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Author Topic: The Question of 2-2-V-1  (Read 1023072 times)

JNev

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #975 on: May 19, 2014, 06:14:05 AM »

'Grain' direction is usually a determinant - it most often parallels rivet lines, unless a compound curve or some other compelling structural need dictates otherwise.  The printed characters typically follow the grain line of the material - but hand-stamping can yield a variation to that for obvious reasons.

Here's a couple of pictures from TIGHAR's materials of 2-2-V-1 that may help answer your question of rivet pattern / printed character alignment - and my recollection is that the rivet lines align closely with grain direction, but that the print does not but is off slightly (hand printed has been my understanding).

- Jeff Neville

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Ric Gillespie

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #976 on: May 19, 2014, 07:37:24 AM »

...and my recollection is that the rivet lines align closely with grain direction, but that the print does not but is off slightly (hand printed has been my understanding).

That's correct.  It was the guys at ALCOA who noticed that the printing is not aligned with the grain of the metal and speculated that the sheet was hand stamped - suggesting early production.  of course, these were the same ALCOA guys who gave us a bum steer on what AN-A-13 means.
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Jay Burkett

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #977 on: May 20, 2014, 11:00:14 AM »

Look at the marking on the visible sheet in this photo

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8b06275/

The lines of roll-ink stamp are not straight or parallel.  It looks like a roller was loose and wandered back and forth as it rolled.  There was a photo of sheets being marked that exihibited more of this wandering that I cannot find at the moment.

I guess what I am getting at is that the marking not being straight or parallel may be typical.  We are looking at one or two letters which may, or may not, be from a wandering roller.
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Jon Romig

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #978 on: May 22, 2014, 05:15:05 AM »

Too Much Information!

It's been a while since I posted. I am not sure this is the place to post this - moderators, feel free to relocate it to a more appropriate thread.

I see that 2-2-V-1 is an incredibly important line of inquiry, but it is notable that posts in this thread have been falling off as the thread has grown longer.

One impediment to my own participation has been keeping up with the huge volume (976 posts on this thread alone!) of information, opinion and speculation about 2-2-V-1. This is compounded by the evolving nature of our knowledge - what we though we knew as true a few months ago turns out to be not true, but the discredited "information" remains here forever. And the old information always has equal weight (except temporally) to the better information that should supersede it. It takes a lot of time and mental effort (for me at least) to wade through the old info and finally apprehend our current state of knowledge. Some of us do not have that time, or perhaps our minds do not work in such a way as to make sense of it all. Compounding this problem is that more formal information posted on the site, such as the FAA report or past articles from TIGHAR Tracks, remains unedited and untagged, yet they also often contain incorrect information/interpretation that has since been superseded.

At some point this large amount of information and the way it is organized (or not, actually) becomes an impediment to progress and participation. A significant problem is that subtopics on this thread are all mixed together, and one has to spend considerable effort to find the next iteration on a subtopic, meanwhile (naturally) I get continually distracted and diverted by post on other subtropics.

I wish that there was a way to organize and consolidate 2-2-V-1 information and posts by subtopic (I also wish this could be done for some other major threads). Possible subtopics on this thread would include the rivets, the printing, the possible location of 2-2-V-1 on the plane, alternate sources for 2-2-V-1, history of aircraft construction, whether the rivet lines are straight or tapered, etc. It seems to me that some kind of meta-tagging of each post would help a lot. Perhaps the moderators would consider doing this. If not, I am willing to help - it should be a fairly routine task of cataloging. Of course we would also need a database query tool more sophisticated than the simple search function provided on this site, but I believe that should be fairly simple to implement with well-known and common functions.

Alternately, the moderators could perhaps be more active about limiting threads to a specific line of inquiry and create new branch threads much more frequently.

Struggling to keep up,

Jon Romig
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JNev

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #979 on: May 22, 2014, 05:39:54 AM »

Look at the marking on the visible sheet in this photo

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8b06275/

The lines of roll-ink stamp are not straight or parallel.  It looks like a roller was loose and wandered back and forth as it rolled.  There was a photo of sheets being marked that exihibited more of this wandering that I cannot find at the moment.

I guess what I am getting at is that the marking not being straight or parallel may be typical.  We are looking at one or two letters which may, or may not, be from a wandering roller.

My own impressions have changed as I've seen more pictures - such as that you posted - to the point that these variations seem to have been fairly common at least in earlier days.  My understanding of 'hand printed' evolved when I saw pictures of guys using big hand-held rollers to make those marks.  A sensible way to do it, but decidely different from the naive notion of someone repetitvely using a block handprinter and leaving marks every so often or similar (I wasn't sure what 'hand stamped' meant until I saw such pictures. 

The hand-roller method seems to have created the variations we see in your picture.  Machine printing methods were apparently introduced later that would produce more uniform results.  Given all that, we should not be suprised at the variation we see on 2-2-V-1, i.e. the print alignment deviating from the metal grain direction.
- Jeff Neville

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JNev

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #980 on: May 22, 2014, 06:23:44 AM »

Too Much Information!

It's been a while since I posted. I am not sure this is the place to post this - moderators, feel free to relocate it to a more appropriate thread.

I see that 2-2-V-1 is an incredibly important line of inquiry, but it is notable that posts in this thread have been falling off as the thread has grown longer.

One impediment to my own participation has been keeping up with the huge volume (976 posts on this thread alone!) of information, opinion and speculation about 2-2-V-1. This is compounded by the evolving nature of our knowledge - what we though we knew as true a few months ago turns out to be not true, but the discredited "information" remains here forever. And the old information always has equal weight (except temporally) to the better information that should supersede it. It takes a lot of time and mental effort (for me at least) to wade through the old info and finally apprehend our current state of knowledge. Some of us do not have that time, or perhaps our minds do not work in such a way as to make sense of it all. Compounding this problem is that more formal information posted on the site, such as the FAA report or past articles from TIGHAR Tracks, remains unedited and untagged, yet they also often contain incorrect information/interpretation that has since been superseded.

At some point this large amount of information and the way it is organized (or not, actually) becomes an impediment to progress and participation. A significant problem is that subtopics on this thread are all mixed together, and one has to spend considerable effort to find the next iteration on a subtopic, meanwhile (naturally) I get continually distracted and diverted by post on other subtropics.

I wish that there was a way to organize and consolidate 2-2-V-1 information and posts by subtopic (I also wish this could be done for some other major threads). Possible subtopics on this thread would include the rivets, the printing, the possible location of 2-2-V-1 on the plane, alternate sources for 2-2-V-1, history of aircraft construction, whether the rivet lines are straight or tapered, etc. It seems to me that some kind of meta-tagging of each post would help a lot. Perhaps the moderators would consider doing this. If not, I am willing to help - it should be a fairly routine task of cataloging. Of course we would also need a database query tool more sophisticated than the simple search function provided on this site, but I believe that should be fairly simple to implement with well-known and common functions.

Alternately, the moderators could perhaps be more active about limiting threads to a specific line of inquiry and create new branch threads much more frequently.

Struggling to keep up,

Jon Romig

I can understand your frustration, Jon - just as I have mine in that I am a moderator with the chore of doing much of what you suggest, and who finds too little time to do so and try to make some contribution here.  But the thread has grown long and tough for those coming back to sort out - and in time will be dealt with much as you suggest, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, it is probably much easier for those of use who have been active in the discussion - 'cause at this point, that is all it is: a record of a now-long-running discussion, not a catalogue or collection of theses, etc.

What has been 'discredited'?  That's fair enough in terms of our having learned more than we once knew along the way - but I don't see 'claims' that had to be or that were 'discredited'.  Despite some 'claims' that have seemed aimed at closing the door on this artifact, I personally have yet to see conclusive information that 'discredits' 2-2-V-1 as a contender for origin on NR16020.  I realize the challenge of the font style and that we have seen an adundance of old-style print on stuff of Earhart's era; I am also aware of a wide degree of variation in fonts and am not fully resolved on this yet.

The fitment of the part remains a stick-out as well - it is not a neat fit for the stock belly of the Lockheed 10.  Having already looked at a large number of airplane types that had been in the region during WWII, there is now another effort underway to check the L10 more thoroughly for a potential match.

Personally, I still wonder about that last-minute window covering that was fashioned and installed in Miami just before Earhart departed for her last trip.  I still see character in this piece that could fit there, although it has been said that the hole patterns are 'all wrong'.  I'm not sure we can know that until we have a good picture of the actual window covering work, if it can be had.

These and other lines of discussion regarding 2-2-V-1 are well noted, as you've pointed out, for possible future cataloguing - in time one hopes to be able to break out the relevant material under more neatly divided topics.  One will try, thanks.
- Jeff Neville

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Ric Gillespie

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #981 on: May 22, 2014, 06:39:01 AM »

Too Much Information!

Yes, research is messy and, because it's a constantly evolving process, it can be confusing.  We do not edit or correct research reports because we feel it is important that the messy, confusing process be preserved.  We "show our work." Periodically we try to summarize the state of research.  For example, the Artifact 2-2-V-1 Commission Report has now been sent to all TIGHAR members and will be posted on the TIGHAR website very soon - but it is often the case that a summary report is out-dated by the time it is published. 
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #982 on: May 22, 2014, 06:04:56 PM »

The Artifact 2-2-V-1 Commission Report is now on the TIGHAR website.
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Monty Fowler

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #983 on: May 23, 2014, 12:17:15 PM »

I'm hoping that the Windsor Locks trip will enable us to tie 2-V-1-1 to our favorite Electra, but if it doesn't, it doesn't. At least we now have some better ideas on where such a piece of aircraft skin might fit.

LTM, who is waiting to see if the dry paint comes up heads or tails,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER
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richie conroy

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #984 on: May 23, 2014, 08:09:54 PM »

Hi All

Been busy of late converting my loft, So haven't had the chance to mingle in recent discussions, However  that don't mean i ain't been looking for a match for 2-2-V-1 when i get the opportunity.

Anyway this is a long shot but check the rivet pattern on attached photo Aldo not exact it has similar features to our artifact

here is link to the website i found it on  http://www.jneaircraft.com/am274/artifacts/
We are an echo of the past


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Ric Gillespie

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #985 on: June 06, 2014, 11:06:22 AM »

On Friday, May 30, four members of the Artifact 2-2-V-1 Commission examined Lockheed 10A c/n 1052 at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, CT.  Present were Lee Paynter, Bill Mangus, Karen Hoy and Your Obedient Servant.
We were not able to find anywhere on the New England Air Museum Lockheed 10 that met the criteria for a match to 2-2-V-1, even if the area was repaired in a way that did not require new engineering drawings.  There were two places where there were parallel rows of rivets and enough length without a crossing row of rivets.  One was on the belly in the area we had previously considered the best fit, but the rivet pitch there is 1.5 inches and we learned in Dayton that in a repair the rivet pitch cannot change.  The rivet pitch on the artifact is 1 inch so 2-2-V-1 cannot have come from there.
The section of the belly just forward of that location has rivets with a 1 inch pitch but the skin in that area is .040, not .032.  So we're left with a case of "close but no cigar." 

All the other interesting things we've observed about the artifact are still true and we still have no good alternate Aircraft of Origin.  The mystery deepens.  We're still waiting for the results of tests to determine whether there is aluminum paint on the interior surface of the artifact. The same test will also tell us whether there are traces of zinc chromate present that are not visible to the naked eye.

BTW, we were easily able to match the piece of wreckage from the Idaho wreck to the trailing edge of the starboard-side outer wing panel on the New England Air Museum airplane. This was a good illustration of how easy it is to match even a bent and twisted piece of wreckage to an intact example of the same type of aircraft - provided you have the right aircraft to match it to.

Where does that leave us with 2-2-V-1?  It doesn't fit anywhere on a standard Electra and for it to fit anywhere on Earhart's repaired Electra the basic structure would have to have been altered so much that it would require the approval new engineering drawings - and there are no such drawings indicated in the repair orders. Does that mean that 2-2-V-1 can now be eliminated as possibly being wreckage from NR16020?  Not quite.

There is one part of the Earhart Electra that was a special "field modification" that was not done as part of the post-Luke Field wreck repairs.  Jeff Nevile has this observation:
"I am wondering again about the late-installed cover for the large nav window which was created and installed in Miami. It was a 'one off' mod / de-mod effort with potential for deviation from mothership details, IMO. Trouble is, no other example exists in true-to-NR16020 form that I know of - unless Finch's L10 at Seattle museum of flight has a faithful duplication of the cover. I've seen that one and it does not match 2-2-V-1- but I'm not sure there's a good record of the details of that job on Earhart's own bird to go by. What I'd give for a clear photo..."

We have very few photos of the patch and none of them is of sufficient resolution to see the rivet pattern. The window was originally installed to give the navigator an optically correct  way to take celestial observations from the starboard side of the airplane (the flat window in the cabin door served that function on the port side). No one knows for sure why it was removed and skinned over in Miami, but I have a theory.

Flying around the world from East to West as originally envisioned put the big window on the North-facing side of the airplane. Flying West to East on the second world flight attempt put the big window on the South-facing side.  I suspect that during the flight across the U.S. from Oakland to Miami they discovered that the South-facing window made the cabin unbearably hot.  Noonan reportedly felt that the elaborate navigator's station speced out by Mantz and Manning for the first attempt was excessive.  I suspect that, with AE's permission, he asked the Pan Am mechanics in Miami to replace the window with a patch.

Regardless of why it was done, it was clearly done.  Might the patch have ended up looking like 2-2-V-1?  We'll never prove that it did, unless we find better photos than we have now, but we might be able to show that it could or prove that it couldn't.
 
« Last Edit: June 06, 2014, 11:09:44 AM by Ric Gillespie »
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Greg Daspit

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #986 on: June 06, 2014, 12:39:10 PM »

You probably already have it but just in case, here is a picture of that side with the skin added over the window.  I have never seen a really good picture of that side.
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Monty Fowler

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #987 on: June 06, 2014, 01:16:26 PM »

Stealing a line from Glen Campbell in True Grit, "We're not dead yet!"

I'm hoping that the paint analysis will fill in some of the blanks about 2-V-1-1. If it doesn't, does that mean we toss 2-V-1-1 on the dungheap of wrong conclusions? Most certainly not. Jeff Neville knows aircraft - and I've learned to trust my gut, and Jeff's hunches. My gut tells me 2-V-1-1 belongs to our favorite Electra. New information about Amelia and Fred is STILL coming out, over seven decades later. The piece of paper that explains 2-V-1-1 is there. Somewhere. And TIGHAR will find it.

LTM, who has learned that watched paint never boils, or something like that,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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Chris Johnson

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #988 on: June 06, 2014, 01:35:05 PM »

OK I know nuffink about plane construction but if you were covering over a window would you cut it to shape as an insert or would you just lay it over the aperture?
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Nathan Leaf

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Re: The Question of 2-2-V-1
« Reply #989 on: June 06, 2014, 01:38:19 PM »

Long time lurker, first time poster. 

I have followed this thread with great interest and admiration for TIGHAR's work in the attempt to identify the origin of this artifact and explain its presence on Niku.   

Please forgive me if I missed something obvious in the many thread posts that would readily answer this question, but is there anything about the artifact that would preclude its presence as a piece of aviation scrap aboard the Norwich City? 

The only reason this possibility, if it even is one, entered my mind was because the Norwich City's port-of-call was the same port where Boeing operated their first seaplane factory and test site, in Coal Harbour, Vancouver, British Columbia, after purchasing Hoffar-Beeching Co, a seaplane and boatworks factory operated by the Hoffar brothers and constructing seaplanes since 1916.  I wondered if, given the Norwich City's regular visits and/or time spent under repair at Burrard Dry Docks in Coal Harbour in 1928, there was occasional interaction between the staff in port or at Burrard and Hoffar-Beeching, especially given the latter was also a boat factory, whereby some kind of exchanges of material would not occasionally occur that might have resulted in the artifact being present on board the Norwich City. 

Again, forgive me if I'm overlooking an obvious, exclusionary feature of the artifact.
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« Last Edit: June 06, 2014, 01:45:04 PM by Nathan Leaf »
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