer to Howland than to any other island so that the logical thing for them to do was to fly a search pattern to locate Howland.
Ok, lets run through a scenario. If they ended up North of Howland, say in the clouds just 60NM North of Howland at 19:28GMT ("We are circling"). Since they could not obtain a fix while circling they had to pick a direction to fly so that Fred could take a fix. Since as you say Fred knew that a degree change in the solar azimuth was insignificant, lets run with that idea. So for Fred to take a reading he would have wanted AE to fly the heading 157/337 so he could take an observation correct?
I believe your theory would require that they would have flown South in order to obtain a fix. I also believe that would require that they knew it was clear to the South.They didn't have to know that the sky was clear to the south, they would have had to fly the same course regardless.
But for the sake of argument lets say that this was the case. Say they flew South at 130MPH, they would have been in clear skies in only 5 minutes. How long did you say it requires to take a fix? Lets say 3 readings at 5 minutes per? So say at 19:50GMT they had a fix.Three minutes for the observation itself plus two more minutes to average the readings and one minute to refer to the precomputed altitude graph, so six minutes for each object observed. You also have to allow two minutes between observations if shifting to a different object. There were only two objects available to observe, the sun and the moon, so only two observations, fourteen minutes total so 1947 Z, close enough, 1950 Z. See example here (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/other-flight-navigation-information/recent-landfall-approach).
The fix should not have been in error more than 10 NM in any direction. If they did find that the fix placed them 22 NM from Howland they would have measured the course from there to Howland, turned to a heading to make good that course, allowing for the wind that they had determined already, and flying 22 NM would cause the uncertainty to increase slightly to 12 NM, so they should have seen the island, if everything was working right. Why didn't they, possibly some damage to the octant causing all readings to be off by a fixed amount. It is unlikely that it was off by a great amount or the problem should have been found early in the flight so a smaller fixed error, say 1/4 to 1/2 degree which would produce errors of 15 to 30 NM in each LOP, which could put resulting LOPs off from Howland by up to 40 NM.
By this time, the would have flown about 38NM to the South of where they started. Assuming that they were 60NM North originally, this would be roughly 22NM North of Howland. The would have perhaps made a longitudinal adjustment, and would have been on the line by 20:13GMT. In any case, they should have flown within a very close distance to Howland, well within the visual range as they continued South.
So why did this scenario not pan out?
The reason for using the landfall (offset) approach is to know for certain what side of the destination you are on when you intercept the LOP so if he ended up north then it was on purpose and he knew to fly a course of 157° true.
As I understand the deck log, the sky above Howland was not completely free of clouds, but "blue sky with detached clouds".
I don't get 'solid' like overcast over part of the sky - from these messages, but broken coverage to the WNW, and clearer conditions to east and south.
I thought maybe the telegram had a typo in it. A WWII era picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nauru_Island_under_attack_by_Liberator_bombers_of_the_Seventh_Air_Force..jpg) shows a relatively flat island in 1943, as best I can tell - so they must have moved much faster than the 75 years you suggest..For those reading Unbroken, the story of Lou Zamperini, the photo of Nauru in the link above is from a bombing mission on which Zamperini was the bombardier in one of the B-24s on April 22, 1943. His plane made it back to Funafuti with 594 holes in it and had to be junked. One member of his crew was killed and several were wounded.
LTM -
Yep. it's too bad they didn't set the alarm clock to go off about two hours earlier so that they could have arrived in the vicinity of Howland in the dark, it would have been a lot easier to spot the Itasca's spotlight plus Noonan could have gotten stellar fixes all the way to Howland.
If they would have arrived prior to dawn, the lights both on the Itasca and on the Electra would have been much more effective at long distances.
Hindsight is a wonderful but useless thought process knowing what we do now.
Yep. it's too bad they didn't set the alarm clock to go off about two hours earlier so that they could have arrived in the vicinity of Howland in the dark, it would have been a lot easier to spot the Itasca's spotlight plus Noonan could have gotten stellar fixes all the way to Howland.
If they would have arrived prior to dawn, the lights both on the Itasca and on the Electra would have been much more effective at long distances.
gl
I think that's a very good point, arriving at Howland while it was still dark has a lot going for it. Lights from Itasca, illuminated landing strip? Hindsight is a wonderful but useless thought process knowing what we do now.
Sunrise at Howland was 1745 Z and civil twilight occurred 22 minutes
But if the weather was permitting up to daylight, shouldn't FN have had star shots from which he could have DR'd for only a couple of hours? Would have given him a good idea of what winds he'd been fighting through the night, and how to correct for the remaining passage. Does that make you wonder if the weather was not cooperating so well where he was in the last hours before Howland area?
LTM -
Who can recall the dates or details of Post's round-the-world flights - the second truly an astonishing solo effort?
Hughes? He did it in three days and some hours in a later, more modern variant of the Electra.
I like your idea Gary. I am going to Fiji next year on vacation. I should make sure you work with the airline to get me there safely. :DAre you bare boating in Fiji?
Arriving during night conditions with Itasca casting a beacon may in fact have been the best solution. Nice thinking out of the box.
I like your idea Gary. I am going to Fiji next year on vacation. I should make sure you work with the airline to get me there safely. :DAre you bare boating in Fiji?
Arriving during night conditions with Itasca casting a beacon may in fact have been the best solution. Nice thinking out of the box.
gl
Nauru – Ice Cream Cone on the PacificFirst, it's drift sight, not site. See Navy manual, H.O. 216. (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxmcmVkaWVub29uYW58Z3g6MjUyZDc2MjBmYTMzZTI4Ng)
The “Chatter Report” contained in your extensive archive contains the evidence which my friend and I believe miss led Mr. Fred. The light at Nauru was telegrammed to be at an altitude of 5600 feet. We believe this not to be correct. At that day and time we speculate it should have read 560 feet but verification is ongoing as today the island height is just over 200 feet.
We believe Mr. Noonan would have used his “Pelorus Drift Site” and estimate his distance from the island especially at night below the cloud layer and he had probably used this technique all during the day as the flight progressed. He knew his altitude, he could have obtained a negative angle sighting and checked current flight altitude for elevation, apply his trig tables and derive a distance from Nauru. This drift site was their third means of navigation provided, celestial and radio navigation would not have been available or useable.
If he had taken two sightings and plotted them, they would have a good ground speed and wind data to apply a corrective heading for Nuribenua Island, his next landfall.
This works out why they missed and ended up south of Howland for us. Does it work for you?
A month ago a group of four T-6s made several circles over my house as they set up a formation and when it was put together the four passed directly over my house going straight away. I could hear them for 55 seconds and they were flying at about 150 knots so I could no longer hear them at a distance of 2.3 NM. The T-6s have the same engines as the Electra and there were four of them, not just two.
Since starting the idea of timing how long I could hear a plane as a way to estimate how far away a plane can be heard, every time I hear a plane I immediately look at my watch. This afternoon I was walking around my neighborhood and I heard that wonderful sound of round engines and I looked at my watch. I then looked up and saw the B-25 coming towards me, it was flying at about 1,500 feet and about 150 knots. It went directly over me and I again looked at my watch and timed it until I could no longer hear it, one minute and 25 seconds. The plane flew away from me about 3.75 NM during that period. The B-25 has two R-2600 engines which are twice as large (and loud) as Earhart's R-1340s. So I doubt that Earhart's plane could be heard as far away as the B-25.
I live about 15 miles from Camarillo airport and there are two B-25s based there.
gl
Earlier in this thread Chris Johnson asked: given that, at 1030Z, AE probably saw the Myrtlebank, what if she misidentified it as the ship she expected to be there, the Ontario? Well, I wonder if that could give them a really nasty problem. The mistake would introduce a pernicious error into FN's navigation, and I hope someone with a better grasp of geography, time, and navigation will be able to correct the back-of-an-envelope calculations that follow. (I'm also aware that this account short-cuts a lot of possibilities like possible lights on Nauru and possible stellar fixes in the middle of the night).Your post brings up a number of points to discuss. You correctly point out that IF they mistook the Myrtlebank for the Ontario, and IF they started a new dead reckoning from the coordinates they had been given for the Ontario, and IF they used this position as the starting point for calculating their ground speed with the sunrise line of position as the ending point for the ground speed calculation, and IF they got no celestial observations between those points, and IF they got no additional sun observations after the sunrise observation then they would have advanced the sunrise LOP an incorrect distance so that when they intercepted that advanced LOP and followed it they would not have flown over Howland. I have attached a file with several illustrations to help you follow along.
So, they've been flying for hours into the Pacific night, with no landmarks since 0718Z at best; they're looking out for the lights of their waypoint, the Ontario; and they reach it, as they think, at 1030Z, which is on the late side but still not wrong enough to sound alarm bells. Thank heavens. They've got halfway, something important enough to merit her breaking her radio schedule to transmit the message "Ship in sight", that was picked up in Nauru. They now have, as they think, the thing they most want: an unambiguous fix on their position, since they know in advance the intended position of the Ontario. They can restart dead reckoning from a "last known good" position. Regrettably, if it's actually the Myrtlebank, the position is wrong, by about 112nm basically westwards.
They fly on for 5 ½ more hours, through the possibly overcast night, getting no help from celestial navigation as they go. At dawn (about 1800Z), Fred does the sunrise shot, and calculates the distance to the advanced LOP. All well and good. But his estimate of their current ground speed will be significantly too fast, by approximately 112 nm over 5 ½ hours, or 20 knots. As a result, they'll turn off onto the advanced LOP about an hour later and (say) 20 nm too early. They'll be short of their destination.
A couple of other points about this possible mistake:
• Wouldn't AE have been worried by the lack of radio contact with the ship in the night? No. She already knew the originally agreed radio protocol was made useless by the fact that the ship had no HF reception equipment. She had sent a telegram trying to change that protocol, but she knew it probably hadn't reached the ship yet. She wasn't expecting radio contact.
• Could she have mistaken the 400-foot Myrtlebank for the 150-foot Ontario? That begs further questions: how good was her ship identification at night? How much did she even know about what the Ontario was supposed to look like? Bear in mind she presumably didn't know that the Myrtlebank was in the area.
• How had they missed the Ontario earlier? Well, the Ontario's log mentions cloud cover from 20 to 40%; what's more, it wasn't precisely at the latitude she seems to have been expecting. All too easy to miss.
• What happens after they come up short? They end up flying the LOP south, and if they're starting short - from west of Howland - that brings them, as it happens, very nicely to Gardner.
• Finally, this makes sense of the conjecture that some of the numbers in Betty's notes represent the Ontario's intended position. If Fred is out of action, and AE can't take or doesn't trust her own measurements of where they are, the Ontario is still AE's "last known good" navigational position. Not so good, in reality.
Any thoughts?
Those pictures and numbers are very helpful. Thank you.The Nauruans did not know that the Ontario was there but they knew of the arrival of the Myrtlebank from that direction so, reaonably, jumped to the conclusion that Earhart must have seen that ship.
I'll come back on some points of detail:
- a contemporary document does state that they saw the Myrtlebank. It's the State Department telegram quoted by Jacobson: "Message from plane when at least 60 miles south of Nauru received 8.30 P.M. Sydney time, July 2 saying ‘A ship in sight ahead.’ Since identified as steamer Myrtle Bank sic which arrived Nauru daybreak today." I don't know on what basis the Nauru guys concluded that it was the Myrtlebank, but they had some reason to think so. We're not dependent solely upon the 53-year-old anecdote.
- The main problem, though, is, the 0718Z position, once correctly understood, seems too far west for them to reach the Myrtlebank by 1030Z, barring an unexpected tailwind, and even if you backdate that position to 0700Z. One could start to conjecturally move it earlier still… but then the tail would be wagging the dog. Yes.
- The "Rosetta Stone" reference - has anyone noticed that it comes with a problem attached? The relevant bit runs (as quoted in the TIGHAR transcription):
THE FOLLOWING FROM NARAU STOP NEW NARAU FIXED LIGHT LAT 0.32 S LONG 16 .55 EAST FIVE THOUSAND CANDLEPOWER 5600 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL
For sure, it suggests that the Chater report records lat/longs in minutes not decimal fractions. But it also suggests that the Chater report might be a poor document when it comes to numbers. Of the three testable numbers in here - the latitude, the longitude, and the height - two are completely corrupted in transmission. It's not Eric Chater's fault, he's faithfully reproducing the cablegram, but the Rosetta Stone offers a sample that suggests that there are going to be frequent undetectable errors elsewhere in the numerals in the Chater report.
- I was interested by that calculation that even if they got the right ship, and then didn't get any more observations (etc), they'd end up 6nm short. In that scenario, it would only take a couple of other accumulated small errors to leave them short enough to be in trouble. And that initial IF about "IF they got no additional sun observations after the sunrise observation…" - could a malicious god grant Fred a proper celestial fix close to sunrise, so that he knew his exact position on the ground, but too close in time to the sunrise observation to do much to refine his speed?
But, anyway, the main thing is that point about the 0718Z position. Thanks for making that material available to make it clearer.
Don't be too hard on poor Mr. Balfour, after all, he was just the person who heard what he heard of the Morse code "dahs" and "dits" coming through the aether from Nauru. Remember, "it takes two to tango" and there is no reason to place the blame on Balfour since it is more likely that it was a poorly sent transmission by the Nauru operator. Telegrapher's errors were fairly common in that era, poor sending (the sending operator's "fist"), simply extending the the timing slightly of the dots, dashes, and spaces (the length of each dot and the spaces between them is only 0.03 seconds, THREE-ONE HUNDRETHS OF A SECOND, for code sent at the fairly standard thirty words per minute of skilled operators) can change one letter into two different letters or characters plus static and noise on the frequency. The omitted "6" in the longitude of Nauru and the repeated extra "0" in the altitude of the light were almost certainly made by the sender as adding a character or dropping a character are fairly common errors in sending Morse. But this does not affect the fact that the standard notation used by Balfour and others of that era (there are many other examples of this (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,566.msg8915.html#msg8915)) to use dots to separate degrees from minutes and that is obvious in this case since ".32" and ".55" accurately states the minutes in the position of Nauru and so proves that the 0718 Z position report was in degrees and minutes. We have discussed this before here. (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,566.msg8931.html#msg8931) I remember a case we studied in law school on this point. A principal had sent a telegram to his agent, "buy 10,000 tons of ....(some comodity)" and the message delivered to the agent said "buy 100,000 tons of ....". The market dropped for that commodity and the man lost a great deal of money on the extra 90,000 tons of stuff so he sued the telegraph company. He lost because the court held that this was a common type of transmission error and, that because of this, that if the sender needed to be sure that his message had been sent accurately, the tariffs of the telegraph company provided that, for an extra charge, the telegram would be transmitted back from the destination to the sender so that the sender could check the accuracy of the telegram as delivered. The principal had not paid this extra fee and the tariffs disclaimed liability for this type of transmission error without that extra fee. This was one of the reasons that telegraphic codes were developed because the code word for "10,000" might be "thasius" and the code word for "100,000" might be "tibullis", no way to make that type of error when using a code. See attached excerpt of the ABC Code.
The 0718 Z report was not in Morse code, Earhart was speaking on the radio and Balfour took down what she said and placed the standard "." to separate the degrees from the minutes. Earhart did not say, "four point three three degrees south" she said either "four degrees thirty three south" or, more likely, she said "four (slight pause) thirty three south." This is also corroborated by the 0519 Z position report in which the longitude was recorded as "150.7 east" which everybody knows is impossible. But "157° east" is very reasonable given her ground speed. Earhart simply said "longitude one five seven east" and Balfour thought he heard a slight pause between the "5" and the "7" and so placed his dot there.
gl
QuoteThe only way that they could identify being on the 157/337 line is that they got at least one, and probably several, observations of the sun in the vicinity of Howland.I would suggest that they were simply following a magnetic heading.
Let's look at those "IFs," starting with the first one, did they mistake the Myrtlebank for the Ontario? Not likely, based on the extremely high ground speed that would have been necessary to have reached the Myrtlebank by the 1030 Z radio report. There is another reason that this is unlikely, that is because the Ontario was transmitting the letter "N" in Morse code from 1010 Z to 1015 Z, just 15 minutes prior to the ship being spotted. Using the RDF made it very simple to find the Ontario. Since the signals ended only 15 minutes prior to their spotting the ship, they only had to fly the heading indicated by the RDF for about 30 NM which means that they were very unlikely to pass more than 3 NM from the Ontario.Your post brings up a number of points to discuss. You correctly point out that IF they mistook the Myrtlebank for the Ontario, and IF they started a new dead reckoning from the coordinates they had been given for the Ontario, and IF they used this position as the starting point for calculating their ground speed with the sunrise line of position as the ending point for the ground speed calculation, and IF they got no celestial observations between those points, and IF they got no additional sun observations after the sunrise observation then they would have advanced the sunrise LOP an incorrect distance so that when they intercepted that advanced LOP and followed it they would not have flown over Howland. I have attached a file with several illustrations to help you follow along.
A couple of other points about this possible mistake:
• Wouldn't AE have been worried by the lack of radio contact with the ship in the night? No. She already knew the originally agreed radio protocol was made useless by the fact that the ship had no HF reception equipment. She had sent a telegram trying to change that protocol, but she knew it probably hadn't reached the ship yet. She wasn't expecting radio contact.
• Could she have mistaken the 400-foot Myrtlebank for the 150-foot Ontario? That begs further questions: how good was her ship identification at night? How much did she even know about what the Ontario was supposed to look like? Bear in mind she presumably didn't know that the Myrtlebank was in the area.
• How had they missed the Ontario earlier? Well, the Ontario's log mentions cloud cover from 20 to 40%; what's more, it wasn't precisely at the latitude she seems to have been expecting. All too easy to miss.
• What happens after they come up short? They end up flying the LOP south, and if they're starting short - from west of Howland - that brings them, as it happens, very nicely to Gardner.
• Finally, this makes sense of the conjecture that some of the numbers in Betty's notes represent the Ontario's intended position. If Fred is out of action, and AE can't take or doesn't trust her own measurements of where they are, the Ontario is still AE's "last known good" navigational position. Not so good, in reality.
Any thoughts?
gl
I haven't waded yet thru all of the postings, but an early one that claimed a candle could be detected
by human eyes at a distance of 30 miles was challenged (actually, ridiculed) by Gary LaPook, who rambled on
and on using govt regulations for ship lighting and how far they would have to be seen, etc. What Gary didn't know is that scientists at Columbia University way bck in 1941 determined that a fickering candle could be seen under excellent sighting conditions as far as 30 miles away by human eyes. LaPook's big mistake was in assuming that govt requirements for ship light visibility was in any way a claim as to how far those lights could actually be seen under ideal sighting conditions - sighting conditions can vary enormously and ship's lights must assume that sighting conditions are often less than ideal.
Reference :
http://www.livescience.com/33895-human-eye.html (http://www.livescience.com/33895-human-eye.html)
Also I found data concerning visibility of a 100 watt lightbulb under excellent viewing conditions - 118 km or
over 60 miles. http://sbp.so/firefly (http://sbp.so/firefly)
I also found several references to instances in which relatively small freighters could easily be seen at distances of 10 miles and beyond at night, even from the deck of a ship. One such was the California during the night the Titantic sank.