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Author Topic: Mystery word  (Read 20902 times)

Bill Mangus

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #15 on: March 30, 2018, 07:27:25 AM »

How about "Re-installed" ?

Reinstalled fuel tanks installed by original manufacturers?  Would that make sense?  Why wouldn't you say "Fuel tanks reinstalled by original manufacturers?


Depends on how articulate the writer was and how much of a he was in.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2018, 07:29:02 AM by Bill Mangus »
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Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #16 on: March 30, 2018, 08:08:31 AM »

Not looking at the image.

Just brainstorming.

recalculated

reanalysed

reaudited

recalibrated

recertified  (but no evidence of an f, of course)

remeasured (no t in that word)

recomputed

recounted

renumerate

re-estimated

re-installed

reinstate

reissued

rectified

requantify

rerated

retested

revaluated

revalidated


Drawn from browsing through "English words prefixed with re-" in Wiktionary.

The sentence may be about what the owner did to the aircraft rather than the inspector.

Worst case: admit defeat.  Insert a guess in square brackets with a question mark.  Not our fault that the handwriting is unintelligible!
LTM,

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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #17 on: March 30, 2018, 08:21:23 AM »

I like this way of approaching it.

1. Note how spaced out the writing is: ‘tanks’ at the end of the first line, and ‘mfgrs’ at the end of the second.  See how much space each of these five letter words uses.  Whoever wrote this writes in a relaxed spacing of letters that suggests the mystery word might well include less (not more) letters than first meets the eye.

Agreed.

2. Note the spacing of ‘installed’ at the start of the second line, immediately below the ‘mystery word’.  At nine letters, it takes up about the same space as the mystery word.  From this, I believe the mystery word is nine letters long.

Your assessment below calls for ten letters.  Let's make that assumption.


3. I do not believe the mystery word is two words totaling nine letters as the gaps between the words are consistently prominent and I do not see any gaps in the mystery word to suggest it’s actually two words.

Agreed. We're looking at a single word.


4. Note the ‘tails’ hanging down below the line of the letters ‘g’ and ‘f’ in ‘fuel’ ‘by’ ‘original’ and ‘mfgrs’.  The tails are distinct ‘fat’ loops compared to the upper strokes in ‘f’, ‘t’, and ‘d’.  I do not see any trace of a ‘fat tail’ in the first work - I don’t think there’s letter with a tail: p, g, y, etc.

Let's make that assumption.


5. Note the letters ‘t’ in ‘tanks’ and ‘installed’. The upper portion of the ‘t’ is a single line (not a loop), and has a distinct ‘cross’ to make the ‘t’.  The letter ‘f’ in ‘fuel’ cannot be mistaken for a ‘t’ (fat loop below); it looks like the mystery word has two ‘t’s with two letters between them.

Let's make that assumption.

6. Note the ‘s’ in ‘mfgrs’.  It looks similar to the small letter just prior to the second ‘t’.  ‘st’

Let's make that assumption.

What I think I’m looking at is a capital letter followed by two small letters then a ‘t’; one more small letter and then ‘st’.  The last three are almost nonexistent, but look to me like three small letters and a ‘d’.

That's actually ten letters. Let's assume you are correct.

 Based upon the above assumptions, let's see what that gives us.

Our mystery word:
• is a single word
• is 9 letters long
• must NOT include a lower-case g, j, p, y or z

Position 1 - Capital letter
Position 2 - any letter except the excluded ones or t
Position 3 - any letter except the excluded ones or t
Position 4 - t
Position 5 - any letter except the excluded ones or t
Position 6 - s
Position 7 - t
Position 8 - any letter except the excluded ones or t
Position 9 - any letter except the excluded ones or t
Position 10 - d

So -   [Cap] - - t - st - - d
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #18 on: March 30, 2018, 08:28:37 AM »

From Marty's list, "retested" comes closest to fitting Pat's criteria.
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #19 on: March 30, 2018, 08:48:33 AM »

The sentence may be about what the owner did to the aircraft rather than the inspector.

The government inspector is explaining that the fuel tanks were installed by the original manufacturers.  We know that the tanks were taken out in August, changes were made, and the tanks were put back in.  The mystery word must be an adjective that describes the changes made to the tanks, otherwise the inspector could have simply said "Fuel tanks installed by original manufacturer".
Let's think about that for a minute.  Why was it important to explain that the "[something] fuel tanks" were installed by the original manufacturers?  This looks to me like saying,"This change to the fuel tanks (described by the mystery word] was not done by the owner but by Lockheed."  "Manufacturer," as described on the front of the inspection form, is Lockheed.
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #20 on: March 30, 2018, 08:50:45 AM »

One interesting tidbit that comes from all this is that the fuselage tanks were apparently not manufactured by Lockheed.  Thats new information.

Wrong again Gillespie.  This is a government inspector inspecting an airplane owned by Earhart.  The "manufacturer" is Lockheed.
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #21 on: March 30, 2018, 09:10:10 AM »

All of this angst over one word may seem obsessive but there's actually a method in the madness.
We've long suspected that artifacts we found in the abandoned village on Niku are heat shields installed to protect the fuel system from the cabin heating ducts.  See Detective Story.
Was the problem that occasioned the removal of the tanks in August the discovery that the cabin heat was creating vapor lock in the fuel lines?  Was the installation for "heat shields" part of the fix?  Does the "mystery word" provide any hint of what was done to the tanks?
We must not let our hypothesis color our deciphering of the word but that's why figuring out this word is worth the effort.
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Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #22 on: March 30, 2018, 09:50:09 AM »

Ric,

Any chance of getting a better image of the document?
LTM,

           Marty
           TIGHAR #2359A
 
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #23 on: March 30, 2018, 10:01:13 AM »

Any chance of getting a better image of the document?

Pat is making a cleaned-up facsimile that will be much easier to read than the horrid photocopy provided by the FAA.  It was in the process of finishing that facsimile that she hit the "mystery word" snag.  She and I struggled with it for a few days and couldn't come up with an acceptable solution.  At that point I did what I always do when I hit a research dead end - invoke the awesome power of the Forum.  I'll post the facsimile later today as a work-in-progress..
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Pat Fontaine

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #24 on: March 30, 2018, 10:34:22 AM »

After looking at the complete document, I have some updated thoughts:

1.  First things firsts.  Ric: you’re right.  Ten letters in the first word, vice nine.  Who said Marines can count?  (Now I think it might contain eleven).  Smiles...
2.  Every ‘T’ has a distinctly bold horizontal stroke.  When I look at the mystery word, I can’t find one on what I thought yesterday was the first ‘T’.  I question whether it’s a T...
3.  The only cursive ‘C’ I could find was in ‘Nacelles’ up where it asked the location of the engines: ‘Outboard Wing Nacelles’.  It may be the only ‘C’, but it lacks any curve and resembles an ‘I’ without the dot.  That first ‘T’ might be a ‘C’.
4.  Every ‘I’ has a distinct dot.  Every ‘E’ is a short stroke and lacks a distinct loop, with the exception of ‘per’ in the sentence ‘Tanks installed per diagram’.  Perhaps what we think is an ‘I’ is really an ‘E.’
5.  Note that ‘S’ and ‘R’ look similar, particularly in ‘mfgrs’ where they’re next to each other.  Perhaps it’s not ‘S’ before the second ‘T’ but ‘R’.
6.  All the ‘Ds’ have sharp upper strokes (not loops).  Yet ‘installed’ at the beginning of the second line sure looks like a sharp upper stroke of a ‘D’, PLUS some faint markings to the right of the stroke that just might (?) actually be the lower loop of a ‘F’, ‘G’, or ‘Y’, etc in the mystery word.

IF the first ‘T’ in the mystery word is actually a ‘C’, and IF there’s a ‘R’ before the ‘T’, and IF there is a lower-looped ‘F” just above the ‘D’ in ‘installed’, ‘Re-certified’ would fit nicely.

Tried real hard not to make things fit just because I want them to - but I can see ‘Re-certified’ as the first word.
Pat
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« Last Edit: March 30, 2018, 10:41:23 AM by Pat Fontaine »
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #25 on: March 30, 2018, 11:00:51 AM »

I'm having a hard time making it re-certified.
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Pat Fontaine

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #26 on: March 30, 2018, 11:09:19 AM »

Curious -
The original copy of the document contained in your 2016 post:
https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1824.msg39755.html#msg39755
does not appear to have a horizontal stroke across the first ‘T’ so when I look at that, I think it can’t be a T.   But your original post to this thread, and your last one with the typed red letters superimposed both have a distinct horizontal stroke, making a clear ‘T’. 
I don’t know why that would be and am not suggesting anything, just that it’s curious that the two copies appear different with respect to the first ‘T’.


Disregard my latest post - back to the drawing board.
Pat
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« Last Edit: March 30, 2018, 11:10:57 AM by Pat Fontaine »
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #27 on: March 30, 2018, 11:18:33 AM »

I think we're looking at scans of two different photocopies (we have two sets of documents obtained from the FAA).
In the scan I posted in 2016 the mystery word looks more complex than in the scan we've been discussing.  Let me dig into the paper files and confirm that.
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Pat Fontaine

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #28 on: March 30, 2018, 11:23:32 AM »

I just reached that same conclusion.  I made a file with both versions, including circles where the horizontal stroke was on one but not the other.  While doing so, I noticed a lot of other bits and pieces that appear on one and not the other (note the object by the ‘i’ in installed to start line two - also not present in the other version). 
Pat
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Greg Daspit

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Re: Mystery word
« Reply #29 on: March 30, 2018, 11:53:34 AM »

Looking at the full document where the word is not enlarged it looks like the first 3 letters are “air” like in “air-Tested”. Or "air test incl."
The dot of the “i” below may be overlapping the first  letter
3971R
 
« Last Edit: March 30, 2018, 12:11:12 PM by Greg Daspit »
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