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[Greg Daspit]

Here is a sketch I hope helps to explain the image orientation better.
Note the nose and tail were not labeled correctly on the images and may have caused confusion.

[Ric Gillespie]

Note the nose and tail were not labeled correctly on the images and may have caused confussion.

Thanks Greg.  You're right.  My bad.

[Tim Mellon]

There is cold water coral that has been found growing at 3000m.

Sure, Chris, but I don't think anyone is seeing these at 985 feet.

[Ric Gillespie]

The topic of this thread is Artifact 2-2-V-1. It's a serious subject.  I will remove off-topic postings and put the posters on moderation.

[Ric Gillespie]

We had to cancel our trip to the New England Air Museum today due to ice covered taxiways and runways at our departure airport. 
Bummer.  I was hoping to collect more data from c/n 1052.  We'll reschedule once the Pleistocene Ice Sheet recedes north of the Canadian border.

[Adam Marsland]

Could she have taken a dive somewhere around Baker and this bit of crash debris washed ashore, where natives scavanged and repurposed it?

Sheets of aluminum don't float worth a darn so in order for the piece to wash ashore anywhere it must have ended up in water shallow enough for wave action to move it - no deeper than about 50 feet would be a good guess.  Another indication that it was once in relatively shallow water are the spots of coral growth on the surface of the artifact.  Coral only grows in sunlit water.

All of the islands in the South Central Pacific are surrounded by reefs with steep slopes.  For the Electra to crash and sink in water shallow enough for non-buoyant wreckage to wash up onshore it would have to crash and sink right up tight to the island, but why would you crash and sink in the ocean right beside an island?
BTW, there were never any "natives" on Baker.

I know that.  I wasn't suggesting natives on Baker would scavenge aluminum parts and throw them back in the water to later wash up at Niku to be scavenged again.  I just used Baker as a hypothetical area for a crashed and sank scenario.  I suppose I should have said, more precisely, settlers on Nikumaroro would have scavenged them after they washed ashore (and did, the one fact that is known).

Thanks for the clarification.  The bouyancy factor was not clear to me.

[Monty Fowler]

We'll reschedule once the Pleistocene Ice Sheet recedes north of the Canadian border.

Our local paper ran a story today that this was the coldest winter in like three decades here ... I could have made it through the day without knowing that *peers outside and ice-encrusted skating rink, I mean parking lot*

LTM, who prefers ice in umbrella drinks,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER

P.S. - what does that have to do with 2-2-V-1? Nothing, except to point out that TIGHAR won't even let global climate change get in the way of finding out the truth 

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

There is cold water coral that has been found growing at 3000m.

Understood.

I saw information about the cold water coral.

It is not the kind of coral that creates atolls.

[John Ousterhout]

Ric said, above; "...Sheets of aluminum don't float worth a darn so in order for the piece to wash ashore anywhere it must have ended up in water shallow enough for wave action to move it - no deeper than about 50 feet would be a good guess.  Another indication that it was once in relatively shallow water are the spots of coral growth on the surface of the artifact.  Coral only grows in sunlit water."
Here is a bunch of posts in a completely different aircraft forum that shows examples of crashed WWII aircraft parts that washed up onto beaches.  The ocean has the ability to move objects from deep water up onto the shore, and relatively light objects with large areas for currents to act upon, such as sheets of aluminum, are more likely to appear than dense heavy objects, although there are examples of those, too.
The point Ric makes about coral growth is a clear indication that the object definitely spent some time at shallow depth, but it also might have spent some previous time at some greater depth.
An entertaining and related book about Flotsam, Jetsam and Lagan ("Goods or wreckage lying on the bottom of the sea") is "Washed Up: the curious journeys of Flotsam and Jetsam" (S. Moody, 2006)

[Jerry Germann]

  Another indication that it was once in relatively shallow water are the spots of coral growth on the surface of the artifact.  Coral only grows in sunlit water.

Would this noted coral growth present on the 2-2-V-1 panel ,... disqualify it as having been repurposed by the british colony settlement for cooking fish upon it? I don't know how long it takes for coral to form on metal, however if the colony used this perticular piece and abandoned it somewhat later , it would have had to have been repatriated with the ocean once again , and given time underwater for the growth to occur and then again wash up on shore before being once again rediscovered by Pat in the early 1990's.

[Ric Gillespie]

The ocean has the ability to move objects from deep water up onto the shore, and relatively light objects with large areas for currents to act upon, such as sheets of aluminum, are more likely to appear than dense heavy objects, although there are examples of those, too.

The postings on the forum you cite do not support that statement.  They simply describe debris that has washed up on beaches.  No way to know how far they traveled or how deep they started.  I agree that objects with lots of surface area relative to their mass can travel with currents but I'm not aware of an example of a non-buoyant object being washed up on land from great depth.  Once something is down deeper than the effect of the largest waves, deep currents might move it but I don't know what force could bring it back up to thew surface. As far as I know there are no vertical currents in the ocean except maybe over volcanic vents.

[Ric Gillespie]

Would this noted coral growth present on the 2-2-V-1 panel ,... disqualify it as having been repurposed by the british colony settlement for cooking fish upon it?

I don't see why.

I don't know how long it takes for coral to form on metal, however if the colony used this perticular piece and abandoned it somewhat later , it would have had to have been repatriated with the ocean once again , and given time underwater for the growth to occur and then again wash up on shore before being once again rediscovered by Pat in the early 1990's.

Thanks.  I hadn't thought of that.  That could explain why the piece shows signs of being salvaged and used for cooking but when Pat found it in 1991 it certainly gave the impression of something that had washed up in the storm that hit the island between our first and second visits.   Possible timeline - 1937; piece gets torn off aircraft:  1942 or thereabouts; piece washes up and gets put to use: 1963; when island gets evacuated the piece gets dumped back in the ocean in or just outside the landing channel:  1989 storm washes the piece back up on pan where we find it 1991.

[Jerry Germann]

This is the belly of c/n 1052 in the subject area.  As far as we know this is original construction.  I believe these are all #3 rivets but I can verify that when I'm at there New England Air Museum on February 16.
http://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1426.0;attach=7219;image

I was wondering if the skinners (crew who installed the AL clad panels) would always begin by skinning the same side of each new unit and overlap each plane the same. ...if the belly of the Electra is the same as this example, would the keel portion depicted on the artifact ( placed as thought) be the under lap layer of skin?

I was still wondering as to this....Do you have any belly pictures of existing electras that may show this laping method?

[Ric Gillespie]

This is the belly of c/n 1052 in the subject area.  As far as we know this is original construction.  I believe these are all #3 rivets but I can verify that when I'm at there New England Air Museum on February 16.
http://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1426.0;attach=7219;image

I was wondering if the skinners (crew who installed the AL clad panels) would always begin by skinning the same side of each new unit and overlap each plane the same. ...if the belly of the Electra is the same as this example, would the keel portion depicted on the artifact ( placed as thought) be the under lap layer of skin?

I was still wondering as to this....Do you have any belly pictures of existing electras that may show this laping method?

I must not be understanding you. The photo you linked to is a photo of an existing Electra (c/n 1052) that shows the skins lapped at the keel.

[Jerry Germann]

[I was wondering if the skinners (crew who installed the AL clad panels) would always begin by skinning the same side of each new unit and overlap each plane the same. ...if the belly of the Electra is the same as this example, would the keel portion depicted on the artifact ( placed as thought) be the under lap layer of skin?

 I didn't quite word that correctly , I meant would the remaining tab (with the three 5/32nds rivet holes) that extends accross the keel line on the artifact....would,that be under the port side panel if all electras were skinned in like manner?  In other words does the interior side of the port panel always overlap the exterior side of the starboard panel (when viewed from outside)?