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 81 
 on: October 06, 2023, 09:10:12 AM 
Started by Darren Cubitt - Last post by Ric Gillespie
All the pieces are falling into place.

 82 
 on: October 06, 2023, 08:38:46 AM 
Started by Darren Cubitt - Last post by Colin Taylor
Concerning the ‘281 North’ message

The 281 North Howland position is very close to my calculated end position 290 miles North of Howland. (See Drift in the Dark)https://docs.google.com/document/d/1arquMxBkJa-IBxmJYP1vgvWuETapBS1s5eM-HPKyilk/edit?usp=sharing If this originated as a voice message from Earhart, she would have sent it at about 11:00L (Itasca local time) on Friday the 2nd July just before their 3 hours of reserve fuel ran out, having done the search pattern: one hour South/ two hours North on the 157/337 sunline.

If it was picked up by an amateur radio-operator who did not understand its significance, it would not have been rebroadcast (in shaky morse) until the operator realised that Earhart was missing, possibly the next day, to be picked up by the Navy radio station at Wailupe, Hawaii on Saturday the 3rd.  Since the message was not a distress message, it would have had no priority and probably sat in several in-trays over the Independence Day weekend before finally being rebroadcast to Itasca. Itasca received the relayed message at 01:42L in the early hours of Monday the 5th.

There was another message, originating from San Francisco, where four, apparently amateur, radio operators reported hearing Earhart’s voice. This information was described as ‘received this morning’ (of the 3rd) but was not broadcast to Itasca until 23:50 Pacific Standard Time on the 3rd. Which means it took between 12 and 24 hours for the Navy bureaucracy to process this one message. Is it possible that the message was actually heard on the morning of the 2nd, and someone got confused as to the timing? That would mean it may have taken up to 48hours to process the message. We will never know. Not surprising then, that the ‘281 North’ message would take 62hours to reach Itasca. 

How did Earhart know they were 281 miles North of Howland? They had observed the sunrise and calculated the 157/337 sun-line, but no further observations would yield any useful information until the sun rose higher in the sky. At sea, a sun shot is taken at midday local time to get a latitude reading. At 11:00am local time the sun is close to the zenith, and it is possible to get a bubble-sextant reading. Noonan would then have his latitude, and knew he was 281miles North of Howland. They were on their last few minutes of fuel. They would surely have turned South again while calling for help.

They could have ditched some distance South of that position. Itasca arrived there three days later in the evening of the 5th but did not initiate a ladder search of the area as they had been doing West of Howland. Instead, they turned East. Why did they do that? They knew that the Equatorial current sets to the West and the wind was an Easterly. Any debris or survivors would be drifting West at 12miles per day!

 They were probably short of fuel, as they had a rendezvous with the USS Colorado to refuel on Wednesday the 7th.

All the pieces are falling into place.

 83 
 on: October 06, 2023, 08:25:49 AM 
Started by Colin Taylor - Last post by Colin Taylor
Hi Arthur
Thanks for the response.

It looks like the chart is an after-cast rather than a forecast. It would have given them tailwinds the whole way, riding the North side of a low pressure system - which was exactly what they theorised. But it would have got them across in less than still-air time which is not what happened.

I imagine that the low pressure was further North and unfortunately they flew in the Southern sector with headwinds.

Cheers
Colin

 84 
 on: October 05, 2023, 08:04:13 AM 
Started by Ric Gillespie - Last post by Arthur Rypinski
Nice bit of memorabilia.  Neptune and the mermaids are nicely done.

None of the islands on the map, other than Hull, even vaguely resemble their actual counterparts.  Note that Hull is the only island shown with a central lagoon, and also with something resembling its correct shape.

 85 
 on: October 04, 2023, 07:31:13 PM 
Started by Colin Taylor - Last post by Arthur Rypinski
Colin-
An interesting piece. thx for sharing.  I had a few thoughts:

1) there is some not-very-reliable information about weather over the North Atlantic on May 9, 1927, which suggests:
    a) icing conditions west of Iceland;
    b) precipitation along the entire route, suggesting overcast conditions (altitude and ceiling unavailable)
    c) cross winds east of Greenland, tail winds west of Greenland;

2) This suggests (to me) that under zero wind conditions and accurate navigation, Nungesser & Coli should have arrived at Belle Isle circa 0500 GMT with tail winds, or 0700 GMT at zero winds. Instead, they turn up at Harbor Grace, 285 nm SE of Belle Isle, at 1300 GMT (9:30 am local).

3) If they flew direct to Belle Isle, then direct to Harbor Grace, they are still four hours late. Whatever the exact status of the winds, something bad happened with the navigation, and as a consequence, they now have a looming fuel supply problem. I would guess this is too much missing time to attribute just to drift.  I suspect they went to some wrong place, and then had to search or return from there.

5) Given all the lighthouses, buoys, roads chimney smoke, and other traces of civilization in the Harbor Grace area, I am inclined to suspect they had discovered their approximate location by 1300 GMT, but who knows?

6) Note your map shows a course from Trinity Bay to Placentia Bay, while the more probable sightings suggest a course from Conception Bay to St Mary's Bay.  The destination of this course is a puzzle. If they were a little farther west, I would have bet on French territory--St Pierre & Miquelon, where one could get decent wine and a proper meal. But they don't appear to have been heading to St Pierre.

7) There were sightings over Nova Scotia, St Pierre, and Maine, though the reported sightings were not especially persuasive. Nor do they seem to have been heading there.

8) Note that because the magnetic deviation close to the north magnetic pole is so large and variable as one approaches Newfoundland, an error in calculating one's position will also cause an error in heading, which is sort the definition of going from bad to worse. In particular, the declination at Belle Isle is 34 degrees west of north, while Harbor Grace is 30 degrees west of north, so, if one thinks one is at Belle Isle, one's actual course will be 4 degrees off the course one thinks one is flying.

9) There have been at least two errors of this sort--the German/Irish "Bremen" whose crew attempted to fly Ireland-Newfoundland in 1928.  They had a celestial navigator on board, but couldn't get a fix for 13 hours, and apparently didn't update their declination. When they got out of the fog, they found themselves flying above snow-covered lakes and mountains, all unrecognizable.  They headed south and eventually made a forced landing adjacent to a lighthouse on the north shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence.  The other was Korean Airlines Flight 902, in 1978.

hope this helps,
adr


 86 
 on: October 04, 2023, 11:33:27 AM 
Started by Colin Taylor - Last post by Arthur Rypinski
The author of the "Rasmussen" cable was someone who had access to Coast Guard communications, and could sign his last name in confidence that the sender would be known, so---"Rasmussen" was most likely Lieutenant M.W. Rasmussen, Commandant of the Fifth Coast Guard District, which covered New Jersey.

How Lt. Rasmussen obtained to this information is unrecorded.  He may have been aboard or received a radio message from a cutter or a merchant ship, or from the master of a ship that docked in the Fifth District.

Decre writes that a coast guard patrol boat, CG-234, recovered one wing.  The most plausible hypothesis is that somebody looked at the wing and decided it wasn't interesting.  In any case, after three months, the wing could have come from most anywhere.  L'Oiseau Blanc probably lacked the fuel to get much farther south than Boston, and inshore currents south of Newfoundland would tend to carry debris into the Gulf of St Lawrence.

adr



 87 
 on: September 21, 2023, 10:18:08 AM 
Started by Ric Gillespie - Last post by Matt Revington
I think he may have got his descriptions of McKean and Gardner reversed, a wreck is shown at McKean which is most likely to represent the Norwich City and the huts shown on Gardner are likely the guano mining huts that were standing on McKean

 88 
 on: September 21, 2023, 05:27:28 AM 
Started by Ric Gillespie - Last post by Dale O. Beethe
Nice!  No ground loop there!

 89 
 on: September 21, 2023, 02:23:16 AM 
Started by Ric Gillespie - Last post by Martin X. Moleski, SJ
He "wheeled" it.  ...

Ah!

Thanks for explaining the two different techniques.

Makes sense.

 90 
 on: September 20, 2023, 02:53:56 PM 
Started by Ric Gillespie - Last post by Ric Gillespie
Nice, smooth, centered landing, too.

He "wheeled" it. There are two techniques for landing a conventional gear (i.e. tailwheel) aircraft.  The traditional way is to hold the aircraft off until it stalls, preferably close to the ground, and all three wheels plunk down simultaneously. This is known as "three-point landing" for obvious reasons and it's the quickest way to get a plane down and stopped. The other way is to fly the main wheels onto the ground before the plane stalls and let the speed bleed off until the tail comes down.  This is known as a "wheel landing."  These days just about everybody does wheel landings because it's easier to hold the airplane straight. It makes for a longer landing roll but the higher speed gives you better rudder control so it's easier to hold the airplane straight – and runway length is seldom an issue.  In Earhart's day, and right up through WWII, three-pointing was standard, but in probably a hundred airshows, I've never seen anyone three-point a P-51.

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