Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:38:10 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Electra's Receive Antenna Lost on Take-Off? Isn't there documentation about wire being found on the runway? ltm jon 2266 *************************************************************************** From Ric No, only anecdote. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:39:54 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Did a Flood at the 7-Site Kill the Reef? I don't know how we'd test the hypothesis, other than perhaps through analysis of the sequence of aerials. I would expect an overwash to knock down a house, but the tank looks pretty solid. If it did knock down the house, it might still have left enough to be visible to Evans and Moffitt several years later, and it might have been rebuilt thereafter. I know, lots of possibles, but then, there are quite a few of those in your scenario, too. I'm imagining the colonists building a house for Gallagher, probably to use during the intensive search; then for whatever reason it's fallen down sufficiently by '46 that Evans and Moffitt see only the water catcher. Once the Coast Guard's gone, people return and rebuild it for use, say, in turtle hunting (We're sure it's not the site of the caretaker's house, right?). Then in '49, when Aram Tamia walks Laxton around the island and Laxton asks him about the house, Aram nostalgically refers to it as a house built for Gallagher, even though in all probability there's little left of the original house. Hey, it's a scenario. TK ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:44:16 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Gallagher Any chance we'll see Tom King's paper on Gallagher soon? william 2243 ************************************************************************** From Ric Pat has been coding it up for the website and creating the graphics. Should be done soon. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:48:53 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Evidence at the Seven site Oh, OK, so we don't really know it was there; we simply know that something was there that looks a lot like the thing we know the Kiwis had. Of course, we also know that distilleries were offloaded by Maude et al in 1938 at the beginning of the Great Search for Water. And as I recall, one of them failed. Is there any reason not to surmise that its tank (or the tank of another failed unit) was re-used at the Seven Site? My point is just that we don't really know there was a distillery there, so it may not be necessary to account for its absence. TK ************************************************************************* From Ric OK ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:58:03 EDT From: Marty Moleski Subject: Re: Electra's Receive Antenna Lost on Take-Off? Previous Forum messages tell of an anecdote from an airfield worker to the effect that he and his friends were not suprised when the plane went missing because they found "her antenna on the runway." Sorry, I don't have an exact reference to where the anecdote is on the web site. It does seem that the photographic evidence strengthens the value of the anecdote. Marty ************************************************************************** From Ric The anecdote is probably not on the website. In (or about) 1994 - long before we did any forensic imaging of the takeoff film - Mr. R. E. Fullenwider approached me after a speaking presentation I did for a group in Columbus, Indiana. He told me that while he was in Lae, New Guinea during WWII "courtesy of Uncle Sam" one of the old timers around the airfield made the comment you refer to above. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 12:08:42 EDT From: Chris Kennedy Subject: Re: Did a Flood at the 7-Site Kill the Reef? If the house were built atop poles sunk into the ground, and the tank was elevated on some sort of structure, any overwash might have moved the sand without wrecking the house/tank. Along the Texas Gulf Coast, lots of houses and other structures are built this way to survive flooding from storms and hurricanes. Of course, nature can destroy anything, but lots of these structures make it through the storms, and you would be amazed to see how much sand and junk gets moved about.....the scenario is very plausible, but difficult to test unless you know the land, the design of the structure and the severity of the storm. So, I vote " entirely possible but cannot be tested based on current information" and that we move on. --Chris Kennedy *************************************************************************** From Ric I'd be curious to know if anybody who has actually been to the site thinks that there is any indication whatsoever that an overwash occurred. (The only people who have been on the ground there are me, Pat, John Clauss, Russ Matthews, Don Widdoes, and Joe Hudson.) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 12:16:06 EDT From: Charles Lim Subject: Seven site From reading the contents of several e-mails concerning the evidence found at the '7' site, there still remains the possibilty that, one or more other events, that have not been recorded anecdotally or otherwise, may have destroyed the evidence that we are looking for. The presence of the dwelling on the site, for whatever period of time that it was there, could be concerned with the castaway, the removal of the remains of the above, and the subsequent disposal of the remains. This is not proven, but it could be the only reason in my mind why someone would go to great lengths to settle in one of the less hospitable areas of Niku; to conduct a search based around the dwelling for more evidence of the castaway, their origin, and the reason why they were stranded. Since the search was then later abandoned, the dwelling would then be later dismantled, the relevant collected evidence would then be dealt with the proper official channels. Have we collected evidence of the above? If so what is the possibilty that there are still remains where there are supposed to be? I do think that if the dwelling was deconstructed, the material would be recycled by the villagers and re-used. This is perhaps why we have not come across any significant debris associated with the structure. I hope this helps. LTM Charles Lim (WHO SHALL NOW DISSAPPEAR IN A PUFF OF SMOKE) *************************************************************************** From Ric I'm not really sure what you're getting at. The apparent sequence of events goes something like: Bones found Organized search ordered House (and possibly other infrastructure) built Organized search carried out Found objects sent to Fiji House (and possibly other infrastructure) dismantled and removed ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 12:21:47 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: 7500 KC RDF As understand it, an aircraft flying at 1,000 feet has a "radio horizon" of about 40 miles. That is, whatever the HF frequency, at a distance up to about 40 miles between Earhart and the Itasca, radio communication between Earhart and the Itasca would have occurred via "line of sight, " not NVIS, skip, or "groundwave." Janet Whitney ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 12:53:50 EDT From: Richard Johnson Subject: The Landing: On what evidence, other than anecdotal, do you base your assumption that AE landed near the NW City? Placing to much emphasis on the memory of an old woman, who I believe knew you were interested in an airplane on Niku before the interview with her, (please correct me if I am wrong about her prior knowlege of your interest), might mislead your search efforts. Given a choice of finding AE's bones or her airplane, which would you choose Ric? I am still a firm believer in the airplane in the water around the island theory. I believe finding the plane will prove easier to do than finding bone fragments somewhere on the island. Suppose the 7 site comes up blank next summer, then what? I would love to see the surrounding waters throughly searched and the mystery solved. Richard Johnson *************************************************************************** From Ric We're not entirely sure whether or not Emily had been told that we were interested in an airplane before Tom King first spoke with her, but he asked her about a box her father built, not aboat an airplane. She was the one who connected the bones in the box to an airplane. We had developed a hypothesis about a landing on the reef off the western end of the island long before Emily said she had seen airplane wreckage there. Our hypothesis was based upon anecdotal accounts of wreckage seen in the water and along the shoreline, corroborated by aerial photography that shows what appears to be a debris field of light colored metal on the reef flat in 1953. All Emily did was give us our earliest (to-date) anecdotal sighting of airplane debris. It's corroborated by the photo taken by Eric Bevington in October 1937 which shows anomalous material on the reef flat in the area where Emily says there was airplane wreckage. In other words, the case for a landing on the reef north of the Norwich City and the subesquent destruction of the airplane by surf action with attendant distribution of wreckage is not based upon the memories of one old woman. If you believe strongly that the airplane is in the deep water surrounding the island I'd be interested to know what evidence you have to support that theory - or is it just an opinion? LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 13:53:03 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Electra's Receive Antenna Lost on Take-Off? This raises an interesting point. If the antenna did break off on take-off on Lae, it would seem to me that either Callopy or Chater would have known about it (after all, Chater was the airdrome supervisor), and would have reported it in one of their formal reports. I realize lack of reporting doesn't mean it didn't happen, but if something that significant did happen, it should have been included. I know, I know, lots of ifs and would haves. Still, it is puzzling. *************************************************************************** From Ric About all we can say with any certainty is that neither Chater nor Collopy apparently knew about the loss of the antenna. Without having been there we really can't say how hard it would have been for something like that to happen and neither of them know about it. Deciding that something did not happen because, surely, someone would have known about it can be a real trap. Harry Maude was quite sure that Gallagher never found any bones on Nikumaroro because he would have heard about it. Certainly, a high ranking British official like Sir Harry Luke would have notified the American authorities if he became privy to information that might relate to the fate of Amelia Earhart -wouldn't he? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:01:12 EDT From: Dave Bush Subject: Canoe fuel How about this: tank wasn't a water device, but rather a "still" (canoe fuel?). Since people sometimes pick up things, like carbine shells, could the empty shell have been dropped there after having been picked up somewhere else? What rate does canoe fuel evaporate at? LTM - who hates canoes with no fuel, but can't stand the taste of the fuel - but M is not fool herself! Dave Bush #2200 ************************************************************************** From Ric Of course, any artifact could have been picked up from its original place of deposition and and carried, for God knows what reason, to where you find it. By "canoe fuel" I'm assuming you mean distilled spirits (i.e. booze, white lightning, hooch). The Gilbertese don't have that technology. Their hooch-of-choice is fermented coconut sap, called "toddy." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:03:40 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: small screen... > From Ric > > I agree. We're probably talking about more of a hut than a house. Houses in > the village weren't very big either (Tom?) and yes, there are at least two > holes in the ground that are suggestive of support posts near where the plate > shard was found. If the shard was found near the tank, then those holes may be nothing to do with the house. The coasties came across the tank but didn't see the house in 1944, but Laxton saw the house in 1949. Perhaps the house was "near" the 7 site rather than "at" the site. Or maybe the tank was moved.... Th' WOMBAT *************************************************************************** From Ric The shard was not near the tank. It was near the holes. And yes, I think the tank was moved. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:10:26 EDT From: Ellie Subject: Re: Evidence at the Seven site Hi Ric, isn't there any way with todays knowledge, to examine the bird bones at the 7 site to date them? Stupid question I guess or the tests would have been made by now. Ellie ************************************************************************** From Ric Carbon dating is not nearly precise enough to be of help in this instance. Expert opinion, however, is that the bird bones seen at the site in 1996 were actually quite recent and probably represent nothing more than a bird who happened to die there and was pulled apart and eaten by crabs. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:11:24 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Useful(?) New Zealand resource In connection with the quest for John Eric Pery-Johnston I've been pointed toward the Hocken Library at the University of Otago -- URL http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/hocken/hhome.html. To judge from the first few pages of the site, it's a good source of material on Pacific and New Zealand history, including extensive manuscript holdings. I plan to work with it in search of information on the 1938 New Zealand survey on Nikumaroro, but if someone with more free time wants to take it on first, have fun. LTM Tom King ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:15:28 EDT From: Charles Lim Subject: Re: Seven site >From Ric > >I'm not really sure what you're getting at. The apparent sequence of >events >goes something like: >Bones found >Organized search ordered >House (and possibly other infrastructure) built >Organized search carried out >Found objects sent to Fiji >House (and possibly other infrastructure) dismantled and removed That is exactly what I'm saying Ric. I know it sounds a bit outta whack. The purpose of the house may have been a rest hut for someone who was taking a break from the search as the village is quite a distance away on foot and you also have to cross the lagoon. I'm quite sure this could be one purpose of building the hut or as many have said it was a resting place (not a grave) for Gallagher. In any case, I do hope that you're certain that a structure of some sort of structure stood there as it could be the only explaination for some of the strange items that have been disscussed lately. The chronology of events thats being discussed does not seem too unusual or does it?? LTM Charles Lim *************************************************************************** From Ric Seems perfectly logical to me. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:46:54 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Earhart's Take-Off From Lae Ann Pellegreno interviewed Bertie Heath in Lae during her 1967 flight (pages 144-145 of "World Flight"). No mention of an antenna or parts of an antenna found or seen falling off the Electra by anyone in Lae. The Longs also interviewed Bertie Heath. I've viewed the TIGHAR film clip at high resolution on this 19" Multisync CRT. Sorry, I don't see an "antenna." coming off the Electra. Others who viewed the film clip don't either. According to the WE schematics we have, the WE transmitter and receiver typically shared the same antenna, using a relay for transmit / receive keyed from the microphone's push-to-talk switch. Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric Something I used to do in our Aviation Archaeology course was to take about a half dozen accounts of Earhart's Lae takeoff as described in various primary and secondary sources (the Collopy letter, the Chater Report, Bertie Heaths' account as later related to various people, etc.) and ask the students to try to resolve the many discrepancies and come up with a mental picture of what the takeoff really looked like. Once they'd done that I showed them the film of the actual takeoff. Everyone was always amazed at how different the reality was from the descriptions of the eyewitnesses. If you don't believe that the antenna was lost, try this: A. Look at the film again. Do you see the aft mast of the belly wire antenna almost brushing the grass as the airplane taxis past the camera from left to right on its way up to the far end of the runway? No? You may have to do what we did - engage the services of a forensic imaging laboratory to examine each frame. The mast is there, just as it should be. B. As the film picks up the airplane coming back past from right to left on its takeoff run you'll see that the tail is already up. About two seconds into that sequence you'll see a puff of dust erupt from the ground beneath the airplane and then dissipate in the propwash. If you look as closely as we did you'll see that the puff does not erupt under either tire or prop tip but under the centerline of the aircraft. C. As the airplane takes off and comes past the camera you'll be able to see the loop antenna, and the dorsal mast, and even the pitot tubes under the chin (again, this may take some rather sophisticated forensic imaging, but they're there). What you won't see, no matter how hard you look, frame by frame, as the airplane passes in front of light backgrounds and dark, are the central and aft masts for the belly antenna. We don't know whether the puff of dust is related to the antenna loss or not, but the the fact of the loss is a simple matter of now you see it, now you don't. It's there when the airplane taxis out and it's gone when it flies back by. What we suspect is that the aft mast that is so close to the ground was knocked off as AE swung the tail around to line up with the runway at the far end of the field (and far away from the spectators). That would leave the broken mast being dragged along the ground by the antenna wire. The puff may be the dragged mast snagging on the ground and ripping the wire loose. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:58:36 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Did a Flood at the 7-Site Kill the Reef? I don't mean to be argumentative (who, me?), but what would you take as contemporary visual evidence of a 60 year-ago overwash? TK ************************************************************************* From Ric I take it that this is directed at Kenton. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 15:00:21 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Seven site Charles, if you're suggesting that the removal of whatever was at the Seven Site (if it happened) might have destroyed the evidence there (if there was any), then sure, that's possible, but it would hardly be inevitable. Evidence in the ground, like bones and teeth, aren't easily completely destroyed by things like removing structures on the surface. I've excavated intact graves under areas that had seen the construction and systematic destruction (through bombing) of major surface facilities (airfields, gun emplacements, etc.). The problem we face with the Seven Site, though -- or with any putative bones discovery site -- is that the evidence was ephemeral in the first place, and then was the subject of a more or less systematic collecting effort by Gallagher & Co. But the best things we could possibly find would be teeth, which don't erode easily, aren't easily found, and hence have the best chance of survival over the decades. The chances of building removal at the Seven Site resulting in the removal or destruction of scattered teeth strike me as close to nil. Of course, we also have to acknowledge that our chances of finding them aren't real good, either, but the nice thing about the Seven Site, with its suspicious hole in the ground, is that it gives us something to focus our efforts on. We know that not all the teeth originally in the head left the island in Gallagher's shipment; the most likely place they got left is in the hole where the head was buried and then dug up. IF that's true, and IF the hole on the Seven Site is where the head was buried, then with modern archeological techniques we should be able to find them. LTM (who notes that Gallagher was ahead of his time) Tom King ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 15:04:27 EDT From: Peter Subject: Re: The Landing: I'm a bit confused. All the emails I receive from this forum elude to the notion that Amelia Earhart's plane is still missing. I recently heard that her plane was found...in fact, I heard that Camron Diaz is playing Amelia in an up-and-coming movie about this discovery. Please help clarify my confusion. Has anyone heard the same thing? Peter *************************************************************************** From Ric Really? Who found it? Where was it? Who (and what gender) is Camron Diaz? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 15:11:25 EDT From: Marty Moleski Subject: Re: Coast Guard Reunion If you can't get a "primary researcher" to join Chuck, I could get there for the 16th, FWIW. Maybe two devotees are better than one. ;o) Marty ************************************************************************** From Ric As it turns out, all of us primary researcher types seem to be unable to make the festivities so we'll gratefully accept your gracious offer. What questions, I wonder, would we particularly want to ask the veterans of Unit 92? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 16:16:55 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Camron Diaz rules! Ric said; Who (and what gender) is Camron Diaz? No more trips to Niku for you, you've already been out in the sun too long! Sheeze! LTM, who respects Ms. Diaz's work Dennis O. McGee #0149CE ************************************************************************** From Ric I guess that answers my question. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 10:18:24 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Speculation on the antenna Randy Jacobson said: "If the antenna did break off on take-off on Lae, it would seem to me that either Callopy or Chater would have known about it (after all, Chater was the airdrome supervisor), and would have reported it in one of their formal reports. I realize lack of reporting doesn't mean it didn't happen, but if something that significant did happen, it should have been included." We do not know for sure that Chater and Callopy did or did not know of the missing antennae. All we know is that we have no evidence either way, i.e. written reports, interviews etc. 1. TIGHAR has photographic evidence supporting its theory that the antenna was lost on take off. 2. Anecdotal evidence is clear that a) the antennae was lost on take-off; b) it was found; c) it was identified as being from the 10E, all of which raise questions regarding when it was found and if it was reported. First, IF it was found, I believe it would have had to have been within a few days of the flight because the more time that passed between AE's departure and the discovery of the missed antennae, the less chance the antennae would be correctly associated with AE's flight. After several weeks or months the wire antennae would have rusted, personnel would have moved, and memories faded and the antennae could have been mistaken for just another piece of debris. Therefore I would speculate that the missing antennae, if found, was discovered within a "reasonable" time after the take-off. Second, if the antennae was lost and then found shortly after AE's departure, it is difficult to imagine that its loss and discovery would not rapidly become common knowledge among those witnessing the take-off, especially in light of the flight's tragic ending. Therefore, one could assume Chater reported this to someone. But of course we do not have records of ALL of Chater's stuff. He very well could have reported it and the information was lost over the years. But didn't Chater die shortly after AE's flight? Maybe he learned about the antennae and never got a chance to formally report it. And as for everyone else who possessed the "common knowledge" of this important event? It is not hard to envision an attitude of: "Well, "the authorities" (Chater) know of it, and he "obviously" has reported it, so that's that." The paths of speculation are endless; my kingdom for some hard evidence. LTM, who is happy to be back Dennis O. McGee #0149CE *************************************************************************** From Ric You raise some good points. There were two "authorities" who made written reports at the time. Jim Collopy was District Superintendent of Civil Aviation for the Territory of New Guinea. His usual base of operations was Salamau, not Lae, so he may not have been around when the wire was found. Eric Chater was General Manager of Guinea Airways and was based right there in Lae. Chater was killed on October 13, 1941 when he walked into a prop, so his death does not seem to be a factor in this business about the wire. Another person who "should" have known about it, but apparently didn't, is Harry Balfour, the wirleless operator at Lae. This is the same old problem we see in many contexts ( the discovery of the bones on the Gardner, the stories of other bones and airplane wreckage on Gardner, the Canton engine, etc., etc.). Does the apparent ignorance of an event by people who "should" know about it mean that the event did not occur? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 11:18:41 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Earhart's Takeoff From Lae We looked at the TIGHAR film clip again. Same conclusion. The Electra seems to have plenty of ground clearance. The shadows make it hard to discern anything on the underside of the Electra except for the wheels. By the way, Earhart took the Electra on a test flight on July 1st What we saw in the TIGHAR film clip was Bertie Heath's description of Earhart's take-off related to Pellegreno in 1967. It is hard for us to believe that if an antenna had broken off the Electra while the plane took off that it wouldn't be noted and reported. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric So - the resolution of the film via the website is not good enough for you to be able to see what we can see from a frame by frame analysis of a high-quality Beta SP copy of the film. That's not surprising. The web has its limitations. All you can legitimately conclude from that is that you can't see the evidence that we claim is there. If you want to pay for one we'll be happy to send you a Beta SP dub of the film. Then you'll be able to prove TIGHAR wrong by showing us all at least three frames in the film in which the aft antenna mast is visible during the right-to-left takeoff run. Or, you could show us other examples of filmed takeoffs of the same airplane (there are several) in which the mast in question is NOT visible even though we know it was there. (I'll save you the trouble. We've looked at the films. You can see the mast.) In other words, if you expect to credibly debunk TIGHAR's conclusions you'll have to do what we did to reach them - spend some time, spend some money, and produce genuine data. <> Pellegrino, page 144 - He sat quietly a moment. " I wanted to see them off, but couldn't just stop working. The rest of that day I flew back and forth to the mines. The following day when returning from my first trip, I saw her silver plane moving slowly down the unpaved runway. It must have been 3000 feet long at that time. When her plane reached the road that had a high crest and ran across the runway near the seaward end, it bounced into the air, went over the drop off and then flew so low over the water that the propellers were throwing spray." He paused and took a sip of beer. "Always have a couple of beers every day." "She continued straight out to sea for several miles before climbing on course slowly. That was the last I saw of her." He thought for a moment. "The wind was calm and the dust from where she hit the crown of that dirt road didn't disperse quickly, just sort of hung there." Neither the takeoff film nor aerial photos of the airfield taken during that period show a dirt road crossing the runway. The film clearly shows that the rather abrupt rotation of the aircraft was the result of the pilot's actions, not an impact with a perturbation in the runway surface. Smoke from a brush fire on the far side of the runway also shows that the wind was not calm, and the only dust raised during the takeoff run was the puff described in my earlier posting. It occurs not at the moment of rotation as Heath alleges, but several seconds earlier in the takeoff run. The accurate parts of Bertie's recollections 30 years after the fact can be summarized as: - the plane was silver - the runway was unpaved - the runway was 3000 fet long at that time - always have a couple of beers every day I welcome DataQuality's (and anyone else's) critique of TIGHAR's conclusions, but it will take more than plural pronouns and dismissive tones to convince this forum that your data are of acceptable quality. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 11:58:53 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Did a Flood at the 7-Site Kill the Reef? My question about contemporary visual evidence was a follow-up on your comment: >From Ric >I'd be curious to know if anybody who has actualy been to the site thinks >that there is any indication whatsoever that an overwash occurred. (The only >people who have been on the ground there are me, Pat, John Clauss, Russ >Matthews, Don Widdoes, and Joe Hudson.) I haven't been on the Seven Site, other than on its fringes in '89, but I have trouble imagining what I'd take to be clear evidence of a long-ago overwash anywhere on Niku. Thinking back on the "landing strip" area along the southeast side of Baureke Passage, which we looked at in some detail in '97 and are pretty sure gets overwashed regularly, I can't think of any really clear evidence of such events even there. It may be worthy of some note that we did find scattered artifacts and structural remains there (a bottle or two, a house post). Anyhow, I'm just wondering what sort of evidence you're asking the '96 veterans to think about? It would be interesting to get Kenton's take on this, however. TK ************************************************************************** From Russ Matthews Ric wrote: << I'd be curious to know if anybody who has actually been to the site thinks that there is any indication whatsoever that an overwash occurred. >> From Russ Matthews (#0509CE) Well, I am by no means an expert and it was over four years ago. However, I have the impression that the area around the tank was very "open." By that I mean that there were bare patches in the scaevola nearer to the ocean side (like the "seven" itself) and a dearth of shade trees. I remember that there were a few dead trunks, both standing and fallen (one which we debated might explain a light colored looking object in the photos). I wonder if the trees might have been killed by salt water as the result of an overwash? The scaevola nearer to the lagoon was more substantial and heavily tangled -- just the kind of stuff that seems to quickly fill in areas that were previously shaded from sunlight. Once again, these are guesses from memory. I'd suggest you check the videotape and consult a botanist. LTM (who always takes things with a grain of salt), Russ ************************************************************************ From: Kenton Spading Ric wrote: >A couple of observations: > >I agree that it is likely that portions of the shoreline southeast of the 7 >site have been overwashed from the lagoon side during "westerly" gales. >Evidence of that includes: >- the absence of large trees in that area >- the presence of two small "lakes" >- the observation by the divers on the 1989 expedition that the coral on the >reef slope (not the flat) just offshore that area is dead. > >I do not think that overwash occurs in the 7 site area. Evidence includes: >- the apparent presence of a "safety-valve" area just southeast of there (see >above). >- the relatively high elevation of the ridge that runs through the site. >- the pattern of the artifacts found at the site. >- the fact that a place that was known to be prone to overwash would be about >the last place you'd want to build a house. What do you mean by the 7 site area? I agree that the proposed overwash does not occur directly over the middle of the 7 site. The safety valve or overwash area I am referring to is toward the East/Southest end of the 7 site but definitely in the 7 site "Area". Lets see if we can zero in on this. Your placement of the red seven on the 1941 photo on the Web would have the overwash occurring directly over the horizontal portion of the number 7 (if the number were written on paper, i.e. the mostly vertical red lines in the photo). The discolored area on the reef lines up with a portion of the seven. In regards to a ridge line....Variations in ground elevations can be very deceiving in areas covered by thick brush, trees etc.. In any case, wave runup can overflow an area that at first might appear to be too high. The eyes can be very deceiving in this regard. I agree that artifacts at the site may not be directly in the overwash area. My proposed overwash does not "wreck the house" or float the tank away. The artifacts do not necessarily have to be in the overwash area although high water can certainly be a transport mechanism. It takes a skilled eye to identify high water marks especially many years or months after the event. I disagree that an area near the overwash area would be a bad place to build a house. You would definitely not build it in the overwash area itself. But off to the side (say on higher ground) would be ideal as the overwash area would provide a highway from the lagoon to the ocean. The overwash area with its sparse vegetation is what draws you to the site whether you are a castaway of someone wanting to build a house for Gallagher. LTM Kenton Spading ************************************************************************** From Ric Okay, let's define what we mean by "the 7 site." Let's call it the entire width of the atoll from lagoon to ocean bordered on the "top" end by horizontal component of the 7 and on the bottom by the bottom of the vertical component of the 7. Russ's point about dead trees possibly being killed by salt water is an interesting one. It could also be that the opening up off the area during clearing operations associated with the search, or kanawa wood harvesting, exposed the trees to too much sun. Here's another thought. Inside the tank and on the ground nearby were several ( a total of six as I recall) coconut shell halves that had, in all liklihood, been used as drinking cups. While the tank itself may have remained undisturbed by a gentle flooding from the lagoon side, the cups on the ground would not. Of course, the tank may have been moved and the cups may date from a later time. The strips of screening, however, we assume date from the construction of the house. The three examples we found were distributed longitudinally several meters apart across the atoll, not laterally. I would expect that an advancing or retreating flood would tend to leave debris distributed laterally along a line (as we saw along the ocean beach at the landing in 1991). In fact, all of the artifacts seen at the 7 site are distributed longitudinally rather than laterally. Ultimately we have to ask what difference it makes whether there was ever an overwash at the 7 site? LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:08:57 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: Coast Guard Reunion >From Ric: > > What questions, I wonder, would we particularly want > to ask the veterans of Unit 92? - Did they do any weapons training? If so, where at and what type of weapons? I don't think it's essential knowledge but it might help keep the M1 cartridges in the filing cabinet. Frank Westlake ************************************************************************** From Ric Yes. We've already heard from some of the veterans that they had M1 carbines, Thompsons, and .45 side arms. Weapons training, however, was reportedly pretty much of the McHale's Navy variety. There's a hilarious story about a .30 cal machine gun arriving disassembled and being carefully assembled by-the-book, then nobody wanting to fire the thing for fear they had put it together wrong. Apparently bird hunting (for sport, certainly not food) along the beach was not uncommon. More elaboration on that activity and stories about anything seen back in the bush would be welcome. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:10:32 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Evidence at the Seven site > Expert opinion, however, is that the bird bones seen at the site in 1996 > were actually quite recent and probably represent nothing more than a bird > who happened to die there and was pulled apart and eaten by crabs. Which, if true, would tend to throw a bucket of water over the "bones scattered" or carried off by crabs theory... Th' WOMBAT *************************************************************************** From Ric Uh huh. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:19:07 EDT From: Rick Seapin Subject: Re: The Landing: I think Mr. Johnson has a point. If the Bevington photo is indeed the wreckage of the Electra and your assumption than the Electra made a landing on the reef flat, north of the Norwich, why not search the deep water at the reefs edge. Surly, radial engines would still be there 63 years after the fact. ************************************************************************** From Ric We're fortunate in that there is a ledge just off that portion of the reef which seems to be several hundred feet wide and only about 40 or 50 feet down - which makes it searchable by divers. That's one of the tasks slated for Niku IIII. Searching the truly deep water off the reef edge is a very different kettle of fish and requires a commitment of time, money and technology that is beyond the scope of this expedition and, in my opinion, is not warranted by the available evidence. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:25:38 EDT From: Marty Moleski Subject: Ms. Diaz Cameron Diaz is an actress. Peter is definitely confused. CD could never be mistaken for (or cast as) AE. ;o) Marty ************************************************************************** From Ric Then again, if the film he's referring to is the oft-rumored production of Jane Mendlesohn's " I Was Amelia Earhart" any resemblance to anything genuinely Earhartian is purely coincidental anyway. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:27:16 EDT From: Denise Subject: The Seven Site For millenium, the Banabans of Ocean Island have built stone terraces. Since Ocean Island isn't THAT far away from Nikumaroro and the same people populate the entire region, isn't it possible that this coral seven was from a much earlier attempt to colonise the island? And to build one of their traditional stone terraces out of what was available to hand - coral? Just a thought. Denise ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:33:32 EDT From: Janice Brown Subject: Re: Camron Diaz rules! Actually, its not Cameron Diaz, its Julianne Moore. Wednesday March 22, 2000 Julianne Moore isn't taking any time off to bask in the glory of her Oscar nomination. In addition to starring in the sequel to "Silence Of The Lambs," Moore is in talks to make "I Was Amelia Earhart," Variety reports. The film is based on the fictional biography of the doomed pilot by Jane Mendelsohn. Fred Schepisi ("Roxanne" "Six Degrees Of Separation") is rewriting the script and plans to direct the film. If Moore accepts the role in "Earhart", the film will have to start shooting immediately after the "Lambs" sequel, "Hannibal". Janice Brown :) *************************************************************************** From Ric Now THAT makes more sense. Thank you. The solution is obvious. Combine the two projects and call it "Hannibal's Beach Party." Dr. Lecter's presence on the island could explain everything. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:42:42 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Coast Guard Reunion I'll start a list of questions: 1. Did you know a guy named Floyd Kilts? If so, what can you tell us about him? Then go on to discuss the story, see if it rings any bells with anyone. Take clean copies of the Kilts account. 2. On whatever island you were on, did you get around much? If you were on Gardner, can you recall anything specific about the island? 3. If you were on Gardner, can you recall who you mostly interacted with among the colonists? Did he have much English? Did you hear any stories from the colonists? 4. Did anyone ever build anything like a structure or a temporary camp anyplace away from the station itself? If so, what and where? 5. If you were on Gardner, the station logs indicate that you visited the colonial village about every other weekend for a few hours. Do you remember what you did there? 6. Would you be willing to stay in touch with us so we can ask more questions? Another thing to consider might be making some kind of presentation on our research to the group, with an emphasis on the Kilts konnection, to see if it triggers any memories. They might be false memories, of course, but we really can't count on getting anything untainted anyhow, given the amount of publicity we've had, and just laying out the story and seeing if it results in any ideas might be the best way to go. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:44:23 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: 7500 KC RDF >>From Janet Whitney As understand it, an aircraft flying at 1,000 feet has a "radio horizon" of about 40 miles. That is, whatever the HF frequency, at a distance up to about 40 miles between Earhart and the Itasca, radio communication between Earhart and the Itasca would have occurred via "line of sight, " not NVIS, skip, or "groundwave."<< -At this distance you cannot rule out any of the above except skip. Hue Miller ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:47:30 EDT From: Andrew McKenna Subject: Lambrecht's view I was re-reading the research bulletin on the "7" site and was struck by something Ric mentions regarding the photo taken by Lambrecht on July 9, 1937. From the "7" Site Bulletin: "On July 9, 1937 three floatplanes from the U.S.S. Colorado flew over Nikumaroro (then known as Gardner Island) during the search for Amelia Earhart. The only photo known to have been taken at that time happens to include the "7" site. Although resolution is very poor, the photo does provide the earliest known aerial view of the site. (For a complete version of the photo see The Lambrecht Photo.) " This got me thinking, so I went to look at the Lambrecht report on the web site. Quoting from his report: "From M'Kean the planes proceeded to Gardner Island (sighting the ship to starboard enroute) and made an aerial search of this island which proved to be one of the biggest of the group. Gardner is a typical example of your south sea atoll... a narrow circular strip of land (about as wide as Coronado's silver strand) surrounding a large lagoon. Most of this island is covered with tropical vegetation with, here and there, a grove of coconut palms. Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there. At the western end of the island a tramp steamer (of about 4000 tons) bore mute evidence of unlighted and poorly charted "Rocks and Shoals". She lay high and almost dry head onto the coral beach with her back broken in two places. The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or taken off in any direction with little if any difficulty. Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her plane in this lagoon and swam or waded ashore. In fact, on any of these islands it is not hard to believe that a forced landing could have been accomplished with no more damage than a good barrier crash or a good wetting." He doesn't find either Amelia or her airplane, but notes some things were important enought for him to note in his report: 1. The tropical vegetation including coconut palms. 2. Signs of recent habitation clearly visible. 3. The Wreck of the Norwich City on the Western end. 4. The suitability of the lagoon for landing a seaplane or airboat. We know that two out of the four items, #'s 1 and 3, are on the Western end of the island, and I think the tendency has been to assume that the "signs of recent habitation" were also on the West end. You would think that he would have chosen to take the photo with the Norwich City, the old 1892 cocos, and the presumed signs of habitation such as the Marker erected by the Brits in the foreground. However, the photo is from the East with all the stuff that we have presumed to be of interest as far away as possible. Why? One reason I can think of was that his flight took place during the mid to late morning, launched at 0700, searched McKean first, then to Gardner (do we know what time?), so perhaps the light was better from the East. However, I know that the late morning sun in the tropics should be pretty high and bright in the sky, so I don't think there would have been much of an advantage from the E or the W. You could also argue that he wanted a picture to display #4 above, but the view of the landing area of the lagoon should have been equally good from the opposite side. Given the fact that he could position his aircraft anywhere over the island for the desired photo angle, why take the one and only photo from the angle that he did? Was there something about this end of the island that he felt was interesting enough to shoot his only picture? Makes you wonder if the "signs of recent habitation" were down at this end of the island and not up near the Norwich City. Just speculation, I know, but it just seems odd to me that the only photo taken by Lambrecht just happens to have the E side of the island with the "7" Site in the relative forground rather than the other more prominent landmarks such as the NC and the 1892 cocos. LTM (who prefers the interesting stuff in the foreground of her photos) Andrew McKenna 1045 CE ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:48:36 EDT From: Russ Matthews Subject: Re: Camron Diaz rules! Cameron Diaz will be seen next year in "The Gangs of New York" and "Untitled Nancy Pimental Project." She will not be playing AE in either one. Several months ago Julianne Moore was cast in the title role of Fine Line Cinema's production of "I Was Amelia Earhart," the screen adaptation of Jane Mendelsohn's 1996 novel by the same name. Trust me, Peter, when I say that you don't want to rely on Hollywood when it come to history or truth. LTM, Russ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:51:27 EDT From: Don Neumann Subject: Belly antenna What if the central & aft masts, securing the belly antenna of the Electra, to the aft section of the plane, were somehow broken-off (torn-off), but the antenna wire (or even a segment thereof) itself, somehow remained fastened & dangling from whatever it was fastened to on the nose of the plane, thus carrying the (remainder thereof) antenna along, airborne, for the remainder of the flight? What affect would that scenario have on the ship's radio reception? Don Neumann *************************************************************************** From Ric I dunno, but I suspect not much. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 12:52:30 EDT From: Terry Ann Linley Subject: Re: Speculation on the antenna << Does the apparent ignorance of an event by people who "should" know about it mean that the event did not occur? >> Of course not! Because TIGHAR has taken the time (and funds) to hire forensic specialists to analyze the film of AE's final takeoff, you have very strong evidence to indicate the belly antenna was lost at Lae. Other investigators have what they consider strong evidence to support THEIR theories. The bottom line is this: someone (hopefully TIGHAR) will eventually find physical and undeniable evidence of AE's demise. You HAVE to keep the search for hard evidence central to your investigation, even though it's tempting to combine all the anecdotal evidence into a scenario that solves the mystery. LTM (who needs her missing teeth!), Terry Ann Linley ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 13:02:28 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: What We See is What TIGHAR Put on the Web What we see is what TIGHAR put on the Web. If TIGHAR wants to put some frames from the film of Earhart's take-off on-line at high resolution, we'll be sure to take a close look. I have 256 mbytes of RAM on this PC and can obtain use of a MAC with commercial graphics software. Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric What we put on the web was a report of our findings. I could easily put up an enhanced frame from the film that shows the antenna in place and very close to the ground during the taxi phase. We already published such a photo in TIGHAR Tracks years ago. That, in itself, would only prove that the antenna was there when the airplane taxied out and I don't think there's much debate about that. To show that the antenna is NOT present when the plane comes back by I'd have to put up enhanced copies of every one of the several hundred frames in the film plus the higher-quality still photo we obtained from Australia. Simply put, it's not worth that much trouble to satisfy your skepticism. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 13:55:45 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Electra's Fuel Consumption At 1912 GMT, the Itasca copied a message from Earhart: "KHAQQ calling Itasca we must be on you but cannot see you but gas is running low been unable to reach you by radio we are flying at altitude 1000 feet." If the Electra had 50 gallons of fuel remaining at 1912 GMT, the average fuel consumption over the 2500+ mile flight would have been 1050 gallons / 19.2 hrs = 54.69 GPH. If the Electra had 100 gallons of fuel remaining at 1912 GMT, the average fuel consumption would have been 1000 gallons / 19.2 hours = 52.08 GPH. If the Electra had 150 gallons of fuel remaining at 1912 GMT, the average fuel consumption would have been 950 gallons / 19.2 hours = 49.47 GPH. What is TIGHAR's estimate of the amount of fuel remaining at 1912 GMT? Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric TIGHAR's estimate, based upon the power management guidelines provided to Earhart by Kelly Johnson, is 188 U.S. gallons remaining at 1912 GMT. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 14:05:24 EDT From: Richard Johnson Subject: Re: The Landing: Ric, do you mean what evidence besides the obvious ( no plane on the island)? Of course my theory is an opinion, just as many discussions on this forum. My evidence of a water landing is based upon a lack of evidence to the contrary. Had Earhart indeed been able to send post lost messages then the plane is obviously above water and in no immediate risk of sinking or destruction by wave damage. Why then would the castaways not remove every possible item from the plane that might aid in their survival? Why did Gallagher not find such items? You ask what items? Any item from the inventory that could aid them. It would stand to reason that any items from the plane ( wire, clothing, flashlights, etc..) might be found along with the bones. I suggest they crashed outside the reef area and had to swim ashore. Maybe FN did not make it ashore, I believe he was a smoker and drinker. In my mind it's plausible and it explains the lack of aircraft artifacts in addition to Lambrechts' failure to see a plane. Richard Johnson ************************************************************************** From Ric So - in discounting the positive evidence for a landing on the reef you're left with only negative evidence for a landing elsewhere (by definition, in the water) and you feel that having crossed roughly 3,000 miles of ocean and finally finding land, Earhart would have chosen to ditch in the open ocean surrounding the island. The logic escapes me. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 14:30:10 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Did a Flood at the 7-Site Kill the Reef? A couple of comments on this exchange: 1. Whether the trees could have been killed by salt water. It's hard for me to imagine a single overwash event doing this, considering that we have pretty lively trees bordering areas of intense saltwater intrusion elsewhere on the island. True, we have dead ones, too, but they're mostly standing out in areas where the ground is pretty saturated with salt water. Which in itself raises an interesting question: how did they grow there in the first place? 2. An overwash area as a place to build a house. I think Kenton's right, and note that we found evidence of a house (albeit a single displaced post) on the fringes of the overwash area east of Baureke Passage. 3. The coconut husks. But they were IN the tank, weren't they? Ergo not likely to float away except in a REALLY extreme event. 4. Does it matter? Maybe. The more we know about how the site has evolved, the better we'll be able to interpret what's there. And this thread got started in an attempt to account for the funny patterns on the adjacent reef, which seemingly have to reflect SOMETHING that took place there, and we ought to find out what it was. 5. If there was an overwash at some point after the area was cleared, it could either hurt us or help us in terms of finding something that Gallagher missed (or it could do both). It could have obscured stuff that was on the surface at the time, or washed it away; on the other hand it may have exposed stuff that wasn't visible during the intensive search. However, whatever it did, it did it a long time ago, and the site has undergone a good deal of uncontrolled transformation since then. LTM (who disfavors uncontrolled transformation) TKing *************************************************************************** From Ric Not husks. Neatly cut nut halves. Either somebody was using them to drink out of or King Arthur and his knights had used the site as a stable. What I said was: << Inside the tank and on the ground nearby were several ( a total of six as I recall) coconut shell halves that had, in all liklihood, been used as drinking cups.>> That indicates (to me anyway) that the cups, both inside and out, are associated with the tank and have not been disturbed by a flood since the tank was last in use. When we go back, if we see indications that an overwash occurred at the site (and I'm aware of no such indications at this time) and those indications suggest that we alter our search plan, we will of course proceed accordingly. For now, at least, I'm comfortable with the discoloration on the reef in the 1941 photo being sand that backwashed out onto the reef because the vegetation had been opened up. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 14:32:26 EDT From: Peter Overstreet Subject: Re: Ms. Diaz Have you ever didn't know you were a casting director on the side. actually, i don't keep up with people magazine, so either actress would have worked for me. ************************************************************************** From Ric I make it a point not to keep up with People magazine. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:29:42 EDT From: Ric Subject: Gallagher article up Tom King's paper "Gallagher of Nikumaroro" is now up on the TIGHAR website as a Research Bulletin at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Research/Bulletins/25_GallagherNiku/25_GallagherNiku.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:31:13 EDT From: Charles Lim Subject: Re: Seven site To Tom King, I do not disagree with you here, but is only speculating about the possibility that one event or the other may have destroyed the bones. Now teeth are a diffrent matter entirely. Once the gums have rotted away, they fall off. As you say, the teeth are wonderful sources of evidence IF you could get your hands on it. The '7' site seems to me have been the site where some kind of event occured which was not properly documented as we have no idea what happened there in any great detail. The presence of a scant amount of evidence that seems to indicate that something was indeed there is the reason behind the speculation. The link between the two events (The castaway and the 'hut') was an attempt to make sense of things. But as someone with no field experience, I do agree that postulating such a scenario doesn't neccesarily guarantee the proposed outcome, which is in this case the destruction of the bones. LTM Charles Lim (who is 'missing a link') ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:34:59 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Coast Guard Reunion The picture of a bunch of bored coasties out bird-hunting on the "beach" with Thompson Submachineguns for something to do boggles the mind... ltm jon 2266 ************************************************************************ From Ric Heck, it gets better than that. You should hear the story about the time there was a scare that there was a Japanese sub in the area and there might be some kind of commando raid on the station. Armed patrols were sent out looking for the enemy in the bush - until somebody figured out that there was a real good chance that the patrols would actually find each other. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:37:59 EDT From: Marty Moleski Subject: Re: Coast Guard Reunion > What questions, I wonder, would we particularly want > to ask the veterans of Unit 92? I'll keep track of these questions as they come up and try to give a summary of them by September 1 for the Forum to review. I also hope to re-read the Forum Archives. It seems to me that there were a number of questions people have had over the years. Whether the CG used any rolled roofing material is one of the current questions, I believe. Marty *************************************************************************** From Ric Absolutely. Thank you. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:39:37 EDT From: Charles Lim Subject: Re: Ms. Diaz I thought that this was a SERIOUS forum filled with serious people, doing BIG IMPORTANT SERIOUS things. LTM Charles Lim (who can hardly be taken SERIOUSLY) *************************************************************************** From Ric Where'd you get THAT idea? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:47:24 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: 7500 KC RDF Given the signal strength of Earhart's transmissions on 3105 KC between 1912 GMT and 1935 GMT, the daytime propagation on 3105 KC, as well as Earhart's attempt to DF the Itasca's CW transmission on 7500 KC at 1929 GMT, why should we NOT believe that Earhart was within line-of-sight radio communication with the Itasca between 1912 GMT and 1935 GMT? Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric Actually, the final tramsmission at 2013 also came in at strength 5 (maximum). Are we then to think that NR16020 spent an hour wandering around within 40 miles of Howland? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:48:28 EDT From: Russ Matthews Subject: Re: Lambrecht's view Andrew McKenna wrote: << Given the fact that he [Lambrecht] could position his aircraft anywhere over the island for the desired photo angle, why take the one and only photo from the angle that he did? >> Keep in mind that we are not absolutely certain that the photo was taken by Lambrecht himself. There were three airplanes in that flight and all of them carried observers in the rear seat -- any one of six men could have snapped the picture. We call it "the Lambrecht photo" because it is an aerial shot dated "July 9, 1937" and John O. Lambrecht was leading the only flight of planes over Gardner that day. LTM, Russ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:53:53 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: The Seven Site Denise asks: >isn't it possible that this coral seven was from a much earlier attempt to >colonise the island? And to build one of their traditional stone terraces out >of what was available to hand - coral? Not likely. There are prehistoric stone-walled and terraced ruins elsewhere in the Phoenix Islands (and of course all over the rest of the Pacific), and they're made of coral, but to judge from photographs of them (and observations of similar structures on other islands) they're pretty readily recognizable as walls and terraces. They're made of coral blocks and chunks, so they don't erode down into long clear patches of coral rubble, as at the Seven Site. I suppose that if someone in prehistory had scraped up a bunch of coral rubble into berms of some sort, and they then eroded down flat, you might wind up with something that looks like the Seven Site, but I don't know of any cases in the area where anybody's documented as having done something like that, and even if they did I don't know why it wouldn't have gotten grown over like everything else as soon as it eroded down -- or even before it did. Anything's possible, but I think on balance I'd prefer to explain the Seven-shaped clearing as a landing strip for drunken UFO pilots. Oh, my, what have I said....? LTM (who never flies her UFO under the influence) Tom KIng *************************************************************************** From Ric In fact, the "Aldebaran" class interstellar cruiser has a landing footprint that rather closely resembles the 7 in shape and dimensions. Alien abduction begins to look like a viable hypothesis. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 15:54:36 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Coast Guard Reunion You might add to the list, - Did you keep any souveniers of your time on the island? (Gee, that's a really nifty skull you have there in your liquor cabinet) - Did you take any photographs during that time? - Do you know of anybody else who might have information/photos/etc? LTM, jon 2266 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:05:28 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Earhart's Takeoff From Lae I agree that the video clip on the website is not the best quality, but I've been able to clearly see that there is an anomaly of some kind, that appears to be a puff of dust from something striking the ground below and behind as the plane is taking off. Having flow from unpaved strips (many) years ago, I can attest that as smooth as they look, they aren't, and I'd be willing to be that (there and then) anything not runway proper was pretty rough. It is all to easy for me to visualize the tailwheel dropping into a rut, snapping the mast, and then the antenna wire snagging and pulling off during the takeoff roll. Also, how often do you suppose anyone actually walked or drove that runway? Weekly to mow it? Probably not even that. I wonder what kind of traffic they had there. From the 1935 Lae airport pix that were recently (earlier this year? - last year?) posted by one of the subscribers, there might have been a fair amount of traffic. I can picture some crusty Aussie (apologies to Th' Wombat) rolliing in and being really upset to find there was this bunch of wire wound around his axle. How about this - do you have prints or scans of the frames in question? How about a post (like the recent "7-site" pictures) to illustrate the point. Not that I have any question about your credibility, but it would still be interesting to see. While I don't "have a couple of beers every day", the next time I do, I will endeavor to contemplate this further. ltm jon 2266 ************************************************************************* From Ric Frankly I'd rather spend the time putting up new stuff. Tom King's Gallagher article is now up and we have the complete Itasca radio logs, in original and translated form, almost ready to go up. We also have most of the 8th Edition ready to be coded and loaded but it all takes time. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:07:20 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Lambrecht's view As I recall, the notion that Lambrecht was trying to photograph the signs of recent habitation was one of the things that led to the 1991 and 1996 TIGHAR inspections of that part of the island, which in turn led to the discovery of the Seven Site. It made sense then, and it makes sense now, particularly in Andrew's clear articulation of the argument. It's one more reason to think that the Seven Site is a good place to look. Of course, we have no way of knowing what other pictures Lambrecht may have taken of the island, that haven't turned up. LTM (who thinks it's worth a thousand words) Tom King ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:17:12 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: fuel consumption Ric replied to Janet Whitney: "TIGHAR's estimate, based upon the power management guidelines provided to Earhart by Kelly Johnson, is 188 U.S. gallons remaining at 1912 GMT." Call me a skeptic, but I think you should have added more data to that answer to pre-empt Ms. Whitney's next question, which more than likely would have been to the effect that AE didn't have enough fuel remaining to make it from Howland to Niku. Using TIGHAR/Kelly's data, AE was burning about 44.9gph up until Howland. At that rate, her remaining 188 gallons would last about 4.2 hours at her average speed of about 130 mph. Is that enough to get to Niku? LTM, who is never out of gas Dennis O. McGee #0149 *************************************************************************** From Ric Do I look I just fell off the turnip truck? Ms. Whitney's reference to average fuel consumption made it clear that what she needed was rope with which to hang herself. I was happy to oblige. Niku is about 350 nautical from Howland. If Earhart was dead overhead Howland (the one place we know she wasn't) and flew to Niku at 130 knots (not mph) it would take her 2.7 hours. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:22:38 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Earhart Take-off Film I would like to see high-resolution enlargements of 5-10 frames from the take-off film. That seems to be a sufficient number to determine the fate of the antenna. If doing the enlargement and high-resolution scan is too expensive or too much trouble, we'll accept that. Regarding the Coast Guard reunion, it seems to be an excellent opportunity for TIGHAR to nail down topics that have been speculated upon at length. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric It's too much trouble and it's too expensive. I don't expect to nail anything down with anecdotes but further interviews of Coast Guard veterans might be helpful. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:30:46 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Lambrecht's view I've tried to address the question of the Lambrecht photo on the forum several times, and will try again. I examined all available evidence to deduce the flight patterns of the pilots, and conclude based upon this and the relatively high altitude of the plane during the photo that the photo was taken after the visit to Carondelet Reef and the planes were returning to the Colorado. This was a photo of opportunity, and was taken, in my humble opinion, because the available charts of Gardner were so fallacious that some sort of document of the true shape/size of Gardner was needed to convince non-first hand observers of this fact. That's my interpretation, and I'm sticking by it. *************************************************************************** From Ric Randy and I have gone round and round about this for years now and occasionally at rather high decibel levels. Bottom line: he makes a pretty good case. The route back from Carondelet does take the flight near the spot where the photo was taken and the high altitude does suggest that the point of the photo was to show the whole island rather than some suspicios feature on the ground. (Good Lord. Did I just agree with Jacobson?) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:33:24 EDT From: Mike Muenich Subject: lagoon search I had a fresh thought the other night concerning a future search of the lagoon area for aircraft debris which might have washed into the lagoon. It is my understanding that the water in the lagoon is relatively clear. A long time ago I took a ride on a glass bottomed boat and found the view exceptional in waters that I recall (opps--memory issues) to be about 15 to 20 feet deep. I would think a small boat, glass bottomed could be fairly easily transported and with a small outboard could cover a lot of lagoon bottom in fairly short order. Given the sea state on the reef this probably would not work out there, except under very favorable conditions. ************************************************************************** From Ric The water in the lagoon is not clear but far otherwise. Visibility to a diver swimming along the bottom is about two feet at best. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:34:25 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: Lambrecht's view > From Andrew McKenna > > Just speculation, I know, but it just seems odd to me that > the only photo taken by Lambrecht just happens to have the > E side of the island with the "7" Site in the relative forground > rather than the other more prominent landmarks such as > the NC and the 1892 cocos. I don't know that it is the case in this instance, or that it was practice in 1937, but aerial photos were frequently taken just to have something on file for future military use and to possibly include in the "Sailing Directions" pamphlets that list navigational information on most places. I think it is more likely that the perspective was chosen with those uses in mind and it had nothing to do with the search. They probably took a photo of each island. Frank ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:39:31 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Did a Flood at the 7-Site Kill the Reef? Sorry about the husks vs. halves; my error. However, they could be styrofoam cups and still not wash away if they were inside the tank. I suspect we've got differing views of what an overwash would be; I don't think of it as a catastrophic event that would upend the tank and send everything flying, but more as a sort of sheet wash out of the lagoon and on across the reef flat. It's a way of getting enough water over the site to accomplish the kind of siltation that you've pretty much convinced me accounts for the funny markings on the reef. TK *************************************************************************** From Ric Let's try one more time. What I said was: << Inside the tank AND on the ground nearby were several ( a total of six as I recall) coconut shell halves that had, in all liklihood, been used as drinking cups.>> The cups inside the tank would not wash away, no. The cups on the ground OUTSIDE the tank would wash away. They didn't. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:43:33 EDT From: Marty Moleski Subject: Re: Coast Guard Reunion > From Tom King > ... [6 questions logged] > Another thing to consider might be making some kind of presentation on our > research to the group, with an emphasis on the Kilts konnection, to see > if it triggers any memories. They might be false memories, of course, > but we really can't count on getting anything untainted anyhow, given the > amount of publicity we've had, and just laying out the story and seeing > if it results in any ideas might be the best way to go. This depends upon Chuck and the schedule of events planned for the reunion. Is there room in their schedule for a presentation? I would like to take TIGHAR recruitment materials. I know I got some handouts with my membership and my first copy of TIGHAR Tracks. It seems to me that it might be hard not to seed "false memories," no matter how we approach the veterans. In order to gain entree to the meeting and in order to get attention from the individuals, there has to be at least some explanation of the TIGHAR hypothesis. Even apart from people who know Niku personally, there are probably others who would know something about the Itasca and similar ships. I don't think information like that will help decide where to search on Niku, but information about making smoke, radio direction-finding in 1937, aerials on the Itasca, post-crash ruminations, etc., may be of some interest in fleshing out the picture of what may have happened. It seems to me that people were also interested in the mothballing of the radar station and sightings of "Gallagher's house" and the water tank. I don't know quite how to phrase it, but a general question in conclusion might be: "Do you know anyone who might have more information about these things?" There may be lots of Coasties who can't make the reunion. Marty ************************************************************************* From Ric We'll send you a supply of religious literature and I'll send you Chuck's email address privately so you can coordinate directly about access to the group. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:47:45 EDT From: Patrick Gaston Subject: Ms. Diaz Cameron Diaz is the ultraskinny model-turned-actress with the winsome smile who starred in "There's Something About Mary," among other films. (Ric, you GOTTA get a life.) Rumor has it that she has been tapped to play the female lead in the film version of "I Was Amelia Earhart," an utterly factual account of the downed aviatrix's affair with studmuffin navigator Fred Noonan on a crab-infested Pacific island paradise. Working titles: "Trystin' the Flight Away", or maybe "Sweatin' in the Scaevola". Best line: "Is that a sextant in your khakis or are you just glad to see me?" I like Mel Gibson for the FN role, except that he might be shorter than Diaz. How about Rupert Everett for Gallagher? LTM (who likes her fermented coconut sap with a splash of tonic, thanks) Pat Gaston P.S. "Niku Nookie" is just too easy. ************************************************************************** From Ric Oh no ya don't. We're not getting into another round of casting the Earhart movie. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:48:30 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Seven site Thanks, Charles. Of course, the outcome may in fact have been the destruction of the bones, and teeth, whatever went on at the Seven Site. We can just hope it didn't, and the only way we're going to find out is to go there and take a good hard look. LTM Tom King ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:50:59 EDT From: Chris Kennedy Subject: Re: 7500 KC RDF Please explain what "line-of- sight radio communication" means? --Chris Kennedy ************************************************************************* From Ric It means you can draw a straight line (a line of sight) between the sender and the receiver without running into the curvature of the earth. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:52:56 EDT From: Michael Holt Subject: Re: Camron Diaz rules! > Now THAT makes more sense. Thank you. The solution is obvious. Combine the > two projects and call it "Hannibal's Beach Party." Dr. Lecter's presence on > the island could explain everything. I certainly hope and pray that no budding screenwriter stumbles onto that idea. (They just wrapped up the location filming of "Hannibal." It was just about four blocks from me. No, I didn't see anyone from the cast, but I wouldn't recognize them if I did.) Michael ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:56:10 EDT From: Herman De Wulf Subject: Re: Ms. Diaz Please remember that Hollywood makes films to make money. They are NOT, repeat NOT, in the business of writing history. They will sell fiction at any price to make dollars. May I therefore suggest that since this forum IS A Serious attempt to study the history of AE's unfortunate 1937 attempt to fly around the world, it drops any reference to Hollywood films on the subject as this industry is known to be unreliable in al things historical. They made a film on the Battle of the Bulge which was a complete farce which had NOTHING to do with this historical battle of WWII. And didn't the Hollywood professionals als recently rewrite history, making another a film on the recovery of the secret German Enigma deciphering machine by the Royal Navy in 1940, shamelessly claiming this feat to have been achieved by the US Navy (even before the US even entered WW II) ? Besides upsetting British public opinion and indeed the British nation to the point that this Hollywood farce was eventually decried in British parliament, this blatant example of Hollywood's unreliability disqualifies the Hollywood film industry as a reference in matters historical. Herman *************************************************************************** From Ric Fear not Herman. I don't think anyone on the forum looks to the movies or television for anything but entertainment. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 16:59:39 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Lambrecht's view I am inclined to agree with the recent post by Andrew McKenna and this one of Tom's - there was a reason for this picture being taken of Gardner/Niku at this location. The more I ponder it, the more it seems to be reasonable. Lambrecht's guys have to have known that one among them had a camera, and I presume they had radio communications from plane to plane - I can visualize them discussing the signs of recent habitation, and making a conscious decision to get a photo of what they thought they saw. The wreckage of the Norwich City would have made a much more interesting souvenier shot. As an aside, do you suppose there would be a record or transcript of any of their radio traffic in the ship's radio logs? Might that be worth a query? ltm, jon 2266 *************************************************************************** From Ric I'm not sure about this but it's my impression that, at that time, there was no plane-to-plane radio communication and only one of the planes (Lambrecht's) had a radio and radio-operator with which to communicate, solely by morse, back to the ship. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 17:03:10 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Gallagher Article Thanks for posting Tom King's paper on Gerald Gallagher. It's a concise synopsis of his career and I enjoyed reading it. I also appreciated the pictures of the Rest House and Gallagher's grave marker: I hadn't seen any before now. william 2243 ************************************************************************* From Ric As Tom says at the top of the paper, it's a work in progress and I'm sure he'd appreciate any factual corrections anyone might want to suggest. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 17:06:59 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: fuel consumption The unspoken end result of which, is an hour and a half of fuel for post-landing battery charging... ltm jon 2266 ************************************************************************** From Ric I think it's important to remember that any estimates we make are just that, estimates. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 17:08:07 EDT From: Jerry Hamilton Subject: Re: Data Quality Who or what is Data Quality and/or Janet Whitney? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 17:12:15 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Lambrecht's view One final thought. The altitude could be nothing more than the result of a close encounter of the avian kind. We know there were lots of birds close to the island. These guys were looking for AE/FN, and I think they had to have done more than merely fly past the island - they have to have tried for a closer look, and one that took them all the way around, regardless of altitude. Do we have a clue as to what kind of camera was used? Maybe this has been asked and answered, but I don't recall. Thanks. ltm jon 2266 ************************************************************************** From Ric Randy is not saying that they didn't fly lower or take a closer look. We don't know what kind of camera was used except that the quality of the photo is pretty crumby. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 17:16:45 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Coast Guard Reunion/ Questions for vets Some other questions come from your interview of Richard Evans,who reports seeing the water collection device on the Island's "northern shore" in 1944 and his recollection and sketch of a strip of "heavy cloth mounted on poles...to funnel rainwater into the tank below." If he is still alive and present at the reunion: 1. Can he better locate the northern shore in relationship to the Loran station 2. What became of the heavy cloth that you speculated could match the custom made engine covers for the Electra. 3. Is he refering to the "7" site in your opinion ? 4. What other observations,photographs, stories, artifacts, if any, did Evans recall or keep. LTM, Ron Bright ************************************************************************* From Ric I have about two hours of Dick Evans on videotape. He marked a map where he thought he had seen the water collection device. The place he marked is very close to the 7 site. Dick doesn't know what became of the heavy cloth any more than I do, but in general, cloth doesn't hold up very long at all out there. I have seen in person and have photos and videotape of the souvenirs Dick acquired on the island. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 09:35:12 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: Earhart's Takeoff From Lae Jon Watson - Lae airport was established primarily to service the gold mines up north. Without digging into the files, I recall that there was a fair amount of daily traffic involving the Guinea Airways Junkers and the Lockheed 10 "executive transport". You'd expect that the pilots would be quick to notice a bundle of antenna wire (which wouldn't rust) on the grass runway. Cam Warren *************************************************************************** From Ric And, according to the anecdotal account, that's exactly what happened. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 09:55:13 EDT From: Richard Johnson Subject: Re: The Landing: Your positive evidence, ( Emilys' anecdotal account, 1953 photo which shows light colored metal on the reef flat, and Bevingtons' 37 photo which shows an anomalous material ) I would classify as possible evidence, by no means conclusive. I do not discount this possible evidence, I simply don't place the faith in it that you do. As far as AE choosing to ditch in the ocean after a 3000 mile journey, I never said that she chose to to do that. I simply don't assume she had a choice. You assume she did. Neither of us have anyway of knowing if she had enough fuel by the time she reached the island to pick and choose where to land. Whether you cross 3000 miles of ocean or 30 miles of ocean has no bearing, if your out of fuel, your out of fuel. You land where have to, be it on the reef or 100 yards from the reef. After more than 20 hours in the air and 3000 miles behind you and AEs' history of bad landings, I chose not to assume she made a stellar landing under the most difficult of conditions. Maybe she did, but I will not assume it based on your positive evidence. Richard Johnson *************************************************************************** From Ric For your scenario to work, the airplane must experience fuel exhaustion within an extremely narrow time frame (she can't quite glide to the island). For my scenario to work she can run out of gas, or not run out of gas, over a period of as much as a couple of hours. I'd rather bet on my scenario. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:02:16 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: 3105 KC, 6210 KC and 7500 KCs in 1937 There was a sunspot maximum late in 1937, just as there will be a sunspot maximum later this year. What does this mean for RF communication at 3105 KC and 7500 KC....especially 3105 KC? It seems to us to mean that 3105 was like UHF during the daytime. What does that imply? It implies to us that Earhart was NOT "flying around" in the vicinity of Howland Island between 1930 GMT and 2014 GMT. As for 7500 KC and NVIS, NVIS is a propagation path typically used with antennas located on or close to the ground (something like 18 inches) and sometimes buried beneath the ground (e.g., by U.S. troops during Desert Storm). If you see U.S. military Hummers with a big vertical antenna tied down to the front of the vehicle, that's NVIS...the antenna is supposed to be always tied down so RF is not radiated horizontally. But for a plane at 1000 feet altitude, RF would also be radiated horizontally from the plane's antenna(s). As for 6210 KC, like 7500 KC propagation beyond line-of-sight would have depended on ionospheric conditions on July 2nd. Janet Whitney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:06:39 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Did a Flood at the 7-Site Kill the Reef? <> OK, OK. Duh. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:10:04 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Lambrecht's view Yes you did agree with me! That has to be a first! I'll send you a free pink flamingo to decorate your digs. (You see, capturing flies with honey is more effective than vinegar...) *LOL* ************************************************************************** From Ric It depends on whether you want to capture the fly ... or kill it. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:33:33 EDT From: Rick Seapin Subject: Button Awhile ago, the forum was discussing the origin of a certain button. I asked if it were possible to clarify the images on "Amelia"s Last Flight" to determined if the button came from AE or FN (forensic imaging). The film clearly shows Noonan's buttons on his medium blue, cotton work shirt. I was advised that this film was a copy and such a task was impossible. Now, certain members of the forum are very interested in whether a belly antennae was present on the Electra prior to take off from Lae. I understand that forensic imaging was completed on certain frames of the film to show the existence of a belly antennae. Could not the same technology be done of Fred's shirt to determined if the buttons are a match? I realize the process is very expensive, but if the buttons do match, it's another positive notch. *************************************************************************** From Ric Forensic imaging is not magic. It's limited by the grain and resolution of the original film. In the case of the video dub of the original 16 mm movie film (which has been lost) the image is not nearly good enough to make any judgements about buttons. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:35:50 EDT From: Matt Gobeille Subject: Re: The Landing: Although I realize that the ocean can be Very Powerful, I would think that from Ric's description of the underwater geography of the site vicinty in the photograph, that if this engine is here, it would be in this depression or trench. The force of a current or wave action strong enough to carry a radial engine up and over such a depression would be almost unthinkable. In fact, under the assumption that aircraft wreckage was likely not carried off in it's entirety, is not on the island, and is not buried under the sand, I would imagine it would be the most likely place to search for wreckage. This said, I did personally witness the aftermath of a hurricane on an already sunken oil tanker under 125 feet of water off the coast of Florida. The currents, even at this depth, had completely uprighted the ship, which had settled onto it's side after sinking. You never know... Matt Gobeille ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:41:38 EDT From: John Buontempo Subject: Re: 7500 KC RDF >Are we then to think that NR16020 spent an hour wandering >around within 40 miles of Howland? But, wasn't there "mention" or "interpretation" in one of AE's tranmissions about "circling" ? Just a thought! John B. *************************************************************************** From Ric At 1928 GMT the Itasca radio log records Earhart as saying "We are circling but cannot hear you...", however, the word "circling" is clearly a later addition over the erased word "drifting." I think that what Earhart said was "We are listening but cannot hear you.." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:45:35 EDT From: Matt Gobeille Subject: Have you heard the news? Cameron Diaz was in transit between "There's something Else About Mary" and her Malibu home last night when her plane vanished over the Pacific. Matt- whose goal in life is to ease Herman's fears and love the Janet Whitneys of the world P.S. as a complete neophyte at this AEmail group, what the heck does LTM mean? Love The Mother, Lots of The Mushrooms, Little Tired of Monotony? ************************************************************************* From Ric Your ambition is admirable. You'll find LTM (Love to Mother) explained at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/forum/FAQs/ltm.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:46:40 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: Belly antenna > From Don Neumann > What if the central & aft masts, securing the belly antenna of the > Electra, to the aft section of the plane, were somehow broken-off > (torn-off), but the antenna wire (or even a segment thereof) itself, > somehow remained fastened & dangling from whatever it was fastened to on > the nose of the plane, thus carrying the (remainder thereof) antenna > along, airborne, for the remainder of the flight? What affect would > that scenario have on the ship's radio reception? --I am thinking that wind turbulence and a bending moment near the wire entrance would over the course of several hours, even with multistrand flexible wire, cause the wire to break. Hue Miller ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 10:59:48 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Re: Earhart Take-off Film My goodness, so many people wanting high resolution enlargements of the Lae take-off film. Possible fund raising opportunity? LTM (who loves a good photo op), Roger Kelley, #2112CE ************************************************************************** From Ric Possibly, but not a cost effective one. That work was done by Photek and the examination of the frames was done on their equipment and was not saved. We'd have to repeat the entire process. The essence of science is replicability and anybody who wanted to could duplicate our work and should come up with the same results. We do, however, have one still photo of the airplane taken during the takeoff run. It's the one shown in the Research Bulletin. We could make a high-res copy of that image available on the website if somebody wanted to sponsor the $100 of time and trouble it would take to put it up. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:07:24 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Did a Flood at the 7-Site Kill the Reef? I've been watching the development of this thread and it has taken a turn sideways. We could of course go back to look at my original observation, i.e. that "FRESH" water runoff may have killed some coral and caused the discolouration (sorry about the English style spelling) of the reef. Salt water runoff is not likely to cause any harm to coral. The silt that can wash off the land with the salt water however, can choke the tiny organisms that make up a coral reef, but I can't see any way a large quantity of silt (as in fine dirt) is going to wash off the 7 site. Fresh water in the quantity that may run down from an area where the vegetation has been removed might however do nasty things to coral, and that was what I was asking in the earlier posting about the discolouration in the photos. Tropical downpours can cause incredible amounts of fresh water runoff in cyclone season in just hours. It could only take one or two to do serious damage to a reef, and may be worth considering. And yes, it will run off the coral rubble if there's enough of it. I have found conclusive evidence since then that mud (silt whatever) running off the land can do serious damage, but nothing on the long term effect of fresh water. In the mean time, might I suggest that since NIKU IIII plans to be in the vicinity of the discolouration, that you might have a look and see just what it really is? Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric Two comments - If the coral on the reef flat is already dead, how can it be killed? We already know that the discoloration is no longer there. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:12:58 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: 7500 KC RDF >Are we then to think that NR16020 spent an hour wandering >around within 40 miles of Howland? Considering how quickly an hour disappears when I am up flying, it would not surprise me.. Th' WOMBAT (time flies when you're having fun - or when you only have a little fuel left and nowhere to land! ) *************************************************************************** From Ric I don't think they spent an hour wandering around, but if they followed the standard recommended procedure of the day they ran one way (logically NW) on the LOP as far as they dared and then reversed course and started running SE when they still had enogh fuel left to guarantee that they's reach land of some kind. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:17:14 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Earhart's Takeoff From Lae This missing antenna thing has become rather central to the whole "Amelia goes missing" thingy. Perhaps later when things cool off a little one or two lo-res shots with a zoom in to the area in question could go up. Sort of like the "thermos" shot when it was thought that may place the fire extinguisher. Say, one pair showing the antenna and one pair showing it missing. Obviously that takes a lot of time away from the other work at TIGHAR, but it has become a hot topic here... Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric For us it's old news but apparently people are finally ready to listen to it. My offer stands. If somebody wants to cover the cost (about $100) we'll put up the imagery. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:19:03 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Gallagher Article > From Ric > > As Tom says at the top of the paper, it's a work in progress and I'm sure > he'd appreciate any factual corrections anyone might want to suggest. I wouldn't mind knowing Tom's understanding of the "thunderbox" (since we still use them). Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric Frankly, the term has always baffled me. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:20:24 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: 7500 KC RDF > From Janet Whitney > Given the signal strength of Earhart's transmissions on 3105 KC between 1912 > GMT and 1935 GMT, the daytime propagation on 3105 KC, as well as Earhart's > attempt to DF the Itasca's CW transmission on 7500 KC at 1929 GMT, why should > we NOT believe that Earhart was within line-of-sight radio communication with > the Itasca between 1912 GMT and 1935 GMT? Seems to me that a horizontal, fixed aircraft antenna would make a very good NVIS (near vertical incidence) radiator, shooting upward and reflecting downward in a shower having quite a radius around the source. It's been a while since i listened to ham radio on the band near 4 MHz, but i recall hearing Sunday morning net operations easily out to 100 miles and 200 was not unheard of. This in daylight hours hours near noon. I am talking about voice communications at non-struggle signal levels. Also, "R-5" or "S-5" means only "solid communications", it does not give you any microvolts/meter actual signal strength information. Hue Miller ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:27:36 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Itasca Logs On-line Did anyone at TIGHAR note and document any changes, erasures, marginal notations, etc., that may be on the original Itasca radio logs at the National Archives? Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric The logs given to the archives by Chief Radioman Leo Bellarts have some handwritten marginal dashes and, in some cases, underlinings to draw attention to entries that quote transmissions from Earhart. When we put the logs up on our website we'll include images of the actual sheets plus a glossary terms and abbreviations plus plain English translations of the entries. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:50:41 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Antenna on Lae Runway In the context of all that was reported about Earhart while she and Noonan were in Lae, it is hard to believe that the loss of an antenna would not be reported except by anecdote. Regarding the Coast Guard renunion; given that the average age of WWII veterans is about 76, I am surprised that an effort wasn't made several years ago to contact Coast Guard veterans who served on Gardner Island and other islands in the vicinity of Howland. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric I'm surprised that you've somehow read all these postings and haven't caught on to the fact that we did indeed track down many of the veterans of Unit 92 in the early days of the project and that the purpose of going to this reunion is primarily to catch any we may have missed and to get some new questions answered. Yesterday one of the forum members posted a query as to just who you are and what DataQuality is. I think it's a fair question and I think your answer to it will be the next thing from you that I will post. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:57:23 EDT From: Charles Lim Subject: Re: Seven site >From Tom King > >Thanks, Charles. Of course, the outcome may in fact have been the >destruction of the bones, and teeth, whatever went on at the Seven Site. >We can just hope it didn't, and the only way we're going to find out is to go >there and take a good hard look. > >LTM >Tom King Horray!! at last the fun begins!! LTM Charles Lim ************************************************************************ From Ric If you mean the fund-raising for Niku IIIII, yes, the fun begins. The $12,000 deposit on the ship has been paid and the expedition is set for September of 2001. Watch for a full itinerary and description on the website in the next couple of weeks. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 12:07:26 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Thunderboxes Th' Wombat still uses Thunderboxes? Charming! Laxton refers to the one in the rest house in passing as though everyone ought to know what they are, and Knox-Mawer does the same in her "Shadow of Wings," but I'm as baffled as Ric as to where the name came from. Foua Tofinga told us that Jack Pedro was responsible for designing the things, but we've assumed the idea wasn't original with him. Here's a description of the one on Niku, from a chapter of the 8th Edition-in-progress. Your explanation, elaboration, and/or correction would be much appreciated. TK Excerpt: What remains of the Rest House is a U-shaped concrete slab with the charred remains of eleven support posts set in its edges. The south corner lacks a post, being supported by the building's most remarkable feature -- the "thunderbox lavatory" referred to by Laxton. This is a rectangular concrete structure, about two by three meters with walls about 30 cm. thick, containing a claw-footed bathtub and perhaps other facilities, obscured by a fetid mass of decaying coconuts and fronds. Foua Tofiga attributes the invention of the thunderbox lavatory to Jack Kima Petro, who all sources agree oversaw construction of the Rest House and most if not all other major government construction in the Phoenix Island colony. As Mr. Tofiga explained it, the walls were built strongly to support a tank, into which water was pumped by hand so as to flow by gravity to the taps below. The tank has disappeared (though three galvanized iron tanks lie next to the cookhouse), but pipes and parts of a handpump still lean against the southeast wall of the "thunderbox." The Rest House's thatch or mat walls must have covered the concrete walls of the lavatory, which are quite invisible in Sir Harry Luke's 1941 photograph. End of excerpt ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 15:13:43 EDT From: Ric Subject: Gallagher paper I'd like to congratulate Tom King on his fine paper "Gallagher of Nikumaroro" and offer a few picky comments and corrections. <> Although there was a British administrative presence on Canton, I don't believe that there was ever a British airbase there. The military facilities, and the aircraft, were entirely American. After the war, British commercial airlines used the airport as a refueling stop, as did Pan American. The paper makes passing reference to the political tension in the region between the U.S. and Britain over ownership of the Phoenix Group in the late 1930s but leaves the impression that the approval of the PISS was essentially a humanitarian gesture to relieve population pressures in the G&EIC. Although Maude and Richards certainly saw it that way, they had been pushing the idea for years without success. It was only in the context of the squabble with the Americans that London approved 17,000 Pounds as a grant from the Colonial Development Fund to implement the scheme. Similarly, the abandonment of the scheme in the early 1960s just happens to coincide with the obsolescence of the commercial value of Canton with the advent of nonstop transpacific jet service. The colonists were ready to leave because of the drought, but there had been droughts before. This time the government had no reason to continue to subsidize the colony. Canton closed to all commercial traffic on June 30, 1965. << Here and elsewhere he had the assistance of Jack Kimo Petro (sometimes called Kimo Jack Pedro), a half-Tuvaluan/half Portuguese engineer and artisan of considerable skill and energy. >> For what it's worth, a photo of Jack taken by the New Zealand survey party is captioned "Petro - half-caste Portugese Tokelau in charge of colonists." On the other hand, Emily, who is Tuvaulan, referred to him as "Uncle Kimo." <<...on 16th June the High Commissioner, Sir Harry Luke, notified ResCom David Wernham that Nimanoa was expected ...>> Wernham, who had come to the Pacific with Bevington and Gallagher, was not the Resident Commissioner. In June of '41 he was Acting Administrative Officer on Tarawa. The Resident Commissioner was Jack Barley. <> On the first generation photocopy that Kenton and I made in England the replaced number is clearly a 2. << Renamed Karaka after Gallagher, the village and Gallagher's grave were very well maintained. >> and << It appears that while the colonial village -- now named "Karaka" in Gallagher's memory -- had survived the War...>> According to Maude in "Of Islands and Men" (page 335) the naming of the village on Gardner was done back in December 1938 during the initial colonizing voyage. "Two village sites were selected on Sydney, the names chosen by the colonists being Mauta, after myself, and Ona after my wife (Honor). ... The village in Hull was called Arariki, after our son Alaric, and that on Gardner Karaka, after Gallagher." If the village on Gardner was dubbed Karaka, the New Zealand survey party that was there at the time apparently did not get the word because on the map they made of the island the village is named "Keresoma." Laxton never refers to the village as having a name at all. Emily Sukuli and Otiria O'Brian who were on Gardner in 1940 when Gallagher was in residence knew him as "Kela" which could, I suppose, be a rendering of Gerald. <> I can't find a reference for who designed the grave monument but it seems that Wernham supervised its construction in June of 1942. On 14 October 1941, Harry Maude wrote to Sir Harry Luke suggesting that a "bronze memorial tablet" be "set in concrete and suitably inscribed." Sir Harry writes back and says he likes the idea but "there are several of his friends here (I, certainly for one) who would like to take a share." Macpherson's long report on the death of Gallagher is dated 9 November 1941 but makes no mention of the proposed plaque or memorial. The next mention is on 17 June 1942 when Wernham, who is on Nikumaroro, writes to Vaskess that , "I have the honour to submit herewith a plan showing the dimensions of the monument erected over the grave of the late Mr. G.B. Gallagher." Attached are hand-drawn sketches of the monument. The plaque came much later. In August of 1949 they're still bickering over how much the government is going to kick in to pay for it. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 15:14:39 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Janet Whitney & DQ We are a group of people who are looking at Earhart's disappearance from an information quality perspective. Information quality is a growing field. Those who are interested can go to the MIT information quality Web site at http://web.mit.edu/tdqm I am a summer student who is doing research about the information contained in the Long's recent book about Earhart's disappearance. Janet Whitney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 15:18:05 EDT From: Dan Postellon Subject: Re: Thunderboxes Combinettes, those charming pottery accessories with a lid and handles, that you slide under the bed for emergency use at night, were also called "thunderjars". Use you imagination as to why. Dan LTM (who would rather wait till she found a real flusher) ************************************************************************ From Ric I was afraid it was something like that. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 15:26:10 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Radio Log/ Notations,etc I think Janet Whitney asked about the addition of margin notes, notations ,etc on the orginal log that you intend to post. Interestingly, Leo Bellarts Jr. gave me a copy of his Dad's log that he asserts is the real orginal. When you compare that log with the log used on Elgen Long's book (cover photo) there are some significant differences in the underlining; specifically re the time of 0741 concerning the "...we must be on you but cannot see U but gas is running low been unable to reach you by radio we are flying at a 1000 feet". Maybe there are several "orginal" logs made from the first copy?? As you point out my log also clearly shows "circling" typed over another word,probably "drifting". Leo Bellart Jr told me he gave his father's log to the Smithsonian and made copies for himself. LTM, Ron Bright (lover of quality in all data) ************************************************************************** From Ric Son of a gun. You're right. The underlining on the log as reproduced on the back cover of Elgen's book is different from the log in the National Archives. The typed entries all look the same though. I suspect you may be right about several copies being made from the original original and underlined in different ways by different people. I wonder who has the original original? Leo Jr.? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 15:30:20 EDT From: Terry Ann Linley Subject: coral The coral on the OUTSIDE of the reef is very much alive...that's how it feeds and builds; the 'dead' coral (skeletal material, calcium carbonate) is inside. These tiny organisms require very specific conditions under which they can live...light, temperature and clear water....that's why they are found only in shallow, warm , and relatively clear waters. LTM, Terry *************************************************************************** From Ric Okay, but what about the coral on the surface of the reef flat? It's dark brown and doesn't seem to change over the years. Norwich City debris that has been laying on the reef flat for well over 50 years has not been grown over. Down off the edge of the reef the coral is brightly colored and obviously alive and thriving. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:13:33 EDT From: Ric Subject: Data Quality explained The URL Janet provided (http://web.mit.edu/tdqm) is a bit misleading. Data Quality is not part of MIT, it's a journal whose home page is linked to an MIT website about a program called Total Data Quality Management (TDQM). It's part of the business school and seems to be aimed primarily at helping big companies reduce the number of input errors in their databases. Below are the "Closing Remarks" from the "Program Overview" section of the TDQM website. "Data are used to support most activities in modern organizations, be they operational, managerial, or strategic in nature. If these data are defective, there are many ways that poor data quality can affect organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Without a systematic and comprehensive way to conceptualize and address the data quality issue, organizations are left to grapple with this problem in an ad hoc, and piece meal manner. The TDQM effort aims to construct a paradigm for data quality management, to serve as a center for excellence in managerial and technology practice, as well as to develop a rigorous foundation and discipline for data quality to extend into the future." I'm going to try to translate this momument to doublespeak into plain English. Wish me luck. <> Translation - Everybody uses facts. <> Translation - Bad facts are bad. <> Translation - You can either check your facts one at a time to see if they're bad or you can use a system. <> Translation - We're going to construct a system you can use to help you cut down on bad facts How any of this applies to historical investigation escapes me. In our line of work there is no alternative to checking each fact to see whether or not it is bad. There is no system that can identify whether or not a fact is bad without checking it (ad hoc, piece meal, one at a time). The real question is how to tell a bad fact from a good fact. Janet's boss, James Hurysz, is the publsher of the journal (again, that's what Data Quality is, a journal based in Alexandria, Virginia for people who follow the TDQM concept). He has made several postings to the forum and, according to Janet, has some interest in checking Elgen Long's facts. I think that clarifies the whole Data Quality thing. Thank you Janet. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:14:33 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Comparison to Ham Radio Today Ham radio operators today who communicate on the 75 Meter ham band (3800 KHz) typically use single side band and several hundred watts...up to a kilowatt.... and use double and triple conversion receivers, often with digital signal processors to kill the atmospheric noise. Ham antennas for 75 Meters are almost always wire antennas, and have a large NVIS (near-vertical incident skywave) component because antenna heights are usually 1/4 wave or less above the ground. Janet Whitney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:16:12 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Gallagher paper Thanks, Ric; picky comments always appreciated. We have some source conflicts, it seems, which I'll have to check out, but your points are well taken and will not drive me to the thunderbox. TK ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:17:53 EDT From: Chris Kennedy Subject: Re: Janet Whitney & DQ Dear Ms. Whitney: I took a look at the webpages you mentioned, but couldn't locate a good description of "information quality". Could you please explain what is meant by "information quality perspective" and, specifically, how it relates to the work you are doing on the Earhart disappearance? What you are saying seems to imply that there is something unique about what you're doing, but isn't everyone researching an issue concerned about the quality of information? What makes your approach different, and why is that difference valuable or even relevant to the Earhart disappearance? --Chris Kennedy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:21:10 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: Antenna on Lae Runway > From Janet Whitney > In the context of all that was reported about Earhart > while she and Noonan were in Lae, it is hard to believe > that the loss of an antenna would not be reported > except by anecdote. Apparently she only writes to this forum and doesn't read it, because just yesterday: > From Dennis McGee: > Therefore, one could assume Chater reported this to > someone. But of course we do not have records of > ALL of Chater's stuff. He very well could have reported > it and the information was lost over the years. We know that reports do get lost and we know that the Chater Report didn't even turn up until many years after it was drafted. Why should this particular report that Ms Whitney is looking for be an exception? Frank Westlake ************************************************************************** From Ric Are you suggesting that Ms. Whitney has a data quality problem? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:24:09 EDT From: Bill Conover Subject: Be: Thunderbox For the information of those forum subscribers who really want to know, a Thunderbox is a open earth privy or toilet . Information with an accompanying picture of a current design can be found at: http://www3.sympatico.ca/barrybri/algonq/frame-ss/show1/ssalg009.htm LTM, Bill Conover ************************************************************************** From Ric Part of TIGHAR's "exempt purpose" as a nonprofit is education. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:25:48 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc I'll ask the horse's mouth, Leo Bellarts Jr., and get his version of original,original, who has the original original. My log also has various tick marks in the margin that should have been visible in Long's photo book cover. Leo Jr says this is the log that was given to the Archives, but that can't be because there are marks on Long's that do not appear on Bellarts and vice a versa. Long did interview Bellart SR but that still doesnt explain the variation. Ron Bright ************************************************************************** From Ric The marginal tick marks are on my copy too. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:27:34 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: quality of data To Janet Whitney: You are working on a very interesting project. From my experience, it is hard to understand quality of data unless you have the data, and all of it, organized and right under your nose, so to speak. While the TIGHAR web site and this forum offers only a tiny piece of all that data, those of us who have been involved for several years have file cabinets of data. As for myself, my specialty is what happened in 1937, and have put a reasonable fraction of radiomessage traffic, weather info, navigation of searching ships on a CD, available through TIGHAR. Even if you read all of this, it still isn't enough to readily assess the quality of Long's book. What's missing is the accompanying letters, reports, and documents. Even with all of that, the raw data is conflicting, ambiguous, or sometimes missing. Quality is often subjective, and all that we can do is figure out what seems to fit the majority of the data with minimal outlyers, and see if it is self- consistent. Long's hypothesis is self-consistent, but is itself an outlyer. At any rate, I would be more than happy to correspond with you. Ric can provide my e-mail address upon your request. Good luck with your work. I've been at it for 9 years now, and still don't know the truth! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:29:58 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: coral The coral on the reef flat is what remains after a more normal global high sea level (during the last interglacial era - approx. less than 1 million years ago), when it was all living coral below the sea surface. When sea level fell, waves tore away the living coral (or what was left of it), and "planed" it flat. Only the very exterior of a coral reef itself is alive; it grows upon itself up to the height that nutrients, water conditions and light allow coral to grow. ************************************************************************** From Ric So we can stop speculating about anything "killing" the long dead coral on the reef flat. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:31:56 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: 3105 KC, 6210 KC and 7500 KCs in 1937 << It implies to us that Earhart was NOT "flying around" in the vicinity of Howland Island between 1930 GMT and 2014 GMT. >> Janet, I'm not a radio person but just a pilot so I don't understand this comment. A sunspot maximum later in the year also is lost on me. Does that mean the maximum occurred on July 3rd 1937 and so the radios didn't work or what? Alan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:34:24 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs We believe it is important to examine the original and the known copies of the Itasca's radio logs from July 2, 1937 from which information about the Earhart flight's final hours has been obtained and used for reference We believe it is important to resolve discrepancies among the various reference copies. We believe it is important to interview as many Coast Guard veterans who served on Gardner Island as is economically possible. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric And they call Al Gore the "Master of the Obvious". ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:36:28 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Radio Antenna on Lae Runway Please do provide the anecdotal account(s) of how and when an antenna from Earhart's Electra was found on the runway at Lae. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric I just DID that (again) yesterday! Janet, you gotta learn how to read. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:39:38 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Data Quality explained I know its very existence is classified and therefore you can't confirm or deny this, but with this post I am forced to speculate that you must have spent the last few years of your military service working for that secret government agency (we all know it's there, buried in one of those obscure stone buildings in Washington - or was it in a modular somewhere in the Nevada desert?) that extracts words from dictionaries and invents the names of government organizations / projects / reports / etc. based upon those words. We should have suspected it with the adoption of WOMBAT ... but this confirms it! ltm ;-) jon 2266 ************************************************************************** From Ric I'm not at liberty to discuss it. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:42:30 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc With computer scanning / imaging, which we are all familiar with, it is certainly possible that the cover artist "improved" upon the original for the purpose of making a nicer looking jacket, or (heaven forbid) to try to "prove" Long's hypothisis. Maybe we should try to get the publisher to clarify - who knows, they may even have a copy of their "original". ltm jon ************************************************************************** From Ric Nah, I don't think so. There's nothing "better' about Elgen's underlining. It's just different. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 17:51:54 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Janet Whitney & DQ << information quality perspective >> Janet, without going to the MIT website, can you tell me if "information quality" means making an arbitrary guess or establishing some artificial criteria to rate various pieces of evidence from, say, worthless to absolute, set in concrete, irrefutable OR something vaguely along those lines? Alan ************************************************************************* From Ric Something tells me that this forum's bovine manure detector is far too keen for the likes of Data Quality but I also suspect that readers of the journal (not to mention the media) might eat it right up. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:21:34 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs The original and the copies of the Itasca's radio logs for July 2, 1937 will have to be examined and reconciled before our research can proceed. Please inform us when this has been accomplished. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric I beg your pardon? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:22:39 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Antenna on Lae Runway << From Ric Are you suggesting that Ms. Whitney has a data quality problem? >> Possibly but she has a system to resolve it. Wonder how that works without old fashioned "checking?" Alan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:23:55 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs << From Janet Whitney We believe it is important to examine the original and the known copies of the Itasca's radio logs from July 2, 1937 from which information about the Earhart flight's final hours has been obtained and used for reference We believe it is important to resolve discrepancies among the various reference copies. We believe it is important to interview as many Coast Guard veterans who served on Gardner Island as is economically possible.>> This forum is opening my eyes more and more every day. In my wildest dreams I would NEVER have thought of that. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:38:07 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: DQ/IQ Perspective To use a critical example, one must view discrepancies among the original and the copies of the Itasca's radio logs that have been used and are being used for research as DQ/IQ problems that must be resolved before the research can go forward. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric I have a theory. We're all being had. Janet Whitney is not a person, she's a fictional character generated by the Beta-testing of an artificial intelligence software package. Clearly the program still needs a lot of work. It can create email but cannot yet quite manage to construct an articulate English sentence. Reading seems to be slated for Phase Two. Protocols Of Human Relationships is still a dream for the future. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:53:13 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Data Quality explained Ric said: <> I wouldn't bother. It didn't mean a damn thing as TQM in the '80s, and I doubt if it means anything as TDQM today. TK ************************************************************************** From Ric This has actually been something of an education for me. We all know that the landscape is dotted with cow pies like the Psychic Friends Network and Major Ed Dames and his Technical Remote Viewing, not to mention state lotteries. They all prey on the uneducated. But it appears that there are also "upscale" versions of the same kind of scams that soak universities, governments, and large corporations. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 10:59:17 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Thunderbox Man, there's a web site for everything! What's illustrated, however, is nothing like what's in the Rest House, though of course one of the former could have been placed within the facility at the latter. I wonder if there's been some evolution in the way the term's used. LTM (who thinks the item illustrated looks quite comfortable) Tom King *************************************************************************** From Ric There's no way to pursue this line of research delicately, but I'll try. The common thread seems to be that the recurring adjective (thunder) refers to the amplifying effect of a surrounding structure (box) on the natural sound effects associated with elimination. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:00:13 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs Uh, Janet, would you also, perhaps, think it important to interview as many of the British colonial officers involved with the colonization of Niku as possible? The descendents of the colonists themselves? Maybe check the records of the Western Pacific High Commission? Maybe go through the Kiribati National Archives? Maybe check where the bones from Niku were last reported in Fiji? Maybe do a bit of archaeology on the island? Pretty radical. LTM Tom KIng ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:00:57 EDT From: Joe W3HNK Subject: Re: Comparison to Ham Radio Today I have personally "worked" (Communicated) with over 250 countries on 75 meters on all Continents. and all done running a kilowatt to an "inverted Vee" wire antenna. So its a very good band for communication even back 63 years ago! Joe W3HNK ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:01:57 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: Gallagher paper Tom King - At the risk of another round of dead horse beating; I'm surprised all you young sprouts don't know the term derives from "Thunder Mug", a well-known porcelain receptacle kept under the bed that - along with Gideon Bibles - was a standard feature in all the best hotels, and the "more enlightened" private homes, back in the dark (pre-rock and roll) ages. Cam Warren (older and wiser, of course) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:15:25 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc Like just about everything else dealing with Amelia, the authenticity of the ITASCA radio logs is discussed ad nauseam at semi regular intervals. Since the Bellarts logs bear signatures, it's a reasonable assumption they are authentic. As for the differing pencil notations, it's also logical that Leo made more than one photocopy of the original, and made written comments on it from time to time. (The same is true of a large percentage of other original material available through the various archives.) Read the TYPED material, and ignore (if you wish) the annotations. Incidentally, I've compared various different versions of the logs, and find little or no SIGNIFICANT difference. (The one most notable exception is "ON the half hour" vs. "IN a half hour", and other data supports the former). Cam Warren *************************************************************************** From Ric While I agree that differences in underlinings on various copies of the original (signed) logs are of little consequence, there should be NO variation in the typed portion. As was standard practice, the original log was retyped ("smoothed") for the official record, and the "smoothed" Itasca log does have some minor differences from the original. Of course, Commander Thompson also presented an edited and annotated version of the log in his report "Radio Transcripts Earhart Flight" and there are some really significant discrepancies in that document. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:37:53 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Earhart Take-off Film > That work was done by Photek and the > examination of the frames was done on their equipment and was not saved. Seems an odd way to spend money... Not saved? Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric Let me clarify that. Photek digitized the film and, of course, that was saved. Looking at each frame and performing various techniques to bring out detail is something that is done in real-time on a monitor and you only "save" the end product if you find something interesting. A few frames were "saved" and printed out to demonstrate that the antenna is visible in the taxi shot but not in the takeoff sequence. Photek, by the way, did that work gratis. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:41:55 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: 7500 KC RDF Ric wrote: >> I don't think they spent an hour wandering around, but if they followed the standard recommended procedure of the day they ran one way (logically NW) on the LOP as far as they dared and then reversed course and started running SE when they still had enogh fuel left to guarantee that they's reach land of some kind.<< And that's not wandering around? ************************************************************************* From Ric No, it is not. It is following a well-thought-out plan that maximizes the chances of reaching the intended destination while guaranteeing with as much certainty as possible that the flight will not go dwn at sea. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:46:45 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Thunderboxes Interesting.. The "Thunderbox" itself in Australia and NZ generally refers to the actual "Toilet" or "Lavatory" that would have formed a part of the Bathroom structure described. The plumbing i.e. tanks, pump and taps would have provided water to hand basins and to the "claw footed bath" by gravity feed. The "Thunderbox" for reasons which will become obvious, would have been on its own, usually enclosed into a corner (and "The south corner lacks a post, being supported by the building's most remarkable feature -- the "thunderbox lavatory") would tend to support this idea as it would be a very small room of about 3 feet x 4 or 5 feet at most and the walls would support whatever was above it. This room or partition would have just enough room to enter, close the door (often the door opened outwards) and sit down on, wait for it..... the "Thunderbox". This would have been called other things in the USA in early days of latrines I suppose, but it usually consisted of either a box shaped structure with a flap at the back and a seat with a hole in it on top, closed by a hinged lid. The flap at the back usually opened to a hole in the wall so the contents of the box, a large metal (usually tarred) container could be removed and emptied. In some cases instead of the box, there was a bench all the way across for seating. The name "Thunderbox" comes from the noises heard echoing from this contraption when in use, particularly after say a strong Indian curry. It was an ingenious way to have a more or less indoor toilet in a place which lacked sewerage. The "can" would then be taken away and emptied into a hole much like the one at the 7 site. (Just kidding). Then ashes would be scattered over the waste and a layer of sand put over the lot to keep the fly population down a little. > Th' Wombat still uses Thunderboxes? - well, not quite. I said "we" in the sense that they are still used in some rural areas here in fact there is still one on my old place, and my foster family 30 years ago had the contract for emptying them for the whole country town I lived in. (It's not much fun when you hoist the can onto your shoulder and the bottom has rusted) Of course, further out in the bush we did away with the "can" under the Thunderbox and used an old mine shaft (listening to the drop was great fun as kids) or other deep hole in the ground. The "can" was mostly for civilised people and seldom used actually IN a house, more often as a small "outhouse". (Jeff Foxworthy will tell you all about them, y'all). Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:48:31 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc <> Perhaps the Smithsonian? ************************************************************************* From Ric Nope. Looked. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:49:58 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: coral > From Ric > > Okay, but what about the coral on the surface of the reef flat? It's dark > brown and doesn't seem to change over the years. Norwich City debris that > has been laying on the reef flat for well over 50 years has not been grown > over. Down off the edge of the reef the coral is brightly colored and > obviously alive and thriving. The coral on the reef flat should be pretty much dead inshore from being dried out at low tide. I would have thought that further out there would still be some live coral. Looking at a local reef, the same is evident though. The coral on the "flat" is pretty much dead and responsible for the rubble beach, with live coral in the pools. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:50:56 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Antenna on Lae Runway I wonder if there's anything archived from the days of D.C.A. in Australia re Collopy. Considering that he held a substatntial position. Unfortunately Department of Civil Aviation has been split up into separate organizations. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:57:19 EDT From: Tom Robison Subject: Re thunderboxes >From Dan Postellon > >Combinettes, those charming pottery accessories with a lid and handles, that >you slide under the bed for emergency use at night, were also called >"thunderjars". Use you imagination as to why. I always heard of them being referred to as "thunder buckets" (though I've never had occasion to use one). During the Civil War, folks in the south used to paste caricatures of Lincoln in the bottom of the bowl, for obvious reasons. Tom Robison *************************************************************************** From Denise I've always believed this to be an Australian term referring to the reverberating sound made when farting into a large tin-can in a small enclosed, echoing space. On the other hand, my husband informs me the term comes from a pun on an earlier name, the "dunderbox", which came from the Celtic word "dun-box" - which means "brown box" - a term which I hope requires no explanation because I'm not going to give it. Denise ************************************************************************** From Ric I don't know what Celtic language your husband is thinking of, but "dun" in Gaelic means "hill." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 11:59:26 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: Comparison to Ham Radio Today > From Janet Whitney > Ham radio operators today who communicate on the 75 Meter ham band (3800 KHz) > typically use single side band and several hundred watts...up to a --This is astute of you to bring up this question, but this net was (is) comprised of people operating everything from 50 watt mobiles to 150 watt "barefoot" (sans amplifier, basic radio) to 1 kW. You may still experience these facts today. > kilowatt.... and use double and triple conversion receivers, often with > digital signal processors to kill the atmospheric noise. --Double and triple conversions are basically not in effect for sensitivity, but mainly to eliminate images and spurious signals a singleconversion design may be vulnerable to. The most sensitive design, in fact, can be implemented with a "zero- conversion" or direct conversion design, because each conversion stage introduces more noise than a straight amplifier stage. Some regenerative-type receivers from the late 1930s and WW2 period, which are direct-conversion types, have been reported by users to be as sensitive as current equipment, and in some cases exceed the sensitivity of some currently available equipment. The advantages of multiple conversion designs are: large-signal handling abililty, and freedom from spurious signals, images. A single conversion receiver from the golden years is not necessarily a poorer performer in terms of sensitivity. The facts about radio propagation predate DSP. > Ham antennas for 75 > Meters are almost always wire antennas, and have a large NVIS (near-vertical > incident skywave) component because antenna heights are usually 1/4 wave or > less above the ground. #1 Do you have Quality Data on hand to indicate low wire antennas are almost always used, or are the ads for 80m antennas in the hammags predominantly verticals, just because the manufacturers like to see their names in print? #2 More relevantly, do you suppose an electrically short (in terms of wavelength) aircraft antenna working against a metal airframe below it (in effect its own ground plane) does not radiate strongly at many high angles above the horizontal? Hue Miller (School of Hard Knocks Data) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 12:01:29 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs To Janet Whitney: Way back, 34 some years ago, as a young and very enlightened undergraduate, I approached my geology professor with the intention of discussing my proposed term paper, "The Eruption of Mt. Lassen 1914-1921." As best I can recall, the conversation was short and to the point. I said, "Sir, it is important that we review all original government reports pertaining to qualified warnings of an imminent eruption." He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and replied, "Yes, please continue." So I did, "It is important that we interview all persons who resided in the immediate area at the time of the eruption." The twinkle in his eye turned into an ear to ear grin as he chuckled and said to me, " You betch'um Red Rider, but it's your paper, you do the research." Due to the fact that Al Gore had not yet invented the internet, I hitched a ride with the Green Hornet who drove me straight to the library. There I discovered that Little Beaver could only provide data of unquestionable quality. Come to remember, I completed the paper on my own and sure did learn lots. LTM (who hates poor quality data 'cause I seldom proof read my own postings) Roger Kelley #2112CE ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 12:11:09 EDT From: Dave Porter Subject: White people in a government boat.. If I'm remembering correctly, one of the Research Bulletins has a quote from one of your interviews with a Niku colonist who recalled "...government men in a white boat who came to take pictures of an airplane wreck..." In your expert opinion (as opposed to my amateur opinion) is it possible that the colonist who supplied the quote, knowing of the stories of a wrecked airplane on the island, inadvertently mixed that tidbit in with a recollection of the arrival of the Loran dismantling crew, or some other CG activity, that someone at the reunion might be able to shed some light on? (yes, I have a data quality problem with run-on sentences) Welcome back Dennis McGee. Just think of the fun you and I could have doing an experimental historical reenactment of the Coasties' Thompson submachinegun bird hunts--I'll even apply for a National Endowment for the Arts grant to fund it. (whaddya mean its not "performance art") Love to Mother (who prefers that sentences and art both have clear subjects) Dave Porter, 2288 *************************************************************************** From Ric In 1997 Tapania Taeke on Funafuti told us, " Some white people came once in a government boat. They were taken in canoes to here ( tracing path with her finger from the village area across Tatiman Passage along the shore toward the Norwich City) to take pictures of the airplane parts" (that were on land in front of the "European house"). I frankly don't know what to make of this allegation. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 12:16:28 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Resolving "circling" For example, after 63 years it would be appropriate to resolve whether Earhart said "We are circling....," or "We are listening...," or "We are drifting....," or something else in her transmission at 1928 GMT. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************* From Ric Yes. Wouldn't that be nice? And just how do you propose to do that? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 12:21:45 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: DQ/IQ Perspective <> I think you've got it, but how do we test your hypothesis? ************************************************************************** From Ric Somebody who lives in the Alexandria area (Silver Spring for example) could pay a call on Data Quality and ask to see Janet Whitney. If they're introduced to a mainframe - bingo! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 12:23:49 EDT From: Oscar Boswell Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs Just as a matter of curiosity, has Ms. Whitney ever worked for the IRS (or SSA or VA)? The tone is familiar. *********************************************************************** From Ric No, but I think I was married to her once. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 12:26:17 EDT From: Skeet Gifford Subject: DQ Ric, your deconstruction of Data Quality's objectives touched a nerve. As an unrepentant English major, I have had a long-standing interest in the myriad ways that we can obfuscate the simplest of ideas through a curious selection of words. In my current line of work, I have the opportunity to occasionally read such a document, and have saved some of the better examples for my own amusement. But I digress. The second paragraph below was randomly created from a matrix of four columns and ten rows. Like the proverbial Chinese menu where you pick one from Column A, one from.... Anyway, I'll put it up against anything from an *.edu web site. Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. While the subject today needs no introduction, I am confident that these remarks are germane to our mutually-shared objectives. As you well know, initiation of critical subsystem development effects a significant implementation of the philosophy of commonality and standardization. However, a constant flow of effective information adds overriding performance objectives to the structural design, based on system engineering concepts. Based on integral subsystem considerations, a large portion of the interface coordination communication is further compounded when taking into account the preliminary qualification limit. In this regard, an associated supporting element must utilize and be functionally interwoven with the subsystem compatibility testing. Do you have any questions? Skeet Gifford ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 12:29:08 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Gallagher paper For Cam Warren -- Well, you got me, young feller; I must admit no experience whatever with Thunder Mugs, at least by that name. It's truly amazing what one can learn on this forum. Of course, the funny thing about the Thunderbox in Gallagher's house is that it contained no evidence of an -- er -- elimination device; just a bathtub. But maybe it contained a portable item along the lines of the one Bill Conover informed us of yesterday. Come to think of it, it almost had to. In which case, the "Thunderbox" reference may have had nothing whatever to do with the thick concrete walls, as we -- or at least I -- had assumed. LTM (who flushes) Tom King ************************************************************************** From Ric I suspect you're right. It's awfully easy to jump to conclusions. Remember when we first got to the island in 1989 and we thought that the landing beacon must be the Gallagher monument mentioned in the literature? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:01:59 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Gallaghar paper To Tom King: A single nit to pick on your Gallaghar piece. Was Gallaghar really a "martyr," as you claim in the opening paragraphs. He certainly appeared to be dedicated, conscientious and hard working, but I'd disagree with your characterization of him as a martyr, even in the broadest sense of the word. He didn't die "for" his cause; more probably he died "because" of it, i.e. lack of adequate medical treatment in a far away land. Other than that small nit, a very fine piece of work Dr. King. LTM, who knows martyrs Dennis O. McGee #0149EC ************************************************************************* From Ric I gotta come down on Tom's side on this one. It's very apparent from the official record that Gallagher quite literally, and one could argue, almost deliberately, worked himself to death. He often didn't take advantage of the medical care that was available to him and he demonstrated a wanton disregard for his own health and safety. His final decline when he returned to Gardner was precipitated by his disregard for Macpherson's instructions in "swallowing some purgative tablets which he was in the habit of using and which I had refused to let him have." I think Gallagher was a "martyr" in the same sense that religious martyrs actually seek to achieve some kind of redemption by sacrificing themselves for a cause. Gerald Gallagher was a Roman Catholic - very unusual in the Colonial Service. He was the elder son and namesake of a prominent physician in government service. He distinguished himself at the best schools (Stonyhurst and Cambridge) before beginning medical school at illustrious St. Bart's, but he only lasted one semester there before suddenly going to Ireland for a year to "study argiculture." He then applies for a posting in the Colonial Service and when he gets to the Pacific he throws himself into his work with a passion. The PISS becomes his crusade. He sounds to me like an overachiever who burned out, failed to follow in his father's footsteps, is ridden with guilt, and martyrs himself to achieve redemption. He is Kipling's "White Man's Burden" taken to its ultimate extreme. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:04:16 EDT From: Dan Postellon Subject: Re: Data Quality explained/TQM My previous employer got into TQM late in the game. They tried to sell it as the reason for "the miracle of the Japanese economy". This was about one month after the Japanese economy tanked (or to use the new expression, Kavorked). This was not considered to be a reason to avoid this system. The principles of the Data Quality system seem to include: 1. Badger people to do the data analysis that they are already doing, or have already done. This makes you look at least as smart as they are. 2.Ask people to locate data that are not locatable or have disappeared. If they can't find it, it's not your fault. 3. Claim that the data is incomplete or inadequate to make any decision or hypothesis. If you never make a decision and never form a hypothesis, you never make a wrong decision or form an incorrect hypothesis. I can't understand why Data Quality is offering opinions and advice without charging a massive consultants fee. Dan Postellon Tighar 2263 LTM (who is too smart to pay management consultants) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:07:05 EDT From: Dan Postellon Subject: Re: Thunderbox "I come from a land Down Under, Where women glow and men thunder. Do you hear it do you hear the thunder? You better run you better take cover!" ************************************************************************** From Ric Wow! Thanks. I never understoood that song before. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:12:40 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: bad facts Ric said in translating DataQuality's mission statement: <> Translation - Bad facts are bad." Not quite. Bad facts are bad facts, i.e. facts about bad things. Incorrect facts are bad facts, i.e. the fact is wrong. Picking nits, right? LTM, who is mostly factual Dennis O. McGee #0149EC *************************************************************************** From Ric Right. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:13:39 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: DQ/IQ Perspective > From Janet Whitney > > To use a critical example... Janet, you seem to be missing a large piece of the picture. I suggest you go to the TIGHAR web site and read everything before you submit any further correspondence to this forum. Frank Westlake ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:16:24 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Earhart's Radios Earhart's radios were a single-conversion superhet receiver (or receivers) and a 50 watt LF/HF AM transmittter, operating in an environment where the atmospheric and other noise could be considerable at 3105 KC. Most hams who operate on 75 Meters (3800 KHz) use SSB, double or triple conversion superhet receivers (often with DSP for noise reduction), and a transmitter power ranging from several hundred watts to a kilowatt. Ham antennas for 75 Meters are typically wire antennas located 1/4 wavelength or lower over the ground (about 65 feet or less). Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric Somebody wanna call Data Quality and tell them they apparently left the mainframe plugged in last night? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:19:57 EDT From: Michael Holt Subject: Re: thunderboxes > There's no way to pursue this line of research delicately, but I'll try. The > common thread seems to be that the recurring adjective (thunder) refers to > the amplfying effect of a surrounding structure (box) on the natural sound > effects associated with elimination. Before you can state this, you'll need more data. All verified in an appropriate manner, of course. Along this line, I think I see what Ms Whitney is trying to say. I've spent some time working with data, too, like most adults who have been employed. I've found that many persons, especially the younger, non-engineering grad-school types, simply accept the data, and that they sometimes have little idea of whether it is valid (or even possible). Inasmuch as universities today, for some disciplines, are not teaching critical thinking, it is necessary to provide a testable mechanism for validation of data held by the overtrained. The problem invariably resulting from such canned magic is that no one can ever tell if the mechanism really works for the unexpected cases. A premise underlying the employment of the type of person who needs this sort of assistance is that procedures and policies make the unexpected impossible. OK, I'll go back into my glass house and finish writing my anthropology project notes, on my way to grad school and an adjunct faculty position. LTM (who never makes crude noises) Michael Holt ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:20:51 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs Tom, that's an excellent idea. I would go even further as I can not see any possibility of Janet's research going one step further until she personally interviews Fred and Amelia. Then, of course, she will need to apply her quality data system to evaluate their testimony and find adequate corroboration before continuing. She has a lot of work ahead of her. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:22:05 EDT From: PK Subject: Re: thunderboxes How on earth are you going to explain this one to Janet? PK ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:27:50 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Janet Whitney Ok, SOMEBODY has to defend this poor woman from the herd of curs, dingoes, and jackals populating this forum. Any takers? Ok, here's my two cents. I think we should welcome her work and insights. TIGHAR defends its work by pointing to the quality, quantity and originality of our research. I think we should welcome the opportunity to put that work under the microscope of public inspection. I believe that Janet and DQ will come to the same answer many of us already have -- TIGHAR does professional-quality work and backs up it's claims with hard evidence. On the other hand -- I sympathize with Ric and his frustrations in trying to explain things to this woman. Maybe it would go better for Janet if we all chipped in and sent her a copy of the much-awaited "8th Edition" when it rolls off the press, tell her to read it and then ask questions. She probably is a very nice person, you know. LTM, who tries to be nice at all times Dennis O. McGee #0149EC *************************************************************************** From Ric Let's remember that Janet is just taking the heat for her boss Jim Hurysz, the publisher of the Data Quality journal. Very soon now little Janet is going is going to back to school and Jim is going to have to step up to plate and take resposibility for his own nonsense or find another flunky. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:32:35 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Can vs. Corrosion Ric -- A belated comment on your observation that: >There were a couple of visits to the island in the early '70s by naturalists >and the newly formed government of Kiribati did a survey of the island in >1978. TIGHAR's first expedition to Niku was in 1989, then we returned in >1991. We found the can in 1996. Those are the known visits and none of them >includes a known visit to the Seven site. Following is from the description of the 1989 expedition in the draft 8th edition. It's derived from field notes mostly by John Clauss: "Another indicator of recent activity at this end of the island (i.e. the SE end) is a coral stone cairn with a survey marker bearing the words: Royal Australian Survey Corps 1985: Gardner AZ (Azimuth). A refuse pit nearby containing the remains of Australian food containers probably represents the leavings of the survey party responsible for the marker." The cairn and refuse pit were on the far eastern end of Aukaraime South, in other words across the lagoon from the Seven Site. TK *************************************************************************** From Ric Okay, the Australian Survey Corps was there in 1985. I wonder why. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:34:20 EDT From: Dave Bush Subject: TDQM Actually, I think that the TDQM folks really need to send out a party to the island to determine why the water in the lagoon is not the same color as the water in the ocean, since they are linked by two passages and should have the same content. Also, I would like clarification on why the wind there doesn't blow from the same direction all the time. The wind direction seems pretty consistent from TDQM and Ms. Janet. Yours, #2200 (would someone double check that number to be certain that the data quality is valid) Dave Bush (who is only partially validated on an inconsistent basis) LTM (please don't do any data quality on that one or we will be here all night) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:36:40 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: 3105 KC 3105 KC is significantly lower in frequency than the 75 Meter ham band. We've looked in the contemporary aircraft literature for the late 1930's and cannot find any indication that this frequency was used or recommended for use commercially for anything but local (airport approach) communications during daylight hours in 1937. Obviously, if an aircraft were flying at 5,000 feet, the line-of-sight range would have been 100 miles. Please let us know if you find anything different in the contemporary literature. It appears the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Administration did not require "type approval" for aircraft radio equipment until August, 1937. "Type approval" involved vibration and other environmental tests. Ham radio receivers (e.g. Hallicrafters) have incorporated filters and noise reduction circuits since the 1940's. Janet Whitney ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:42:05 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: "We are circling...etc" We asked a simple question:. Did Earhart say: "We are circling...," or "We are drifting...," or "We are listening...," or "We are climbing..." or "We are diving...," or something else? If you're not sure WHAT she said, could your on-line publication of the Itasca's radio logs reflect your uncertainty? Thanks in advance. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric You're welcome. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:44:11 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Gallagher paper << Remember when we first got to the island in 1989 and we thought that the landing beacon must be the Gallagher monument mentioned in the literature?>> Yup. And we expected to find the Electra wrapped around a tree on the edge of the Nutiron mudflat. Ah, if only we'd had Data Quality then! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:43:01 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: DQ/IQ Perspective I might have known DataQuality would be in Northern Virginia. How about if a resident of Alexandria itself made a visit. Tim???? TK ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:49:39 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Re: Gallaghar paper OK. That makes sense. Though I'm not convinced, the differences now are a matter of personal perception and not worth any more bandwidth. Maybe you can convince Dr. King to include your excellent synopsis in any further pieces on Mr. Gallaghar to avoid future confusion. LTM, who avoids martyrs Dennis O. McGee #0149EC *************************************************************************** From Tom King "Martyr" may be a bit of hyperbole, though I agree with Ric's characterization. My use of the term -- like my underplaying of the geopolitical situation pointed out by Ric that doubtless contributed to approval of the PISS -- reflects an assumption (poorly formulated, I fear) about the audience, assuming publication in a mildly stuffy semi-popular fairly Anglophilic historical journal. Probably needs adjustment, though on the other hand I really should add in a bit more of the character business that Ric outlines. But the damned thing's too long for publication already.... LTM (who's soft on martyrs) TKing ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000 13:50:45 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Data Quality explained/TQM << I can't understand why Data Quality is offering opinions and advice without charging a massive consultants fee. >> Hey, they're from Washington D.C.: the bill is in the mail. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 08:47:47 EDT From: Herman De Wulf Subject: Re: Thunderbox Thunderbox ! Thundermug ! Thunderjar ! Combinettes ! The things one learns about the English language when one has an interest in aviation ! LTM (who never told me about these things) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 08:51:14 EDT From: Janice Brown Subject: Researching AE's Disappearance I'd like to comment to Janet Whitney and others about research projects if I may (in a very direct way). I'm also a student performing research (mine is for two papers about Amelia Earhart): the first on her life and events leading up to her disappearance, and then a second on the best possible theory on her disappearance. In preparation for this, I joined this illustrious discussion group, compiled a list of sources of information, read at least 8 different books on the subject, along with downloading the FBI's Earhart files (public information) and reading any newspaper and journal articles on the topic. After digesting all of that material (I think I have permanent heartburn from it), I went back and carefully reviewed all of the various theories about her disappearance. I visited every single page and link on the TIGHAR web site, trying to asborb and understand the vast amount of information posted there (immaculately organized I might add). The data there is based on analysis by experts (scientists, archaeologists, aviation experts etc.). If there is any supposition, conjecture or assumptions, it is noted as same. From my limited understanding of TQDM, it appears that identification of the problem, and data collection are the two first steps. Perhaps you would be well served to do research similiar to what I have done, completely and thoroughly reviewing all of the information (and data) collected and published at the TIGHAR web site, along with books and literature that is NOT part of this site, and then you will be in a much more knowledgeable position to state the problem and collect your own data. And now for my personal opinion, (as a non TIGHAR member), the TIGHAR administration, staff, associated professionals and the many others who post in this discussion group have my highest admiration and respect. I believe that the theory espoused by TIGHAR on the disappearance of AE and FN is the most logical, factual and data based--and most concisely presented that I have been able to locate. I intend to continue reading the daily e-mails (which has increased substantially in the last week, I might add) even when my research paper is completed. When I do post, it will be only on matters to *contribute* to the discussion (whether by offering suggestions, fact or humor). To ask, or demand, information to satisfy my own need for specific data for my research paper, has been quite unnecessary as that information is already posted or in print somewhere. Its entirely my own responsibility to find it. If it isn't, then finding that information and providing it to TIGHAR would be welcomed I'm sure. Janice Brown ************************************************************************* From Ric Thank you Janice. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 08:52:09 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Response from DQ Staff... Regarding TIGHAR's recent postings: Oh well, it's a Friday afternoon in August. Janet Whitney ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 08:54:50 EDT From: Kenton Spading Subject: Does Overwash occur at the 7-site? Ric wrote: >Ultimately we have to ask what difference it makes whether there was ever an >overwash at the 7 site? Tom K. then wrote: >Does it matter? Maybe. The more we know about how the site has evolved, >the better we'll be able to interpret what's there. I agree with Tom K.. It very likely does matter. An overwash event provides attractive and alternative explantions for what we have observed at the 7 site both on the ground and from aerial photos. If you look at an aerial photo and conclude..... "that sure looks like a man-made feature" (e.g. brush cleared or linear features) when in reality the brush was cleared/thinned out by overwash then perhaps the theory related to the site can mature to another level. Perhaps the alledeged overwash is what attracted folks to the site in the first place and led to the discovery of the bones. If we can identify on the grond the existence of an overwash path it could very well dictate where to start (or not to start) searching for the bones site. Regarding whether or not team members would remember seeing evidence of overwash on the ground, I have to agree with Russ Matthews and Tom King. The average Joe is not going to pick up those signals. The traces are there (assuming overwash occurred) but it would require some effort to find them... if a lot of time has elapsed since the last event. John Clauss, of course, has seen evidence of overwash in other areas. Finding evidence of the overwash in the field could help determine the search area. What role did the 1940 storm play in all this? Ric wrote: >.When we go back, if we see indications that an overwash occurred at the site >(and I'm aware of no such indications at this time) and those indications >suggest that we alter our search plan, we will of course proceed accordingly. Great, at least we agree that the overwash angle needs to be considered on-site. I believe that there are indications that overwash has occurred (reef scars etc.). LTM Kenton Spading ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 08:57:06 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs Janet Whitney wrote, >> We believe it is important to interview as many Coast Guard veterans who >> served on Gardner Island as is economically possible. and, >>The original and the copies of the Itasca's radio logs for July 2, 1937 will >>have to be examined and reconciled before our research can proceed. Please >>inform us when this has been accomplished. We believe it is important to be patient with Ms Whitney while she (or it?) learns that the liberal use of plural personal pronouns is no substitute for brilliance. LTM (who was probably naive in her youth as well) william 2243 ************************************************************************** From Ric There's another possibility here. Could it be that Ms. Whitney is a reigning monarch? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 08:59:00 EDT From: Kenton Spading Subject: Coral, Freshwater and Sediment Ross, Thank you for your postings on coral and sediment/runoff. You are correct, we did get away from your original idea of fresh rain water washing silt out onto a reef. Your response confuses me a little, however, it could be that I was not clear with my original "overwash" proposal. I have inserted some questions into a copy of your posting. I am interested in your knowledge of this. Ross wrote: >The silt that can wash off the land with the salt water however, can choke >the tiny organisms that make up a coral reef, but I can't see any way a >large quantity of silt (as in fine dirt) is going to wash off the 7 site. > >I have found conclusive evidence [since then] that mud (silt whatever) running >off the land can do serious damage, but nothing on the long term effect of >fresh water. The type of overwash event that I am referring could have lasted for at least many days if not weeks. This would seem to me to be a long enough time for a river of salt water, flowing from the lagoon overland to the ocean, to pick up enough silt/mud/sand to cause the type of damage to the Niku coral that you have observed elsewhere. I envision the duration of the overwash event to be much longer than the rainfall event you refer to and thus able to carry a lot more sediment over time (regardless of whether it is fresh or saltwater). Ross wrote: >Fresh water in the quantity that may run down from an area where the >vegetation has been removed might however do nasty things to coral, and that >was what I was asking in the earlier posting about the discolouration in the >photos. Tropical downpours can cause incredible amounts of fresh water >runoff in cyclone season in just hours. I understand that the reef does not like fresh water. But why couldn't the saltwater overwash from the lagoon, running through the area cleared of vegetation, carry enough mud/silt/sand to damage the reef? LTM Kenton Spading (who promises not to use the words "kill and reef" anymore). ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:00:55 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Thunderboxes > I'm surprised all you young sprouts don't know the term derives > from "Thunder Mug", a well-known porcelain receptacle kept > under the bed that - along with Gideon Bibles - was a standard > feature in all the best hotels, and the "more enlightened" > private homes, back in the dark (pre-rock and roll) ages. > > Cam Warren (older and wiser, of course) On Ya Cam... We called them "g'zunders" as in "goes under" the bed... lol Th' WOMBAT (who was a little embarrassed at having to get so "technical" hahahahah!) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:02:21 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Earhart Take-off Film > A few frames were > "saved" and printed out to demonstrate that the antenna is visible in the > taxi shot but not in the takeoff sequence. > > Photek, by the way, did that work gratis. Which nicely clarifies what appeared at first to be a rather strange omission. I suspect Photek are owed rather more thanks for some of the work they've "helped" with that we know or realize. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:05:33 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc Now that IS interesting. Ron says Leo Jnr. gave the originals copy to the Smithsonian. Ric has looked and not found it. Does Ron know when the original Log was handed in? Any possibility it was after Ric looked? Which section of the Smithsonian? I gather it is spread over diverse locations. Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric I think you're confusing the Smithsonian with the National Archives (same town, different outfits), I don't recall any allegation that the logs were given to the Smithsonian. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:08:00 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re thunderboxes Since we have hit on something obviously critical to the Earhart investigation... The more common names for these structures included Thunderbox (for the component I described), out house (for obvious reasons), smallest room in the house (duh), little room, and "Dunny" which is still the most prevalent term in use today after "Toilet". However these terms generally refer to the room or building itself whilst our word tends towards the actual component.. Another common term relating to part of this component is "Sh** Canned" as in tossed out, discarded etc. Guess where that particular can could be found? That's right, in a "Thunderbox". Th' WOMBAT (Who'd prefer the call of the wild rather than a call of nature any day) *************************************************************************** From Ric I think that we've probably carried this scatological thread far enough. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:19:18 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Gallaghar paper > He sounds to me like > an overachiever who burned out, failed to follow in his father's footsteps, > is ridden with guilt, and martyrs himself to achieve redemption. He is > Kipling's "White Man's Burden" taken to its ultimate extreme. > > Ric Of course in the Hollywood version he would be spurned by the only woman he could ever love, run away to the Pacific and throw himself into his work to forget..... Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric The one thing missing in all of the records and correspondence is any reference to what Hollywood would call a "love interest." Bevington had a fiance who came out and married him while he was on duty with the WPHC. Wernham also got married. The only letter we know about that Gallagher received was from "Ruby" who turned out to be an older woman, friend-of-the-family. This is by no means meant to imply that Gallagher was gay. (For one thing, I'm sure that Eric Bevington, who is not at all bashful about such things, would have told me.) Gallagher seems to have been, for want of a better term, a "secular monk". ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:20:31 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Earhart's Radios To Janet, It's irrelevant, but I'd love to see your explanation on how around .25 to .5 watt operating out of a suitcase on a bicycle running into a wire strung from a tree could be picked up across a continent on equipment from the same era. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:21:42 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Can vs. Corrosion > From Ric > > Okay, the Australian Survey Corps was there in 1985. I wonder why. As I recall these are the guys that produce our topographical maps, but I wonder what the heck they'd be doing on Gardner... I don't have contacts in the Army any more - I don't think - but I'll see what I can find out.. Knowing my luck its classified. Th' WOMBAT (Who had "classified" dunny paper during Vietnam...) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:23:12 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: "We are circling...etc" > From Janet Whitney > > We asked a simple question:. Did Earhart say: "We are circling...," or "We > are drifting...," or "We are listening...," or "We are climbing..." or "We > are diving...," or something else? The question is simple, the person(s)? asking it appear to be also! When somebody transcribes a radio converstion had by other people, and considering the probable lack quality of the reception of that conversation on the equipment of that era and the many distractions of the moment, there is going to be some possibility of error in the transcription. Under normal circumstances, one would simply ask the other party to repeat the message for the sake of clarity. In Earhart's case, with only one way communications, what was thought to be heard was written, then perhaps after some discussion as to intent of the words, changed. Who Knows? The recollections of people who purported to have been there or spoken to someone who supposedly was have been examined albeit inconclusively for what should be obvious reasons. There is NO answer to your question Janet, and had you been able to read earlier postings, (for that matter this discussion was probably in the forum highlights anyway) you would have seen this was thrashed out at about this time last year. On the other hand, I'm sure Ric still has one or two CDs with much of the hard evidence in viewable form if you'd like to part with some dollars. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:26:05 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: DQ/IQ Perspective "I suggest you go to the TIGHAR web site and read everything before you submit any further correspondence to this forum. Frank Westlake" Gee, if TIGHAR, AES, and any or all other Earhart sites start setting requirements like that, they're gonna eliminate 95% of their correspondents. Cam Warren ************************************************************************** From Ric Does the Amelia Earhart Society (AES) have a website now? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:28:42 EDT From: Rick Seapin Subject: 7 site Did Gallagher have any toxins or defoliants on the island. If these container rusted and spilled could this not have caused the reef deterioration near the 7 site? ************************************************************************** From Ric Not that we know of, and I don't know what kind of defoliants (if any) may have been availalble in 1940. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:39:19 EDT From: Jerry Hamilton Subject: Substantive Posting Rule imposed on DQ Regarding this last transmission from Ms. Whitney: "We asked a simple question:. Did Earhart say: "We are circling...,..." Possibly I'm in a bad mood today, but this strikes me as a rather demanding and superior attitude (my dad would have said holier-than-thou). I prefer that the people involved in this Forum be involved in a give and take that leads to the truth (or better data in Janet's jargon). I get the impression that Ms. Whitney is using us and not participating. I say send her and the whole TDQM method to the thunderbox. Let them practice their approach (so they can write their journal articles) on someone else, say Microsoft or GM. Personally, I think Janet is the updated and "improved" version of HAL - and we all know how that worked out. blue skies, -jerry *************************************************************************** From Ric Over the past several days the forum has generated a staggering number of postings, the majority of which are either by or in response to Ms. Whitney, and none of which has added anything to our investigation. I am compelled, therefore, to impose the "Substantive Posting Rule" on Data Quality and all of its minions. This is the same rule we've had to impose on other time-wasters in the past. Starting now, I will only post messages from Data Quality that contain new, documented information that materially advances the investigation. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:42:26 EDT From: Richard Lund Subject: distress signals A review of historical records indicates Navy fliers in 1937 reported signs of habitation and distress signals of unknown origin coming from Gardner Island after the Earhart plane disappeared. I found this excerpt from a web page(can post the url if you wish) and the mention of distress signals has got me perplexed.I didn't hear mention of any distress signals from the navy reports or did I miss this in my readings(3).Seems to me if there were signals they would have examined the island closer-meaning a ground search.can you confirm this or dispute it for me. hope I don't create to much confusion for you ltm Richard Lund ************************************************************************** From Ric You've missed a major part of the whoe Earhart mystery. The alleged post-loss radio signals were prominently featured in the newspaper coverage at the time and are detailed in the offical Navy reports of the search. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:45:40 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: 3105 KC > From Janet Whitney > 3105 KC is significantly lower in frequency than the 75 Meter ham band. And propagation is significantly different from 90 meters to 75 meters? **C'mon, say it, please, please say it! ** I want to see a 'bot all tangled in a Data non sequitur. ( Quality problem.) We were going to address the note topic by topic, but we realized that this conversation would be most like trying to hold a conversation with a listserver. I am reaching for your circuit breaker...... 73, Hue ************************************************************************ From Ric The DQ breaker has been pulled. The system is now disabled. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:49:28 EDT From: Richard Lund Subject: the shoe Been thinking about this a while and can't figure a reason for it on my own,so I'll turn to the professionals.if they collected the bones found at the site and shipped them to Fiji,why would they not ship the shoes as well?This seems very odd considering they were women's shoes on an island full of men,found near a skeleton nobody knew anything about. forgive me If this creates a whole new(or repeated)round of controversy.not my intention,just trying to get the facts straight so I don't have much more data quality problems then I already have. LTM Richard Lund *************************************************************************** From Ric No controversy. You're just suffering from a case of bad facts. I suggest you read The Bones Chronology at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Documents/Bones_Chronology.html ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:57:08 EDT From: John Buontempo Subject: Re: Itasca'a Radio Logs >From Janet Whitney > >The original and the copies of the Itasca's radio logs for July 2, 1937 will >have to be examined and reconciled before our research can proceed. Please >inform us when this has been accomplished. Whoa! Wait a minute! What am I missing or have I missed???? I thought that Ric was the forum moderator. Has a coup happened that we are not aware of? Is Ms. Whitney a Space Cadet from Alpha Centauri or somewhere? Boy this is getting interesting!!!!! Stay tuned folks. ************************************************************************** From Ric I was just trying out some compassionate conservatism - but it didn't work. We've now returned to the forum's usual policy of "merciless rigor." ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 09:59:23 EDT From: Dave Bush Subject: Re: bad facts >From Dennis McGee > >Ric said in translating DataQuality's mission statement: If these >data are defective, there are many ways that poor data quality can >affect organizational effectiveness and efficiency. >> >Translation - Bad facts are bad." >Not quite. Bad facts are bad facts, i.e. facts about bad things. >Incorrect facts are bad facts, i.e. the fact is wrong. Actually, it is worse than that. You can have good facts, but bad interpretation of the facts. I am in the construction business, I am the manager for a garage door company, and I constantly have architects and individuals come to me want to do things that are not possible. I mean "ARCHITECTS", and rather than explain the laws of physics to them, I usually just suggest that they go out in their garage and look at a REAL, OPERATIONAL, ACTUAL, WORKING garage door. That usually answers their questions! One recent job required three trips by a technician to convince the architect and owner that a door higher than 6'9" tall could not go in the space until they took out a false beam! DUH! I have a degree in Civil Engineering Technology, but have always been capable in dealing with technical issues. Some people could have three doctorates in a field and still not have a clue. In fact, while I was still in college, I was standing with my dad at our warehouse watching them unload giant tumblers for a commercial laundry across the street. They had two fork lifts trying to lift one tumbler - a large fork lift on the up ramp side of the load, and a small fork lift on the down ramp side of the load. I told my dad, watch, when they start up the ramp, the load will shift to the small fork and it will lift the drivers off the ground. Voila! He said he was glad he didn't bet me on it. And I had never opened a physics book at that point! Also, there is a column in the paper by someone who claims to be a member of the MENSA society and extremely brilliant. I haven't bothered to challenge her on an opinion she expressed about which came first, the chicken or the egg, but no one can prove which came first, because you have to determine where the genetic change occurred - in the egg, in the developing embryo, or in the sperm. Since the data is impossible to test on that one, we can never know! So much for TDQM or whatever. LTM - who loves a good debate (even if she loses, because LEARNING takes place if you approach it with an open mind). Dave Bush #2200 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 10:14:14 EDT From: Vern Subject: To wander or not to wander. I don't recall exactly how all this got started but... >Ric wrote: > I don't think they spent an hour wandering around, but if they followed >the standard recommended procedure of the day they ran one way (logically NW) >on the LOP as far as they dared and then reversed course and started running >SE when they still had enogh fuel left to guarantee that they'd reach land of >some kind. >Ross wrote: >And that's not wandering around? >Ric wrote: >No, it is not. It is following a well-thought-out plan that maximizes the >chances of reaching the intended destination while guaranteeing with as much >certainty as possible that the flight will not go down at sea. So... May they not have been close to Howland twice? Thus accounting for the signal strength of that last transmission heard by Itasca. ************************************************************************* From Ric And THAT, old friend, is exactly what I think happened. Sometime shortly before the 1912 "We must be on you..." transmission, Noonan hit the LOP well south of Howland and saw that he had a problem (no Howland). He had AE turn left and start running NW up the LOP. He went as far as he dared (but not quite far enough) and then had to turn back to the SE while they still had enough fuel to be sure of reaching land of some kind. When they send the 2013 transmission they're back to pretty much where they started from and Earhart says, "We are on the line 157/337...We are running on line north and south." (They ran north and now they're running south.) LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 10:31:05 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: 3105 KC > From Janet Whitney > 3105 KC is significantly lower in frequency than the 75 Meter ham band. --Yes. Now, what is your (plural) conclusion? > We've looked in the contemporary aircraft literature for the late 1930's and > cannot find any indication that this frequency was used or recommended for use > commercially for anything but local (airport approach) communications during > daylight hours in 1937. --Well, maybe you all need to get together and look a little further. > Obviously, if an aircraft were flying at 5,000 feet, > the line-of-sight range would have been 100 miles. Please let us know if you > find anything different in the contemporary literature. --You (plural) did not reply to our statement on the radiation angles of aircraft wire antennas, rather you want to relate their characteristic to a wire antenna at ground level, or sidestep the topic. > It appears the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Administration did not require "type > approval" for aircraft radio equipment until August, 1937. "Type approval" > involved vibration and other environmental tests. --Alright, so what? Quality Data should be appropriate to the current topic, or it is noise. > Ham radio receivers (e.g. Hallicrafters) have incorporated filters and noise > reduction circuits since the 1940's. --Again, We ask, so what? Proving what? Supporting what? I am not sure what you all are hoping to support by this seemingly out of context factoid, which is by the way, not wholly accurate: you would have to say since late 1930s. However, up til "noise blanker" technology, in the 1970s, such circuits were never all that effective, and were best against ignition or "shot" noise, not against the usual atmospheric radio noise. The best filter was long acknowledged to be the human mind. Now set aside your Hallicrafters catalog and tell me if your experience is otherwise. Hue Miller ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 10:33:39 EDT From: Patrick Gaston Subject: Quality data I must say that I share Ms. Whitney's chagrin at your failure to specify with precision whether Ms. Earhart said she was "drifting", "circling" or "listening." This is exactly the sort of qualitatively unimpeachable data needed to resolve the AE mystery. While you're at it, please let us know whether Ms. Earhart landed on Niku, Mili, or simply ditched and sank. If the latter, please advise whether she was enroute to the Phoenix Islands, the Gilberts, or some other potential landfall. By the way, my friend Bob the Cobbler would like to take a look at the shoe parts, so please send them along. If this is too expensive or too much trouble, "we'll accept that." Grudgingly. LTM (who thinks the term "presumptuous" has recently been taken to a whole new level, quantitatively speaking) Pat Gaston ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 10:46:49 EDT From: Christian D. Subject: Re: Can vs. Corrosion > Okay, the Australian Survey Corps was there in 1985. I wonder why. How about spending taxpayer's money, on "Foreign Aid"? According to the topo map that we discussed last year, there is three "Doppler Satellite Station" on Niku -none near the Seven. I'm guessing they are from the old "Transit" system. Geodetic points, in other words... That you could reuse to calibrate your GPS surveys, if needed. On my topo, there is no date for the 3 points, and I had no idea there were done by the Aussies. The topo map is put together by the British Ordnance Survey, 1995. Oh, wait: -field work by the Royal Australian Survey Corps -air photo by same in Aug-Sept 1985 By the way: I remember reading in the media, may be a year and a half ago that some Kiribati Govt ministers visited the Phoenix, for a quick recon... Cheers. Christian D. *************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks Christian. Mystery solved. The Kiribati Ministers visited the Phoenix Group just after New Years on their way home from seeing in the new millennium (not) on Millenium Island. The stopped at Orona (Hull) and stumbled upon one of the prop blades from the C-47 that bit it there in 1943. They thought it might be from Amelia's plane and got pretty excited. I was notified and shown a photo. I hated to disappoint them but...so it goes. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 10:49:28 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re thunderboxes << I think that we've probably carried this scatological thread far enough. >> Oh, poop. Actually, I'd like to rework the thunderbox business in the 8th edition a bit in light of all this new info, and get comments on it. Next week. LTM (who thinks we should sit on it for awhile) Tom KIng ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 10:50:44 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Response from DQ Staff... << From Janet Whitney Regarding TIGHAR's recent postings: Oh well, it's a Friday afternoon in August. >> And that was determined how? Alan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 11:09:12 EDT From: Don Neumann Subject: Fictional character? Simply can't wait until Ms. Whitney & Data Quality apply their considerable expertise to the various & sundry AE/FN conspiracy theories that have been accumulated over the past 60+ years! Actually, I suspect that Ric has simply 'created' a new protagonist to add some comedy relief to what has become a very serious & somber Forum atmosphere, dedicating itself to prolonged, academic discussions of buttons, the death of (already dead) Pacific coral & light bulb fixtures , among other pursuits related to the infamous '7' site on the island that has become our 'home-away-from-home' ! (Frankly, thanks to the Forum, I think I know far more about the topography & artifacts of Nikumaroro Island than I know about the strange stuff & substances in my own back yard, something about which my wife is constantly reminding me!) Don Neumann ************************************************************************** From Ric I'm flattered but I'm not nearly creative enough to invent a character like that. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 11:16:20 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: "We are circling...etc" I think we are all missing a great contribution from Janet without realizing it. I have read each of her posts carefully and in particular, those regarding radios and their capabilities. One of our biggest mysteries is why communication between the Electra and the Itasca was so bad or non existent. I think Janet has gone a long way toward resolving that. Normal communication would have gone something like this: Electra: "We're listening." Itasca: "You're doing what?" Electra: "Listening, Listening. Can you not hear me?" Itasca: "Sorry, I thought you said drifting but that didn't make sense." But, you see, that didn't happen. Apparently the Electra's radio calls were received by the Itasca but the Itasca's transmissions were not received by the Electra. We think that because there was no interplay as though they were on different frequencies or different planets. Careful scrutiny of Janet's postings reveal the same thing. We are receiving HER postings but apparently she isn't receiving ours as there is no evidence of that in her comments. It would seem TIGHAR and the TIGHAR web site is on a different frequency than is Janet. So if we can figure out why Janet doesn't seem to be able to read TIGHAR postings or the information on TIGHAR'S web site we may be able to figure out why Amelia couldn't read the Itasca. Although we don't have Amelia to interview we DO have Janet assuming she is really a live person. Alan #2329 *************************************************************************** From Ric Interesting concept. Or the folks at Data Quality could get together in a darkened room and try to fathom the meaning of the phrase "We must be on you but cannot see you." ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 11:17:18 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: DQ/IQ Perspective >From Cam Warren >>From Frank Westlake >>"I suggest you go to the TIGHAR web site and read everything >>before you submit any further correspondence to this forum. > Gee, if TIGHAR, AES, and any or all other Earhart sites start > setting requirements like that... I wouldn't make the suggestion to everyone, although it would be nice if everyone had read the web site, but in Ms Whitney's case I thought it a good idea. Frank Westlake ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 10:08:01 EDT From: Janice Brown Subject: Re: To wander or not to wander. Actually, Ric, your statement also makes sense from a historical perspective. Earlier in the round the world trip, specifically when first sighting the coast of Africa, Amelia states in her diary, "My navigator indicated that we should turn south. Had we done so, a half hour would have brought us to Dakar. But a "left turn" seemed to me in order and after fifty miles of flying along the coast we found ourselves at St. Louis, Senegal. Once arrived at the airport it was wiser to sit down than retrace our track over a strange country with the sudden darkness of the tropics imminent. The elapsed time across, by the way, was thirteen hours and twelve minutes." (Last Flight, p. 79). There is a sample note that Noonan sent up to A.E. that afternoon crossing the South Atlantic just before they sighted the African coast stating: 3:36 change to 36 degrees. Estimate 79 miles to Dakar. At the bottom is her (A.E.'s) pencil notation, "What put us north?" Ultimately this diary entry by A.E. has no direct impact on the actual *data* known about the Lau/Howland trip, but it possibly would been an additional influence on her decision to believe that she might be *north* of her intended destination of Howland Island, and she would of course have headed south. *************************************************************************** From Ric The strange thing about the whole story of Earhart disregarding Noonan's advice and turning the wrong way at the African coast is that the marks and notations on the actual chart Noonan was using (now on file at Purdue) tell a rather different tale. Randy Jacobson was able to reconstruct the navigational situation which arose at the end of the flight and it appears that flight's termination at St. Louis rather than Dakar was the reslut of a rational decision based upon their slightly off-course location, the poor visiblity, and the impending darkness. Noonan certainly made no mention of any disagreement with Earhart in his letter to Gene Pallette. Why Earhart desc ribed the incident the way she did in her report to the Herald Tribune (later repeated and embellished in Last Flight) is a bit of a mystery. Amelia Earhart did not always tell the truth to the press when describing her adventures. This appears to be one of those times. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 12:06:45 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: Re: Seven site > From Ric > > If you mean the fund-raising for Niku IIIII, yes, the fun begins. Uh, shouldn't that be "Niku V"? LTM (who still has a sun dial) Kerry Tiller #2350 *************************************************************************** From Ric Actually I had one to many "I"s in there. Should be Niku IIII, even though it will be our sixth trip to Nikumaroro and our seventh trip to the Phoenix Group. Confusing? Yes. Here's why it is the way it is. 1989 - We originally called our first expedition to Nikumaroro simply "The Earhart Project Expedition." We had no idea there would be any more. 1991 - This was "The Return to Nikumaroro" (surely our last hurrah). We were going to either confirm or deny the hypothesis, but instead we found that we were unable to accomplish some of our goals (find the mysterious "water collection device" described by Coast Guard veterans) but we did discover some enticing new clues (the shoe parts and the section of airplane skin), all of which made it clear we would need to come back. So, when we got home we immediately started planning and raising money for "Niku III" (which, by default, made the previous two expeditions Niku I and Niku II). So far, so good. 1996 - Raising money for a third trip turned out to be really difficult and we had to postpone several times. During that long hiatus we really buckled down and did more original source research with the help of new friends like Randy Jacobson and Kenton Spading (and many others). Through forensic imaging (by Photek) of early aerial photography, we were able to confirm that there were man-made objects and signs of human activity at the location we now call the Seven site. It appeared that we at last knew where to look for the fabled "water collection device" which seemed to us very likely to be part an Earhart/Noonan survival camp. In light of the intense controversy generated by the press coverage that followed Niku II, we decided to try to put together a very small, quick "black" expedition specifically to find "the water collection device", meanwhile continuing the fund-raising and preparations for Niku III. A sponsor was found and the "black" expedition departed with no fanfare in February 1996. We had a very small team and only four days on the island but we found our objective and were very disappointed to learn that it was a tank that obviously had been brought down from the village. Before we left we did some poking about back at the village and came up with the pieces of plexiglas and the radio cables as consolation prizes. But what were we to call this expedition? We couldn't very well go home and tell everybody we had just done Niku III without telling anyone, so it became Niku III Preliminary or "Niku IIIP". 1997 - Our "consolation prizes" from Niku IIIP helped generate new interest and funding that enabled us to finally launch Niku III in March of 1997. We had gotten away with sailing in the middle of cyclone season the year before with no problem. This time we compensated by getting tagged by not one, but two, tropical cyclones (same as "hurricanes" in the Atlantic and "typhoons" in the North Pacific). Damn near killed us. The work on the island turned up nothing much of interest for a lot of hard work under horrible conditions, but the diversion into Funafuti on the way home (because of the storm) and the subsequent stranding of nine of us there for six days, led to the fortuitous gathering of the first anecdotal accounts of airplane wreckage seen on Niku. 1998 - While we were still trying to corroborate the new anecdotal information that came out of Niku III, Bruce Yoho's account of the Kanton Engine came to light and seemed worthy of another small, quick expedition to check it out. Because the destination was Kanton, where there was a serviceable runway, it was possible (just barely) to use an airplane instead of a boat to get there. We called that trip "The Kanton Mission" and it doesn't figure in the numbering of the trips to Nikumaroro. 1999 - Once more, a close examination of aerial photos revealed the presence of what might be aircraft wreckage just where the Funafuti anecdotes had described it. There seemed to be a reasonable chance that there might be conclusive aircraft wreckage on the Nutiran shoreline so it looked like we needed another "Preliminary" expedition to check out that possibility. By this time we also had the documentation about the bones that were last seen in Fiji, so we mounted an ambitious double-barreled effort that put one team on Niku searching for airplane wreckage ("Niku IIIIP") and another team in Fiji searching for bones ("The Fiji Bone Search"). Both searches were carried out with great energy and both searches achieved only negative results, but - as often happens - in looking for one thing we found something else. The Fiji Bone Search turned up Emily Sikuli and Otiria O'Brian whose surprising anecdotal accounts of airplane wreckage on the reef in the early days of the colony have led to a new hypothesis about where we should look for airplane wreckage. 2001 - So that's why our sixth trip to the island will be Niku IIII. But why is it Niku IIII instead of Niku IV? It's not that we don't quite grasp the Roman Numeral system (really, it's not). It's purely a marketing ploy. On the Niku IIII logo the four "I"s are represented as slashes as if made by the claws of a tiger (TIGHAR). Maybe it "works", maybe it doesn't, but we're sorta stuck with it. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 12:07:51 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: Re: Thunderboxes Also regionally called "thunder jugs" or "thunder mugs". The Madison County (New York) farmers on my father's side of the family still refer to modern commodes by this epithet. And, for you aircraft historians, when my father was called back into service in 1950 to fly F-80 ("Thunder Jets") in Korea, he and his fellow pilots referred to the aircraft as a Thunder Jug. Kerry Tiller #2350 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:05:29 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: Re: Data Quality explained Believe it or not, here it is the "zero zeros" and the navy (with our tax dollars) is STILL trying to make TQM work in an environment of contract labor! LTM (a total quality mother) Kerry Tiller #2350 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:06:37 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: My 2 yen worth JEEZ, people! For weeks I didn't see but two or three postings a day. I went to Osaka for a few days and when I got back I had over a hundred forum postings in my inbox. Did everybody have a slow week at work? It's taken me half the weekend to wade through it all. RE; Janet Whitney: Thank you Ric for stifling the QD folks. When I first saw the arrows flying at Janet from the forum I was going to defend her, harking back to my own naive undergraduate days as an historical archaeology student at the U of A (not expecting Dr. King to remember his. Sorry Tom - I don't know you well enough to joke like that), but my sympathy for Ms. Whitney waned in direct proportion to the number of times she choked on her pedal digits. RE; Thunderbox: I am constantly amazed at the education opportunities available on this forum when we get off topic. RE: The life threatening overwash at the Seven Site: Maybe the thunderbox got out of control. LTM Kerry Tiller #2350 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:07:28 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Coral, Freshwater and Sediment To Kenton, I was trying to find some of the larger holes in my own reasoning with that post.. Sort of shooting myself in the foot to see if it hurt... If you'ver read my posts before, you'll know I often post the first thoughts that come into my head, then let someone tear the idea apart. This was just me beating them to it!.. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:13:08 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc > From Ric > > I think you're confusing the Smithsonian with the National Archives (same > town, different outfits), >I don't recall any allegation that the logs were given to the Smithsonian. (In Reply to which - The post follows, with the relevant sentence marked "*****":) +++++++++ From Ron Bright Ric, I think Janet Whitney asked about the addition of margin notes, notations ,etc on the orginal log that you intend to post. Interestingly, Leo Bellarts Jr. gave me a copy of his Dad's log that he asserts is the real orginal. When you compare that log with the log used on Elgen Long's book (cover photo) there are some significant differences in the underlining; specifically re the time of 0741 concerning the "...we must be on you but cannot see U but gas is running low been unable to reach you by radio we are flying at a 1000 feet". Maybe there are several "orginal" logs made from the first copy?? As you point out my log also clearly shows "circling" typed over another word,probably "drifting". ***** Leo Bellart Jr told me he gave his father's log to the Smithsonian and made copies for himself.***** LTM, Ron Bright (lover of quality in all data) *************************************************************************** From Ric Hmmm...you're right (again). I wonder if Leo Jr. misspoke. In any event, what do appear to be the original logs are in the National Archives (where they belong). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:16:23 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: bad facts > Also, there is a column in the paper by someone who claims to be a member of > the MENSA society and extremely brilliant. Take it from a so-called genius, qualifiers for MENSA may be "extremely brilliant", even "highly intelligent" but that does not automatically exclude "Stupiduty", "Arrogance", "Impatience" or any of those other traits those of us who fluke high marks in the Stanford-Binet tend often show towards people who may be capable of the scores for MENSA but can't be bothered finding out! I suspect some of the recent controversial posts have been from this type of person and can only suggest: There is a difference between "tested intelligence" and "education". Learn the difference! Never assume everyone else is dumber than you.... Th' WOMBAT (Who was not necessarily directing this at any one person.... Not really....) ************************************************************************** From Ric As I recall, the MENSA motto goes something like: "People who think they know everything are particularly annoying to those of us who do." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:20:56 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: To wander or not to wander. And THAT is what I called wandering around.. Up the LOP and down again, then hopefully off looking for somewhere obvious to land.. Sorry for creating confusion out of Ric's simple statement.. Th' WOMBAT [BTW Ric, what is the current US dollar price of TIGHAR membership? Whatever it is it will be another 70% in Aussie dollars :-( ] ************************************************************************** From Ric US$45, but don't send us a check drawn in Aussie dollars, no matter how many. The banks here in the Wilmington, Delaware - world-renowned center of international commerce - think that any currency other than U.S. is a candy wrapper. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:21:38 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re thunderboxes If Tom is serious (Tom? Serious?) about this topic, he can email me directly if he likes, and I'll see if I can provide some serious help. I just think we've covered as much of this as is necessary on the forum and perhaps we should close the lid..... Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:29:25 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: DQ/IQ Perspective > I wouldn't make the suggestion to everyone, although it would be nice if > everyone had read the web site, but in Ms Whitney's case I thought it a > good idea. > Frank Westlake Guilty here too! I posted happily to the forum for a couple of months before realising I was stripping the hide from already rotting horses. The catch with the web site is that there is no apparent link to the bulletins section (Is that deliberate?) which condenses a heck of a lot of the hard data into readable viewable form. As side issue, although a radio news item saying TIGHAR had "located the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's plane and her bones" was the reason for my finding the TIGHAR site, I now view the forum as an interesting Anthropological and Archaeological exercise. Regardless of whether Amelia landed on Niku or not, it is a fascinating research which has perhaps inadvertently added volumes to the known history of Kiribati. The P.I.S.S. settlement on Gardner would have been quietly forgotten otherwise. So whether it is information about Amelia and Fred, or whether it is learning about the history of the pacific the reading is stimulating.. Th' WOMBAT *************************************************************************** From Ric No apparent link to the bulletins section? Right there on the main Earhart Project page where it say's "Current Research" there's a link called "Research Bulletins." Although the forum may be an interesting Anthropological and Archaeological exercise, the point of the exercise is to discovere what happened to Earhart and Noonan. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:51:19 EDT From: Denise Subject: "Dun" Trusting neither you, Ric, nor my husband, I've turned to Websters for a definition: Here it is: 1) Dun: (a) A.Sax `dunn' from Gael. `donn': Of greyish-brown or dull-brown colour. Alternatively/ 2) Dun: (v.t.) To clamor for payment of a debt from; to urge importunately. So my husband is right on this score ... but you aren't wrong either. Further down it says: "Dune: (from A. Sax. "dun" from "down") A low hill of sand accumulated on the sea-coast." *************************************************************************** From Ric I think that if you'll check any Gaelic dictionary you'll find that "dun" is "a fortress, hillock or mound" as reflected in place names such as Duntulm (fortress on the isle), Dunbarton (fortress of the Britons), and Dunkeld (fortress of the Caledonians), etc. "Donn" in Gaelic does mean brown, as in "aran donn" (brown bread), but is a completely different word. Neither term is "Anglo Saxon." Alba go bragh. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:52:31 EDT From: Vern Subject: Re: Earhart's Radios (I promise not to continue this off-topic subject on the forum,) Ross, Since Janet seems to have lost her receiving antenna on take off, I doubt you'll get any response from her. You may be interested to know that what she describes may be stretching '30s technology a bit, but not very much. In the '30s and '40s it was a fun thing to try to "work the world" with a one-tube transmitter, CW of course, and a very simple antenna. You would probably try to do this on the 10-meter band during a solar max -- as in 1937, incidently. It was even more fun to also use a one-tube, regenerative receiver. It took patience and some skill, but those things were as sensitive and possibly as selective as the garden variety ham receivers available today. They're just not nearly as nice and easy to use. I built my first one in about 1938 and listened to hams and other short-wave stuff from all over the world. Of course, all of those were running more than a half-watt! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 15:58:40 EDT From: Russ Matthews Subject: Original originals I'm a little confused by the controversy over this issue. The documents I studied from the Leo Bellarts collection at the National Archives in December, 1991 had all the appearance of being the so called "original originals." The paper was heavy and turning yellowish-brown with holes running down the left side -- as if it had once been held in a three-ring binder. It was my impression that Bellarts had simply removed these pages from the primary radio log and kept them for himself. Have you ever had the opportunity to handle these documents personaly or are you relying on the Xerox copies I made at the time? LTM (a true original), Russ *************************************************************************** From Ric Thank you for that. I've never seen them in the flesh but have always relied on the photocopies made by you and Randy Jacobson. Sounds like there's little doubt that the documents at the National Archives are the original originals. However, for photocopies to exist that have different underlinings than the "originals", the markings that are now on the originals had to have been made AFTER photocopies were made of the unmarked originals. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:01:27 EDT From: Joe Subject: post-loss signals Just wondered in those post signals supposedly heard by hams or someone on the west coast of the U.S. wouldnt you want to believe he or she said "we're on Gardner Island"?? Does anyone know what was said in those signals? Joe ************************************************************************* From Ric The content of the various alleged signals was widely reported. Some purported to include lat/long coordinates, others made references to a reef, none included the name of any island. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:06:23 EDT From: Don Jordan Subject: B-29 parts needed I know you don't like to put non-Earhart related items on the forum, but in the interest of aviation history and archeology, I'm hoping you'll make an exception with this one. On my Web site at; http://www.cyberlynk.com/djordan/doc.html there is a story about "Doc" the B-29 restoration project under way at the Boeing Aircraft Plant in Wichita, Kansas. The pictures can been seen at; http://www.cyberlynk.com/djordan/docpicture.html which is a link at the bottom of the first page. I was contacted recently by the project directors asking for some help. They plan to have the B-29 back in the air again within two years, but they have hit a snag of sorts. It seems the rudder and vertical stabilizer are not repairable, and unless replacement parts can be found, they'll have to fabricate a new one from scratch. Hopefully, somewhere around the world, there is a B-29 rudder and stabilizer that can be obtained for the project. They may be interested in other B-29 parts as well. If any forum reader is aware of such parts, please contact me and I'll pass the information on to the project. Feel free to forward this request to anyone who might help. Thanks Don J. *************************************************************************** From Ric Returning a B-29 to airworthy condition is neither history nor archaeology. It's airplane maintenance. But it would be nice to have another B-29 flying. If anyone has a Superfort tail out in the garage please let Don know. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:07:44 EDT From: Mike Everette Subject: Mike Everette is back After an extended absence from the Forum because my computer got "et up" (French-fried, blown-to-hell, etc) by a lightning surge on the phone line, I am once again ready to enter the fray. QRV? (Does anyone have anything for me?) 73 Mike E. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:10:50 EDT From: Daniel R. Brown Subject: The "American woman" I have been following the forum for some time, but this is my first submitted question. Sorry if I am sending it to the wrong email address. My question is prompted by "Gallagher of Nikomaroro": Who was the American woman Laxton said visited Niku before 1951? Did one of her shoes have a Cat's Paw heel? Daniel R. Brown *************************************************************************** From Ric Excellent question and one we've wondered about for a long time. We don't know who she was or when or why she was there. We certainly don't know what kind of heels she had on her shoes. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:14:11 EDT From: Dave Porter Subject: circling, listening, drifting, etc. Am I missing something here? I thought the original reason for the uncertainty regarding drifting, listening, circling, or whatever in Leo Bellart's log was because Bellarts himself WASN'T SURE WHAT HE HEARD, as witnessed by the strikeover and word change in the original. (if it is indeed the "original" original) If that's the case, no amount of computer number crunching or data quality management or anything else is going to tell us for sure what AE really said. Now, maybe you could get Shirley MacLaine to channel AE for you, and you could ask her...(hopefully everybody on THIS forum understands that last sentence as a joke) To Skeet Gifford-- That paragraph you posted was actually in a real corporate manual somewhere? If so, it really is a shame that tarring and feathering has gone out of fashion. For anyone who remembers the movie "The Princess Bride" the phrase "so I can clearly not choose the glass in front of me" should come to mind. Love to Mother, who thinks that parameters and paradigms are part of the metric system. Dave Porter, 2288 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:24:15 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: The overwash question Correct me if I'm wrong -- DUH! -- but hasn't TIGHAR's previous research pretty much cleared up the issue regarding "overwash" at the 7 site? My understanding is: 1. There may have been an overwash at the 7 site some time in Niku's past, which killed coral and gave the site it's distinctive shape. 2. The 7 site may be the locale where a "castaway" died prior to 1940 and where skeletal remains were later found by Gallaghar et al. 3. If number 2 is true, evidence (water tank, drinking cups, holes in the ground etc.) of Gallaghar's continued search of this site was found by TIGHAR in 1994. 4. Because the evidence from 1940 was found in 1994, in all probability there has been no overwash at the site since at least 1940. 5. If number 4 is true, why give a rat's patoot about overwashes and what killed the coral in that area. 6. If number 5 is true, why don't we leave that area of investigation to a future generation of marine biologists/environmentalists. LTM, who is sure to be corrected Dennis O. McGee #0149EC ************************************************************************** From Ric It was 1996, not 1994. I think Number 4 is almost certainly true BUT what if the site was overwashed BETWEEN the time the castaway died and the Gallagher's arrival on the scene? Might THAT help explain why the skeleton was scattered and why he didn't find more than he did? I don't think so. I can't see an overwash scattering the skeleton and removing items like clothing but leaving the sextant box, the campfire and the dead birds intact. If the putative overwash occurred before the castaway died I don't see that it has any bearing on our investigation. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:30:33 EDT From: Tom Van Hare Subject: Earhart - Stage Left I don't know if this has already been covered during my absence from the discussion list, but here's an interesting Hollywood tidbit: Julianne Moore is in talks to star in the upcoming Fine Line Features film, "I Was Amelia Earhart". Early reports are that the film will be loosely based on Jane Mendelsohn's fictional 1996 biograhy of Earhart. The film will be directed by Fred Schepisi, a name in Hollywood -- he also did "Six Degrees of Separation" and "Roxanne". Schepisi is now rewriting the plot so that it better suits film (suddenly I imagine woman-hungry cannibals playing a major role, as well as some crazed Japanese samurai army officers yelling Banzai!!). Anyway, before the lot of us launch into a tirade about everything wrong with the book and everything that will be wrong with the movie, I think it would be wise to step back and consider what happens when one or two summers from now, this new Earhart film hits the theatre. I would foresee a major groundswell of public interest in the Earhart issue, something which, if TIGHAR positions itself well, would result quite naturally in even more public interest to solve the case, which would thus result in increased funding for the efforts already underway. Another avenue would be to get in touch with Schepisi and Fine Line Features to see if the moviemakers might be interested in sponsoring an expedition as part of their advertising and public relations efforts. Furthermore, since the script rewrite is in process even now as I write this, it brings forward the opportunity that a few well-placed words could bend things in the right direction -- for instance, the film could open with a group of archaeologists landing on a deserted island, their boat tied up off shore, a storm brewing in the distance (no, wait, that would never happen).... Thomas Van Hare Historic Wings ************************************************************************** From Ric Hmmmm ..... Not a bad idea. What have we got to lose? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:32:25 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Niku IIII Or we could call it "2001: a Sea Odyssey." Assuming Kenton can keep the computers under control. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:33:09 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Resolving "circling" You know this sort of reminds me of the fellow who wrote to "America's Most Wanted" or one of those shows, and suggested that they rerun the film of the reinactment of the crime just a little bit slower, because he could almost get the license number off the suspect's car... ltm jon ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:35:24 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Itasca's Radio Logs > From Oscar Boswell > > Just as a matter of curiosity, has Ms. Whitney ever worked for the IRS (or > SSA > or VA)? > The tone is familiar. > *********************************************************************** > From Ric > > No, but I think I was married to her once. The dark edges of Ric's sordid past begin to emerge... ltm jon *************************************************************************** From Ric You don't want to go there. Trust me. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:41:30 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Naming Nikus I-IIII Whazzup with this Niku eye, eye-eye, eye-eye-eye and a pee and whatever, you know? Roman numerals? Well, DUH! I mean, maybe you should take a clue from the computer people and name your trips Niku 1.0, 2.0, 2.1 (this being a subordinate of 2.0), 3.0, etc. Therefore the new numbering for the many trips to Nikumaroro and the various associated side journeys would be: Niku 1.0 is The Earhart Project Expedition Niku 2.0 is The Return to Nikumaroro Niku 3.0 is Niku IIIP Niku 3.1 is Niku III Niku 3.2 is The Kanton Mission Niku 3.3 is The Fiji Bone Search Niku 4.0 is the upcoming Niku IIII Not only does this method show the true relation of each trip to each other trip, it also keeps things in date order. But most important of all it is way cool looking and proves that TIGHAR is a rad, edgy crew doing the extreme stuff and not a bunch of geezers drooling over typewriters as they play with a dead language and sip prune juice. LTM, veni, vedi, vici Dennis O. McGee #0149EC ************************************************************************** From Ric Hey, I'm the guy who didn't know who Cameron Diaz is. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 16:54:48 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc I meant National Archives not the Smithsonian and Leo Jr released them (after photocoping) in 1975;he gave me a photocopy of his "orginal". Leo Jr recalled that there were two logs. One typed by Bellarts Sr., Galten and Thompson on a single typewriter and a second log was typed by O'hara. The Ohara log has the "1/2 hour left" which Leo Bellarts Sr disputed .Leo Sr's log had the "circling" typed over another word and recorded "half hour left". Time used was local Howland on the log which I think was 1/2 different from GMT. Leo Jr attributed the circling v. drifting (or whatever) to Senior's "two fingered" typing method,but concedes "drifting" may have been the first word typed; but the subsequent carbons under the originals should reflect more accurately what was first written. A carbon was used in Leo Sr., typewriter but I have no idea how many carbons were made. Leo Jr. claimed that Capt Thompson told Senior to take the first orginal, not the carbon, and put it in Senior's safe aboard the Itasca as copies were "disappearing"!! LTM, Ron Bright (keeper of a log) ************************************************************************** From Ric I think you mispoke yourself again. Bellart's log does not say "half hour left." It says "but gas is running low." There's little doubt about "drifting" being the original word. It's easy to pick out. So, did Leo put the original in Thompson's safe as ordered? If so, it's interesting that it never emerged as part of the official record. Is the copy in the National Archives then a carbon? That seems unlikely because of the erasure of "drifting." If the document in the National Archives is, in fact, not a carbon and if it got there via Leo Bellarts, then the Chief Radioman disobeyed the orders of his commanding officer (bless his heart). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 17:02:16 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: "Up in the Air"/Adventure article re Gillespie I didn't realise you had such an interesting background. Maybe some of the faithfull forum members will enjoy the article appearing in Adventure, July 1999, written by Max. Potter (Harry's brother?) in a personal interview with you and you wife ,and cats. Was that a fair representation of Tighar's work, research, artifacts, etc. Why didn't Potter give you a chance to rebut the West Coast engineers who debunk the aircraft skin as coming from the Electra and Smithsonian's Dr. Tom Crouch who debunks the Catspaw heel because of size? And Dr Crouch also takes a whack at the Burns and Jantz analysis of the Hoodless bones. Leaves the reader "up in the air". It does not appear that Susan Butler wants to pay $20,000 for the next Tighar Claws expedition. Is that seat still open. ltm, Ron Bright (who also wants a better lifestyle) *************************************************************************** From Ric Mr. Potter's article was originally written for Philadelphia magazine. I had no idea when he interviewed me that he had an agenda and would paint me the way he did. He wanted a buffoon and he created one. So it goes. We all had a good laugh about it. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 17:07:55 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: The "American woman" Daniel -- Just to elaborate a bit on Ric's response. re. the American woman: Laxton just mentions her visit in a humorous anecdote about use of the lavatory (OK, she goes in to wash her hands and the water runs out on her feet because nobody's put the requisite bucket under the drain). That's all he says, and we've seen no reference to or record of her anyplace else. Which is no mystery; there's no particular reason there SHOULD be a record. Anyhow, as Ric says, no idea what kind of shoes she wore. LTM (who prefers tennies) Tom King ************************************************************************** From Ric ....except that they were wet. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 17:09:41 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: The overwash question Dennis, I don't understand what you mean by: 1. There may have been an overwash at the 7 site some time in Niku's past, which killed coral and gave the site it's distinctive shape. The overwash question came up in connection with efforts to account for funny patterning on the reef flat offshore from the Seven Site. We've pretty much established that this patterning doesn't reflect coralcide, and that the most likely cause is siltation, whether from overwash or just a whole lot of rain, probably after the time the site was cleared and hence could erode. It's also been suggested (and I think it's a good suggestion) that slashing and burning vegetation along the shore, with the detritus washed out onto the flat, could have caused or contributed to the patterning. In any event, lotsa rain OR an overwash could have happened after the castaway died, and after or during Gallagher's search; it just has to not wash everything away, and that's entirely possible. We're not talking about a catastrophic event here; just a lot of flowing water maybe a couple of inches deep. It could rearrange stuff, but wouldn't very likely wash it all away. But your overall implication is on target; we've probably flayed this horse enough. Maybe there was overwash, maybe there was a big rain; we need to go take a good hard look. LTM Tom KIng ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 17:11:48 EDT From: Dan Postellon Subject: Re: Mensa motto In the 1960's, a contender for the Mensa motto was "Intelligence is no defense against stupidity." LTM Dan Postellon Tighar 2263 ************************************************************************* From Ric Absolutely. Stupidity has nothing to do with intelligence or even education. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 09:13:27 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc Sorry Belllarts log does say "gas running low" not 1/2 hour. I misspoke. I reviewed my interview with Leo Jr. The way I understand it, Capt Thompson told Leo Sr.to put the original (top) typed log in his (Leo Jrs) safe aboard ship and a carbon copy of the log was given to Cdr Thompson as the "orginal". No notations or underling,etc. Leo Sr then kept the orginal typed log in his possession until Leo Jr inherited it in 1974,and then later donated to the National Archives. The donated log should not have any holes punched in the margin and should be free of any underlining,etc. It is my understanding that Leo SR. gave a copy of this log to Long in 1973. Thus we may see various underlinings on the various photocopies. I have no idea how many carbons were used and whether there was any reproduction methods available for more copies. My log is annotated with underlines,ticks in the margin. Drifting v. circling,in my opinion, means a lot to the AE mystery. Ron Bright *************************************************************************** From Ric That all makes sense except that the Bellarts log in the National Archives DOES have ticks in the margin and underlinings as well as live signatures at watch changes. The copies I have of the "smoothed" logs have no such markings. I don't think that the "circling" thing is a big deal. I think she said "listening" but regardless - I can't see that anybody did anything different because that one word was misunderstood. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 09:14:50 EDT From: Bob Brandenburg Subject: Re: bad facts As a MENSAn, I can vouch that Th' Wombat is absolutely correct. It has been my experience that intelligence is indeed no protection against stupidity. Sometimes I think I head the list in that regard, such as when I conduct an unscheduled compression tolerance test on one of my fingers while hammering a nail. As for anyone who equates "tested intelligence" with "education", I offer the following simple test: check the job descriptions in any field and note the number that require a high score on an IQ test. Then note the number that require demonstrated knowledge that can produce useful results, whether in the private sector, academia, or government. The result will be sobering. LTM, who notes that Albert Einstein had trouble selecting the correct combination of coins for bus fare. Bob, #2286 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 09:18:17 EDT From: Kenton Spading Subject: Lambrecht's View Randy Jacobson recently wrote in regards to the photo of Gardner taken by the Colorado airmen: >I've tried to address the question of the Lambrecht >photo on the forum several times, and will try again. >This was a photo of opportunity, and was >taken, in my humble opinion, because the available >charts of Gardner were so fallacious that some sort of >document of the true shape/size of Gardner was needed to >convince non-first hand observers of this fact. Ric responded: >Bottom line: he makes a pretty >good case. The route back from Carondelet does take the flight near the spot >where the photo was taken and the high altitude does suggest that the point >of the photo was to show the whole island rather than some suspicios feature >on the ground. (Good Lord. Did I just agree with Jacobson?) I, like Randy, am getting tired of this point being continually missed on the Forum. When is the next round of agonizing going to begin over whether or not this photo shows Earhart's camp followed by Randy once again bringing everyone back to earth? This issue cries for a FAQ on the web which should also point out that it is not necessarily a photo taken by Lambrecht's plane (we do not know which plane took it). The basic FAQ facts could be pulled from the recent postings on these issues. How about a new FAQ Ric? LTM Kenton Spading *************************************************************************** From Ric We can do that. (We HAVE the technology.) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 09:25:25 EDT From: Robert Klauss Subject: Niku IIII or IV? Forgive me for being picky (and I'm certainly the only one here ever accused of that), but shouldn't that be Niku IV, not IIII? Robert Klaus ************************************************************************ From Ric Yesterday I wrote: ....But why is it Niku IIII instead of Niku IV? It's not that we don't quite grasp the Roman Numeral system (really, it's not). It's purely a marketing ploy. On the Niku IIII logo the four "I"s are represented as slashes as if made by the claws of a tiger (TIGHAR). Maybe it "works", maybe it doesn't, but we're sorta stuck with it. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 09:27:19 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re thunderboxes I promised myself no more posts on this subject, but I just have to add something that's been on my mind. In an earlier post it seemed that in the anecdote re the "Thunderbox" someone was describing it in a sense that could only be called "pride". Now, there's nothing outstanding about the traditional thunderbox, and if there had been plumbing for a septic tank or sewerage it would be noticeable (and highly unusual in the circumstance). That leaves the box itself. If this facility was in a corner of the meeting house, it is possible they went to a little trouble to make it as aesthetically pleasing as possible. I wonder if the box itself and the seat and lid were made of Kanawa.... That would be something.. I've seen them made from old packing case wood, rough sawn eucalypt (but a smoothed seat), pine, in fact almost anything you can think of over the years, even half a 44 gallon petrol drum (I think in your gallons it's 50) with a hole cut out for the seat, and one at the back for the can to be slid in and out. There is a wooden one I have seen lately that is a work of art (used by friends of mine who have no mod cons at their country retreat). If seasoned kanawa is as beautiful a timber as in all the accounts, it would certainly be something to show off - even in the toilet.. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 09:33:42 EDT From: Don Neumann Subject: Gallagher's island Could the 'mystery' woman on Gallagher's Island have been Irene (Craigmile) Bolam, on a secret mission for M-15 (or is it M-16)? ************************************************************************* From Ric Actually she was a writer who was quite taken with the legends of castaways on Gallagher's island. Years later she wrote a treatment for a TV sitcom but remembered the name wrong. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 09:37:58 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Underlining Ric said: "However, for photocopies to exist that have different underlining than the "originals", the markings that are now on the originals had to have been made AFTER photocopies were made of the unmarked originals." So, I read this to mean that someone got to the originals in the National Archives and defaced them by underlining portions of the logs AFTER Russ and Randy photocopied them. If that is correct it would seems to be a fairly easy job of narrowing down a list of culprits by reviewing the logs of who had access to the documents after Russ and Randy. Who tells the National Archives about this? LTM, who abhors the growing lack of civility she witnesses daily Dennis O. McGee, #0149EC ************************************************************************** From Ric No. All of the copies Russ and Randy took have markings on them (apparently the same markings that are on the copy Ron got from Leo Jr.). That indicates to me that Leo Jr's recollection is not quite correct and the originals were marked up BEFORE they went to Washington. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 11:00:40 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Niku-the Next Expedition #(?) You mentioned recently that the challenge of raising the $$$ for the next Niku has begun. I assume you are looking for corporate sponsors. Is there any particular critiera you are looking for in a sponsor besides cash for the cause or equipment needed? Doug Brutlag #2335 ************************************************************************** From Ric We're an equal-opportunity beneficiary. We'll take anybody's money, with just a few exceptions: - It has been TIGHAR's long-standing policy to accept no sponsorship from companies associated with the tobacco, alcohol, or the gambling industry. - We're happy to do product endorsements and participate in advertsing but we're going to keep it in good taste (for example: we would not cover the expedition team's clothing in logos like NASCAR drivers). - We're happy to accept equipment to use, provided we actually need it. Other than that, we're open for business. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 16:04:07 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re thunderboxes To Th' Wombat on the endlessly fascinating topic of thunderboxes: the one in the Rest house may or may not have been made of kanawa; if perhaps it's still there and not deteriorated (unlikely) we certainly didn't see it, and none of us was motivated to go in and heave out all the fetid coconut fronds and husks to see what was there. But it wasn't in "the corner of the meetinghouse." The meetinghouse, or maneaba, was elsewhere; this was the Rest House -- Gallagher's residence and the place where visiting VIPs were put up. The lavatory with its thick concrete walls occupied one wing of the "U" shaped building, and would have been quite out of the way vis-a-vis the central part of the house, which presumably was the "public" area. One would not see a work of art placed there unless one went in to use the facility. LTM Tom King ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 16:07:21 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc It is entirely possible that Leo Bellarts Sr.placed some ticks in the margin, and underlined the stuff he thought was important, then gave that "original" to the Archives. My copy has the signatures of each of the radiomen as they changed the watch. Ron Bright *************************************************************************** From Ric Mine too. But now I'm confused (again). Was it Sr. or Jr. who gave the logs to the Archives? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 09:35:45 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: Radio Log/ Notations,etc Leo Sr. died in 1974 at Everett, Wa. After looking through his father's boxes of stuff,including the famous Itasca photo blowing smoke, and the orginal log that Sr (allegedly)kept apart from Cdr Thompson's carbon, Leo Jr donated the material to the National Archives in 1975. Leo Jr says he still has some material but as of yet he hasn't been too anxious to cough it up. Do you or other researchers know what if anything else of importance was donated to the Archives by the Bellarts? Ron Bright *************************************************************************** From Ric I don't know of anything else. Leo Jr. sent me a copy of the transcript of his father's 1973 interview with Elgen Long but I think you'ver seen that also. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 09:56:36 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re thunderboxes > From Tom King > But it wasn't in "the corner of the meetinghouse." The meetinghouse, or > maneaba, was elsewhere; this was the Rest House -- Gallagher's residence and > the place where visiting VIPs were put up. The lavatory with its thick > concrete walls occupied one wing of the "U" shaped building, and would have > been quite out of the way vis-a-vis the central part of the house, which > presumably was the "public" area. One would not see a work of art placed > there unless one went in to use the facility. Sorry, got rest rooms, meeting houses and gallagher's residence mixed up! The thick concrete walls would have been enough to boast about. But I still wonder about the dunny. Can you imagine being on a tropical island, with thatched huts etc. and going to the lavatory, instead of some rough seat you have a utility almost nice enough to use in the mansion back home. Alas there will be no way of knowing, but exceptional as that part of the building was with its thick concrete walls and the ingenious (for a remote outpost) plumbing system, it was the humble toilet seat that rated the special mention. The only reasons I can come up with for that are 1. - It was spiked with nails, so nobody used it and it was always clean. 2. - It was made special in some other regard, such as the carpentry used and the type of timber. Some people customise that room with special care. Of course in the USA you'd never find people with radios built in to the toilet roll dispenser, but believe me I have seen them here. Along with fluffy lid covers, electrically heated toilet seats..... To rate a special mention the "Thunderbox" had to be unique in some way that was practical on the island. To have the thing crafted out of Kanawa would be the sort of small extravagance someone like Gallagher could allow himself. I am NOT suggesting that the bones ended up in Fiji in a Kanawa wood thunderbox! Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric I'll confess to some befuddlement about how the simple passage in Laxton's article "...the lavatory, which is of the "thunderbox" variety, ..." has prompted speculation that it was in some way remarkable. Sheesh. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 10:03:41 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re thunderboxes They were funny looking buildings, that were once a way of life, If you couldn't sprint the distance, then you really were in strife. They were nailed, they were wired, but were mostly falling down, There was one in every yard, in every house, in every town. They were given many names, some were even funny, But to most of us, we knew them as the outhouse or the dunny. I've seen some of them all gussied up, with painted doors and all, But it really made no difference, they were just a port of call. Now my old man would take a bet, he'd lay an even pound, That you wouldn't make the dunny with them turkeys hangin' round. They had so many uses, these buildings out the back, You could even hide from mother, so you wouldn't get the strap. That's why we had good cricketers, or my name isn't Crump, We used the pathway for the wicket and the dunny door for stumps. Now my old man would sit for hours, the smell would rot your socks, He read the daily back to front in that good old thunderbox. And if by chance that nature called sometime through the night, You always sent the dog in first, for there was no flamin' light. And the dunny seemed to be the place where crawlies liked to hide, But never ever showed themselves until you sat inside. There was no such thing as Sorbent, no tissues there at all, Just squares of well read newspaper, a hangin' on the wall. If you had some friendly neighbours, as neighbours sometimes are, You could sit and chat to them, if you left the door ajar. When suddenly you got the urge, and down the track you fled, Then of course the magpies were there to pick you on your head. Then the time there was a wet, the rain it never stopped, If you had an urgent call, you ran between the drops. The dunny man came twice a week, to these buildings out the back, And he would leave an extra can, if you left for him a zac. For those of you who've no idea what I mean by a zac, Then you're too young to have ever had, a dunny out the back. For it seems today they call them the bathroom, or the loo, If you've never had one out the back, then I feel sorry for you. For it used to be a way of life, to race along the track, To answer natures call, at these buildings out the back. By Judy Jenkinson ********** Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric Seems like a good place to end this thread. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 11:23:43 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Irene Boulam For Don Neumann: I hate to seem such a dunce, but who was Irene Boulam? TKing ************************************************************************** From Ric Cameron Diaz before she changed her name? No. I think he means Irene Bolam ( the star of Joe Klaas' classic "Amelia Earhart Lives!"). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 11:26:35 EDT From: Ric Subject: Pery-Johnston Tom King has received the following reply from Karen Pery-Johnston: Hello Thomas, Sorry for the delay in replying to your letter but I have been overseas recently. I am able to confirm that I am related to Eric Pery-Johnston, in fact I am his grand daughter ( he's my father's father) and we are the only Pery-Johnston family in the world as this surname was made up by Eric. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1980 in Auckland, New Zealand and therefore i don't believe our family would be able to help you answer the bone question!! Eric is survived by his wife, Edith who now lives in Australia but she has advanced dementia(she's 90). My father was 6 at the time that they lived in Fiji and therefore has no knowledge of this information. In fact we have received a number of other letters seeking information recently on the same topic. Anyway, I'll confirm with my father that we don't have any of this information at our hands. Sorry I wasn't able to help any further, good luck with your endeavours. Karen Pery-Johnston ********************************************** Tom has replied with a request that she look inot the possibility of surviving papers. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 15:31:39 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Thunderboxes Ric said: "Seems like a good place to end this thread." God, YES! Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! LTM, who's wiped out! Dennis O. McGee #0149EC ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 09:27:37 EDT From: Dave Porter Subject: Thunder Jets If one is permitted to continue a thread that began as a tangent to an already dead horse thread, the following is for Kerry Tiller. The F-80 was the Lockheed Shooting Star. The Thunder Jet was the Republic F-84, one of several "thunder" aircraft from Republic which include the WW II P-47 Thunderbolt, the F-84 Thunder Jet, the XF-91 Thunderceptor (which had an oddly shaped wing that had a sharper sweep on the trailing edge than it had on the leading edge), the Viet Nam era F-105 Thunderchief (with distinctive forward swept air intakes at the wing roots), and the Gulf War tank-killing Fairchild (Republic's corporate descendant, I presume) A-10 Thunderbolt II, which is much more well known by its unofficial nickname, the Warthog. You guys mean to tell me that MENSA doesn't stand for Mutant Eggheads Need Sex Also??? What's next, no more wild game recipes from People for the Eating of Tasty Animals at PETA.org??? LTM, Dave Porter, 2288 (who enjoys having mensans over for a barbeque) ************************************************************************* From Ric I'm only letting you get away with this because the forum is so slow today. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 10:18:16 EDT From: Kenton Spading Subject: Karen Pery-Johnston, Dementia Karen PJ wrote: Eric is survived by his wife, Edith who now lives in Australia but she has advanced dementia (she's 90). It is a good thing we did not take that statement too seriously in Funafuti. This condition does not necessarily disqualify her from providing information. These conditions can sometimes bring back very old memories (or leave them intact) while at the same time short term memory is fragile. LTM Kenton Spading ************************************************************************** From Ric Yes. We were told that old Pulekai Songivalu, who lived on Funafuti, had been the schoolmaster on Nikumaroro in the late 1950s but he was now "senile." We asked that we be permitted to speak with him anyway. We found him sharp and lucid. He did not repeat himself or lose the thread of the conversation (as is typical in dementia patients). When he did not remember something or simply did not know the answer to a question, he said so. We even tried unsuccessfully to trip him up a couple of times. He turned out to be an excellent interviewee. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 11:08:41 EDT From: Marty Moleski Subject: On Topic Thunder Jets > From Dave Porter > ... The Thunder Jet was the Republic > F-84, one of several "thunder" aircraft from Republic which include ... Dave left off the F84H "Thunderscreech," surely one of the most endearing of the breed: http://www.collectaire.com/modelpages/xf84h/xf84h4.html Relevance to forum: the prop on the F84H was designed to go supersonic. The noise generated was apparently unendurable for the ground crew. Both Amelia and Fred would have been subjected to extraordinary noise generated by the prop tips swinging inches away from their cockpit. Even though they were used to the effect, the difficulty of communication with each other and over the radio may be a contributing factor in their loss. Somewhat relevant questions: I believe that TIGHAR reports that Amelia would stuff her ears with cotton to deal with the noise of the props. Would she pull the cotton out of her ears on the hour and half-hour to make/receive radio calls? Or was the volume on her headset loud enough to penetrate the cotton? (Linda Finch is quoted as saying that the prop noise defeated modern Automatic Noise Reduction headsets.) Second question: The search planes that left Hawaii and the Colorado (the Lambrecht trio) seem to have launched rapidly and without any fear of getting lost. Did they rely on radio direction-finding to navigate? How did the Navy navigation techniques differ from those used by E&N? Lower wavelength? Different kind of DF antenna? Just better equipment and training? Third question: Part of a recent thread dealt with the proper antenna to use to generate the polarized wave-form. Had the Itasca ever supported direction-finding before this flight? Would the Coast Guard crew have been current on the best theories of frequencies and techniques to use? A useless opinion (won't direct any search efforts): Seems to me, with the blessing of hindsight, that Earhart should have spent another couple of days making sure that her DF equipment was working correctly. The test flight in which she could not establish a null seems to me to be a direct foreshadowing of what happened on the morning of July 2nd. LTM, Marty (#2359) *************************************************************************** From Ric Excellent questions. I don't know if AE removed her cotton to listen for radio messages, but I would doubt it. I've used earplugs in loud airplanes and not removed them to listen to the radio (both speaker and headset). Voice seems to cut through even while the plugs help block the lower frequency engine/prop noise. Not sure how the Colorado planes navigated. There may be clues in Lambrecht's report. I'm not aware of Itasca ever supporting airborne DF before, although the ship had it's own loop antenna and its personnel should have been familiar with DF in general. I agree that Earhart's decision to depart Lae without a positive check on her DF was rash and, ultimately, fatal. It was also classic what-the-hell-let's-go-for-it Amelia behavior. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 09:40:46 EDT From: Lee Gaffrey Subject: Re: On Topic Thunder Jets At the risk of nitpicking I believe the F84H was a jet and therefore did not have a prop. Turbine blades.... Lee Gaffrey ************************************************************************* From Ric Gotta disagree. Look at the photo at http://www.collectaire.com/modelpages/xf84h/xf84h4.html That's a turbine-driven prop. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 09:42:41 EDT From: Marty Moleski Subject: shipboard DF > From Ric > ... > I'm not aware of Itasca ever supporting airborne DF before, although the > ship had its own loop antenna and its personnel should have been > familiar with DF in general. Was the ship's loop onboard because ships used radio direction-finding, too? If so, I guess [believe, imagine, suppose] the Coast Guard crew should have had some familiarity with the technology. Marty ************************************************************************** From Ric Yes. It's my understanding that ships used radio direction finding. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 09:43:46 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: Re: Thunder Jets Thanks for clearing the cob webs Dave. F84 it was. I hope my ex Air Force F4 pilot brother doesn't read this forum, I would be embarrassed for making a mistake like that. Too many dead brain cells. LTM (who wonders where she got a navy kid from) Kerry Tiller ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 09:58:19 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Navigation by Lambrecht There is no indication in the records that Lambrecht's plane had radios, and that they used them for navigation. From what I can discern from the records is that they probably navigated by DR, compass, and time of flight. They could also visually sight the Colorado from a distance of 35 miles. My father was second in command on the Yamamoto Mission in WWII, and they did all their navigation by dead reckoning, hitting the right place at the right time after approx. 3 hours flight, including major course changes. This was pretty much standard practice back then. The Lexington planes, or at least some of them (flight squadron leaders??) did have RDF capability, or I should say the Lexington was able to RDF upon them, but no indication of frequencies used. There are liner notes in the official Earhart Search Report that demonstrate various angles taken during the search flights at specific times. ************************************************************************** From Ric "...they probably navigated by DR, compass, and time of flight." That's sorta what DR is. In this day and age it's hard for us to imagine how ancillary radios were once considered to be. I ferried an airplane a thousand miles in a day, through some pretty nasty weather, without a radio of any description aboard (and that was in 1979). It's not a big deal, but you have to work at it. The Yamamoto mission, on the other hand, was an amazing feat. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 12:35:12 EDT From: Lee Gaffrey Subject: Re: On Topic Thunder Jets Sorry, Ric, I got my alphabet mixed up. Lee ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 12:39:21 EDT From: Andrew McKenna Subject: Pery-Johnston <<...In fact we have received a number of other letters seeking information recently on the same topic. Anyway, I'll confirm with my father that we don't have any of this information at our hands. Sorry I wasn't able to help any further, good luck with your endeavours. Karen Pery-Johnston>> Wait a minute, aren't we curious just who else is looking for the bones enough to be sending letters to Karen Pery-Johnston? LTM (who is curious) Andrew McKenna ************************************************************************ From Ric Tom King is looking into that but I'll be very surprised if it's not "our own" people making the inquiries. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 12:53:25 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Amazing feats Ric said: "The Yamamoto mission, on the other hand, was an amazing feat." I assume you're referring to the interception and shoot-down (and death) of Isuroko (spelling) Yamamoto, C-in-C of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during an inspection tour of Japanese military facilities? And it was an amazing feat - done at low-level by twin-engined P-38 fighters (i.e., single crew, no radioman/navigator) that flew well beyond their normal range to get at Yamamoto. But the real trick of this mission was to make it appear to be a routine scouting mission and thus the death of Yamamoto a "happenstance of war," when in fact it was a carefully planned assassination. Just a very brief recap for those not familiar with the mission. Yamamoto planned to attack on Pearl Harbor so was at the top of list of bad guys. U.S. forces in 1943 intercepted a encrypted IJN message detailing Yamamoto's itinerary of an inspection tour. Our guys thought it would be a great opportunity for a payback, so they planned to intercept his airplane and shoot it down. The problem was we didn't want the IJN to figure out that Yamamoto had been killed as a result of the US breaking their top secret codes. Had the IJN figured this out they would've changed their codes, putting us at a distinct disadvantage, because we were reading most of their military codes throughout the war. (Think Midway here.) Anyway, Yamamoto's itinerary took him beyond the normal range of our fighters so our guys put long-range tanks on 12 (?) P-38s and work out a simple time-and-speed calculation to intercept Yamamoto's flight of 2-3 transports/bombers and handful of fighters. The intercept point was at the extreme edge of the P-38s' range, however Yamamoto's punctuality (I believe he was only a couple of minutes off schedule) made the job a bit easier. Our guys flew about 3 hours to the intercept point and there was Yamamoto et. al. on final approach to the local airfield. A couple of minutes later his plane was a ball of flames and the P-38s headed for home. The bottom line: our guys nailed him (along with some of his staff) and the IJN never realized we had broken their codes. Yamamoto was given a hero's burial and some like to claim that had he not died the war would've ended differently for Japan. Not really. Our code-breaking efforts usually gave us an edge in most encounters with the IJN etc. so it was really just a matter of time. End of lecture. For your assignment, read chapters . . . . LTM, who admires WWII vets Dennis O. McGee #0149EC *************************************************************************** From Ric Desperately trying to find some on-topic aspect to this fascinating excursion - I'll mention that a group of veterans known as the Second Yamamoto Mission Association, led by TIGHAR member George Chandler, has been trying for years to convince the USAF to change the credit for the Yamamoto kill from a shared victory by Thomas Lanphier and Rex Barber to sole credit for Barber. The physical evidence of the wreckage (which still exists in the Bougaineville jungle) when compared to the pilots' descriptions of what they saw makes it vey clear that whatever airplane Lanphier engaged (if any) was not the bomber carrying the admiral. But "changing" history, especially history that has been officially endorsed by the USAF, is not easy and, so far, the fiction remains on the books. The group is also trying to get the Medal of Honor awarded (posthumously) to John Mitchell who orgainized and led the mission. The medal was recommended at the time but when a reporter made a lucky guess about what they had done, Admiral Halsey assumed that Mitchell had breached security and diapproved the award. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 13:02:39 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: RE Itasca's DF Capability In Don Dwiggins's biography of Paul Mantz ("Hollywood Pilot," Doubleday, 1967) there is a pre-WW2 photo of the Itasca (no radar antennae visible) with 2 DF loops mounted over the bridge. Dwiggins also interviewed at least one of the Itasca's radio operators and possibly one or more of the reporters who were in the Itasca's radio room on July 2, 1937. According to Dwiggins (page 114) there were three radio logs. Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric I can't find a picture of Itasca in my copy of Dwiggin's book. In the photo I do have I can't see anything that looks like a loop antenna. There were two radio logs kept aboard Itasca and one kept on Howland by the operator of the high frequency direction finder. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 13:06:26 EDT From: Jerry Hamilton Subject: Lockheed Model So what's the status with the various models (the most accurate ever made!) of the Earhart's airplane. Last I heard there were production problems and back orders. I might just like to buy a present for myself. Thanks. blue skies, -jerry *************************************************************************** From Ric We did have some delays but we now have airplanes several in the hangar and just waiting for a good home. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 13:22:29 EDT From: Ric Subject: New Research Bulletin up Thanks to the sponsorship of a TIGHAR member who wishes to remain anonymous, we now have a new Research Bulletin on the website called "The Lost Antenna II" which can be found at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Research/Bulletins/26_Antenna2/26_Antenna2.html In putting up this higher-resolution version of the only known still photo of NR16020 taken during the July 2 takeoff, we also noticed something else that seems to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that TIGHAR's hypothesis about the loss of the belly antenna is correct. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 14:13:19 EDT From: Rick Seapin Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up Great job on the missing antenna controversy, great photography work also. *************************************************************************** From Jon Watson Coincidentally, I was looking at this photo just the other day in Long's book. I think your identification of the damaged tube is right on the money - but I wonder if the bent one in the photo is the right pitot or the left - could a sufficiently sharp yank on the wire pull the right tube off the airplane and tweak the mounting sufficiently to misalign the left tube? Speculating that this is possible could lead to a whole bunch of potentials. ("You know Fred, I just don't understand why the stupid backup airspeed indicator decided to quit working"). Not realizing that the left tube had been deflected and was giving a false reading (would it have showed them to be going faster or slower?) AE would have assumed that their indicated airspeed was accurate - thus possibly affecting their navigation. Any thoughts about this? ltm jon 2266 ************************************************************************** From Ric That's not the same photo in Elgen's book (look at the background). I've never seen that one anywhere else and, surprisingly, I can't find credits for any of the photos in Elgen's book. I must not be looking in the right place. Anyway, the quality of the photo in Long's book is atrocious and you can't see the pitot tubes at all. As far as I know, there is no structural connection between the two pitot masts so I don't see how damage to one could distort the other. If, as you suggest, Earhart's one remaining pitot was bent down like that and still continued to function at all (which would surprise me), I would think that the effect would be for the airspeed indicator to register a MUCH lower speed than was accurate and it would be apparent early enough in the run to permit the takeoff to be safely aborted. Perhaps one of our other pilots or A&Ps on the forum has some direct experience with pitot damage and it's aftermath. I've had 'em got clogged with bugs and just not work at all, but that's a different problem. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 14:19:02 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Pitot damage/ Affect re airspeed indicator If the pitot tube,port side, was damaged by a ground strike as the Electra taxied, would that damage have caused a significant "misreading" of the Electra's true airspeed and adversely affected her navigation re position,etc. Or would the second pitot be sufficient for an accurate airspeed? Ron Bright ************************************************************************** From Ric The two systems are independent. That's the point of a backup system. What on earth could you run into with the chin pitot tube during taxi? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 14:21:22 EDT From: Tom Van Hare Subject: Re: Lockheed Model I have one of these little Lockheeds on my desk and have found that it is one of the most attention-getting items in my office. They are simply great and wonderfully accurate too! (I wonder if I should thinking about ripping off the port side pitot tube, then bending the starboard one back....) Thomas Van Hare ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 15:22:24 EDT From: Tom Van Hare Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up Ric wrote: > In putting up this higher-resolution version of the only known still > something else that seems to establish beyond a reasonable doubt > that TIGHAR's hypothesis about the loss of the belly antenna is correct. Looking over the pitot tube image in this photograph is quite interesting. It also spawns a few questions: (From Ric: I'll respond to Tom's qustions as he asks them.) 1. Is the pitot tube visible in the video frames when the plane taxies by on the way to the end of the runway (from left to right)? And if it is, is it bent? Ric: The angle is wrong. You can't see the nose of the airplane at all. We have another still photo of the airplane taxiing out whic does show the nose but neither pitot is immediately visible. We'll play some Photoshop games and see if we can bring them out. 2. Although this seems unlikely, might the image of the pitot tube in the photograph also be a little bit of an optical illusion, perhaps the visual merging of the pitot tube with the curvature of the nacelle of the starboard engine? Ric: I guess anything could be an optical illusion, but the thing that looks like the pitot appears in the place where the pitot should be. 3. How would the lighting conditions result in only the starboard pitot tube being visible? From my assessment of the photo, the sun shines on the closest side of the aircraft from above. Thus, the least likely pitot tube to be seen would seem to be the starboard one. Ric: If you're willing to accept the possibility that the sun could reach the shadowed lower inboard surface of the starboard nacelle and cause an optical illusion that looks like a pitot tube, you must also be willing to accept the possibility that it could shine on the staboard pitot. 4. Might the port side pitot tube have been ripped off after being tangled with the antenna wire during the takeoff roll? That could explain why only one was visible. Ric: For that to happen the wire would have had to lash forward and to the left far enough to wrap around the port pitot mast before the antenna stub grabbed the ground and pulled the warie off the airplane. That would have left a pitot mast on the ground (which is not part of the anecdote, for whatever that's worth) and would have left the airplane with only one (damaged) pitot. And one other thing.... Wouldn't the faulty airspeed readings have resulted in the failure of their dead reckoning, in their attempts to locate Howland? Ric: If they were left without a reliable pitot system, yes. That's one reason I tend to think that only the starboard (copilot's side) system was affected. The airspeed indicator on the pilot's side would read normally. The one on the copilot's side would be inop. "Oh well. Probably a bug stuck in the tube. That's why we have two systems." Just some food for thought. Thomas Van Hare ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 15:36:44 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up > From Ric > Thanks to the sponsorship of a TIGHAR member... Yes, thanks. I still can't even afford the cost of membership. > From Ric > In putting up this higher-resolution version of the only known still photo of > NR16020 taken during the July 2 takeoff, we also noticed something else... Interesting. I imagine the Electra bounces and vibrates quite a bit while taxiing on a soft runway, but do you think they wouldn't felt the force necessary to bend the pitot support? It may have been easy to pass it off as just another bump in the road, but I think they would've had second thoughts about it when they noticed the discrepancy between the two airspeed indicators. To add another IF to the two previous, it seems more likely (even if still unlikely) that they may have been aware of the loss of their belly antenna and avoided using it, or avoided relying on whatever equipment used it. Frank Westlake *************************************************************************** From Ric My guess is that the events associated with the loss of the antenna (the initial grouind strike and the later snag that tore the wire loose and bent the pitot) were so minor and the forces so small in the context of that hurtling, bounding, screaming, 6-ton-plus mass becoming airborne that no sound or feeling would be discernible in the cockpit. Noticing that the copilot's side airspeed indicator was inop would not necessarily lead them to conclude ,"Oh, the belly antenna must have ripped off." An insect in the tube is a common cause of pitot failure. If the function of the belly antenna was to receive voice communications, even if they later concluded that it must have been lost, they hardly had an option to just not use that piece of equipment. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 10:08:52 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Amelia's flight plan/Contingency plans? When Amelia missed Howland after radioing her line of position, there are some who insist she had a specific contingency plan rather than an ad hoc decision to fly towards the Phoenix Is in search of an atoll. For instance, in Loomis' book The Final Story, he writes that Amelia had told her friends Eugene Vidal and William Miller before the flight, "If we don't pick up Howland,I"ll try to fly back into the Gilberts ...(and) choose an island that has fresh water". Loomis believed they were some 170 miles north of Howland based on Paul Rafford Jr"s plot and thus instead of flying to the Gilberts they headed toward the Marshalls. My question, and probably beaten to death before, is Amelia's quote accurate ; she simply could have changed her mind because of her position to fly south to Gardner . Loomis quotes Amelia but doesnt furnish a cite or source. Vidal and Miller must have been interviewed early on and made some comments. As I understand from prior forum postings, Amelia did not make any such statement and did not discuss any contingency plans. LTM, Ron Bright ************************************************************************** From Ric We've looked, without success, for the source of the story that AE made that comment to Vidal. Neither Chater nor Collopy mention any contingency plan and, as we've discussed ad nauseum on this forum, turning back to the Gilberts would be a desperate gamble compared to running down the LOP. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:05:54 EDT From: Suzanne Subject: memory My father is in an Alzheimer's care facility. His short term memory is almost non existence, however is long term memory remains intact. He can remember anecdotes and correctly identify pictures from over 20 years ago. Best regards, Suzanne ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:15:12 EDT From: Chris Kennedy Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up Actually, I think that both pitot tubes might be visible in the picture, and we should not conclude they are not. If you look above the tube which appears to be bent downward, there is a broad, blurred white area up to the fuselage. This blurred area could actually be the two tubes, with the blurring effect caused by any number of factors (the angle/light/ film/speed of the plane etc.). Even though the picture was taken looking towards the port side of the plane, the starboard tube stands out because it is bent down, with the forward projection of the port tube being obscured by and within the blurring effect. I noticed that the wire attached low down on the starboard extension to the pitot tube. This would cause greater leverage on the tube and make it easier to bend the entire structure back. One thing it would seem to be fairly straightforward to do is to double check the measurements as to where the features should appear along the fuselage (tubes, masts etc.) and verify that we are seeing/not seeing the features (I bet Ric has already done this). Also, it looks to me like the fuselage immediately above the tubes is especially rounded, and thus, perhaps, shadows/light would fall on this area differently than it would under the wings (especially considering the length of the tubes and the fact that we don't know exact angle of sun/angle of plane and photographer to each other, etc.), so we need to be careful about reaching conclusions as to what the overhead sun would/not reveal based upon shadows caused by the wings. Finally, if available, it would be interesting to compare other take- off pictures of the Electra with this one, to see how they compare when concentrating on the pitot tube area/angles. This is a pretty amazing piece of research. First, it begins with an old story long before the days of photoanalysis. Then there is the fact that the plane had all sorts of communications problems. Then photoanalysis fails to show the antenna where it should be (but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't there). Further photoanalysis then appears to show the exact type of damage to the plane that one would expect if the antenna was being pulled off. Yet, because there were two tubes, the plane has a redundancy built in to allow it to proceed on the flight notwithstanding the damage (and, it appears that pitot tubes didn't work for all sorts of reasons, therefore not alarming the crew that some unusual problem had developed). The only thing I can add is that if they knew the antenna was connected to the starboard tube, that the tube was connected to the starboard airspeend indicator and the starboard indicator was not working, they might have suspected a connection between the an inoperative indicator and a lost antenna----but, this assumes a lot and appears to be very much an unrealistic, hindsight type of observation. At a minimum, it appears that TIGHAR has put together a pretty convincing case on this point. --Chris Kennedy *************************************************************************** From Ric <<...double check the measurements as to where the features should appear along the fuselage (tubes, masts etc.) and verify that we are seeing/not seeing the features (I bet Ric has already done this).>> Yup. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:16:48 EDT From: Don Neumann Subject: Lambrecht's navigation The Lambrecht led flight was probably never more than a little over100 miles from their ship (USS Colorado) at any given time & they were probably well briefed on the ship's position/speed & course while they were aloft, as at least one of the planes would have had some radio contact with the ship, (likely 'key' than voice) which could have served to direct them back to the ship, after their mission was completed. The most interesting observation, however, is that they were able find each of the scattered Phoenix Island landfalls (even though these respective islands were probably no more accurately 'charted' for them than was Howland for AE/FN) directly, with no reported difficulties & no DF or any other type of radio bearing from the islands & probably no more than a rudimentary compasses in their respective planes to guide them! Don Neumann ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:32:49 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up If the forward pitot tube was bent, would that have caused erroneous airspeed indication, relative to the other one? If so, which pitot tube would AE and FN would believe? Does this add to the uncertainty of their reports? ************************************************************************** From Ric My sense is that damage of that magnitude would make the bent pitot sytem inoperative, but even if it was still working it shouldn't be hard at all for Earhart to figure out which one is accurate. For the takeoff she's going to be looking at the instrument in front of her and probably wouldnt even glance over to the copilot's side unless she suspected that her own airspeed indicator was wrong. She knows that the tail should come up at roughly such and such an airspeed and that by the time she has reached such and such a speed the airplane should feel ready to fly. In this case, my guess is that she's not paying much attention to the airspeed indicator at all but, rather, is fully occupied in keeping the damn thing pointed straight and "listening" to what the airplane is telling her through the seat of her pants and the feel of the yoke and rudders. When it feels right she horses back on the yoke and hauls the beast off the ground a little too agressively. She quickly corrects, lowering the nose a tad and letting the airplane stagger along in "ground effect" as it builds speed. Next she'll get the gear up and that will reduce drag and let the airplane accelerate to the point where, eventually, it can actually start to climb. Perhaps only then will she really notice what the airpseed indicators are telling her. If one is saying 100 mph or thereabouts, that's probably about right. If the other is saying 60 mph she knows it's screwed up because the airplane can't do what it's doing at that speed. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:39:50 EDT From: Bob Brandenburg Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up It appears to me that the photos are a bit out of focus - - - or are my eyes failing me? LTM, Bob *************************************************************************** From Ric It's not so much that the photo is out of focus but we've had to blow it up so big that it gets pretty fuzzy. In the original photo the airplane is quite a ways off in the distance. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:34:30 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Amazing feats My father was Mitchell's wing-man on that mission, as was during most of his duration at that squadron. Mitchell and my father flew as high cover for Lamphier, Barber, and others. One person did not return from that mission. ************************************************************************** From Ric Shot down? Ran out of fuel? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:43:41 EDT From: Jim Tierney Subject: Itasca Photo/Dwiggins Ric-- In my copy of Dwiggins-Hollywood Pilot-Doubleday 1967 edition- Picture of Itasca on facing page 82-- Picture taken from front starboard side from water looking up...Without a magnifier I have trouble picking out DF loops.. LTM Jim Tierney ************************************************************************ From Ric Ah, yes, thank you. I just somehow missed it. Yes, I know that photo and we have it from other sources. I agree with you. No loop antennas are apparent. I wonder if Janet was looking at the search lights mounted above the bridge? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:47:59 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Pitot damage/ Affect re airspeed indicator << What on earth could you run into with the chin pitot tube during taxi? >> Janet, trying to verify our info. Alan #2329 ************************************************************************* From Ric They'd have to hit her pretty hard. Ouch! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:50:51 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Electra's T/R Antenna According to the Western Electric schematics for the Model 13 transmitter and Model 20 receiver, transmit / receive switching to a common T/R antenna was done by an electric relay keyed by a push-to-talk switch on the pilot's microphone. The length for an efficient 3105, 6210, and 7500 KC Marconi T/R aircraft antenna would have been 40-80 feet. It seems to us that the dorsal antenna was an auxiliary antenna of some sort. We wonder why, with all the Electra Model 10s that were flying in 1937, the purpose or purposes of the dorsal antenna or antennae weren't discovered long ago. We looked hard at the non-enlarged photo of the Electra's take-off (the plane may have been moving 60 mph at the instant the photo was taken.) We can barely discern the landing gear struts, much less anything else under the plane. Janet Whitney ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 12:53:22 EDT From: Dave Subject: Re: Pitot damage/ Affect re airspeed indicator You would'nt run into too many things, but working at a county airport you would be surprised how many "pilots" forget the "Remove before flight"covers. I know, I've seen it on more then once. LTM(Who does a proper pre flight) Dave 1611 *************************************************************************** From Ric I've never seen a photo of NR16020 with pitot covers in place. I wonder if they had 'em in those days. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 13:13:25 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Lost Antenna II A reasonable analysis, and congratulations to the forensic photo boys! I'd certainly agree one pitot tube appears damaged. And if the belly antenna was attached to it, the missing antenna theory would be conclusively proven. AND quite possibly, bogus air speed readings would result. (But probably NOT loss of communications, as I've consistently maintained). BUT confound it, in typical "Amelia Mystery" fashion it now results in a NEW mystery. Why (apparently) the PORT tube? Unless, if the starboard tube was violently pulled off - a likely event - it MIGHT have snagged the port one on the way. In which case AE/FN were in deep doodoo and the eventual daylight dead reckoning dead wrong. (Mystery solved??) But then there is the Lae hangar photo that shows a incomplete view of the Electra's underside, with NO visible wire OR mast. (Admittedly, it MIGHT have been removed for servicing, but that seems unlikely.) Yet another can't-prove-a-negative! Further thought - even if AE did hear a nasty noise on take off, she probably was so glad to finally get airborne that turning back wasn't even an option. Cam Warren ************************************************************************** From Ric I'm not sure which Lae hangar photo you're talking about but I have at least two that show the belly masts. I don't think there is sufficient resolution in the photo to determine WHICH pitot we're seeing but there seems to be little doubt that the one we're seeing has suffered significant damage and could not give accurate airpseed readings. Could Earhart and Noonan have navigated the airplane as well as they did (almost perfectly) for more than 2,500 miles without a reasonably accurate airspeed indicator? Their power/fuel management program did not rely on an accurate airspeed indicator, and their groundspeed was certainly not determined by the airspeed indicator. When you stop and think about it, (unless you're talking about large aircraft) the only time you rely on the airspeed indicator is during the approach and landing phase and, even then, it's not absolutley necessary if you know your airplane. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 13:26:38 EDT From: Don Neumann Subject: Another deep sea search? Thought you might be interested in the attached website (address) at the Kansas State U. Radio Club, which hosted a lecture by one of the parties connected with a group spending $3,000,000 to search the bottom of the mid-Pacific. Not sure if it's the group involved with the Longs, though it sounds as though they subscribe to the ...'turned north & splashed'... theory. Don N. ********************************************* www.ksu.edu/ksuarc/blocksome.html ************************************************************************** From Ric Very interesting. No mention of Long or Nauticos. No mention of Timmer or Williamson & Assoc. This seems to represent a new contestant in the race to see who can shovel money overboard fastest. It can't possibly be as flaky as it sounds - or can it? Definitely needs further looking into. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 13:34:05 EDT From: Simon Ellwood Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up Ric wrote:- > If, as you >suggest, Earhart's one remaining pitot was bent down like that and still >continued to function at all (which would surprise me), I would think that >the effect would be for the airspeed indicator to register a MUCH lower speed >than was accurate and it would be apparent early enough in the run to permit >the takeoff to be safely aborted. Well, more experienced pilots than me may correct me here, but I think pitot's have a reasonable angle of operation - I'm sure you can stick a bootload of rudder in, - and the airspeed won't alter more than a couple of knots (and even that could just be the extra drag) ? Don't forget that aircraft fly at quite a wide range of pitch angles - and the ASI is exprected to be accurate within given limits over this range. Simon #2120 ************************************************************************** From Ric Good point. Maybe the effect would not be as great as I have been thinking. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 13:34:50 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Pery-Johnston I exchanged emails with Karen this morning, and it seems clear that the "other people" are all Children of Mother -- Denise, Th' Wombat, me from two different directions. Karen wanted more info about what we're looking for; I've given her a thumbnail sketch and the web site, and she'll be talking with her father about what if anything her grandfather may have left that's pertinent. TK ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 19:40:04 EDT From: Andrew McKenna Subject: Pitot alignment Very interesting on the Pitot tube photo. Maybe it is just me, but the angles are sufficiently different to make me think that there may be an element of perspective involved. Just to double check this, is there another photo of the L-10 taken on take off that we can compare to? LTM Andrew McKenna ************************************************************************** From Ric There's an excellent air-to-air photo of the aircraft in flight with the gear down, taken near Bandoeng, Java. All of the antennas, including the belly masts, are clearly visible as is one of the pitots. The airplane is in the same attitude as during takeoff. The pitot orientation is just as it should be - aligned with the aircraft's longitudinal axis. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 19:42:49 EDT From: John Dipi Subject: USS Lexington RIC in this posting there is mentioned the YAMAMOTO MISSION OF WW11 it goes on to mention THE LEXINGTON IF THIS is about when yamamoto was shot down by P38s from GUADALCANAL WASNT THE LEXINGTON IN THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY *************************************************************************** From Ric If I recall correctly (and if I don't, you'll hear about it), the Lex was sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea prior to the Battle of Midway. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 19:45:22 EDT From: Mike E. the Radio Historian Subject: Radar A recent posting by Janet Whitney mentioned that there was no radar antenna visible in a period photo of USCGC Itasca. While this is a bit off topic, let's look at some historical timelines. Shipboard radar was not in use in 1937, beyond perhaps the early experimental stages, and even then it would likely have operated at some low frequency. The British Radiolocation system used in the Battle of Britain was around 30 MHz. Very low resolution, but just enough to give them the deadly edge. The early search sets used by the US Army, such as the SCR-268, 270 and 271 (I believe the ones at Pearl Harbor, and in the Phillipines in 1941, were 268s) operated around 157-187 MHz. The US Navy search radars such as the SG, used in big ships like carriers and battleships, also operated in this range. The point of this is that the antennas were huge, not the "dish" or radome style. They often resembled huge bedsprings. High frequency radar in 1942-43 meant around 500 MHz. This stuff (Navy ASB series) went into antisubmarine a/c like PBYs, TBFs, SBDs, and PB4Y/B-24 Liberators. The first microwave radars operated around 2.5 GHz, maybe 3 GHz. (aka "S-Band") These were developed for both search (ASV, air-to-surface vessel) and blind bombing (BTO, bombing thru overcast). Some B-17s and B-24s in the ETO carried this stuff (often called flak-magnets because the German gun director radars could "see" it and range off the signals, or so our guys thought... not without reason); but the B-29 force was the first large scale application of microwave radar. The next step up was X-band, around 9.4 GHz. With higher frequencies you get (a) smaller antennas and (b) better resolution because the targets are a larger relationship to the radar signal wavelength (very simplified explanation). Navy gun-director radars aboard ship used microwave radar as soon as it became available... the stuff was more reliable aboard ship than in a/c, and it used big heavy equipment (range computers etc, using vacuum tubes and servos rather than ICs) which required BIG airplanes to carry them. Many Navy ships did not get radar until 1942 or 1943, some not until 1944. Even though, many old-salt Navy skippers did not like it, because it meant they were taking "direction" from enlisted men who manned the radars, and this (to the skippers) detracted from their command status. This bullheadedness cost us some ships, especially early in the war... like Guadalcanal in 1942. LTM (whose resolution is always sharp) Mike E. Historian, Radio Communications Specialist (incl. Avionics and Radar) _ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 19:50:10 EDT From: Don Neumann Subject: The Yamamoto Mission Although revenge undoubtedly was a very real emotional response by those involved in the planning for the assassination of Adm. Yamamoto, the official reasoning concluded that he was the one commander for which the Japanese war effort had no replacement & that was the basis upon which the President agreed to sign off on the plan. It was agreed that the loss of Yamamoto would be akin to the U.S. having lost Nimitz or MacArthur at that critical stage of the Pacific war, since he had been the principle author of the Japanese Pacific war strategy from the outset of hostilites, having to overcome the strong opposition of Japan's other military leaders (especially the Army, which wanted more effort made to conclude the war in the China theatre) in attempting to spread the Japanese naval resources so thin in defending the many, far flung, islands of the Japanese Central & South Pacific mandates. While it may be argued that his death didn't actually shorten the war, I believe it is safe to say that the U.S. campaign in the Central & South Pacific in the final years of the war would have been considerably more difficult had Yamamoto been the architech of the Japanese naval & land strategy for the remaining months of the war. Don Neumann ************************************************************************** From Ric At one point during the Battle of Waterloo the Duke of Wellington was informed that the French Emperor's command position had come with range of the British guns and he was asked for permission to fire. "Certainly not!" was his reply. "Commanders of armies have better things to do than shoot at each other!" ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 19:52:51 EDT From: Rollin Reineck Subject: Yamamoto Mission Randy Jacobson's remarks about his father caused me to get from the library ATTACK ON YAMAMOTO. Although I was generally familiar with the mission, reading the details brought to light what brave young red blooded Americans we were blessed with at a very difficult time in our history. Randy, we are all thankful for your fathers accomplisments on that eventful day . You should be justly proud. A few days before that mission, I had completed my first combat tour in B-24s against German and Italian targets. I was 22 at the time. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 19:58:58 EDT From: Birch Matthews Subject: Pitot Tubes As you probably know, the pitot is usually configured to measure stagnation (impact pressure) as well as static pressure. (Static pressure ports do not have to be on the tube itself, however). The stagnation pressure orifice entrance is located at the forward edge of the pitot tube, while static pressure orifice(s) are located along the barrel of the pitot tube. Do any of the photographs of Amelia's 10E in your files show the pitot details? In other words, might one be able to observe one or more orifices in the barrel of the tube? If so, that would confirm that she was using a "pitot-static" arrangement. Forum readers who have speculated on how a bent pitot tube would alter air speed measurement might be interested in reports available from the NACA Digital Library. Reference to my old (1954) fluid mechanics text by Vennard suggests that reliable measurements can be had at angles as great as 45 degrees. The author cites a 1951 NACA Tech Note 2530, "Wind Tunnel Investigation of Six Shielded Total Pressure Tubes at High Angles of Attack," by W.R. Russell, et al. I hasten to add that I have not downloaded this report as yet so don't know if it is truly applicable to the situation with Amelia's airplane. On the other hand as one Forum member indicated, airplanes fly at various angles of attack and yaw. Certainly the pitot is not precisely aligned with the direction of flight at all times. I suspect, without doing an analysis, that the instrument is not that sensitive to alignment. If the stagnation pressure port is misaligned, so also must be the static pressure port(s). Aircraft velocity = [2/rho x (P1-P2)]^0.5 where rho is the air density, P1 is stagnation pressure and P2 is the static pressure. So the indicated air speed Amelia was reading in the cockpit was based upon the square root of a pressure difference. I suspect a sensitivity analysis will indicate the amount of error introduced by the misaligned pitot tube, and that it will not be as large as one might intuitively suspect. Best regards, Birch Matthews ************************************************************************** From Ric Perhaps we'll find that a bent-back pitot tube works just fine, but the point is that the tube rather obviously got bent by something and it's difficult to image what do the bending other than the vent we already strongly suspected. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 07:48:01 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: USS Lexington > If I recall correctly (and if I don't, you'll hear about it), the Lex was > sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea prior to the Battle of Midway. > That's correct, the carriers at Midway (June 1942) were the Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown (the Japanese thought the Yorktown was also sunk at Coral Sea and surprised to see it at Midway). LTM Kerry Tiller #2350 ************************************************************************* From Randy Jacobson <<...in this posting there is mentioned the YAMAMOTO MISSION OF WW11 it goes on to mention THE LEXINGTON...>> The post in question was talking about various methods of navigation used by planes. The Lexington Earhart Search was in 1937; the Yamamoto mission, using the same basic navigational techniques used by Lambrecht was in 1943. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:01:48 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: Antennas again It appears from the RDF photo in the Longs' book that the RDF has its mounting plate moved to the top plane, as compared to the Navy unit with mounting plate on bottom. Thus AE's RDF would be mounted to the plane's ceiling, probably quite near the hand rotated loop extension. I am wondering about the relative length and practicality of inside wire runs to get from: a) the belly antenna to the RDF b) the "To Receiver" post on the transmitter, to the RDF Also, i ask, is Long's statement that the AE RDF had 5 bands, based on the white panel marks seen in the photo, or does he have better sources? Also, for RG, if you have seen the RDF in a Bendix ad, does it resemble more closely the Longs' photo model, or the one in the sketch in the NRL RDF manual? This question is only because i am wondering if AE's set was more a commercial product than a Navy model, or if it tended more toward an early production model. I am still puzzled by the failure of the RDF test on the test flight at Lae. Could AE and FN been so oblivious to technical detail that, as Long alleges, they were innocently unaware that the RDF "could not tune to that high a frequency" ? On the test flight, was AE really that perfunctory that she gave up after hastily concluding the "Lae signal was too strong", would she really not have flown a few miles out? If she really had flown 5 or 10 miles out, there's no way the Lae airdrome radio could have been "too strong" to get a minimum. Something else going on, but what was it ??????? Also, i note for proponents of the Single Receiver Theory, if you hold to that, you may also need to explain where the RDF received its power. With an accompanying Bendix RA-1, you just use the RA-1 accessory socket. No RA-1, your technician had to dig into the WE receiver and mount some kind of connector on the front panel, either that or some sloppy mouse engineering with wires running out of some hole in the WE, going to the RDF. ( The RDF besides needing low voltage from ship's battery required a higher voltage in the range 100-150 jolts - but the draw was low enough that there is no way a separate supply dynamotor for just this purpose could be justified. ) Hue Miller ************************************************************************* From Ric Lt me start by saying again that there is nothing in the photo in Long's book that establishes: 1. That the aircraft is NR16020 2. That the photo was taken in Miami The box on the eyebrow panel in the photo is not the box shown in the photos taken at the time the Bendix loop coupler was installed. Neither does the box in Long's photo resemble any component (I've ever seen) associated with the RA-1. There seems to be no question that the coupler WAS installed at Burbank on or about March 6, 1937 so the problems you catalog were apparently dealt with at that time. As I've said before, I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever that there was a second receiver aboard the airplane at the time of the second World Flight attempt. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:06:53 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: Another deep sea search? "They discovered that several communication devices were not able to be used, he said. The antenna on the bottom of the plane was unable to transmit after being damaged during a bad take off. " Well, alright, but why would this antenna be used for transmit, considering it would be greatly inferior to the dorsal (upper) antenna? Recall, the transmitter output is not a fixed 50-ohm, it is adjusted to one antenna per one channel, so you cannot switch transmit antennas underway. Wouldn't you think Collins engineers, who designed many an aircraft radio, would not stumble on this detail? What were the "other communications devices" ???? Hue Miller ************************************************************************* From Ric The whole thing sounds wacko to me. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:09:20 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Pery-Johnston Tom King wrote: > I exchanged emails with Karen this morning, and it seems clear that the > "other people" are all Children of Mother -- Denise, Th' Wombat, me from >two different directions. Karen wanted more info about what we're looking for; > I've given her a thumbnail sketch and the web site, and she'll be talking > with her father about what if anything her grandfather may have left > that's pertinent. In which case I won't follow up any more with Rachael.. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:10:43 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up For anybody wanting a really good look at the bulletin pics: Open one in your favourite image viewer (photoshop, paint shop pro, irfanview etc.) enlarge the picture with the magnifier walk about 10-20 feet away from the monitor (you may have to turn it to see it from outside the door) you'll see detail in a way you never imagined - even on a 15" monitor. I use this technique to view ALL images from the web site (since I first managed to walk again anyway). I imagine a 17" or 20" monitor would be even better... Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:16:02 EDT From: Greg Subject: Re: Pitot alignment Andrew wrote: >Just to double check this, is there another photo of the L-10 taken on take >off that we can compare to? Ric wrote: >There's an excellent air-to-air photo of the aircraft in flight with the gear >down, taken near Bandoeng, Java. All of the antennas, including the belly >masts, are clearly visible as is one of the pitots. The airplane is in the >same attitude as during takeoff. The pitot orientation is just as it should >be - aligned with the aircraft's longitudinal axis. Is there a chance that looking at the pitots on one of the existing L-10s could help solve this? Greg ************************************************************************** From Ric Be my guest, but there's nothing to resolve. We have literally dozens of photos of the pitots on NR16020 and on existing Lockheed 10s. The pitot in the Lae takeoff photo is bent. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:21:46 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Re: Electra's T/R Antenna It is my opinion that Janet Whitney and her most recent posting is nothing more than another attempt to milk TIGHAR for information while contributing nothing. Could it be that after receiving a response to her postings, she sells that response to clients representing that the data was the direct result of Data Quality's independent research? I suggest that Whitney and Data Quality be prevented from wasting our time with future postings. LTM, (who hates deliberate deception ,which is really bad data) Roger Kelley, # 2112CE ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:38:32 EDT From: Janice Brown Subject: Re: Another deep sea search? Don and Ric, I visited the web site you mentioned (at www.ksu.edu/ksuarc/blocksome.html). Interestingly this program, presented by Rod Blocksome, an alumni of KSU, was given on March 2, 2000, and it further stated, "In April, a $3,000,000 expedition will proceed to the area in question to carry out an undersea search, using sonar to pinpoint likely targets for future exploration (regarding Amelia Earhart). This will be a very systematic and detailed sweep of the area." The Rockwell Collins company in Iowa is indicated as a partner in the venture. Mention was also made of another venture in May. I was surprised to read this, as I had recently researched all newspaper and journal articles on Amelia Earhart and had not found a single article mentioning such an expedition. I further searched through both the Rockwell, and Rockwell Collins web sites (each has its own search capabilities) for "Earhart." A single entry mentions her name, a press release about Rockwell's president giving a speech to a women's club, and he mentions Amelia Earhart by name, in conjunction with other women of accomplishment, but says nothing about research regarding her flight. My personal opinion (based on a lack of any further information on it) is that this exploratory expedition above either never happened, or it did and they didn't locate anything. Ric, you mentioned that this "definitely needs looking into." At http://www.csvhfs.org/CSVHFOFF.HTML, the Central States VHF Society Directors and Officers lists: Rod Blocksome, K0DAS (2000-01 Director) 690 Eastview Drive Robins, IA 52328 k0das@csvhfs.org If someone would like to send him an e-mail, he might just respond. --------------------- Rod Blocksome probably works for Rockwell, as on the KSU Amateur Radio Club alumni list, his e-mail is given as: rkblocks@cacd.rockwell.com. --------- In 1995 his telephone number is listed as (319-393-8022). ---------- Again the web page stated that "In May or June (2000), Rod Blocksome will be aboard a follow-up expedition which will be equipped with undersea cameras to actually look at the objects located by sonar a few weeks earlier. The group of people involved are those who successfully located the Mercury capsule of Gus Grissom, Liberty Bell 7, fairly recently." [[Note&FYI: Houston-based Oceaneering International, specifically Curt Newport, one of its employees, was responsible for the location of the Mercury capsule. Additional info on the company at http://www.oceaneering.com/ ]]] ======== On a completely different topic, and as an FYI: I happened to see this article, "From June 24 through July 15, 2000, New England Aquarium Conservation Director, Dr. Greg Stone, will lead an expedition to the Phoenix Islands as part of the Primal Ocean Project". More information can be found at http://www.neaq.org/beyond/pr/06.07.primal.html. ========== Janice Brown ************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks Janice. The "Primal Ocean Project" expedition to the Phoenix Group used "our" ship Nai'a, out of Fiji. We shared information with them and asked them to take a look at the ledge off the west end. Haven't heard back yet. I've sent Mr. Blocksome the following email: Dear Mr. Blocksome, I read with considerable interest the brief article on the KSU Amateur Radio Club website about the Amelia Earhart search expeditions you planned to conduct this past spring. Having led a few myself, I'm naturally interested to learn how you made out. Ric Gillespie Executive Director TIGHAR ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:39:24 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Amazing feats The missing pilot was apparently shot down, IIRC. One other came back to base quite late with damage to the plane. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:42:26 EDT From: Andrew McKenna Subject: contingency plans Ron Bright wrote: <> And Paul Mantz was cited by Carrington as saying that AE and FN had contingency plans to use the Phoenix islands. There were probably several scenarios considered, and we can speculate on all of them. Fact of the matter is that she said she was flying the line N and S which would point in the direction that the contingency plan she was using was flying the line, and that leads to the Phoenix islands. LTM ( who makes contingincy plans) Andrew McKenna ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 08:50:26 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: memory I can confirm this anecdotally. I've met and spoken at length with several people diagnosed with alzheimers. Typically, they might not remember what they did that morning (and go to the grocery store twice as a result), but could remember things that happened 50 or 60 years before with great consistancy and apparent clarity. william 2243 ************************************************************************** From Ric It would be nice if we could say that Alzheimer's patients are a reliable source for information about events far in their past, but they're no more reliable (and in some cases no less reliable) than anybody else. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 09:00:04 EDT From: Tom MM Subject: 7500 kc signals/Timmer Exp? Sorry to combine two questions here. 1) 7500 kc I've been only half tuned in to the radio thread, and I'll admit from the outset that I know next to nothing about the technical aspects of radio. One thing that I've wondered about is why the signal strength of the 7500 kc transmissions from the Itasca was not exploited by AE to help resolve the 157/337 ambiguity. On 3105 kc the received signal strength at the Itasca went from 3 to 5 in roughly 1.5 hours between 1744 and 1912 GMT. After about 1930 GMT, the Itasca transmitted on 7500 kc off and on until at least 2133 GMT. If AE headed south on 157 at about 2013 GMT, there was approximately 1.25 hours of flight in which to note a decreasing signal quality and resolve the ambiguity. With 4 hrs of fuel, there should have been ample time to return to Howland. Although AE reported switching at least temporarily to 6210 kc at 2013, it is hard to believe that she would have not have monitored 7500 kc closely, since it appears to have been the only frequency that she actually heard the Itasca on. A Morse "A" or other transmissions would have been comforting compared to static, and there may have been the hope that some information would be transmitted slowly and be decipherable. Is there any reason why 7500 kc would not decrease perceptibly in strength and quality with increasing range (say over about 1.25 hours or 160 NM) from their closest point of approach to the Itasca? 2) Timmer results? I was out of the country when Timmer was supposed to head back out to the Pacific in May or June, and missed anything that might have come of it. Looking at the Williamson web site, I can imagine that many of their clients expect a high level of information security. Still, I thought I'd ask if they have released any specific info regarding the bounds of their search area and what they may have found? Thanks, Tom MM *************************************************************************** From Ric Last things first. Haven't heard a word about any second Timmer expedition. It would at least be nice to know if they went out. Interesting thought about monitoring 7500. Like you, I wonder how much the signal strength would decrease with distance. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 10:12:43 EDT From: Russ Matthews Subject: Re: USS Lexington In rereading Randy's original post, it's clear that he was referencing the aircraft carrier Lexington (CV-2) in connection with her role in the Earhart search of July, 1937 -- specifically the fact that some of her planes were equipped with RDF. The Yamamoto mission took place almost six years later in April of 1943 and it is interesting to note that those pliots were still relying solely (and successfully) on DR navigation. John Dipi was correct in thinking that the Lady Lex was lost well before that time and Ric was correct is stating that she went down in the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 8, 1942). However, shortly after her sinking, workers at the Bethlehem Quincy shipyard building one of the advanced Essex class carriers, petitioned to rename the new ship in her her honor. Accordingly, the USS Cabot was redesignated as USS Lexington (CV-16) on June 16, 1942. The new Lex was commissioned on Feb 17, 1943. She is currently a museum ship in Corpus Christi, TX. LTM, Russ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 10:15:42 EDT From: Edgard Engelman Subject: Damage to the Pitot tube I am a littlle surprised by the current discussion about how an eventually malfunctioning Pitot tube could influence FN navigation, by giving him a false air speed. (at least if the 2 Pitot tubes were malfunctioning: you can always imagine this situation if one was damaged at take off for whatever reason, and the other got obstructed during the flight !). Does it really matter for navigation? Indicated air speed is important to the driver to keep the thing flying, however for the navigator it is the ground speed that is really important. I thought that FN derived the ground speed by using his chronometer and shooting the stars. Or am I missing something ? Edgard ************************************************************************** From Ric No Edgard, you're not missing anything. Not having a functioning airspeed indicator would be an annoyance but I don't see how it would be a show-stopper for AE and FN. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 10:16:34 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: New Research Bulletin up The photo certainly shows evidence of a bent pitot tube. They wouldn't have necessarily noticed anything strange about the readings on the airspeed indicator attached to it. It could still have scooped in high-velocity air which would have been channeled by the (bent) tube into the mechanisms. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 10:32:00 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: battles Ric said: If I recall correctly (and if I don't, you'll hear about it), the Lex was sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea prior to the Battle of Midway. The Battle of the Coral Sea was in May, 1942, and the Battle of Midway was in June of the same year. Yamamoto was shot down in 1943. LTM, who loves history Dennis O. McGee #0149EC ************************************************************************* From Ric Hell. I hear about it even when I'm right. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 10:35:38 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: memory I guess the implication of this discussion is that we should press Mrs. Pery-Johnston for recollections. I don't know how we'd do this other than through her children and grandchildren, and doing so would be an extremely delicate matter. And as Ric suggests, there's no particular reason to think it would bear fruit. I'm more hopeful that John Eric may have left papers of some kind, which the cooperative interest of his children and grandchildren may bring to light. LTM (who tries to respect the sensitivities of the elderly and their offspring) Tom King *************************************************************************** From Ric I am in complete agreement. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 10:30:01 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Cutting edge Don't let anyone tell you that the information passed around on the Earhart Forum isn't applicable to your daily life. Sunday as I struggled with The Washington Post Magazine crossword puzzle I came across 34 Down: "He had a razor." Five letters, blank, blank, "c," blank, "m." As any Earhart Forum trivia expert would know, the answer was occum, as in "Occum's Razor." For more on Mr. Occum and his cutting-edge observations, lets go to Ric Gillespie in Dover, Delaware. Ric? LTM, who loves cutting-edge segues Dennis O. McGee *************************************************************************** From Ric Yes, Dennis, I'm here in Dover - just downstate from the TIGHAR offices in Wilmington - for the annual "William of Occam Festival" where, by coincidence, British scholar Sir Hamster Tollhouse-Cookie III has just concluded a lecture on the common variations on the spelling of the great man's name. Many sources have the name as "Ockham" but "Occum" appears to be a new discovery. What, I wonder, was the word in the crossword puzzle that used the "u"? "Indiun" perhaps? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 17:39:06 EDT From: Clyde Miller Subject: Re: Cutting edge Somedays I thank my lucky stars that I get to listen in on some of the best humor (humour) on the planet! (Laughs to mother) Clyde Miller ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 17:45:42 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Occum's Razor Ric said; "What, I wonder, was the word in the crossword puzzle that used the "u"? "Indiun" perhaps?" Thanks for that report from Dover, Ric. The "u" in Occum is the first letter in 54 Across with the clue "Composer Khachaturian." The answer is four letters, "u," blank, "a," blank. I'm a tad weak on my Eastern European/Armenian composers, but I'm guessing the name is "Ural," as in mountains, which would come close enough to fitting in with the other words. We know you've been working hard in Dover, Ric -- just be glad I didn't put you in Decorah -- and have a save trip back to Wilmington. And now back to our studios in Washington. Peter? LTM, who works near Edward R. Murrow Park in Washington DC Dennis O. McGee #1049EC *************************************************************************** From Ric (psst, Dennis, it's Occam , and Khachaturian's first name was Aram - and you're gonna have to finish the rest of the puzzle yourself.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 17:52:33 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: 3105 KC & WE Transmitter / Receiver Because of the high level of solar activity in 1937, the 50 watt signal from Earhart's plane on 3105 KC would have been absorbed by the D layer of the ionosphere during the daytme, making 3105 a line-of-sight frequency. The 3105 KC propagation changed from nighttime to daytime as Earhart and Noonan approached Howland Island. However if the Electra was at an altitude of 5,000 feet when it was 100 miles out, it would also be in radio line-of-sight of the Itasca. The radio line-of-sight distance between the Electra and the Itasca would have depended on what altitude (or altitudes) the Electra flew when Earhart was transmitting and receiving. The WE Model 20 receiver had one LF antenna terminal and one HF antenna terminal. However, the transmit / receive relay was in the WE Model 13 transmitter. Jane Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric <<...the 50 watt signal from Earhart's plane on 3105 KC would have been absorbed by the D layer....>> Tricks of the Trade No. 432 Anytime someone writing about a historical event says "would have" it means they are guessing. Janet, explain to me please how the presence of a transmit/receive relay in the WE 13 proves that it was used. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 17:56:02 EDT From: Dave Bush Subject: Re: Pitot Tube Ric: How well is the pitot tube attached to the E-10? I think that it would be possible that the one pitot tube was pulled totally off and the skin that it was attached to bent, thus causing the remaining pitot to sit at an angle because the skin is misaligned! LTM, Dave Bush #2200 ************************************************************************** From Ric That's very thin (.025) Alclad up in the nose. My guess is that the aluminum would tear rather than deform the entire skin. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 18:03:17 EDT From: Ric Subject: Re: Another deep water search? I received the following reply from Mr. Blocksome: Ric, Thank you for your enquiry. Our search expedition has not yet launched. We are helping Nauticos in their effort. I would refer you to them for any questions on search plans, etc. I have read some of the material on the TIGHAR efforts with much interest. You and your organization are to be commended for all the work accomplished. Hopefully with enough people searching, someday, someone will find the proverbial "smoking gun" evidence. Best Regards, Rod Blocksome The Nauticos website makes no mention of an Earhart search (never has). Last time I spoke with anyone at Nauticos (back in June) they were still waiting for NOVA to deliver on its promise to help raise the funding for the expedition(s). LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 09:09:47 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Data Quality to Mr. Gillespie If TIGHAR wants to put acccurate reports about "state-of-the-art" American aviation in 1937 on-line, perhaps TIGHAR should determine what the state-of-the-art actually WAS in American aviation in 1937. It appears that there are enough contemporaneous accounts still available and a sufficient number of retired people who designed, built, and serviced Lockheed Model 10s, Western Electic radios, Bendix DF loops, etc. in 1937 who are still alive to determine exactly HOW Earhart's radios, antennas, DF equipment, etc., functioned or failed to function. Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric You and your associates at Data Quality seem to have difficulty understanding how to acquire data of good quality. We could fill Madison Square Garden with people who maintained Lockheed 10s and installed radios in airplanes in the 1930s, and we could seat them on stacks of manufacturer's manuals and schematic diagrams, but that would not establish how Earhart's radios , antennas, DF equipment, etc., functioned or failed to function. IF we had schematics, photos, and work orders specifically describing the radio set-up aboard NR16020 at Lae immediately prior to departure on July 2, 1937 we'd be in a much better position to speculate about what went wrong. Unfortunately, those data do not seem to be availalble, so we have to guess and argue and refine our guessing and, at best, hope that we end up somewhere near the truth. I apologize to the forum for this little excursion. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 09:17:10 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Another deep water search I haven't visited the website yet, but the group that's going to search the pacific north of Howland, the name nautico was mentioned. Is this part of the French group using the submersible "Nautile" of the Titanic fame, that is capable of exploring depths of 2-3 miles? The russians also have a ship and submersibles capable of the same and currently offer tourists with $40-50K to blow, a trip to see the Titanic up close. From what I've heard, there's no shortage of takers. Doug Brutlag #2335 *************************************************************************** From Ric No relation. The name is NAUTICOS. They're a company based in Maryland. Their website is at http://www.nauticos.com/news/ You won't find any mention of Earhart on their website. They got involved with Elgen Long hoping to raise the money for a deep water search based on his theories. Then Long's former associate Dale Timmer and a group of investors beat them to the punch and did a deep water search last winter. The Nauticos/Long search now appears to be dead in the water. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 09:18:32 EDT From: Mark Cameron Subject: Re: 3105 KC & WE Transmitter / Receiver I'm not really sure which is more entertaining... Ric and Dennis doing a crossword puzzle together.. or Janet proving to us all how really, really smart she is... LTM (who just changed to LOL) Mark (smart ass) Cameron #2301 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 09:38:16 EDT From: Steve Gardetto Subject: Wreckage Recovery I have a question about the upcoming expedition to Niku and potential wreckage underwater (setting aside possible terrestrial artifacts at the 7 site or elsewhere on Niku). If you use the same ship (boat?) as in the recent expeditions, what are the salvage/recovery capabilities of the vessel? Does it have a crane capable of raising one of the engines or the wing spar? Even if it does have a crane, can the vessel get close enough to the likely sites to make recovery realistic? I'm envisaging a scenario where an underwater search of the ledge off the reef or the area by the Norwich turns up what appears to be the engines or the spar. Previous comments in recent postings regarding the Norwich wreckage and coral growth suggest that any likely-to-survive Lockheed wreckage would *not* be heavily coral-encrusted. Previous postings about how the plane would come to be in the water in these locations indicate that the damage to the plane would be severe (destruction by surf action, etc.). Am I correct in believing that Tighar's operating scenario is that the only wreckage still likely to survive there are the 2 engines and spar? Assuming that any large chunks of metal found there are not either Norwich wreckage or the missing Coast Guard bulldozer, and are in fact Lockheed wreckage, the choices seem to be: 1. recovery of a complete component (engine or spar) 2. partial dismantlement of an engine 3. no wreckage recovery, only photographic documentation. In the previous major Tighar expeditions to Niku, several of which I believe had underwater searches, what has been the thinking on how difficult options #1 or #2 would be to accomplish? LTM (who's always a wreck on Monday) Steve Gardetto (Tighar # something or other) ************************************************************************** From Ric Excellent question Steve. It has always been TIGHAR's policy that no responsible recovery effort can be planned or provided for before the discovery has been made and the particulars of the situation have been studied. The last thing we want to do is haul a smoking gun to the surface only to watch it dissolve before our eyes like the Wicked Witch of the West. We anticipate no major wreckage recovery during Niku IIII even if we're so fortunate as to find major wreckage. While the engines, gear legs and the "main beam" are the most robust components and might be the most likely to survive, I'd like to think that there could also be a lot of sheet metal on the floor of the lagoon. If presented with the opportunity, we probably would recover a small, easily conserved diagnostic artifact (how about a loop antenna?). LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 09:39:57 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Occam's Razor Ric said: "(psst, Dennis, it's Occam , and Khachaturian's first name was Aram - and you're gonna have to finish the rest of the puzzle yourself.)" And THAT is why we pay you the big bucks. (end of thread) LTM, who nevers gets the last word Dennis O. McGee, #0149EC ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 09:55:02 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: Data Quality to Mr. Gillespie > From Ric > I apologize to the forum for this little excursion. You were too kind. Frank Westlake LTM (who thinks that DQ really stands for Data Quantity) ************************************************************************** From Ric My perennial failing. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 10:26:59 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Data Quality to Mr. Gillespie << I apologize to the forum for this little excursion. >> No apology needed Ric. Trying to get through to Janet is clearly tilting at windmills. To those of us who have lived with this so long there is clear understanding about the difficulty of obtaining answers and refining them. To a relative new "investigator" the difficulties may not be so obvious. Janet presents a considerable challenge, however. Others, new to the mystery may inadvertantly post some foolish comments but soon learn. Janet doesn't show signs anyone is getting through to her. She seems oblivious to our comments and indeed seems to simply dismiss them if she reads them at all. I think that's sad as she appears to be somewhat intelligent and could possibly be an asset if her mind was capable of opening up. You'll notice there is never an exchange between Janet and the forum. We post. She posts but there is never a clue that she has read anything we write. Weird. Alan #2329 *************************************************************************** From Ric There's a clinical term for it. It's called the "Itasca Syndrome." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 10:37:06 EDT From: Ric Subject: Ric away for 3 days Pat will be moderating the forum on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week while I attend my mother's funeral. Her passing was a blessing after a long and painful illness. I'll be back on duty Saturday. LTM ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 11:20:49 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Wreckage Recovery In reguard to Steve Gardetto's question about wreckage recovery, I understand the rationale of not bringing parts to the surface until you have a means of preserving them from oxidation until you can get the artifacts in a controled enviornment. That brings 2 points to my mind: * You would have to return with a recovery ship with not only the cranes/hoists to lift heavy objects from possible deep water, but also the storage facilities able to preserve the objects from the elements-in this case oxygen which would immediately start the corrosion process, from ruination of the find. What kind of vessel would this take and could it anchor close enough given some of the shallow shoals around the island to effect recovery? Is there a research group(like Broadway Bob's) who would consider bringing such a vessel to used for this purpose for the recovery, that would do it without bankrupting TIGHAR as well as stealing the show? * Salvage Rights: Given the fact that TIGHAR is the only organization that has even bothered to go to Niku more than once to resolve the AE mystery, it would be only fitting in my mind that they be given the legal salvage rights to any artifacts/evidence that would be discovered. It would be a crime Ric if you discovered something on the next expedition and had to leave it for a future recovery, and then a group of unscrupulous pirates find out and beat you on the return and take the credit and whatever rewards that go with it. Any attorneys out there who could shed some light on this? Doug Brutlag #2335 *************************************************************************** From Ric I don't think it's worth a lot of speculation about recovery until we have something to recover. We're not talking about large heavy objects (like a complete airplane) even in a best-case scenario and I woudn't anticipate a need for a specialized recovery vessel. I also have to think that a smoking gun find would free up adequate funding for a recovery operation. Salvage rights? TIGHAR has no desire to "own" anything we find. It is our opinion that whatever is at Niku belongs to the Republic of Kiribati. We would be pleased to advise and assist the government in matters pertaining to historical sites and artifacts, and of course we'd like to see identified human remains returned to the families and bona fide Electra wreckage properly conserved and appropriately exhibited, but management and/or disposition of anything found at or near Niku is ultimately not for us to decide. "Pirates" stealing artifacts? Yes, that's a concern and it's something we've often thought about. As long as Earhart and Noonan's arrival at Nikumaroro is just a theory there seems to be little danger that anyone but TIGHAR will be nuts enough to search there, but the discovery of a smoking gun could change all that. How do you provide site security at a place that is that remote? We've never been able to come up with a good answer except to keep the find quiet until a recovery operation is underway, and that is easier said than done. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 14:23:57 EDT From: Ric Subject: Appreciation Although I'm trying to reply individually as they arrive, in case I miss anyone I want to say how touched I am at the flood of condolences that have come in. We folk of the forum - lurkers, posters, and wiseguys - spend more time talking to each than a lot of people who sleep under the same roof. Sometimes it feels a whole lot like family (jokes, fights, and all). Thank you. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 15:49:45 EDT From: Monty Fowler Subject: Another useless Earhart Acronym OK, so now the New England Aquarium has journeyed out to the Phoenix Islands for their Phoenix Islands Science Project, or PISP. A pity they don't have that legendary British sense of humor - then we could have been treated to the Phoenix Islands Scientific Search, or PISS 2. LTM, Monty Fowler, #2189 ************************************************************************ From Ric Maybe we need to rethink our expedition naming system. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 08:03:47 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: Another useless Earhart Acronym Ric writes: << Maybe we need to rethink our expedition naming system. >> I really think "2001: a Sea Odyssey" would be appropriate for the next one. I'm losing track of the numbers anyhow. LTM (a non-quantitative kind of mom) Tom King ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 08:07:36 EDT From: Denise Subject: Sunk in Battles I don't know if anyone can actually use this information, but the son of a friend has been running dive boats out of the Solomon's for years. Until the business was shut down by the recent troubles, he daily took tourists out to dive the wrecks of these American battleships. Subsequently, he knows them all very well. If anyone has any questions regarding any of these ships as they stand (lie?) today, I'm sure I can forward questions to the family. LTM (who believes in networking) Denise ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 08:12:08 EDT From: Tom Robison Subject: Re: Data Quality to Mr. Gillespie >From Ric > >There's a clinical term for it. It's called the "Itasca Syndrome." I think you're looking at it too clinically, Ric. In my opinion, Ms. Whitney is simply suffering from a recto-cranial inversion. TomR ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 08:17:09 EDT From: Andrew McKenna Subject: Re: site security >How do you provide site security at a place that is that >remote? We've never been able to come up with a good answer except to keep >the find quiet until a recovery operation is underway, and that is easier >said than done. How about we station Margot Still and a posse of GRITS there with a shotgun or a couple of Thompsons to ward off any pirates that pass by. There is no question in my mind that she would get the job done. :) LTM (who likes good natured fun) Andrew McKenna *************************** I like it. Pat ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 10:55:33 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Re: Data Quality to Mr. Gillespie Tom Robinson said: "Ms. Whitney is simply suffering from a recto-cranial inversion." I thought it was recto-cranial "insertion." LTM, who is a randy old broad Dennis O. McGee #0149EC ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 10:56:28 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Data Quality to Mr. Gillespie No apology necessary. Maybe we are approaching Ms. Whitney, et al, from the wrong perspective. I would suggest that Ms. Whitney is the quintessential academic - ie: long on theory, but not a lick of practical, real world experience. Just the sort of person who should be in charge of this inquiry! Somebody that doesn't find the need to get bogged down with all these pesky little facts. We might not get to the bottom of the problem with her at the helm, but by golly we'll all FEEL GOOD about it. (Sorry, now who's getting afield). There, now let me get my tongue out of my cheek.... Changing the subject - I took a close look at the pitot pix from the website again - boosted it (#1) up to 1200 pixels/inch, and blew it way up. Maybe it's just me, but immediately in front of the silhouette of the right engine nacelle there's a light colored shape that might - just might be the right side pitot tube. It appears to be in the correct orientation to the apparent (left) pitot (eyeballed only, based upon the offset and relationship of the landing gear struts), and isn't readily visible due to being in immediate proximity to the dark mass of the nacelle. Let me know what you think. ltm, jon 2266 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 10:58:08 EDT From: Margot Still Subject: Re: Site security You boys sure do know how to make a girl feel "special". LTM (who prefers Purdeys) MStill #2332CE ************************* Hey, at least they haven't offered to sing Happy Birthday to you again.... P ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 11:01:01 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Whitney and company Janet Whitney wrote: "If TIGHAR wants to put accurate reports about "state-of-the-art" American aviation in 1937 on-line, perhaps TIGHAR should determine what the state-of-the-art actually WAS in American aviation in 1937." Well Janet, I demand that you produce, and publish on this forum, ASAP, your documentation and sources which indicate that TIGHAR's reports on-line are not accurate. Otherwise, you agree that TIGHAR's information is infallible and irrefutable. Right? What you, Janet Whitney, and Data Quality really want is some one else to do your research for you. Whitney and company will then claim that they produced the resulting data. Or, Janet and company are nothing more than "agents provocateur " and should be denied access to this forum. And to think that some where there might be some poor individual who may be paying Data Quality big bucks for information developed! LTM (who would like to have Janet Whitney volunteer her phone number in order that we might continue this conversation off forum) Roger Kelley #2112CE ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 11:01:43 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: site security Put Janet Whitney out there. Anyone running into her would quickly decide anyplace else would be better... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 11:02:57 EDT From: Dave Porter Subject: deep sea searches Deepest condolences to you, Ric, and family. Regarding the Russian submersibles mentioned in a previous post, I'm betting they're otherwise occupied at this time. LTM (luck to mariners) Dave Porter, 2288 ******************************* Thanks, Dave. I suspect you are right about the submersibles, poor sods. What a helluva way to go. P ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 11:11:20 EDT From: Chris Kennedy Subject: Re: Pitot tubes What, exactly, do you mean by "it appears to be in the correct orientation"? Proper angle to the airplane (i.e., not bent)? Bent along with the left one (if it is the left one in the photo)? Something else? --Chris Kennedy > >From Jon Watson ... > Changing the subject - I took a close look at the pitot pix from the website > again - boosted it (#1) up to 1200 pixels/inch, and blew it way up. Maybe > it's just me, but immediately in front of the silhouette of the right engine > nacelle there's a light colored shape that might - just might be the right > side pitot tube. It appears to be in the correct orientation to the > apparent (left) pitot (eyeballed only, based upon the offset and > relationship of the landing gear struts), and isn't readily visible due to > being in immediate proximity to the dark mass of the nacelle. Let me know > what you think. > > ltm, > jon 2266 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 12:43:26 EDT From: Bob Brandenburg Subject: Re: Site security There appears to be a widespread assumption that Janet Whitney is an actual person. Perhaps we should consider an alternative hypothesis. About 20 years ago, there was a major government-funded R&D program in the then-new field of artificial intelligence (AI). The thrust of the program was to develop computer programs that could perform some of the functions that we associate with human intelligence. Some of the early attempts focused on software that would respond to human keyboard inputs in ways that gave the appearance of holding a conversation. The basic technique was to parse a user's question or comment and access a stored library of responses to select an answering comment or question to be sent back to the user. In some cases, the response libraries were sufficiently rich in syntactical variations and nuances that the computer's outputs "felt" like human responses. Some of the responses would ask for additional information from the user, in ever-increasing detail, or by changing the subject to another topic area, based on prior inputs from the user. But such programs never provided any original information on their own, for obvious reasons. I propose for the forum's consideration, the hypothesis that Janet Whitney is an AI program which has been "trained" (read given the necessary algorithms) to log on to the TIGHAR web site, read the various files there, and to post forum demands for additional information, without providing original new information to the forum. This hypothesis is clearly testable. All that is needed to reject the hypothesis is for Janet Whitney to provide proof of being human - - in which case we will be witness to a different phenomenon, characterization of which I leave as an exercise for the reader. LTM, who disdains uppity machines. Bob Brandenburg, #2286 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 12:44:34 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Pitot tubes For Chris, what I meant was, it appears to be attached to the fusilage in about the location I would expect to find it. It's not sharp and clear - more of a hint of a shape actually - so it's hard to tell. I don't have it here, so if you want to email me at home, I'll try to send the blow up to you, although it might be too big. ltm jon 2266 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 12:46:47 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: Longs' book "....as Earhart was cranking her transmitter to change from 3105 to 6210....her fuel supply ran out....." ( Long book, page 210.) Hmmm.....how much cranking does a 'channel' switch require?? In other words, how long does it take for the switch to move from one channel detente to another? ( "Yes Officer, i was speeding. I lost track of my speed while i was cranking my CB from channel 17 to 19" ) "After sunrise, when communication is no longer possible over the highly efficient gray line....." ( page 244) Hmmm.....never seen greyline enhancement applied to short distance before. I have only seen this applied to 2 very distant, like thousands of miles apart, when each is in the greyline area ( i.e. typically sunrise in USA, sunset in a far overseas radio station's location.) If both stations are in the same zone, both experiencing sunrise or sunset, conditions, i do believe, cannot be called highly efficient, more efficient than purely nite time propagation. I believe rather than 'efficient', the word would be 'turbulent', or 'unsettled'. "....after sunrise.....the high level of solar radiation in 1937 would effectively prevent sky wave propagation on 3105 kc/s...." (page 244) The lights don't go out in solar peak years. In other words, it's not an all or none, black or white situation, and it's bad data generation to suggest it is. For example, can Long really believe daytime NVIS (high angle, short range skywave reflection) simply does not work in high solar activity years? Has this been observed in any year of solar maximum since? ( Ocurring in 11 year cycles ). Nonsense. ( Aside to DQ: Are you-all so impressed with Long's statement as gospel, that you really want to adopt it verbatim as one of the facts your research has developed ? ) Hue Miller ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 10:05:41 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Janet Whitney.... Bob Brandenberg wrote: "I propose for the forum's consideration, the hypothesis that Janet Whitney is an AI program which has been "trained" (read given the necessary algorithms) to log on to the TIGHAR web site, read the various files there, and to post forum demands for additional information, without providing original new information to the forum." I rest my case. Whitney and company should not be allowed to participate in this forum. LTM (who hates fraud), Roger Kelley, 2112CE ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 10:06:55 EDT From: Bill Conover Subject: Re: DQ and Janet Whitney Not to beat a dead horse, but I think it is possible that Ms. Whitney, being a student assistant (according to the DQ web site), might just be a vehicle used to relay messages from her boss. It almost sounds like that from her posting's over the last month. I wonder if James Hurysz, the publisher, who is reviewing Long's book, might actually be the one receiving the forum postings. He then, in turn, simply hands questions and statements to Ms. Whitney to have her type and email to the forum. In fact, since he is the one conducting the book review, it would be very convenient to have someone else post to gather data and then take it and use it as his own. He never posts nor ask's questions, so how could he be accused of not doing the research on his own ? Kind of a convenient way to have others do your work for you. Just a thought. LTM, Bill Conover ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 10:15:18 EDT From: Jerry Hamilton Subject: Whitney Bashing I suggest we terminate the Whitney bashing thread. It serves no purpose, is mean spirited, and she is much too easy of a target. blue skies, -jerry *************************************************************************** From Ross Devitt > From Roger Kelley > Or, Janet and company are nothing more than "agents provocateur " and > should be denied access to this forum. Aw gee come on Roger, fair go! We need the janets of this world to provide a little light hearted amusement in a forum where everything is so high tech, serious and data oriented... lol Th' WOMBAT *************************************************************************** From Ric We have nothing to fear from Janet Whitney or anyone at Data Quality. The history of the Earhart mystery is nothing if not a saga of shallow research, invalid conclusions, and presumptuous pronouncements. They're just following a fine old tradition. All we have to worry about is making sure that we never become part of that tradition. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 10:18:32 EDT From: Mike E. the Radio Historian Subject: The Coffee Grinder In answer to Hue Miller's query regarding changing channels on the WE 13C transmitter: The transmitter was indeed switched by means of a crank. The control unit in the cockpit was linked to the actual radio unit through a tach shaft, sort of like an automobile speedometer cable. The channel switch in the rig had several sections. The circuits changed included the crystal selector; the plate circuit of the oscillator; the buffer/multiplier grid and plate; the final amplifier grid and plate; and the antenna... at least 7 sections on that switch (I don't have the schematic in front of me at the moment to be completely sure of the number, but AT LEAST seven). Like most equipment of the era, the 13C was way-overbuilt. That switch was a real monster, with big ceramic structures and silver-plated brass contact assemblies. It took a lot of OOOMPH to turn one of those babies. Since the radio was in the aft fuselage, the shaft was more than 20 feet long. Lots of torque needed to turn the switch, and a lot of mechanical backlash in such a setup. This switch probably had to move at least 45 degrees per position. The control head's selector was a crank. To provide the necessary torque and "feel," the crank was geared-down to the shaft. I have not actually had my hands on one of these units but my best approximation of the effort to turn it is at least 1-1/2 turns to 2 turns per channel position. (kerCHUNK -- kerCHUNK....) It undoubtedly had a rather positive "feel" to the detents at each position too. This is based upon actual experience with a number of military aircraft radios of similar vintage, some of which were made by Western Electric. Hope this answers some of your questions. LTM (whose detents are always positive) and 73 Mike E. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 10:45:06 EDT From: Ric Subject: The other pitot? I've played around with the Lae takeoff photo in Photoshop 5.0 and I think I see the shape that some have speculated may be the other pitot. They could be right but it would take more expertise and software than I have to be sure. That means professional analysis and that means money (probably a couple thousand dollars). Because it's already apparent that one pitot is bent (we're just not sure WHICH one), and because the whole lost antenna question does not have a direct bearing on where we'll be searching when we return to the island, and because right now every nickle and all of our focus has to be on putting together the Niku IIII expedition - further analysis of the takeoff photo is going to have to wait. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 09:28:49 EDT From: Hue Miller Subject: Re: The Coffee Grinder > From Mike E. the Radio Historian #2194: > The transmitter was indeed switched by means of a crank --Ah, so the transmit channel was not totally relay switched, with purely electrical linkage. I mistakenly had assumed only the receiver had a flex cable. > The control head's selector was a crank. To provide the necessary torque > and "feel," the crank was geared-down to the shaft. I have not actually had > my hands on one of these units but my best approximation of the effort to > turn it is at least 1-1/2 turns to 2 turns per channel position. (kerCHUNK > -- kerCHUNK....) It undoubtedly had a rather positive "feel" to the > detents at each position too. This is based upon actual experience with a > number of military aircraft radios of similar vintage, some of which were > made by Western Electric. Well, even with several turns of the coffee grinder required to move into the next channel detente, this is hardly a time consuming process, not at all like reeling out a trailing antenna, and i rather doubt this became a major distraction or or conflicting task as the fuel pump sputtered dry, as the Longs' text would seem to say. Interesting idea, that design. I wonder if that's very unusual in aircraft transmitters, i mean flex cable control. BTW, which WE-built military radio are you talking about? Hue Miller ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 09:33:19 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Damaged pitots Briefly, I have drawn a few tentative conclusions about the photos in the project bulletin dated 10 August, 2000. 1) Based on the angle of view, shadow positions, and the shape of the nose of the aircraft, the clearly visible pitot tube is on the port side of the fuselage, and does appear to be out of alignment (pointing down and possibly to the left). 2) A portion of the starboard pitot is also clearly visible just forward of the right engine cowling. This pitot, too, appears to be out of alignment (pointing up). 3) The photo seems to show a bit of loose cable dangling from the location of the starboard pitot. However, this could be an artifact of the motion picture film, and a look at adjacent frames may clarify the issue. 4) There appears to be something at the expected location of the aft ventral mast: A rod shaped object, angled forward. Although I've seen the photo of correctly oriented pitot tubes on the Electra, does anyone know the nominal angle of a properly mounted aft ventral mast on this aircraft? There is clear evidence here that the pitot tubes have been knocked out of alignment (as has been previously discussed, this sort of damage wouldn't have necessarily resulted in obviously erroneous readings from the airspeed indicators in the cockpit). I also see in this photo the strong possibility of evidence that portions of a broken or badly pulled belly wire antenna are "dangling" from the misaligned starboard pitot and aft ventral mast. Comments (including dissent) are welcome. william 2243 ************************************************************************** From Ric I can't dispute or agree with what you see unless I can see it too. What tools and techniques are you using? What training have you had? Can you produce a cleaned-up image that shows what you're talking about? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 13:07:50 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Directions for Dummies Port? Starboard? Who the hell can keep them separate. Let's stick with left and right, after all it's not like there is a difference, like there is for miles, knots, or kilometers. I know, I know, I know, pilots and REAL sailors (or boaters, in general) use port and starboard. But a lot of people on the forum neither fly nor boat. And I suspect they have the same problem with port and starboard as I do. And yes, I know that "port" has four letters just like the word "left" therefore it should be easy to remember. Well, dammit, it ain't! In the tradition so often demonstrated here on the Earhart Forum, let's have a democratic vote. And I especially want to hear from the newbies, lurkers, and seldom-heard -- does the forum go with everyday English and use left/right, or do we wallow in pretentiousness, jargon, and elitism and use port/starboard. Cast your vote as either P and S, or L and R. LTM, who often runs in circles Dennis O. McGee #1049EC ************************************************************************** From Ric My case for using port and starboard goes like this: The words "right" and "left" have multiple meanings in our wonderful language and can cause some confusion when used to describe position. For example, are you sure what I mean when I say, "The right pitot is the one that was left."? And there is always the question of whether I mean the one on the left or right in the photo or on the airplane's left or right side. Port and starboard solve those problems but do require that people have some familiarity with the terms. On the other hand, you would probably be upset if I started referring to those moveable panels on the back of the airplane as flippers. I'll be hear to receive your response until about 1600. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 13:11:08 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Electra's Radios According to Amelia Earhart's account of her flight ("Last Flight"): The WE receiver was located under the co-pilot's seat. The WE transmitter was located in the cabin. There was a dynamotor located under the pilot's seat. She listened to AM (500-1500 KC) broadcasts between Miami and San Juan. The interior of the Electra was heavily sprayed with insecticide at several airfields during the flight. The Electra's inside temperature was sometimes extremely hot, especially in Africa. The humidity was often high. It would be interesting to see if any achived maintenance records and problem reports still exist for the WE Model 20 receiver and Model 13 transmitter from the 1930's. Janet Whitney (I'm off to school tomorrow. Goodbye) *************************************************************************** From Ric Goodbye Janet. It has been an experience. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 13:13:53 EDT From: Bob Sherman Subject: artificial intelligence > From Bob Brandenburg # 2286 > ... software that would respond to human keyboard inputs in ways that >gave the appearance of holding a conversation. There have been 'fun programs' that 'classify one's personality' and similar things with that same technique. It was fun to inject oddities to read the answers the program provided. 'I'd like to kill my girl friend'.. "You should consider that carefully" or "Do a good job", were the type of answers one would get. I think a question such as, 'Was the 3105 prop on the left wing or the right? might reveal if Janet is really 'soft ware'. A piece in our paper today told of AOL's skim of a San Jose chat room and its closing. In San Jose they detected a J and and an O which they said [after a demand to know why] were the letters used to characterize a disgusting male habit... so much for artifical intelligence. RC ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 14:40:34 EDT From: Dave Bush Subject: Re Directions for Dummies Ric wrote: <> They aren't flippers, they are flappers (not to be confused with the dancers of the 20's) - except on seaplanes! (is this response a flopper?). LTM, who has has no flippers but may have been a flapper! Dave Bush #2200 *************************************************************************** From Dan Postellon I vote for port and starboard. Dan Postellon #2263 LTM (Who always liked a little port.) *************************************************************************** From David Evans Katz I vote for Port & Starboard, not for any reasons of pretentiousness, but because of precision. "Left" and "Right" are relative terms (that is, relative to the viewer's perspective); "Port" and "Starboard" are specific to the direction of the bow and are not subject to potential ambiguity. David Evans Katz *************************************************************************** From Herman De Wulf Anyone who finds it difficult to remember that port is left and starboard is right should buy one of those practical pairs of stockings on sale in maritime shops (there's one in Greenwich and at St. Catherine's Dock in London for those of you who live in the UK). The pair consist of one red sock and one green sock. You have to wear the red one on your left foot and the green one on the right foot. Whenever in doubt, look at your feet. Herman *************************************************************************** From Ric We could get a pair for Dennis. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 14:41:54 EDT From: Clyde Miller Subject: Re: Directions for Dummies P & S ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 15:36:31 EDT From: Jim Tierney Subject: Re: Directions for Dummies P & S --Please--Thank you very much--It is simpler and there should be NO misunderstanding of what is meant.... Jim Tierney ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 16:27:04 EDT From: David Leuter Subject: Kinked pitot line this may be old news, I realize. I am behind in my reading. But it could be possible that the pitot line inside the tube assy has been kinked by the rather abrupt bend that has incurred. In which case I would guess the gauge would be reading extremely low or possibly not at all. This would lead an experienced pilot to conclude a malfunction and to disregard the gauge entirely. And since there was a backup system in place, use that one instead. 100% speculation, I know, But electrons are cheap. LTM (who never buys expensive electrons) Dave Leuter ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 16:27:39 EDT From: Mike Holt Subject: Re: Directions for Dummies P & S ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 09:34:10 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: Directions for Dummies > From Dennis McGee > Port? Starboard? > Cast your vote as either P and S, or L and R. P and S. "Port" and "starboard" do not mean "left" and "right" respectively, they mean "the left side of the craft" and "the right side of the craft." It is much easier to communicate "the port pitot tube" than it is "the pitot tube on the left side of the craft." If you're standing forward of the craft looking aft, port is right and starboard is left. Frank Westlake ************************************************************************* From Doc Holloway P & S ************************************************************************** From Margot Still Absolutely P & S. I have a jacket somewhere that has one red sleeve and one green sleeve with the appropriate markings down the sleeve where you could read them. I'll see if I can find it for Dennis. LTM, MStill #2332CE *************************************************************************** From William Webster-Garman Because ships and planes can change orientation, port, starboard, aft and fore are more precise than "left", "right", "back" and "front" when describing them. william 2243 *************************************************************************** From Ric There is a great line in "Jaws" where the Robert Shaw character, "Quint", shouts something like, "Port is left and starboard is right. The front is the bow and the back is the stern. Get it right or I'll throw you through the little round window in the side." *************************************************************************** From Renaud Dudon, Guess that P & S are the quickest and most accurate way. *************************************************************************** From Bill Leary My father (U.S. Navy, WWII) long ago told me that the easy way to remember port vs. starboard was that "port and left are both four letter words... right and starboard aren't." ************************************************************************* From George Mershon When I joined the Navy, I had a "direction problem" too (pun intended). An "old Salt" gave me an easy answer. Count the letters of left - 4 - Then count the letters of port - 4 - When you count right and then starboard, it won't work the same way! Now, sit on the port side of your car and drive forth to fame and fortune! George Mershon #2181 *************************************************************************** From Tom Robison I vote for the proper nautical terms, port and starboard, aft and forward, leeward and windward, head and galley, etc. Did ya hear the one about the old veteran sea captain who kept looking at his hands? Many times a day, when he thought no one was looking, he'd glance down at his palms for a moment, nod his head, and resume his lookout. Finally the crew could take no more, and convinced the first mate to sneak in when the captain was sleeping and see what was on his hands. The next day, the first mate reported "On his left palm is tatooed 'port', and on his right palm is tatooed 'starboard'". LTM, (who also may have trouble with port and starboard) TomR *************************************************************************** From Don Neumann I've always been able to remember that 'Port' is 'Left' because left-handed pitchers in baseball are referred to as...'Port-siders'..., however at night, on the water, I've always had trouble remembering whether the red running light or the green running light is on the 'Port' side, now with Herman's idea (Red sock/Green sock) I'll have no trouble remembering... that is if I can only remember which sock belongs on which foot ... & how can I tell which is which in the dark... ? Oh well, it just never gets any easier for us landlubber sailors, guess we should just get off the water when the sun sets! Don Neumann ************************************************************************* From Mark Cameron P and S, please. What is the origination of these terms? Nautical, of course, but from where? The English Navy? LTM (who at first turned left because she thought it was right) Mark #2301 ************************************************************************** From Ric As I recall (and this is guaranteed to generate about two dozen corrective postings), "starboard" is a corruption of "steering board." Before the rudder was invented, ships were steered with a large oar or "board" mounted on the right-hand side near the stern. Manuevering up to the dock or wharf, you naturally wanted to keep the "steering board" side clear so the opposite side of the ship was where the "port" was. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 09:37:49 EDT From: Christian Subject: P & S the German way In German we use the terms Backbord / Steuerbord and when I have a freshman on my boat I use a very simple explanation. You have to know, that in our north german speaking eine Backe is a cheek. So imagine the standard north german stands in front of you. Most of them are right handers and when he slaps you on your cheek which Backe hits he? Ok, thats back(e)bord (Port). The oter side must be starbord. And which colour gets the cheek? RED! ok so you learned the colours of your navigational lights as well. (the other side must be green) Can you imagine how fast this lesson is refreshed, when necessary? Who hasnt learned yet, come, stand in line, I come along. LtM Christian ************************************************************************* From Ric Priceless. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 09:41:37 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Damaged pitots Ric asked: << Can you produce a cleaned-up image that shows what you're talking about?>> Hi Ric, that's fair. Please do note that I said my conclusions are "tentative". I'll work up a couple of images and post them. william *************************************************************************** From Ric Unfortunately, the forum software won't support attached files so you'll have to just send the images to me as a private email. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 10:07:50 EDT From: Bill Zorn Subject: Why sit on the left? Saw something on PBS or the discovery channel that claimed that the term The terms, Port & Starboard goes back to the early Vikings. They put their STeering (or STAbalizing) BOARD on the "right"side of their boats. And obviously then, when you pull into PORT, you don't want to damage this high tech device against the shore. Question for the aviation archaeologists lurking the forum. At what point, or why did the standards arise that the pilot is in the "left hand seat?" And the numbering system for engines goes from port outside to starboard outer. Are there, or were there any notable exceptions? Is there any correlation with the American Railroad "left hand rule"or "Right Hand rule" (which I am very fuzzy on, please don't ask me to explain, until I do a little research ) , having to do with two track operations? Railroads were after all the preeminent transportation system at the time aviation was born. With the bent pitot tubes and the antennae dangling in the dirt, it sounds as if the Electra was in a bit of trouble when it left, right? LTM (who prefers to think of it as driver's side and passenger side, but knows American automotive axioms can confound and confuse citizens of certain cultures, causing consternation and considerable counterproductive crosstalk in the communication channels ) Bill ************************************************************************* From Ric The question of how the pilot-in-the-left-seat convention got started is a good one. Even British pilots sit there, and apparently always have. Helicopter pilots, by contrast, usually sit on the starboard side so that they don't have to climb over the collective when entering or exiting the aircraft. Yes, the Electra was apparently in trouble from the moment it left Lae, but the nature of the trouble was such that it was known neither to the crew nor to those who watched the departure. Need I point out that what we're talking about here is a major new development in the way the Earhart disappearance is viewed and is as much a departure from the "traditional" explanations for the flight's failure as the Nikumaroro theory is different from the crashed-and-sank or Japanese-capture explanations. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 10:29:15 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Damaged pitots I have posted the graphical results of my personal examination of the enhanced Lae takeoff photo and the evidence of antenna and pitot tube damage that I believe it shows at http://www.webster-garman.com/earhart/antenna.htm Since I was asked about my qualifications (my undergraduate work was in music composition and radio/television/film), the nature of my primary work has provided me with extensive ancillary professional experience in photo and digitally based graphic arts during the past 24 years. In addition, I have created graphics for numerous commercial software companies since 1994, centering, mostly by "accident", on icon development. My icons have appeared on millions of computers around the world. Although icons may seem trivial to some readers , they are ubiquitous on the PC desktop and getting paid to develop them requires not only a sense of esthetics and cultural sensitivity but a fine eye for minute detail in bitmapped formats. Some forum readers may remember that I correctly identified the thermos in the departure photo of AE & FN's luggage, before Phototek also confirmed that it was not artifact 2-4-V-100 (the fire extinguisher from Niku). I have strong avocational interests in science-based historical research. Had I not chosen the music business, I probably would have become an archaeologist. I examined the image with Adobe Photoshop, which is the industry standard for digital photo work. I did not use any "sharpening" or forensic imaging algorithms. The latter could perhaps be applied, at some appropriate time, to further specifying the remains of the antenna cable and damaged ventral mast. william 2243 *************************************************************************** From Ric Interesting. Thanks William. I agree that there seems to be something in the position where the starboard pitot might be expected to be. If it's the starboard pitot it's either severely turned or actually broken off part way down the shaft. I'm much less convinced that we're seeing dangling cable rather than just variation in the background. My take on what we're seeing at the aft antenna mast position is that most of the mast is gone and all that remains is the broken stub which you point out as the light colored "twist." Interpreting photos at this level without specialized forensic software and expertise is dicey (I have neither). The photo becomes a Rorschach test where what you see may have more to do with your toilet training than with what is really there. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 10:34:33 EDT From: Janice Brown Subject: Amelia Earhart news article in "Investors Business Daily" Congratulations on your and TIGHAR's mention in a half page article this morning about Amelia Earhart in the "Investor's Business Daily" (Tues Aug 25, page A4). If you'd like for me to mail you this article, please let me know. Janice Brown ************************************************************************** From Ric That would be nice Janice. Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 10:41:14 EDT From: Andrew McKenna Subject: Disgusting? << In San Jose they detected a J and an O which they said [after a demand to know why] were the letters used to characterize a disgusting male habit... so much for artifical intelligence. RC >> Sheesh, is that just your opinion, or has this "disgusting" quality been established by some legit scientific researchers?? Another research project for the Forum. LTM (who suspects there are no untarnished males) Portnoy ************************************************************************** From Ric First thunderboxes and now this? Let's just call it Off Topic. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 10:42:23 EDT From: George Mershon Subject: Re: Directions for Dummies Don Neumann, The same old "Salt" also told me": "If we had a glass of red Port wine, there'd be nothing 'left' ". Red - Port - Left ! And Ric you are right about the Steering board. And so's not to break the steering board you entered the "Port" with the left side of your craft nearest the dock! George Mershon #2181 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 10:58:25 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Damaged pitots Ric wrote, >The photo becomes a Rorschach test... I think it's pretty clear that the photo shows significant damage to the pitot tubes and belly mast. william 2243 *************************************************************************** From Ric I agree. That's not a matter of subtle interpretation. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 11:25:45 EDT From: Oscar Boswell Subject: Re: Damaged pitots Can I persuade you to turn Mr. Webster-Garman's attention briefly to the "illusion" beneath the fuselage at 31.9 - 32.0 of the takeoff film. My own unquallified opinion remains that there is something there, which is seen for an instant because the camera lens is (for that instant) directly in line with the "shadow" of the object thrown by the reflection of light from the water. Thanks. ************************************************************************ From Ric Be my guest. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 12:19:02 EDT From: Chris Kennedy Subject: Re: Damaged pitots I was looking at the film closely this weekend, too, and I think I noticed what Mr. Boswell is talking about (you see this right after the plane lifts off and starts flying out over the water). Also, (by this posting) am asking if Mr. Webster-Garman could also take a look at the two shots of Earhart's "shoes" which show up on the film as well. Unfortunately, I don't have precise citations to where they appear on the film, but you can see her left shoe immediately after she takes a jump, of sorts, onto the plane's wing (the foot for a brief instant comes into the sunlight), and you see her right shoe for an instant as she is stepping into the plane. It would be nice to get confirmation that, at least at the time of takeoff from Lae, she was wearing the Blucher Oxfords. So, Mr. Webster-Garman, could 'ya please? Thanks! --Chris Kennedy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 12:20:29 EDT From: Tom Van Hare Subject: Re: Directions for Dummies > Port? Starboard? > What is the origination of these terms? Nautical, of course, but from where? I thought it had to do with sailing south out of England toward the Med, the ports were all to the left and there was nothing but the stars to the right. Thomas Van Hare Historic Wings ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 14:51:07 EDT From: Ric Subject: AE in custody Got a phone call yesterday from Mr. John O'Keefe of Dallas, Texas. He was looking for an address for Tom Devine (author of "Eyewitness - The Amelia Earhart Incident" because he had a story that he feels is proof that AE was captured by the Japanese. I couldn't help him with an address but I was happy to listen to his story. It's such a classic that I thought I should share it with the forum. During WWII Mr. O'Keefe was an enlisted man serving aboard PT boats just northwest of New Ireland in the St. Matthias Group. When they first came into this area of operations the crews were told to be especially on the lookout for any sign Amelia Earhart. This was the only area where they received that admonition. One day Mr. O'Keefe was ashore at Mussau Island and had occasion to visit the home of a man who had been the personal servant of a local Catholic priest. On a board hung from the centerpost of the house were several photographs. One of them showed the owner of the house, the priest, a white woman in a white shirt, white scarf, and dark trousers and beside her a Japanese officer with a samurai sword. Mr. O'Keefe looked at the photo, pointed to the woman, and said, "Amelia Earhart!" to which the man replied, "Yes!". O'Keefe was unable to get more information from the man because he spoke very little English but when he returned to the PT boat he told his captain, a Lt. jg, about the photo he had seen. The captain passed the word up the chain of command and within a few days a "Black Cat" PBY arrived with an officer attired in dress blues (very inappropriate for the climate) who refused to identify himself other than to say that he was from Naval Intelligence. The officer asked for O'Keefe and wanted to be taken to see the man with the picture. O'Keefe, of course, complied and when the officer saw the photo he took it down and put it in an envelope. The owner was upset at this behavior and demanded that his photo be returned at which point the officer grabbed him by the throat and put his other hand on the butt of his .45 and informed the man in no uncertain terms that the photo was now U.S. government property. The officer left aboard the PBY and they heard nothing more about the incident. Curious, the captain started bombarding headquarters with messages asking about the photo and what all the fuss had been about. At first HQ denied that the officer had even been there, then another PBY arrived with another officer who said he had a message that he had been instructed to personally read and deliver to Seaman O'Keefe and the captain. The message read simply, "Cease and desist." and was signed "Nimitz." O'Keefe never mentioned the incident again until recently when he visited the Nimitz Museum in Frederickburg, Texas and saw a letter in which Admiral Nimitiz himself said that "it was time for the American people to know that Amelia Earhart had dies in the service of her country." Great story....and it fits perfectly the traditional formula of WWII Earhart anecdotes. 1. An enlisted man finds an object that is clearly linked to Amelia Earhart. 2. He reports it to his superiors. 3. A mysterious officer takes the object, which is never seen again. 4. The finder is sworn to secrecy. How much of this one is true is anybody's guess. Mr. O'Keefe seemed absolutely sincere and I do not for one moment doubt that he was convinced that he was telling me the unvarnished truth. In fact, almost all of the story could be true but, like all such stories, it is impossible (and not even worth trying) to verify. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 14:55:46 EDT From: Simon Ellwood Subject: Re: Damaged pitots - Lae departure image. Some time ago (I don't know if you remeber, Ric), I downloaded the fullsized image of the Lae departure shot that Jeff Glickman had been using from the Photek web page (freely downloadable, so I presume Jeff meant it to be freely available). At 59Mb, it took all night :-( Although this image is impossible to use at that size with the software I have (even with 192Mb RAM !!), I've managed to reduce to a usable size. Although I don't know if it would provide better resolution / definition than the one currently available, if any of our budding researchers want to see a reduced size image, I'll try and mount if on my website (space permitting). LTM Simon #2120 *************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks Simon. Just let us know when it's up and what the address is. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 14:57:05 EDT From: Jack W. Subject: Re: Why sit on the left? << From Ric The question of how the pilot-in-the-left-seat convention got started is a good one. Even British pilots sit there, and apparently always have. Helicopter pilots, by contrast, usually sit on the starboard side so that they don't have to climb over the collective when entering or exiting the aircraft. >> Good answer Ric. Another theory is some of the early helicopters only had one collective (in the middle) and since most folks are right handed they preferred to hold the collective in the left hand. Quen sabe? LTM (who doesn't believe helicopters really fly anyway) Jack W. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 08:53:16 EDT From: Dave Porter Subject: directions for dummies I vote for port and starboard, because of the unambiguous specifity they offer. I did, however, chuckle with glee at the thought of them being used by Navy Drill Instructors (if such persons exist) ***Platoon, Atten-TION. Starboard FACE; Forward, MARCH...port flank, MARCH... column starboard, MARCH...*** However, now that I think about it, rifle muzzles are pointing up and to the left while at "port arms." hmm.... LTM, who notes that if one were sailing southwards along the east coast, all the ports would be to starboard. Dave Porter, 2288 ************************************************************************* From Ric I think "port arms" is a corruption of "transport arms." Next time you're on the firing line with the troopies (Dave is a Drill Instructor in the Army Reserve) you can have some fun by substituting the command "lock and load" with "charge your firelocks." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 08:56:47 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: AE in custody >From Ric > Great story....and it fits perfectly the traditional > formula of WWII Earhart anecdotes. Considering this story and the behavior of the US Navy, I think it is more likely that the Japanese soldiers were actually Japanese Americans on a mission for the US government than it is that the woman was Earhart. Frank Westlake ************************************************************************** From Ric I've often suspected that many of the alleged (but never produced) photos of Earhart and Noonan with Japanese soldiers were actually pictures of white missionaries taken into custody. Husband/wife and brother/sister teams were not uncommon. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 09:00:07 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Niku IIII air drop This November I am going to attempt to take another notch in my life wishlist by getting type rated in a DC-3. I had a passing thought: would it help the Niku IV expedition by having an air drop of supplies out the chute of a passing friendly goonie-bird? It would save space on the boat and perhaps offer the expedition extra neccesities to hang out on the island longer. Just a thought. Doug Brutlag #2335 ************************************************************************* From Ric Tell you what Doug. If you get a goonie out there we'll think of something for you to drop. Heck, we'll bring a long a windsock and you can set her down on the reef flat. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 09:03:11 EDT From: Renaud Dudon Subject: Port/Starboard Well...well..well... I asked my father, who flew old props, why does the commander of the flight still sit in the left/port side. He said : "Son, that was a matter a visibility because the approach loop for landing is always to the port/left side of the runway, so for the last turn before the final, the pilot, banking to port, as a clear visibility..." I have no idea is that the real reason. In french, for port and starboard we say "bebord" and "tribord". The origin of these words could be found in the old dutch " Styrbord" ( starboard ) and "bakboord" ( port ). Warships are still boarded by theirs crew from the port side. That is traditional. I don't know why. Also, ( at least in french waters, i didn't check it otherwhere ) the nav buoy on the Starboard side carry a red triangle because of the french word "tribord"... That was for my little story, thank you for your patience ! : ) RENAUD DUDON from QPMDDI ( Quality Paper-Made Dictionnaries with Data in It). LTM. ************************************************************************** From Ric Ah, but did the tradition of the approach from the left come before or after the tradition of the pilot on the left? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 09:07:05 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Damaged pitots To Mr Chris Kennedy, I think we can be reasonably confident that your sarcasm is a weak substitute for a reasoned and measured reaction (even a dissenting one, which is ok). william 2243 *************************************************************************** From Ric I think you misread a sincere request. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 09:08:11 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Damaged pitots Oscar Boswell wrote, >attention briefly to the >"illusion" beneath the fuselage at 31.9 - 32.0 of the takeoff film. My own >unquallified opinion remains that there is something there, OK, I'll bite. The kind of detail we'd be looking for is described by a few pixels at that resolution (in the "large" version of the take off clip). Although I do think I see what could be the same "unexpected object" at the bottom of the fuselage at around 31.9, in all honesty, one would need much higher resolution copies of those frames to continue any meaningful discussion of any possible damage visible in that movie clip. My purpose in spending time on the still photo of the take-off run was to establish real documentation of damage to the pitot tubes and belly mast. Taken with the "puff of smoke" footage, this evidence of significant damage to the belly antenna rigging on takeoff does forever change the discussion as to why AE and FN were unable to communicate successfully with the Itasca when they reached the vicinity of Howland Island. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 09:13:41 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Helicopter bashing I have to agree with Jack - I don't think they fly, I think they just beat the air into submission... ltm jon ************************************************************************* From William Webster-Garman Don't get me started on the subject of helicopters (barbaric, dangerous little noisemakers) . william 2243 ************************************************************************** From Ric I, too, believe that if God had meant helicopters to fly he'd have given them wings, but I can tell you that there have been several times when I have been very glad indeed to hear the welcome whopwhopwhop of a helicopter coming to remove my butt from someplace I really really didn't want to be. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 10:35:42 EDT From: Michael Holt Subject: Re: AE in custody Richard E. Gillespie wrote: > Great story....and it fits perfectly the traditional formula of WWII Earhart > anecdotes. > 1. An enlisted man finds an object that is clearly linked to Amelia Earhart. > 2. He reports it to his superiors. > 3. A mysterious officer takes the object, which is never seen again. > 4. The finder is sworn to secrecy. Mr O'Keefe wasn't alone on the trip to the old man's house, was he? Did he take the boat there without anyone else? Who served with him, and how do they recall any of it? Who was the priest? (If the name of the island is correct without any doubt, I'll see if I can figure out who to ask about the priest.) > How much of this one is true is anybody's guess. Mr. O'Keefe seemed > absolutely sincere and I do not for one moment doubt that he was convinced > that he was telling me the unvarnished truth. In fact, almost all of the > story could be true but, like all such stories, it is impossible (and not > even worth trying) to verify. One thing that has always made me extremely interested in this sort of report is that they're seldom verified. Even though there were others involved, there's never any corroboration. Why is this? I recall reading about a Marine who said he found a leather pouch of AE documents on an island the USMC had just taken back. The Marine wasn't alone when he found the pouch, of course, but where are the others who must have been with him? Was the event that insignificant to them? Why don't we ever hear a tale that adds this to the formula above: "My buddy found ... "? (I wonder if there have been academic studies of such oddities in legends? Someone could make a career with this sort of thing.) LTM (who had friends she remembers well) Michael Holt *************************************************************************** From Ric The study of folklore is a well-established (and fascinating) academic field. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 10:37:23 EDT From: Chris Kennedy Subject: Re: Damaged pitots For William Webster-Garman Actually, it WAS a serious request in view of your interesting work on the pitot tubes. Since these are the last known pictures of Earhart, Noonan and the plane, it seems the more we can spot using photoanlaysis the better. At this point, just forget about it. --Chris Kennedy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 10:48:49 EDT From: Bruce Yoho Subject: Re: Helicopter bashing Could not help but add..... "Helicopters are a mass of rotating parts going somewhere to crash." Bruce *********************************************************************** From Ric (Bear in mind that Bruce was once a helicopter mechanic.) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 10:49:59 EDT From: Lee Gaffrey Subject: Re: Helicopter bashing Actually helicopters don't fly....the earth rejects them. Lee Gaffrey (used Naval aviator) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 10:51:41 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Directions for Dummies Port vs. starboard? Bah, humbug! What's next? Keeping the red and green (and white) lights sorted out, too? Just in case, I'll take up Margo on her offer for the jacket with red and green sleeves; I hope it is at least a 44L. Is the back of the jacket white with "Aft" printed on it? Just send it to Ric and I'll pick it up on my next trip through town. LTM, who cherishes her curmudgeonness Dennis O. McGee #0149CE ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:09:08 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Damaged pitots Ric wrote, >I think you misread a sincere request. Really? My very sincere apologies to Mr Kennedy. The reason I thought the posting contained sarcasm is that the request is utterly impossible (see following description of RealMedia). Also, the closing "could 'ya please? Thanks!" in Mr Kennedy's note sounded too solicitous to my jaded, well-travelled ears to be sincere. Again, I'm sorry and it's my fault if I misunderstood. The "Last Flight" clip available on the TIGHAR site is in RealMedia format. RealMedia video is ultra-low resolution and utilizes extreme compression algorithms (for the sake of radical file size reduction) that vastly limit the dynamic range of an image and totally eliminate fine detail. Even the colour pallette in RealMedia is "cheated", meaning that the file contains a severely limited number of unique colours, and the player itself "dithers" them on the fly to create a clever illusion of more smoothness, colour gradation and detail than there actually is. This means that all the things one can do to pull out and enhance detail in a standard scan of a standard photograph (which typically has lots of dynamic range and buried detail) are useless with a RealMedia image. With RealMedia, nothing is hidden, and what you see is basically more than what you really get. That said, I went ahead and looked at her shoes in the clip, and as I suspected there is simply not enough detail for any reasonable attempt at identification. Obviously, the original dupe tape of the film, from which these files were made, probably contains a heck of alot more detail, not only of her shoes, but of the damage to the aircraft. william 2243 ************************************************************************** From Ric I've looked at the tape in the best format we have (Beta SP) until my eyes crossed and the best I can tell you about the shoes AE is wearing is that they are not the two-tone, light-colored sole "saddle" shoes which are the only shoes other than the now-famous blucher-oxfords that appear in any of the photos taken during the world flight. We could (and maybe we should) do a whole Research Bulletin featuring photos of Amelia's Shoes Through History. The bottom line is AE seems to have used the two-tone shoes for sight-seeing and the blucher-oxfords for flying. There is no doubt that she arrived in Lae wearing the blucher-oxfords and that she is not wearing the two-tones in the takeoff film. Seems like a fairly safe conclusion that she was wearing the blucher-oxfords. The imagery on the original BETA SP dub of the takeoff film is only about a tenth as good as the still photo we've been discussing. That's what makes the still photo so important. The value of the film is that it (a) documents that the belly antenna mast is present when the airplane taxis out for takeoff, and (b) shows an incident during the takeoff run that may explain the damage seen in the still photo. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:10:50 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Helicopter bashing I guess I don't have a problem with helicopters as true emergency evacuation transport. However, misappropriately used as they are, for traffic and news observation, commuting, joy riding, and even frequently unnecessary tactical police use, they are in my opinion a bane of urban existence, and probably too dangerous in real-world terms for the people who pilot and ride in them. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:12:45 EDT From: Jim Dix Subject: Take off photo It appears that the take off photo or photos are growing in importance, judging by Ric's comment about a "major new development", and William Webster-Garman's excellent work in enhancing the images. Seems a couple days ago someone suggested that we have Photek do some enhancing on the photos and see what we can see. Ric, at the time, said that, that would cost money and the current fund raising emphasis was on Niku IIII. There's only so much that can be done with our computer technology and at the moment the enhancements are only making me, at least, more curious. It may be time for a mini fund to be started to get Photek to do their thing on the take off photo. Now with that said I will plead poverty. What we've seen so far makes me wonder how AE and FN couldn't have been aware of what was going on under the aircraft, but using the two T-6's taking off in formation image, it's probably possible. She may not have wanted to land that flying gas tank even if she knew. LTM Jim Dix 2132 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:28:06 EDT From: Dave Leuter Subject: Re: Port/Starboard Ric, not that it is related, but when mounting your horse you always get on from the left side, or in proper forum terminology, the port side. That may help explain things, but don't ask me about the nav lights...I have never been able to find any on a horse.... Dave Leuter ************************************************************************** From Ric The left/port side of the horse is the "near" side. The right/starboard side is the "off" side, even though you get both on and off from the near side. You do it that way so that your sword, which hangs on your left side because you are right-handed, doesn't get in the way. As the most highly evolved form of life on the planet, equines are far too dignified to tolerate navigation lights. LTM, Ric, Lieutenant, 1st Battalion, 12th United States Cavalry Regiment (ret.) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:29:08 EDT From: Andrew McKenna Subject: Re: damaged piotos Kudos to William for sharing his work with the Forum instead of claiming to have found something without supplying the supporting research. Thanks Andrew McKenna 1045CE ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:32:15 EDT From: Brian Subject: Niku 4 shirts To raise money for the trip to Niku...why not sell AE voted me off the island shirts??? or some humourous thread of the survivor mania that is popular right now Just a moronic thought... Still Lurking *************************************************************************** From Ric I love it. How does it strike the rest of you? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:34:45 EDT From: Andrew McKenna Subject: Port Out Starboard Home <> Laymans version- No, that would be the origin of POSH, as the desireable rooms on board a ship headed for the Med were Port Out, and Starboard Home, ie on the North side of the boat both ways, were generally out of the sun and cooler rooms. No air conditioning in those days so the cooler rooms were more pleasant to stay in, therefore more desireable, and priced accordingly. Following this, all things desireable and costly became "posh". LTM (who prefers the POSH side of the boat during NIKU IIII) Andrew McKenna 1045CE *************************************************************************** From Ric (...the stuff you learn on the Earhart Forum.....) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:46:00 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: AE in custody Along this line, of course, the infamous Amelia in Japanese handcuffs photo turned out to be a photo taken in Honolulu, and the "handcuff" was actually a bracelet. What gave this one impetus for a while was that a copy of it was found in the possessions of a Japanese (an officer, I think). ltm, jon ************************************************************************** From Ric Yes, and there was another photo of a dejected-looking Amelia that was touted as being a picture of her in Japanese custody until it was proven to have been taken in Hawaii shortly after she wrecked the Electra. Apparently a number of photos of AE did turn up in Japanese hands during the war but that is not so surprising when you consider that: 1. AE was an international celebrity throughout the 1930s. 2. She spent time and was widely photographed in Hawaii both in 1935 and 1937. 3. Many Japanese-Americans in Hawaii had relatives in Japan. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 11:55:36 EDT From: Doc Holloway Subject: Re: Niku 4 shirts I'll take one in XL please. Doc Holloway ************************************************************************ From Ric Holy Sh.... ten minutes after I post the idea we get an order for a shirt. It seems we have a viable concept. Let me do this .... We'll design a shirt and put the artwork and order form up on the website. We'll need to get orders for at least 25 shirts at $20 each to make it worth doing. I'll let everyone know when the design is available for inspection. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 12:02:41 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Port/Starboard Thinking about this, could it be due to the direction of rotation of the engine? In a single engine airplane with two-across seating, wouldn't they prop the plane on the port side? That would allow the pilot to communicate with the "propper" (is that a word?). Of course, this doesn't address the fact that in some places engines turn the opposite direction... ltm, jon *************************************************************************** From Ric No, that doesn't work. When you prop an airplane (other than some British types) you stand facing the starboard blade. If we're really going to research this totally off-topic subject we need to determine just when the convention was established. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 12:05:17 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Damaged pitots Actually, all misunderstanding and petulance aside, I think this is a really good idea, and I hope that all concerned will take a deep breath, shake hands and start over. I for one would like to see what shows up. ltm, jon 2266 *************************************************************************** From Ric I think everyone has settled down now, but I also think that we've pretty well established that the film isn't going to solve any shoe mysteries. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 12:28:22 EDT From: Dave Bush Subject: Port/Starboard NO, NO, NO! Airplanes aren't ships, thus no "port" or "starboard". Let's use the correct terminology here "pilotside" / "co-pilotside" or just P or C. LTM - who prefers the P-side Thanks, Dave Bush #2200 ************************************************************************** From Ric Well, actually, airplanes do share some - but not all - terminology with ships. In fact, although it's less common these days, airplanes in the 1930s and '40s were often called "ships." We talk about the "aft" end of an airplane but we don't call the "tail" the "stern." Similarly we only refer to the "bow" if it's a flying boat or amphibian. Otherwise, it's the "nose." "Cockpit" is a term borrowed from sailing. If you insure your airplane against physical damge you buy "hull" insurance. The use of "port" and "starboard" when referring to aircraft, and especially in the context of engines on multiengine machines, is well established. The terms "pilot's side" and "copilot's side" are not uncommon but don't make much sense when referring to a single or tandem-seat aircraft. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 12:46:53 EDT From: Ric Subject: The Brines Letter There is a new Document of the Week up on the TIGHAR website at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Documents/Brines_Letter/Brinesletter.html It's a letter dated August 3, 1937 and, if authentic, is the first contemporaneous reference we've seen to Fred Noonan being a heavy drinker. It also provides some interesting insights into the attitude of at least one journalist toward the Earhart disppearance. This letter arrived without explanation other than a post-it note saying "This just came to hand." from a team member on the 1997 Niku III expedition who is now working in Norway. I've asked for further clarification on where it came from but have not yet received a reply (she travels quite a bit). This could be a fairly important, and new (to me anyway), piece of evidence. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 12:53:09 EDT From: Dave Bush Subject: Niku 4 shirts >To raise money for the trip to Niku...why not sell AE voted me off the >island shirts??? or some humourous thread of the survivor mania that is >popular right now. ALMOST a good thought. Howabout this - "Was AE ON the island" with two blocks, yes and no, and the YES with a big red check mark in it! LTM - Who votes YES Yours, Dave Bush #2200 ************************************************************************* From Ric Everybody wants to be an art director. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 13:05:58 EDT From: Paul Chattey Subject: Re: Port/Starboard Ric wrote: "Well, actually, airplanes do share some - but not all - terminology with ships." And not without reason do we call them "airports". Paul ************************************************************************** From Ric Unless they have right-hand traffic patterns, in which case they are known as "airstarboards." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 13:13:59 EDT From: Mike Muenich Subject: Take Off Photo Having read the recent postings concerning the left and right pitot tubes I am wondering whether or not this could be the cause of the wacky position reports (first two I believe) by AE during the early part of the flight. If both were damaged and thus inaccurate, Noonan's ability to do dead reckoning would be zilch. It would also greatly hamper flight planning and execution for fuel consumption (RPM/airspeed/fuel numbers from Kelly would go out the window) not to mention time/distance/speed calculations. Everything would then hinge on Noonan's ability to do celestial navigation rapidly enough to allow pilotage. Wouldn't you go back to Lae? *************************************************************************** From Ric Not at all. As has been mentioned in previous postings, neither Noonan's DR nor his celestial navigation relies upon indicated airspeed. Likewise with Earhart's power/fuel management. An inoperative or inaccurate airspeed indicator would be an inconvenience but certainly not a show-stopper. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 13:19:00 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Helicopters Bruce Yoho writes: "Helicopters are a mass of rotating parts going somewhere to crash." My son is presently serving in the Marine Corps and is an air frame/hydraulics specialist assigned to a light attack squadron. Without hesitation he testifies, "It takes a college degree to fly, and crash a helo. It takes a high school diploma to fix'um and make'um fly again." LTM (who survived one helo crash while serving in the Corps 35 years ago), Roger Kelley, #2112CE ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 13:23:29 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: AE in custody That's the same picture I'm thinking of - I believe it's in Goerner's book, now that I think about it. I'll look when I get home tonight. Changing the subject, although I respectfully decline to watch the TV show, I think the T-shirt idea is a gas. Couple it up with baseball hats. You could have the AE logo, or the TIGHAR logo on the front, and have the slogan stencilled around the back side. ltm jon *************************************************************************** From Ric No, the photo I was referring to made the rounds more recently (1997 I believe). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 15:01:57 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: Re: Niku IIII air drop I can hear the gears turning in Th' Wombat's head now churning out details for the experiment. Doug, does your wife/girl friend own a pair of Blucher Oxfords? Kerry Tiller #2350 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 15:04:25 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: Re: Port/Starboard OK, here's the squid's explanation; (I was going to stay out of this one, but....) Starboard (as Ric and several others mentioned) comes from "steering board". The original term for the opposite side of the ship was "larboard". This was a corruption of "lade board", the device put over the side to connect the main deck with the pier, as in gang plank or what we now call a "brow". The word "lade" referring to cargo. Stevedores would use the lade board to bring cargo "aboard" the ship (yes, that's where that term came from too). By the 16th century ships had gotten bigger, steering boards had given way to rudders and lade boards often connected to the ships at a deck below the main deck. Access to the ship was through a large cargo (are you ready for this?) port; as in portal, portcullis, sally port, port hole etc. (I think "port" is derived from a French word.) Due to the confusion in the similar sounding "starboard" and "larboard" it became common to refer to the opposite side from starboard as the port side, that is the side with the cargo port in it. Now just when they started calling the whole damn harbor a "port", I'm not sure. We may have a chicken or egg enigma here. LTM (who came before I did) Kerry Tiller #2350 *************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks Kerry. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 15:06:14 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: AE in custody A researcher named Mike Campbell interviewed Thomas Devine at West Haven ,New Connecticut in 1991 and in a post in April 00, he said Devine remains alive and well at age 85. This may be of interest to O'keefe. Ron Bright ************************************************************************** From Ric Is New Connecticut anywhere near New York? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 09:26:48 EDT From: Amanda Dunham Subject: Re: The Brines Letter Ok, a couple of things stuck out, to me at least, as possible anachronisms: page 2) Brines implies that he HEARD the messages sent to the British ship, but uses verb tenses that imply it was after the fact. He doesn't say he was on board when the ship received them. Would he have heard a RECORDING??? What recording media, other than 78's, was available then? Would your typical British freighter have it available??? page 3) What month in 1937 was "Gone With the Wind" published? I have an impression, no more than that, that it was late in the year. I'll start looking this up. Was there a date at the top of the letter that I didn't notice? LTM, who still has a 78 of Bing Crosby & the Andrew Sisters Amanda Dunham *************************************************************************** From Ric The date at the top of the letter is "8/3/37". My guess is that Brines worked at the Honolulu Bureau of the Associated Press. I don't think he was aboard any ship and I don't think he heard any recording. He apparently heard some of the alleged post-loss signals over a radio somewhere. There were lots of people listening. Good idea on checking out when GWTW was published. There's almost TOO much information in this letter, but if it's a hoax it's a very good one. ************************************************************************** From Jon Watson Just a quick preliminary - Russell Brines (now deceased) was at one time the far eastern bureau chief for the AP. He was in Tokyo, circa 1939 to 1941, when he went to Manila. He was there when the Japanese arrived and stayed there until (about) the next year working as editor of the internment camp's newspaper. He left there (don't know how) and went to (I think) Shanghai. After the war he was the first western journalist to return to Tokyo. At some time before his death he was teaching at Univ of Florida, and there is now a scholarship at UF established by his widow - don't know if she is still alive. Haven't found anything that puts him in Hawaii in '37 yet, but it seems highly possible. More about my thoughts on the letter itself later. jon 2266 *************************************************************************** From Ric Hmmm....maybe my hunch was right. *************************************************************************** Fram Amanda Dunham Ok, I was wrong about one thing: "Gone With the Wind" was published in 1936. In my defense I will merely point out that my grandparents' edition was printed in late 1937. (You didn't think I was going to buy a *new* copy, did you?!) Amanda *************************************************************************** From Ric Okay, so the struggling young reporter borrows rather than buys the popular new book. That works. ************************************************************************** From Randy Jacobson Russ Grimes was an NBC correspondent in Honolulu, IIRC, and made quite a stink with the Navy early on in the search mission. This letter appears to be a real document. I wonder what it's history is... *************************************************************************** From Ric Different guy, Randy. This is Russ BRINES, not GRIMES. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 09:37:13 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: Niku 4 shirts Is the name "Amelia Earhart" and related products covered by copyright or whatever by family or is the name itself in the Public Domain. But a great idea for a T-shirt.I like "Earhart Kicks Gillespie off Island " . *************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks Ron. Earhart's now-deceased sister Muriel, claimed ownership of the Amelia Earhart name and engaged the services of Curtis Management Group in Indianapolis to police its commercial use and collect royalties. CMG continues to perform that service on behalf of Muriel's descendants. Several parties have paid roylaties for the use of the name and several others have apparently abandoned plans to use the name when challenged by CMG. Other parties have made commercial use of Earhart's name and/or image without challenge (Apple's "Think Different" ad campaign for example). Linda Finch fought CMG in court and won. TIGHAR has never been challenged by anyone for our use of the Earhart name for fund-raising purposes. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:18:45 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Earhart/ Contingency plans Recently I posted Eugene Vidal's statement that Amelia intended to fly back to the Gilberts if she missed Howland. Both Vincent Loomis and Mary Lovell use that statement in their books but none cited a source. In Doris Rich's book, "Amelia" she writes(p.273) that Eugene Vidal said that Ameila's plan was to "hunt for Howland until she had four hours of fuel left,and then, if she had not located it, to turn back to the Gilberts Island and land on a beach". Rich cites Vidal's claim from the Vidal Collection, box 19,p.97. In the Bibliography she cites the Vidal Collection 6013,American Heritage Center,University of Wyoming,Laramie, Wyoming. Vidal's alleged statement was made contemporaneously with the event. And I guess is was no secret that Amelia and Eugene were very,very close friends and confidantes prior to the flight; reportedly Eugene also was involved in some of the planning,etc,and would be privy to that kind of information. But why in the world would Amelia confide in just Vidal; it would seem that any contingency plan would be made know to Williams, Putnam, and others, including, Noonan. Do any of the charts that she left at Lae show on a larger scale the surronding Islands. I sort of recall she flew only with a strip map and even the Phoenix Island were not shown??? I personally have not checked with the U of Wyoming re the Vidal collection but maybe someone on the forum has already investigated Vidal's statement.And even if she did make that plan known verbally to Vidal, exigent circumstances at the time may have caused her to turn south and make a run for the Phoenix as you theorize. As I recall the Navy searched the Gilberts with no luck and later the Yankee of Glouchester also "searched" to some extent the Gilberts but no luck. The Gilberts are about 450 miles east of Howland and within range of 4 hurs of fuel (150mphX4=600). My question is how thoroughly were the Gilberts searched by the Navy and are there any other reported indications that she may have reversed course back to the Gilberts.Native folklore,artifacts,radio messages,radio strength,etc?? LTM, Ronald Bright 2342 *************************************************************************** From Ric Dead horse. The forum beat it to death in October 1999. Laurie McLaughlin (aka "Dustymiss") went to the University of Wyoming and checked out Doris Rich's source reference. There is nothing in Box 19 that supports the allegation. Like so much of Rich's book, this is rumor stated as fact. We know of no charts left in Lae. The strip charts prepared by Clarence Williams for the first World Flight attempt (now on file at Purdue) do not show the Phoenix Group, but (obviously) these were not the charts Earhart used. We don't know what charts Noonan had but it seems safe to presume that he had access to very good charts of the Pacific. That the flight came down anywhere in the Gilberts seems highly unlikely, not just because the Navy search and the later "Yankee" visit turned up nothing, b ut because the islands suffered from overpopulation (hence the PISS) and it's hard to imagine its arrival going unnoticed. The one part of the Vidal story that does make sense is the intention to implement a "Plan B" when there were four hours of fuel remaining. That's roughly the 20% reserve that was considered standard for long distance flights. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:20:53 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: AE in custody New Connecticut is a small atoll in the south pacific where Amelia may have landed. I meant West Haven, Conn. Its got to be around there somewhere!!! Ron Bright ************************************************************************* From Ric Oh, okay. Like New Guinea, New Caledonia, New Ireland ... New Connecticut - makes sense. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:28:13 EDT From: Herman De Wulf Subject: Re: Port/Starboard Congratulations, Renaud ! Your Dutch is excellent ! Actually it is "stuurboord" and "bakboord", "bak" being old Dutch for what one calls "back" in English. In other words : one would hold the tiller with the right hand facing starbord while turning his back to "backboard", which in English is called port for reasons Ric explained clearly. As for pilots sitting in the left seat, the habit came with circuits normally being to the left worldwide. A pilot has indeed a better view of the airfield or the runway when seated in the left hand seat. As for "port" and "starboard" in aviation (I'm for P. & S.) my flying instructor used to say "Take her 10 degrees to the left..." or "Turn right now..." He never once spoke of port or starboard. I wonder what Fred Noonan said in his days. As for ships crews always boarding on the port side, I have seen many ships being fastened by the starboard side. I am not a sailor but I have often boarded ships on their starboard side. It depends how ships are tied, I suppose. If this discussion goes on much longer we'll become expert sailors ! ************************************************************************** From Ric I think Kerry Tiller's explanation of the origin of the term "port" is more authoritative than mine. I still don't buy the explanation that left hand traffic is why pilots sit on the left. It's just as likely to be the other way around. Left hand traffic is standard because pilots sit on the left. But why? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:31:20 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Niku IV Air Drop No Oxfords in her closet Kerry. I like to think she has better taste in husbands than AE had. Hey Wombat.......what's your spin on an air drop at Niku next September? Doug Brutlag #2335 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:34:28 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: Port/Starboard >From Ric >Ah, but did the tradition of the approach from the left come before or >after the tradition of the pilot on the left? Single screw (underwater prop for you flyers) ships are a lot easier to moor port-side to the pier because of the direction the screw turns when backing. The lower half of the screw bites better than the upper half and it pulls the ship to port. I suppose this is more likely the reason warships moor portside to. Frank Westlake LTM (who hasn't seen a screw in a long time) *************************************************************************** From Ric Propeller torque (technically "P-Effect") is a factor in airplanes but I don't see it influencing where the pilot sits. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:40:03 EDT From: Roger Subject: Re: Niku 4 shirts I still think you are missing a real bet not offering copies of some of those archival photos (especially considering what I paid for that Bresnik photo...!) I can think of all kinds of creative sets, series, sequences - ways to market them for maximum dollars... LTM Roger *************************************************************************** From Ric Many archival photos are copyrighted. It's one thing to use them for research purposes but quite another to sell them. However, a nonprofit organization (like TIGHAR) can give things away as "premiums" in appreciation for donations. We'll look into it. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:42:19 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Damaged pitots For Chris Kennedy, Your reaction is quite understandable. Although I've explained how I misinterpreted your note, it's not much of an excuse. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:43:34 EDT From: Tim Smith Subject: Re: Port/Starboard Speaking as an anthropologist, sometimes things in our culture just happen randomly, for no particular reason at all. When they started making airplanes where the pilot and passenger/copilot sat next to each other, somebody had to choose which side would be the pilot's. Sometimes when we do something the first time and it works OK, we keep doing it that way. The Brits and Japanese drive on the left hand (port?) side of the road but they all seem to get to work just fine as long as everyone else follows the convention. I think Ric is correct when he says that if the pilot sat on the right side, we would use a right-hand approach pattern. While this is a mildly interesting thread, I think I'll skip the remainder of the Port/Starbord pilot seat debate. Tim Smith 1142 C and recently, the coveted E ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:46:17 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: The Brines Letter The Brines letter documents the very early existence of rumours of a Noonan alcohol problem. However, the letter provides zero evidence that Noonan actually had a drinking problem or that it interfered with his work as a navigator. The writer says "the chances are Amelia had him poured into the plane" (we've heard this exact language in the rumour before). Yet, by pure coincidence, I've viewed the takeoff footage probably 40 times in the past day, and it is a chipper-looking Noonan who gets up on the wing first, and lends Earhart a quick hand as she follows him onto the wing to enter the aircraft. There is certainly no evidence in the film that she "had him poured into the plane". The writer's praise of Noonan's navigational skills is interesting and does lend an air of credibility to his remarks. However, the dismissive tone of the writer (who was evidently a stringer for a wire service, possibly AP or Reuter?) regarding the post-loss radio messages erodes that credibility. We know Earhart wasn't a great navigator. She was probably aware of that herself, which most of us realize is why she chose to work with Noonan. The writer's other remarks, about women in general, seem to me to be a little severe even for the time. I interpret this as evidence that Earhart's gender may have predisposed him to believe, unfairly, that she was generally incompetent as a pilot, and more, fallen into the easy cliche of a powerless woman done in by the drunkenness of a man. My own opinion is that she wasn't incompetent as a pilot. She was a bright woman capable of independent thought and action but probably a mediocre aviator, average at best (history is replete with examples of this sort of thing). However, it is well understood that Earhart and Noonan were competent enough in their roles to fly for many hours over open ocean at least to the vicinity of Howland, which was not an easy thing to do. We now have new evidence about damage to their antenna system which may explain why they had communication problems when they arrived within radio range of Howland and the Itasca, which probably contributed to their inability to get a precise fix on the island, a mere speck in the vast, cloud dappled Pacific. My personal conclusion is that this letter is interesting as cultural history, but adds only to what we know about the rumours, not the facts, of the flight. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:47:21 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Take off photo Jim Dix wrote, >She may not have wanted to land that >flying gas tank even if she knew. She probably didn't know. The prop tips on that aircraft were very close to the cockpit windows, creating a very loud buzz, and the bumps and jolts of a fully loaded airplane from a grass runway may have been more than enough to mask any physical sensations. Finally, misaligned pitot tubes might not display IAS readings that are far enough in error to attract immediate attention. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 10:49:31 EDT From: Bill Leary Subject: Re: Port/Starboard Port and starboard are shipboard terms for left and right, respectively. Confusing those two could cause a ship wreck. In Old England, the starboard was the steering paddle or rudder, and ships were always steered from the right side on the back of the vessel. Larboard referred to the left side, the side on which the ship was loaded. So how did larboard become port? Shouted over the noise of the wind and the waves, larboard and starboard sounded too much alike. The word port means the opening in the "left" side of the ship from which cargo was unloaded. Sailors eventually started using the term to refer to that side of the ship. Use of the term "port" was officially adopted by the U.S. Navy by General Order, 18 February 1846. Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/trivia/trivia03.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:08:21 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Damaged pitots Attention: William Webster-Garman Photo analysis to date does seem to indicate damage to the pitot tubes, with a possible deleterious effect on subsequent air speed indication (but I'll leave that to the instrument guys to decide). One counter point; Elgen Long had a slow-motion print of the Sid Marshall take off film made, and said viewing that indicated the "puff of smoke" was actually two (one behind each propeller) that occurred when the Electra crossed a non-grassy patch on the runway. Which sounds reasonable, but I'm neutral on that. In any event - wire loss or not - the belly antenna was the "sense" antenna for the (separate) Bendix DF system, and would NOT affect the WE communications receiver (which used the topside "Vee". Now, to stave off cries of "prove it!" I (as a radio engineer) can only say that is the most logical arrangement. (Topside for transmit/receive, underside for the DF sense antenna, a necessary component of the Bendix gear). There are, of course, contrary theories that have little or no technical foundation and you WILL be hearing loud brays from their supporters! Cam Warren *************************************************************************** From Ric Elgen Long can see whatever he likes, but frame-by-frame analysis shows that there is one puff and it erupts very abruptly directly under the aft fuselage. The dust then swirls briefly in the propwash before dissipating. Your conviction that the belly antnna was the sense antenna for a hypothetical Bendix receiver is as well-established as your own admission that you can't prove it. The belly antenna was there long before there was any kind of DF receiver in the airplane. In fact, the belly antenna on the starboard side of the airplane is the ONLY antenna that remained unchanged throughout the aircraft's entire service life. The lead-in for that antenna goes into the fuselage directly under where the WE 20B receiver was located (from day one). If that antenna was not used for voice reception before the airplane had any DF capability, what WAS it used for? If it WAS used for voice reception, why would they change it? (And there's no visible evidence that they did.) We have an antenna that was almost certainly used for voice reception (at least at one time) that gets torn off an airplane that subsequently can't seem to receive voice transmissions, and you see these two conditions as logically unrelated? LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:10:31 EDT From: Margot Still Subject: Re: Directions for Dummies Bad news Dennis. First you spelled my name wrong. Second the jacket is a womens size small. And third, the back isn't white with "AFT" painted on it. Keep in mind, we all have our crosses to bear. LTM, MStill #2332CE ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:12:50 EDT From: Dan Postellon Subject: Re: The Brines Letter, Recordings Amanda wrote: <> I don't know about other uses, but until after World War 2, music was usually recorded on acetate or shellac disks, with an aluminum or glass backing. There were early Dictaphones, but I suspect most people used shorthand in the 1930's and 1940's instead of machine recordings. Daniel Postellon Tighar#2263 LTM (Who still has her old 78's) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:14:44 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: The Brines Letter I've found references for three books written by an AP correspondent/bureau chief named Russell Brines: Until they eat Bones (1944) MacArthur's Japan (1948) Both were published by Lippincott & Co (Philadelphia), and, The Indo-Pakistani Conflict (1968) Pall Mall (London) This is very likely the same Russell Brines who wrote the letter in Hawaii in 1937. ************************************************************************** From Ric That first one sounds interesting. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:15:54 EDT From: Peter Boor Subject: aviation/nautical terminology Re: Ship terminology to aircraft. Ric, don't forget how aircraft structure locations are designated even today: water lines, butt lines, and fuselage stations...PMB. #856C. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:18:26 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Survivor2 on Niku4 OK, so the Evil Queen won the Survivor contest and CBS is already planning Survivor 2. How about having them do it on Niku? Sure, the purists will complain about a bunch of neurotic, flabby, self-centered, angry, loutish, senile gold diggers with a combined IQ about six points higher than a carrot stomping all over Niku and messing up chances to find real evidence. But look at the up side of things, here. These numbies will do ANYTHING to win fame or an immunity card, right. OK, then how about a "Find the Airplane Engine" challenge? We simply have them dive as deep as they can for as long as they can looking for the engine in the waters in and around the island. And if one of them dies, well, that just adds drama to the show, plus it lessens the pressure on the contestants to vote someone off the island that week. Other challenges could be "Find Some Bones," or "Button, Button, Where Are the Buttons?" or even "Who Can Collect the Most Metal?" There are numerous other possibilities here, and I'm sure the Forum will pass them on. Just think of the advantage of having a 12-15 people on the island for up to 6 weeks doing our research for us all for FREE. CBS pays the transportation costs for the participants and camera crews, the contestants are responsible for their own food and lodging. We could even get some HMO to donate medical services -- for a fee, or course. I also think it would be a nice gesture for TIGHAR to give each of them an Earhart Project T-shirt I'm quivering with excitement! What do think, Ric? LTM, who loves a good challenge Dennis O. McGee, #0149EC *************************************************************************** From Ric I think we need to find you something to research. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:26:46 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: The Brines Letter I ferreted around on the internet for a while last night, but was unable to come up with anything more than my previous post on Brines. According to the Social Security Death Index, he apparently died in the mid-80's. Don't yet know his wife's name, so I don't know if she's still alive, and of course don't know if there were any children at this point. Univ of Florida may be able to help with that. Are there any Tighars in that area that could inquire? Otherwise I'll shoot off an email. About the letter - it's peculiar in a couple of regards. First, the fact that it is in Upper-upper case and Lower-upper case is interesting - it appears to me that the letter was printed on a teletype machine or copy-typewriter of some kind. (The PDF and the actual copies are visibly different, which I have found is not unusual with PDF files). The fact that it is on two sides of the same sheet (the bottom of the first sheet says "over") imply a typewriter. But at the top, there is obviously a line (and possibly the date) added by someone who apparently forwarded the letter to "Dick". It appears to be added using the same type of machine. And Brines' added line at the bottom is out of register with the rest of the letter, implying it was in fact added later. Also, his reference to holding the letter until the boat was leaving seems to further exclude the use of a teletype machine. The pencilled corrections and signature might or might not have been original to Brines, but under this theory, I'm guessing they are. The tone of the letter suggests that Brines was in Honolulu during "Amelia's bath", not on-site. More interesting is Brines' reference to knowing Fred. He references some of what a newshound might know - ie: navigation history - but stops way short of telling Dick that he and Fred are drinking buddies. No, I think he's basing what he's relating on the BS that's running through the hotel bars where the newshounds hang out. I suspect that he probably met Fred - once and briefly - after the crash on the first attempt, and that's the extent of it. Remember, this is before WW2, and Brines (who was born in 1911) is still a pup - and itching to get to China to cover the war between Japan and China. He apparently gets his wish - at least partly - because he was in Tokyo between '39 and '41 before he went to Manila. The references he makes in the letter to the Advertiser and the Star Bulletin are both contemporary to his time - the papers were both long established, even then (actually both were founded by the same guy - the Advertiser first, the Star Bulletin later), and both began publication in the late 1800's - so there's no fluke there. AP may be able to provide more info also. ltm, jon 2266 ************************************************************************** From Ric Good observations. If he had been in Hono since '35 he could have met Fred in the context of the Pan Am Clipper flights. The whole letter has the dismissive, somewhat arrogant, "insider" tone that seems to be an occupational disease among professional journalists. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 11:28:21 EDT From: Chris Kennedy Subject: Re: Damaged pitots For William Webster-Garman Seriously, don't worry about it. I had occassion recently to quote Winston Churchill's great line that "The only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them!". We're all in this together, and your's and Ric's photoanalysis work never ceases to amaze me at how much has now been found to, at a minimum, at least explain why the flight failed. --Chris Kennedy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 14:32:35 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Port and Starboard, off topic. The discussion re port and starboard, as applied to ships and aircraft, has been interesting and quite enjoyable. After reviewing the list of Nautical Terms and Phrases, I noted that the infamous term "BAM" as used in the Marine Corps, is missing. I think it was first used during WW II. I would be curious for additional input. LTM, Roger Kelley, 2112CE *************************************************************************** From Ric Let me guess. This was the sound made by the typical Marine's steel pot when he tried to exit a Higgin's boat before the ramp was lowered. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 14:41:29 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Earhart/Contingency plans Re: Reaching the Gilberts - I don't believe anybody has claimed AE/FN actually reached the Gilberts, but it is certainly within the realm of possibility they tried and splashed short (whether from fuel exhaustion or engine failure). Cam Warren *************************************************************************** From Ric Actually, the redoubtable Major Ed Dames posted a map on his Psytech website which pinpointed exactly where NR16020 had come down in the Gilberts. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 15:27:37 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Brines' letter Ric said: "The whole letter has the dismissive, somewhat arrogant, "insider" tone that seems to be an occupational disease among professional journalists." Arrrrgh! Hi, my name is Dennis McGee and I'm a recovering journalist . . . . On a on-topic note, I'm curious about Brines reference to "that Navy flying boat was nearly forced down by -- of all things -- the formation of ice and snow on the wings which made it almost too heavy to manage." This is the first time I've seen any reference to the Navy using flying boats in the Earhart search. Do you have anything that would expand on Brines' statement? Is this even in relation to the Earhart search? Ice and snow in the south Pacific in July? At high altitudes, maybe, but the flying boats (and all transports, for that matter) of that era pretty much stayed below 15,000 feet. LTM, who atones daily for past sins Dennis O. McGee #0149EC *************************************************************************** From Ric (Nothing personal Dennis. Feel free to call me anytime you get the urge to write something.) Ah, the oft neglected saga of "Patrol Plane 6-P-3." On the afternoon of July 2, 1937, Admiral Orin G. Murfin, Commandant of the 14th Naval District (Pearl Harbor) was faced with the problem of how to get search assistance to the Coast Guard at Howland Island as quickly as possible. He had already hijacked BB-45, the battleship USS Colorado, which just happened to be in Honolulu, but the ship had to retrieve its crew (now scattered all over town on liberty), retrieve its aircraft (now torn apart for inspection at Fleet Air Base), reposition from Pier #2 in Honolulu to Pearl for refueling, and steam for at least five days to get to Howland. Not exactly a 911 call. There was, however, one possible way to get help to Howland very quickly. The previous January, twelve of the Navy's brand new PBY-1 flying boats of VP-6F had arrived nonstop from San Diego, a 21 hour and 48 minute formation flight that set records and made headlines. Murfin decided to dispatch one of the new "big boats" to Howland search for Earhart. It was a tough call. There was fuel at Howland, originally intended for Earhart, but good weather information for the route was nonexistent and there was no protected water at Howland to land on (all PBYs were straight flying boats until the -5A amphibian was produced in 1939). The squadron leader, Lt. W.W. "Sid" Harvey, volunteered to command the aircraft himself and, at 7:21 P.M. that evening, Patrol Plane 6-P-3 took off with a crew of eight and headed south. Twelve hours later, at 7:10 A.M. on July 3rd, Fleet Air Base received the following message from 6-P-3: APPROXIMATE POSITION LAT 06-35 LONG 72-00. LAST TWO HOURS IN EXTREMELY BAD WEATHER BETWEEN ALTITUDE 2000 AND 12000 FEET SNOW SLEET RAIN ELECTRICAL STORMS. DAYLIGHT CONDITIONS LOOK EQUALLY BAD CLOUD TOPS APPEAR TO BE 18000 FEET OR MORE. AM RETURNING TO PEARL HARBOR NOW HAVE 900 GALLONS FULE ON BOARD. At 7:26 P.M. on July 3rd, the crew of 6-P-3 touched down on the same water they had left 24 hours and 5 minutes before after flying approximately 2, 570 nautical miles. Radio communication and navigation were reported to be flawless throughout the flight and the crew was highly praised. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 15:31:28 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: The Brines Letter Oops. I meant Brines, not Grimes. A simple typo. ************************************************************************* From Ric So Brines was working for NBC in 1937? Strange for a radio guy to later work in print. And why would he talk about competing with UP and the local papers? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 15:40:28 EDT From: Michael Holt Subject: Re: The Brines Letter I love Windows. Here I sit with both programs running, and I can read and write at the same time. In the days of typewriters, that was a lot more difficult. Speaking of typewriters, does anyone know anything about fonts? I do clearly recall this font being used on letters I used to handle; the letters were dated on the 40s. (I was the commissar of the engineering files for a power company, a long time ago. I handled letters typed as early as the 20s.) It'd really help to know when that font was first available. Regrettably, the nice old lady at the local IBM Selectric sales center is gone; she used to know all about this sort of thing. My impression, looking at the jpgs of the letter, is that they are carbon copies. The smudges are what I recall from carbons. There was a lot of that in the aforementioned files; some of the letters had been handled a lot. The reference to the airstrip being useless: was it acknowledged publicly that it was so? Or did the Navy (or someone) bill it as of military value? The references to Baker and his yacht, the General's trip and all the rest could probably be verified by a few minutes at the offices of a Honolulu newspaper. Unfortunately, right now I'm in Virginia (well, unfortunate for the purposes of the research). Funny thing is that I seem to recall reading at some point about the wedding of Alexander MacDonald and Elizabeth Peet. I'll ask the genealogists about that one. Ric's comment about the tone of it is exactly my feeling about it. The writer is arrogant and insensitive; I suppose that's a part of the persona of the work at the time. I agree with Jon's feeling that the writer was using the mythology rather than the reality of FN. What the letters says about FN suggests, to me, that it's all second-hand stuff. Apparently, from a reference to the recipient's comparative youth, the writer is a few years older; he would, of course, do what he could to impress the younger man. Overall, my feeling is that it's probably authentic. If it is a hoax, it's a well written one; all that extra data would be impressive. (Actually, I don't love Windows. It just does what I need to have done, right now.) LTM (who hand writes the important letters) Michael Holt ************************************************************************** From Ric The primary value of the airstrip at Howland was that an American civilian flight (i.e. AE) would use it thus enhancing U.S. claims of sovereignty over other Pacific islands that really did have some usefulness. As far as I can tell, nobody ever thought that the strip at Howland would be of any real use. Pan Am used only flying boats for long over-water flights. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 15:44:38 EDT From: David Osgood Subject: Controls I'm not a pilot, nor do I play one on TV. However, a pilot sitting in the port seat makes perfect sense considering that the engine and prop controls are situated in the middle of the cockpit. With most of the population right handed, I would prefer to operate these controls with the arm and hand with the greatest dexterity. Dave Osgood *************************************************************************** From Ric So far, so good. But in single seat aircraft the throttle, prop, and mixture controls are always on the left side of the cockpit and the stick or yoke is in the right hand. I've flown both and, although it takes a little getting used to, both ways quickly become "natural." Go figure. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 16:02:34 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Damaged pitots, etc. Ric says: >>Your conviction that the belly antenna was the sense antenna >>for a hypothetical Bendix receiver is as well-established as >>your own admission that you can't prove it. The belly >>antenna was there long before there was any kind of DF >>receiver in the airplane. In fact, the belly antenna on the >>starboard side of the airplane is the ONLY antenna that >>remained unchanged throughout the aircraft's entire service >>life. The lead-in for that antenna goes into the fuselage >>directly under where the WE 20B receiver was located (from >>day one). If that antenna was not used for voice reception >>before the airplane had any DF capability, what WAS it used >>for? If it WAS used for voice reception, why would they >>change it? (And there's no visible evidence that they did.) >>We have an antenna that was almost certainly used for voice >>reception (at least at one time) that gets torn off an >>airplane that subsequently can't seem to receive voice >>transmissions, and you see these two conditions as logically >>unrelated? I'm not sure you're the one to be lecturing about obsessive convictions, and we've long discussed your acute selectivity of data (clues, hints, hypotheses, whatever you wish to call them). For the record (hah!) there are some points you've artfully slid over. By your own admission, the antenna setup on the Electra, and the DF system, was changed more than once. When the topside "Vee" was installed, it's safe to say that became the primary communications antenna. The belly system at one time may have been employed for a marker beacon, or other purposes. I think you'll agree there were TWO parallel wires during the Honolulu trip, as shown in several photos. What were they for?? There was a Bendix DF system aboard on that abortive first leg, and it most certainly required a "sense" antenna (whether or not there was an RA-1 receiver as I - and others - believe). Gurr claims he installed a goofy narrow V on the belly at rebuild time, to provide SOME 500 kc capability after the trailing wire was removed, and a Lockheed work order confirms that intent. (You claim, perhaps correctly judging from your photo evidence, that that work was never actually done, although a countermanding work order has never surfaced. It doesn't really matter, since when she left Miami there was only a single starboard wire visible). Pan Am technicians, judging from testimony and press reports, DID rework the antenna system at Miami. Putnam reported to Mantz that "one wire was canceling out another" which sounds like the Gurr lashup. I strongly suspect an upgraded Bendix loop and coupler was installed at that time, providing HF/DF capability. No matter, for the sake of this discussion, since whether HF or LF/DF, a sense antenna WAS required, as a look at the "coupler" schematic will confirm. As for the lead-in, since we're talking a "receiving" antenna, the length and config- uration would not be critical, especially if the connection from coupler to antenna was a shielded wire. Such being the case, where was it? A vertical whip would have been ideal, but none such appears in any picture. The topside Vee? No way. That leaves the belly antenna, like it or not. I agree that might have been knocked off at Lae, but as I said, that would NOT affect 3105/6210 communications, which were handled by the WE receiver/transmitter and the topside antenna. (And yes, I'm well aware the WE receiver did have two antenna inputs, HF & LF. The former all that was necessary for her two comm frequencies). Earhart's inability to receive the ITASCA was due to another reason, and I've frequently cited Balfour as the culprit. (No, he didn't "recalibrate", he retuned from 6210 to 6540, and simultaneously upset 3105 capability, as I've previously explained.) And, save your breath, an underside antenna WAS used for - short range - communications "at least at one time", but that time was very early in the game. As for the statement "[by] your own admission that I can't prove it" you can apply the "duck test" (if it walks like a duck . . . . ). If you expect yards of slack for your Niku "proof", you should be willing to demand something less than total airtight testimony in other areas. Cam Warren ************************************************************************** From Ric After our incessant discussions about our need to find the "smoking gun" or "any-idiot-artifact" it baffles me that you would allege that we "expect yards of slack." This forum, and our entire investigation, operates on a rigorous (some might say merciless) system of peer review. You have made your case for a Bendix RA-1 and a Balfour screw-up several times and I have the impression that you're still the only one who considers those points to be proven. That would seem to leave three possibilities; 1. Everyone on the forum is a mindless sycophant who will agree with anything I say. 2. You're simply a lot smarter than any of us. 3. You're probably wrong. Life is full of choices. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:06:23 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: The Brines Letter > From Michael Holt > My impression, looking at the jpgs of the letter, is that they are > carbon copies. The smudges are what I recall from carbons. If they are carbon's then it seems that they may have come from the originator's files and not the recipients. Frank Westlake ************************************************************************** From Ric However, at the top of the first page it says, "The enclosed letter just came in so I'm sending it to you this way." Such a notation would, of course, not be on the originator's copy. It would appear that there is a third, unnamed party involved. My guess is that this is a carbon of a transcription of the original letter that was sent out to "Richard" (who may have been on assignment somewhere) by a coworker via teletype. "..I'm sending it to you this way" is a reference to it being "forwarded" via teletype. The original letter could have been handwritten. The copy of the transcription probably comes to us via the third party. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:14:13 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Damaged pitots, etc. "You're simply a lot smarter than any of us." Well, you said it, and modesty compels me to refrain from agreeing too loudly! "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus . . . " As Albert Einstein once said: "Great Spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" But my personal favorite, attributed to Will Rogers, but probably first suggested by Socrates or one of his contemp- oraries: "We're all of us ignorant, only about different things". Cam Warren ************************************************************************* From Ric Thanks for clearing that up. When you and Chris and Albert and Will and Socrates find some proof that your speculation is supported by any facts be sure and bring them to the attention of our mediocre minds. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:16:04 EDT From: David Evans Katz Subject: teletypewriters In re the "teletype style" of the Brines letter, I recall (in college -- early 1970's) using an old (circa 1930) "typewriter" in my college financial aid office that typed only in "small caps". I was told that it was a hand-me-down from the Journalism Department that had gotten it from the Boston Herald. Apparently, it was used by journalists for clarity (avoiding the use of serif typeface that could possibly lead to confusion in typesetting). An interesting feature of the machine (it was electric powered), was that the case spacing was variable, that is, an "M" would be wider than an "I" and, hence, take up more space on the line. This caused the characters of parallel lines not to line up exactly (except at the left margin). I can't swear the vintage of the machine or its background as I was told its age and provenance by someone in the office who only appeared to know what he was talking about. David Evans Katz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:16:43 EDT From: David Evans Katz Subject: BAM In re "BAM", it was a term that Marines applied to women auxiliary members of the Corps: "Broad Ass Marines". The BAMs' retort was to call Marines "HAMs" for "Hairy...." David Evans Katz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:18:55 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: The Brines Letter As I said, this is from memory that Brines worked for NBC. I'll have to double-check that...it is in the CD if you are interested in looking. The stink he made to either the Comdt. Coast Guard or CNO had something to do with getting interviews...I'll look and report back. ************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks. When I get a minute I'll dig around in the CD and see what I can find. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:30:20 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: The Brines Letter It sounds like Mr Brines did some "mellowing" after the war . I seem to recall hearing, back in my professional radio days when I asked questions about an ancient and still functioning AP teletype in the back room, that some of those old teletypewriters could be used not only to receive text, but to send it (or simply type onto a piece of paper). When I saw the image of the letter, I thought of that possibility. Journalists did jump around between radio and print in the late 30s. I cite the case of William Schirer, who worked for a couple of different newspapers and broadcasters until he settled down with CBS. william 2243 *************************************************************************** From Jon Watson On a hunch I tried a search on both MacDonald and Peet - with no success. Actually, due to the familiar tone, I suspect they may have been collegues of Brines and Dick - people they both knew. After all, what would Dick know about the social scene in Honolulu. Of course this is not the same as Brines lamenting his poor fortunes in affairs of the heart...obviously he didn't marry until later... I too thought the smudges looked like carbon paper traces - maybe Brines kept copies of his correspondence. Also, just for interest, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, General Drum was commander of the Eastern Defense Command (that is, on the East coast of the continental US). I was also interested in the language relating to the hanging. Brines says "...is supposed to be hung [sic] Thursday, the 5th." August 5th 1937 was in fact a Thursday, but if the letter was composed on August 3rd, as reflected in the date, why didn't he say "Thursday" or "this Thursday", or "day after tomorrow"? No, I think the letter was written during July, sent off on the boat, and that the date was added when the letter got off the boat and was picked up at the (maybe??) San Francisco, San Diego or LA offices of AP (on August 3) and forwarded along to Dick, who was apparently known to the local bureau office. If you look, the margins of the header are out of register with the letter, and the date is in register with the header. (I disagree that Brines was a radio reporter. While there might be an outside chance that he moonlighted for another syndicate, I doubt it). ltm, jon 2266 *************************************************************************** From Ric I agree. I think that the date was probably added at the time the letter arrived in LA or San Francisco and was transcribed for teletype transmission. *************************************************************************** From Randy Jacobson I looked at my databases, and Brines was the AP correspondent in Honolulu. He sent a telegram to Carey, the AP reporter aboard the Itasca, informing him that the CG wants all AE message traffic released (this was about the 4th of July). Carey responded that the Capt. was going to send the messages to CGHQ in DC, and have the AP guys there get the info from CGHQ. There was a NBC correspondent who sorta didn't look too good, but it wasn't Brines. Hope this clarifies things, and is yet another reason why no one should rely entirely upon memories. *************************************************************************** From Ric Excellent. Now we know who Brines was and how he fit into the picture. It would be nice to know how he "knew Fred." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:31:16 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Damaged pitots For Chris Kennedy, Thanks, Chris. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 09:36:44 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Sitting on the left > From Ric > > Propeller torque (technically "P-Effect") is a factor in airplanes but I > don't see it influencing where the pilot sits. I do if it made a powered approach in a very lightly loaded aircraft (the old rag, wood 'n' wire jobs) easier to turn in one direction. If the pilot had to fight prop torque on each leg of a circuit, I can see him/her making a left hand / right hand circuit standard. Having said that, some aircraft with rotary (NOT radial) engines had a massive torque problem in the opposite direction due to the mass of the rotating cylyinders and stationary crank! Considering most of the very early aircraft had huge props and under powered engines, it makes me wonder... All the single engine aircraft I fly have props rotating clockwise viewed from the pilot's seat. that would mean the engine torque would tend to bank the a/c left. BUT... None of the aircraft I fly (not often enough lately) have any sort of torque problem that I've been able to feel, except on takeoff - and that's more wind ofer the tail that engine torque I think. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:01:32 EDT From: Max Standridge Subject: finding/guarding things Ric wrote; "The study of folklore is a well-established (and fascinating) academic field." Also, the study of guarded hangars, with little men. There are a number of fellows who have reported guarding those. Always uncorroborated. Always uncorroborable. Dates of being in the area don't match up, service records don't match up. And, of course, "the area" itself would be--where? If I told you I regularly helped Santa load his sleigh a few years back, would it help? You'd need me to have a CURRENT in with Santa to be of any use to you, right?-- LTM, who doesn't find, keep or guard things strange to her, Max Standridge ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:04:09 EDT From: Dan Postellon Subject: Re: BAM I thought everyone knew that this referred to a female Marine. Dan Postellon Tighar#2263 LTM (Who had a BA herself!) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 10:21:24 EDT From: Tom Van Hare Subject: Re: finding/guarding things Max Standridge wrote: > Also, the study of guarded hangars, with little men. There are a > number of fellows who have reported guarding those. Always > uncorroborated. Always uncorroborable. Dates of being in the > area don't match up, service records don't match up. And, > of course, "the area" itself would be--where? I don't recall if I once before mentioned this to the forum, but some years back, in the days when I was serving as a White House appointee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, I encountered one of the Area 51 Fanatics. The short version of this story goes like this: The UFO believer railed at me about Area 51 and reported aliens (yeah, right).... So, I told him, "It isn't true what they say about Area 51, there are no aliens there." Then, feeding his paranoia, I went on, "But don't ask me about Area 50, or 49, or 48...." You should have seen how big his eyes got! You know, I don't even know why the number 51 was selected for that location. LTA (love to aliens), Thomas Van Hare ************************************************************************** From Ric As I recall it had something to do with federal land allocation divsions on old maps. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 12:06:20 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: The Brines Letter > From Ric > My guess is that this is a carbon of a transcription of the > original letter that was sent out to "Richard" (who may have > been on assignment somewhere) by a coworker via teletype. Could be, but there are a couple things that make me think not. 1) On page two, the word Kahoolawe is spelled incompletely twice then written in by hand. I would assume that if it is a transcription that the transcriber would be immediately able to get the originators spelling and make the correction in type. The fact that the complete spelling is handwritten in is more consistent with the author not knowing how to spell the word, continuing to type the letter, and later checking the spelling and writing it in. Perhaps the meaning of the proofreaders mark (x) will add something to this, it isn't in my Harbrace so I don't know. 2) As Jon Watson notes, the last line is out of register with the rest of the letter. This indicates a separate activity and possibly a different machine. 3) There is a hand-scribed signature at the end. Three isn't a couple so I guess I can't count. Frank Westlake ************************************************************************** From Ric I see your point. It may be that only the date and the header were added by the third party. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 09:10:18 EDT From: Kathy Gire Subject: Port/Starboard My father, who twice served on active duty with the US Navy, taught me how he learned the difference between "port" and "starboard." This was his saw: PORT IS WINE, IT'S RED, "R" FOR RIGHT, ONLY IT'S NOT. I kid you not; I still go through that rigamarole every time I use the terms. At least no one mentioned the upper crust sailing to India bit: Port out, starboard home....anacronym POSH. Kathy Gire ************************************************************************* From Ric Ohhhh yes. That base was covered. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 09:12:27 EDT From: Hugh Graham Subject: Re: Damaged pitots, etc. We must keep open-minded. Very little of what we discuss on the forum is proven. Don't mistake silence for concurrence. Cam's hypothesis is possible and logical. I still find it hard to believe that FN, knowing that he had to have Radio Direction Finding to locate that speck(Howland) in the Pacific, would fly off for 2500 miles, entrusting his life to one radio receiver whose tube filaments were being rattled by two R1340's in the L10E. And there is a #4--- We are all wrong. LTM, HAG 2201. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 09:14:01 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Re: BAM Oops, gotta confess. BAM was a set up. Just wanted to see what type of response might be generated in today's day and age. BAM is an acronym for Broad Ass Marine and refers to Women Marines. It originated during WW II when women first entered the Marine Corps. When I enlisted in the Marine Corps in January, 1963, the term BAM was openly used by both male and female Marines. It was not uncommon to hear officers refer to females as WM's but BAM was most commonly used. It was not considered or interpreted, as uncomplimentary. In today's modern, politically correct Corps, the term BAM, if even so much as uttered under your breath, constitutes a disciplinary offense. Sigh...... Yea, and I gotta give Ric credit for the best response. LTM, (Who now humbly requests forgiveness, without accountability, from all of those who may have been offended.) Roger Kelley ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 09:15:59 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Off-topic torque This posting is off topic but may provide insight into problems produced by engine torque. During the past year I have re-discovered several WW II military crash sites in Southern California. Three of these incidents had several things in common. 1. All three crashes involved Lockheed P-38 Lightnings. 2. All three pilots had less than 100 hours in type. 3. All three Lightnings suffered catastrophic engine failure in the left (port) engine. 4. Two of the Lightnings were at an altitude of 400 ft or less, at the onset of the incident. Both Lightnings, upon suffering engine failure, entered an abrupt "torque roll"produced by the right (starboard) engine. Both Lightnings rolled to the left and impacted the ground inverted. One Lightning had just become air born following take off. The second Lightning was on final approach for landing, approximately one mile from the threshold. Both pilots were killed on impact. 5. In the third incident, upon failure of his left, (port) engine, the pilot managed to maintain directional control and stability as he descended from approximately 9,000 feet to 4,000 feet. At approximately 4,000 feet altitude, the Lightning departed controlled flight and entered a "flat spin" from which the pilot was unable to recover. The pilot exited his Lightning, fell along side the rotating aircraft and pulled his rip cord. His parachute streamed but was caught by the right (starboard) vertical stabilizer of the rotating aircraft. The Lightning continued to descend in a flat spin until impact with the ground, taking the pilot to his death. Engine torque is deadly. LTM, (who prefers to investigate historic crash sites and not participate in the original event.) Roger Kelley, #2112CE ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 09:18:20 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: AE in custody << From Ric I've often suspected that many of the alleged (but never produced) photos of Earhart and Noonan with Japanese soldiers were actually pictures of white missionaries taken into custody. Husband/wife and brother/sister teams were not uncommon. >> I've been reading Sir Harry Luke's "From a South Seas Diary," and it's striking how many references there are to female nurses, missionaries, teachers, etc. on various islands in the Gilberts, Solomons, Fiji, etc. The same was doubtless the case in the Japanese mandated islands; we know there were German missionaries, but I don't think anybody's looked into their demographics. <> And the Earhart stories would be an interesting dissertation topic for some budding folklorist. I wonder if we could get someone interested..... TK ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 09:22:56 EDT From: Patrick Gaston Subject: Between rounds While Warren and Gillespie are being attended to in their respective corners, allow me a couple observations: Cam's theory does, at least, provide a logical explanation as to the purpose of the belly antenna. Obviously its function differed from that of the "vee"; otherwise, why take it along? However, for the benefit of us non-radioheads I would ask Cam to explain what a "sense" antenna does and how it interfaces with the loop for DF purposes. Re the Brines letter: The font is remarkable chiefly for the fact that it's composed of large and small caps, i.e., there are really no "lower-case" letters. The capitals are identical to the body type, just a point or two bigger (72 points to the inch). It looks awfully similar to the typeface used on the old, hand-keyed teletype machines. In fact, I would swear it's off a teletype except for the fact that the writer apparently used both sides of the page and added a couple of lines later. I suppose one >could< type a letter on a teletype machine (after disconnecting the phone line so your letter doesn't go out on the AP wire), but re-inserting the paper to type on the other side, or add a line here and there, would be tricky business since these machines were fed from a continuous roll. Also, the top and bottom edges would be ragged where the page had been ripped off -- hence the old radio news term, "rip 'n' read." The smudges look more to me like ink erasures on cheap paper, which is exactly the type of paper -- newsprint cut into typewriter-sized sheets -- that journalists were supplied with in the pre-computer era. The proofreading marks also are consistent with newspaper usage, especially the line above deletions. Agree completely with WWG: The Lae takeoff film conclusively refutes the "Fred-was-drunk" rumor. If the alert, chipper fellow depicted on the film was coming off a King Hell bender, then I only wish I could hold my liquor as well! Re the Gilberts: I don't recall that Dustymiss ever finished her work in the Vidal archives. I remember a couple of posts to the effect that she hadn't found anything yet, but was still looking. Did I miss the wrapup? It doesn't seem likely that Doris Rich simply concocted such a reference out of thin air. Hmmm. Maybe the real Box 19 is somewhere in Area 51 .... LTM (who isn't ready to give up on the Gilberts just yet), Pat Gaston ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 10:08:47 EDT From: Leslie G. Kinney Subject: Lae Takeoff Film Clip This is my first post. I have been extremely interested in the disappearance of AE since 1966 when I had a supervisor tell me that he investigated her disappearance in Saipan. From that time I have read every book published, gone through documentation at many archival locations, and had the good fortune to travel to many of the remote islands of the South Pacific on business -always carrying with me constant thoughts of what ever happened to her. With that said, I certainly appreciate the efforts of TIGHAR in sharing and keeping the spirit of AE alive. I analyzed the Lae takeoff film 100's of time, using slow motion, triple enlargement, and stop action. I come up with some opinions which I have not seen posted. If they have been, I apologize. Here of some of my observations concerning the film: 1) It appears the film clip is actually a combination of two clips. I am sure everyone noticed the breaks in the different shots which could normally be attributed to the camera being turned off and on - at the least maybe the film had to be spliced - but - the close-up which starts three seconds after the title heading shows FN and AE climbing up on the wing to proceed toward the forward hatch. This shot is a close-up. It is then proceeded by a quick shot of FN walking toward the camera away from the plane. 13 seconds into the clip after the heading, we again see FN helping AE onto the wing and proceed toward the cockpit. HOWEVER, THIS IS SHOT FROM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ANGLE, AND SEVERAL FEET FURTHER AWAY THEN THE SHOT THREE SECONDS INTO THE FILM. There is no plausible explanation to my knowledge how this could have occurred if the same camera was used. 2) The shot of AE and FN next to the rear hatch door which opens the film shows AE's scarf flutter in the breeze for about 1/3 of a second indicating a breeze of maybe 6 knots. 3) Again In the opening clip following the title, for only approximately 2.5 seconds, AE and FN are standing in front of the cargo hatch door. It is very obvious from an enlargement of this clip, FN is wearing either a white shirt and light colored slacks with a tie on. By the way he appears to have a package of cigarettes in shirt pocket with the darker round emblem showing through - it looks like Lucky Strikes 4) Later in the clip, with FN climbing on the wing, and slightly later, walking toward the camera he is certainly wearing a entirely different darker shirt, and a different pair of slacks then what has been observed in the first clip at three seconds. While climbing the wing he has a tie on - but the shot of him walking toward the camera appears to show him not wearing a tie. 5) In the first shot of FN and AE climbing on the wing and toward the cockpit ( about 3.5 seconds after the title) AE is positively carrying a piece of paper or an envelope in her left hand as she approaches the cockpit. In the second shot of the two climbing the wing at 13 seconds after the title, AE is no longer carrying the piece of paper in her left hand. 6) The shadows of the pair, seen against the fuselage, climbing the wing toward the cockpit are at different angles then the shadows seen at them climbing into the cockpit at 13 seconds into the film. 7) The shadows of the natives surrounding the aircraft in the pan scene are at least half the length of their bodies which leads me to believe this shot was either taken very earlier in the morning or later in the day. It also appears the aircraft is parked at an entirely different angle based on the shadows then the shots showing the shadows of AE and FN as they climb the wing toward the fuselage. Please notice a white male facing the aircraft who also appears to be shooting movie film with a camera. ( I wonder where that fim might be) 8) Since it is known AE made a test flight of approximately 30 minutes the preceding day, it is entirely possible, though not probable the flight of the aircraft shown in the film was taken the day before she actually departed for Howland. Although the aircraft appears heavy, it appeared the aircraft certainly was above the runway at the end of the clip holding steady about five feet without dipping - which possibly could lead one to say maybe this was the test flight and not the flight on July 1 per eyewitness accounts of her dipping below the runway. If this has all been postulated before - I apologize, if not, I open it up to discussion. Leslie G. Kinney ************************************************************************** From Ric Excellent observations and not previously discussed. The tape we have is a dub made from a 16 mm movie print that has since been lost. If we had the print we could possibly tell if the cuts were edits or just sequential clips. Either way, it's certainly possible that the first boarding of the airplane was the July 1st test flight and the second boarding was the July 2nd departure. The test flight was made early in the morning and that could explain the long shadows in the opening shot. It's also perfectly possible tha t all the film was taken on the morning of July 2nd. In preparing for a long flight there can be many enterings and exitings of the aircraft and the machine can be moved around for various purposes (for example, to top off the tanks). If there really is a change of clothing by Fred (beyond just the removal of his tie) that's harder to explain. If the takeoff seen in the film is actually the test flight with a much lighter fuel load (654 imperial gallons lighter, according to Chater) than was carried on July 2nd, it's hard to see how they could have gotten off the ground at all for the Howland departure. Then there's also the question of the antenna damage we can see in the film and still photo. No one mentions any such incident on the test flight. It seems safe to accept that the film shows the July 2nd takeoff. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 10:11:24 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Off-topic torque The P-38 with it's contra-rotating(opposite spin direction) props made it a potentially deadly airplane to it's operator as well as it's adversary. Since this is off-topic I won't get into the specifics. Doug Brutlag #2335 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 10:40:22 EDT From: Mike E. the Radio Historian Subject: Two receivers? Ric, please allow me to point out a potential flaw in your argument. Merely because the antenna lead from the belly antenna entered the fuselage "directly beneath" where the WE-20B receiver was located, does not mean the antenna was CONNECTED to that receiver... does it? I'll have to go out on a limb here, and may get sawed off it... but until some further and concrete proof is discovered, my position on this matter of radio receivers is: SHE HAD TWO. Yes, I am speculating here; but so were you... please follow this argument. Just think on this... if the one-and-only communications receiver aboard went out, they would have NO communications. Also, if the comm receiver was occupied in DF duties on some frequency other than the one on which they were transmitting, or the one on which they were listening for replies, they would likewise have NO communications. This equipment was too cumbersome to operate, to expect that the operators would be constantly cranking back and forth between frequencies. The "frequency resettability" of this radio was marginal at best... what I mean by this is, the dial accuracy (innacuracy?) and the backlash in the tuning mechanism (a tach shaft) made it very awkward to find the exact same spot on the dial every time you changed freqs and returned to the last one. Remember, this involved not only cranking the tuning knob, but switching bands. A very time consuming procedure. I am not convinced beyond a shadow of doubt, of course, that this a/c had two receivers aboard... but to NOT have a backup, or NOT to have a separate d/f rig when you know how vital this is to success, is just plain foolhardy. I don't care how much that "Bendix receiver" weighs, either. I have not looked at the Bendix info at my disposal in some time (it is in a library) but I seem to recall that the "coupler box" was used with the Bendix RA-1 (etc) receiver because the RA-1 did not actually have a "loop antenna" input nor a differential amplifier, self contained. I think the later RA-2 addressed this issue with all circuitry internal, if I am not mistaken (and I may be, without referring to my sources which are elsewhere). Of course the other side of some of this is, that the complications of using one radio receiver for two different purposes on widely divergent frequencies generated so many comm-FUBARs that they never heard anything from the Itasca anyway... and that is easy to believe, given the nature of the equipment. 73 Mike E. *************************************************************************** From Ric My respectful rebuttal: Your entire argument for a second receiver seems to come down to the observation that it would be foolhardy not to have one. I think that you would agree that it was foolhardy for Earhart and Noonan to embark upon such a flight without being able to send and receive morse code competently. Her ducking of the government requirement to pass a test in radio navigation also seems foolhardy. You might also agree that it was foolhardy to deprive the aircraft of it's ability transmit effectively on 500 kcs by eliminating the trailing wire, or to allow Joe Gurr to compromise the aircraft's ability transmit on 3105 and 6210 by lengthening the dorsal vee. How foolhardy was it to depart on a flight that depended upon successful use of DF after an unsuccessful test of that equipment? I think that if we've established anything about Earhart and the role of airborne radio on her World Flight it's that her technical knowledge was minimal, her attitude was cavalier, and her record of successful use of her radios was abysmal. I'll have to dig out the actual quote, but before leaving Miami she was asked if she'd be using her radio to stay in touch with ground stations along the way. Her reply was something like, "No. I plan to use my receiver mostly for taking bearings." Would she be foolhardy to take only one receiver? You betcha. Is there any evidence that she took only one receiver? Yes, lots. Is there any evidence that she took more than one receiver? Not that I've seen. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 10:40:43 EDT From: Mike E. the Radio Historian Subject: Re: The Brines Letter, Recordings It's a bit off topic but let me add two cents' worth. I have seen something called an "Ediphone" in photos of offices from the 1930s... it uses cylinders for recording and playback, very like the cylinders used in the first record players made by Thomas Edison. Perhaps "Ediphone" is a clue to the manufacturer. Most of the pix I have seen show a secretary at a desk, typing a dictated letter while wearing a huge set of "cans" (headphones) like those used by radio operators of the time (those girls must have raised cain about what those phones did to their hair doo's!) At any rate, such a device would be far more suited to shipboard use, since the arm and recording head of a disc recorder would have a tendency to "skate" across the disc because of the rolling motion of a ship... this is NOT to say that I believe ANY sort of recording device was all that common aboard merchant ships of the day (I have never seen references that indicate it was, though some may indeed have had them... it'd take a lot of cylinders to continuously record message traffic for even 24 hours). 73 Mike E. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 10:41:54 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Flight To Anywhere In case this might interst anyone, I recently finished "Flight To Anywhere" by Mark Farmer, a former professional flight navigator who crewed the M-130's that flew the Pan Am China Clipper routes. It is a fascinating compilation of the life a of professional navigator who was there and lived the life of an aviator in the 1930's to the present. Page 57 talks briefly about AE & FN and his opinion of the disaster. I don't normally look to advertise things on the forum, but this book gives an accurate(I believe) and fascinating perspective on the problems and hazards faced by the famed duo. It can be ordered by contacting: Coral Reef Group, P.O. Box 2299, Yountville, CA 94599. $14.95 + shipping. I look forward to Jerry's upcoming interview with Mr. Farmer on the forum. Doug Brutlag #2335 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 10:43:11 EDT From: Mike E. the Radio Historian Subject: Re: The Brines Letter For what it may be worth, re the upper-case typing... Years ago, AP and UPI press copy (from the Teletype machine) used in broadcast stations and news rooms was in all-caps, because the machines only had upper-case. I am referring here to the Teletype Model 14, 15 and 19 machines. The Model 15RO -- receive only -- Page Printer was the universal device in radio stations until the early 70s, when the services switched to the Extel digital printers. The 14-15-19 were "5-bit" machines using 5 bits per character "byte." They were, basically, 1920 technology, too. (The 14 was the "tape" or "strip" printer using gummed tape which was stuck to telegram blanks etc.) 8-bit "bytes" came with the dawning of the digital computer age in the 50s. MY POINT: MANY OLD TIME NEWSIES (COPY WRITERS) IN RADIO STATIONS TYPED THEIR STUFF IN ALL CAPS, BECAUSE THE JOCKS (DJ'S) WERE USED TO READING IT THIS WAY, SAME AS ON THE TELETYPE. IT IS EASIER.... So to observe all-caps typing in this letter may be a hallmark of authenticity. LTM (who always capitalizes "Teletype" because it is a registered trademark) and 73 Mike E. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 10:57:18 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Speaking Engagements/Lecture Circuit Any plans to go on the lecture circuit or speaking engagements for Niku IV over the next year? Doug Brutlag #2335 *************************************************************************** From Ric I wish that "the lecture circuit" was something you could get on like an Amtrak Metroliner, but it's not. I could spend all my time doing free talks to Rotary Clubs and EAA chapters (been there, done that) and the net benefit is less than zero. For several years now, our policy has been that I will do speaking engagements, slide shows, song and dance acts, whatever, for $3,500 plus expenses. I typically get one or two gigs per year. To do a real "circuit" you need an agent to get bookings, and to get a good agent you have to be seen as a "hot (or at least warm) property". Last time I tried to interest an agent (several years ago) I was apparently pereceived to be about as warm as yesterday's roadkill. Maybe it's different now. If anybody has a brother-in-law in the business let me know. I play a mean concertina. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 12:21:35 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: ANTENNA Seems like you're getting tangled up in your own shoelaces. If you wish to cling to your theory, it's all right with me, but don't pass it off as gospel. Well, I'll try to remain patient. We've scored one point at least; you agree there was a Bendix loop AND COUPLER aboard for Honolulu. And most likely it was an MN-5. * The coupler requires external power; where did it come from? Ric answers: Why couldn't it come from the same power source that drove the reciver and transmitter? The coupler was specifically designed and marketed for use with "conventional receivers." * The coupler requires a sense antenna to properly function. Ric answers: Is there any reason that the belly antenna could not serve as both the receiving antenna and the sense antenna? * We have photographic evidence showing Bendix rep Carl Remmlein showing an RA-1 prototype to Manning & Earhart. (Ric answers: So? ) * Anecdotal evidence indicates Remmlein flew west with a production model RA-1 to be installed on the Electra. Remmlein accompanied AE to Oakland on a test flight to check the system. (Ric answers: Anecdotal evidence also indicates that cameras were installed in the Electra's nose and the engines were replaced with more powerful ones. Earhart anecdotes are like Bible passages. You can find one to support any position you want to take.) * Elgen Long obtained a photo from Pan Am technician Ralph Sias - taken at Miami - which shows a Bendix receiver remote control mounted in the Electra cockpit. Long has other Sias photos taken at the same time, mostly of the plane exterior, etc. and has promised me copies. I believe him. (Ric answers: Believe what you like. I've yet seen no evidence - other than anecdote - that the Silas photo was taken in Miami or that the box in the photo is a Bendix product. It most definitely DOES NOT resemble the Bendix RA-1 remote pictured in the March 1937 issue of Aero Digest.) * Paul Rafford, Capt. Al Grey, Jim Donahue (based on information provided by Bendix design engineer Vernon Moore) agree there was an RA-1 (or pre-production model) installed in the Earhart Electra. (Ric answers: You're in good company. Rafford believes the flight went by way of Nauru. Al Grey said that the WE 20B was replaced, not supplemented, by a Bendix RA-1, but provides no evidence at all to support that. Donohue argues that the entire World Flight was a massive intelligence mission and maintains that the picture of Gardner we know as the Lambrecht Photo was actually taken by Earhart.) * As previously explained, the RA-1 and the Bendix DF were a natural and logical match. With some insight into Vince Bendix, I doubt he'd agree to mixing his gear with Western Electric's. (Ric answers: An odd opinion given that the Bendix loop and coupler were specifically marketed as being compatible with "any standard radio receiver.") * There's no logical reason to use a short belly antenna for reception when a 40' topside wire was available. (Ask your favorite radio guru!) (Ric answers: There was an even longer wire available - the trailing wire - at a time when it seems quite clear that the belly wire was being used for reception. Earhart did lots of things that seem illogical today, and may have been illogical even then.) So, no sworn affidavits, no detailed pictures, sorry to say, but most any reasonable person would see the logic of my position. Finally: You state "the [WE] receiver was fine . . ." That's the sort of statement you deride if anyone else said something similar. You DO NOT know it was "fine", Mr. Gillespie! (Ric answers: Would you be upset if I said her WE transmitter was working fine? Probably not - but what if she had a second Bendix transmitter aboard? I say that her WE receiver was fine because we know that she recieved the A's on 7500 just fine and, as far as we know, the only reciever she had was the one she said she had.) But yes, if - which ever receiver she was using - was connected to the loop and was tuned to 3105 (or 6210, or 500 kc) she would have heard a signal. (Ric answers: And if she tuned her receiver to 7500 and switched to the loop for the first time in the flight, she would have heard a signal for the first time. And if, upon failing to get a minimum, she switched back to the missing belly antenna, she would have again heard nothing.) End of explanation, politely rendered. Believe it or not. Cam Warren ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 12:33:02 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Electra's Belly Antenna There is a color photo of an Electra Model 12 in Walter Boyne's recent (1998) Lockheed history "Beyond the Horizons." The Model 12 in the photo is equipped with a short belly antenna, and a V antenna above the cockpit. Also a RDF antenna in a fairing over the cockpit. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric Welcome back Janet. Yes, those are relatively modern antennas on an airplane in relatively recent service. Any relevance to the present discussion escapes me. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 12:34:54 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: AE in custody The Japanese interned many caucasian females for the duration of the war. At least dozens, probably more than 100. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 12:35:57 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: The Brines Letter Mike E. is correct, all caps in radio copy (text to be read on the air) was absolutely the standard throughout most of this century (still the 20th ), and the format of the Brines letter does add somewhat to its credibility (although I doubt Mr Brines would be proud to know that it has surfaced 63 years after it was written). All caps are far, far easier for a harried announcer or DJ to "rip and read". william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 12:36:59 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Lae Takeoff Film Clip I don't see any evidence in the clip that it was taken on any date other than July 2, except for the single, very brief and obviously posed shot of the pair at the very opening (where FN is wearing a white shirt). Everything else seems to record a sequence events leading up to the take-off that morning. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 13:04:18 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Electra Jr. Photo in "Beyond the Horizons" The photo appears to be a Lockheed publicity photo taken about 1937 or 1938, judging from the models' clothing. Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean by a "vee antenna over the cockpit." Is it a free-standing antenna in the shape of a vee or is it a mast with wires going back to the vertical fins? The Model 12 was introduced in 1936. A color advertising photo sounds more like 1939 or later, but I'm not sure about that. I still don't see what the photo has to do with Earhart. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 15:02:11 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Bendix DF Loop & Associated Equipment According to the radio tech books from the late 1930s, the Bendix DF loops would work with non-Bendix receivers. The Bendix DF equipment included the DF loop, a "loop amplifier" to raise the signal level and to match the loop antenna to the receiver, an antenna switching unit using electric relays, and a control unit. Possibly other components. Something called the IN-2A Left-Right indicator was available. From the schematic of the Bendix antenna switching unit, it appears there was an antenna that was NOT the loop DF antenna and this antenna was connected to the receiver when the relays were NOT energized. Meaning when the DF loop wasn't being used. "Beyond the Horizons" is available at Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc. Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric Yes Janet. This is not new information. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 15:16:30 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Re: Between rounds I agree with Patrick Gaston that Doris Rich would not deliberately mislead the reader with a cite that doesn't exist re the Vidal remarks that AE intended to head for the Gilberts if she ran low on gas and couldn't find Howland. Is Dustymiss still around and verify her search at the University of Wyoming,Vidal Collection. And that collection may also indicate secondary choices after the Gilberts,ie the Phoenix. If DustyMiss can't be reached I'll volunteer to check the U of Wyoming LTM, Ron Bright *************************************************************************** From Ric Dustymiss's examination of Box 19 at U of W found Rich's citation to be in error. If you'd like to go and look for yourself, that would be great. Since my credibility seems to be in question in representing her findings, I offer, below, Dusty's complete and very detailed posting from October 18, 1999. As you'll see, she does not claim to have examined the entire collection and hopes to look at more, but it's clear that Rich provided an inaccurate citation and the alleged Vidal quote remains unsubstantiated. I do not believe that Doris Rich had any intention to mislead in this instance any more than she meant to mislead when she said that Earhart departed Lae at 10:20 local time or that AE began her 1932 transatlantic flight from Nova Scotia. It's just a sloppy book. LTM, Ric ************************************************************************** From Dustymiss Greetings - It was suggested that Amelia might have told Gene Vidal in a letter of a "Plan B" she would use in case she did not find Howland Island. And it was suggested by Jerry Hamilton in connection with the Nooan Project that I get in touch with the University of Wyoming because they have a collection of Gene Vidal's papers and the letters and the "Plan B" letter might be located in Box 19. I got in touch with Dan in the Collections Department at the University of Wyoming and requested letters between Gene and Amelia and Gene and George Putnam. Dan and the University folks have been nothing but wonderful in their help with this and it is I who have been very slow in getting it together and getting it to the FORUM. However, as it turns out that none of the 15 pieces of correspondence I got mentioned any thing about a "plan b", There is one letter in box 19 that Dan from the University told me is missing from the collection - but he did not know the contents of the missing letter and as it turns out was written to Gene in June of 1936 which might be too soon for Amelia to be thinking about a "Plan B", since she did not receive the Electra until July of 1936 In order of the date, I will give a short description of each correspondence. 1 - Undated - A handwritten letter from Amelia to Gene thanking him for a present and wanting to know if Gene was going to pay her a visit any time soon. 2 - Undated - A handwritten letter from Amelia to Gene saying how happy she was to speak to Gene but sorry he did not let her wish him a happy birthday. 3 - Undated - A handwritten letter from Amelia to Gene from the Biochemical Laboratories in Los Angeles telling Gene she was leaving L.A. on the 21st. 4 - Date 11/28/30 - Memo to Amelia from Gene regarding an information update regarding the Airline Transcontinental Air Transport. 5 - Date 02/01/31 - Memo to Amelia from Gene detailing duties of the personnel of Transcontinental Air Transport, stating Amelia's duties as V.P. of Public Relations. 6 - Date 05/25/35 - Telegram - Western Union - to Gene from the Mexican Consul expressing happiness that Gene will be at a dinner for Amelia. 7 & 8 - 06/02/35 - Two N.Y. newspaper articles about Amelia being the first woman to jump from a parachute training device jump platform. 9 - Date - 05/08/36 - Letter from Amelia to Gene - Its contents have been cited in a few Earhart Biographies - It is regarding Amelia recommending pilot Blanche Noyes as a possible employee for the Air Marking Program. 10 - Date - 06/01/36 - Letter from Gene to Amelia regarding the feasability of having hangars for large airplanes and his asking her when her plane will be ready (presumably the Electra). 11 - Date - 07/28/36 - Day Letter from George Putnam to Gene stating that they have contacted Blanche Noyes about taking the job but have not heard anything yet. 12 - Date - 08/03/36 - Letter from George to Gene. George asks him if hard surface runways are being installed in the Navy Field at Honolulu. George asks Gene for the exact description of the new runways, total length of pavement, extra runways and the nature of the approaches and what the condition of the runways will be as of February. George says he hopes Gene will be able to get this information from the Navy Department. 13 - Date - 08/11/36 - Letter from George to Gene saying that he had a pleasant meeting with Bendix on 08/10/36 and a had a meeting with mutual friend Harvard lawyer, George Leisure. 14 - Date - 10/08/36 - Day Letter from George to Gene "Colonel Johnson asked me tell you that reply is being held up for Mulligan's return. He is due back today. Admiral Cook visit satisfactory for 14th. He is leaving town after that." 15 - Date - 11/04/36 - Letter from George to Gene - Letter stating that Amelia and he will be in Newark next week to meet with Admiral Sellers. I will be contacting the University of Wyoming again and get another batch of letters - this time I think I will ask for the correspondane from Gene to any of his relatives. Cheerio - and LTM - (who would send her children to the University of Wyoming, if she could and never leaves home without a Plan B) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 15:18:47 EDT From: Jerry Hamilton Subject: Vidal Papers, UofW Re: previous University of Wyoming Vidal paper's search. There seems to be some confusion about the UofW papers. The Noonan Project Team (Dustymiss) investigated the so-called back up plan, or plan B at the UofW. There is no documentation relating to this contingency plan at the UofW. Because one document is missing from the files, there is the possibility it may be relevant. If so, it's currently lost to history. Bottom line - been there, done that, no evidence. blue skies, -jerry ************************************************************************** From Ric They don't believe us Jerry. I guess they'll just have to stick their fingers in the wounds for themselves. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 13:21:55 EDT From: Don Jordan Subject: Lae takoff, scene by scne Ric wrote, "If the takeoff seen in the film is actually the test flight with a much lighter fuel load (654 imperial gallons lighter, according to Chater) than was carried on July 2nd, it's hard to see how they could have gotten off the ground at all for the Howland departure". You know. . . the comments made by Leslie Kinney are interesting, and should be given more thought. I also looked at that pieces of film a dozen times or more and never picked up on those items he mentions. Not that it would make any difference in the final outcome of the flight, but if it were a film of the test flight, then you can pretty much forget the lost antenna scenario. I think the loosing of the antenna is questionable anyway. Regardless, I doubt it would have any effect on the flight. When you read Leslie's remarks and then go back and view the film again, it becomes obvious that this is not one continuos piece of footage. The real oddity for me, is that AE and FN are seen climbing into the cockpit twice. I know there could be other reasons for that, but the most likely explanation is two different departures, or. . . staging for the cameras. But there is something else that has puzzled me for a long time, and that is. . . the film of the take off doesn't match the eye witnesses accounts. I think there are two or three eye witness accounts of a very dangerous take off with the Electra falling off the edge of the runway and continuing out over the Gulf at zero altitude for several miles. Those are eye witness accounts, from people who were definitely watching the last take off, and stated so. The film clip take off appears to me to be a lift off before the end, and not a falling off the end of the runway as the witnesses have stated. It appears there is a positive rate of climb established and some altitude gained. Also, I don't know where the sun is in those latitudes at 10:00 AM, but the shadow from the Electra as it goes by the camera, appears to be straight down. Maybe that fact could be used to establish the time of day this film was shot, using July 2, 1937 at 10:00 AM as a target. Surely, someone on the forum could figure where the sun would be under those conditions. All of this means nothing of course and won't help solve the mystery, but I think it is possible that this piece of film may not be what it is thought to be. Don J. *************************************************************************** From Ric Alright, let's take the film scene by scene and see what it really shows. Scene 1 (approx. 2 seconds) Amelia stands in front of the open cabin door of the Electra facing the camera. She is wearing a dark solid colored short-sleeved shirt with white piping, a light colored, possibly polka-dot scarf, and tan trousers. She seems to have a small piece of paper tucked in the left breast pocket of her shirt. There is a man on the right of the picture in left profile. He wears a white shirt and light colored trousers. He is definitely NOT Fred Noonan. Scene 2 (approx. 3 seconds) Noonan is on the left wing dressed in a dark shirt with rolled up sleeves, a dark tie, and dark trousers. Fred's back is initially to the camera as he faces the fuselage. He has a piece of paper (about the size of a Number 10 envelope) in his left hand which he passes to his right hand and puts in Amelia left hand as she climbs up on the wing and passes behind him. They both step forward to the cockpit hatch. Scene 3 (approx. 1.5 seconds) Noonan has already stepped through the hatch and is lowering himself down into the cockpit while Amelia waits to follow. Clambering into the hatch is a two-handed process and I suspect that Noonan gave AE the piece of paper in Scene Two merely to free up his hands. She probably passed it back to him when he was inside so that her hands woud be free to deal with the hatch. Scene 4 (approx. 3 seconds) A grinning Fred Noonan, dressed as before, strides toward the camera from the base of the left wing (strong impression that he has just come down off the wing) and passes out of the frame to the right. In the left pocket of his shirt is what appears to be that same piece of paper, possibly an envelope. Behind him and to his left the Electra's cabin door stands open, held by a young (7 year-old?) white boy in a sleeveless white shirt. Scene 5 (approx. 2 seconds) The Electra is seen from the starboard front with roughly 20 shirtless black people arrayed in front of it and beginning to walk away. To the right in the frame is a white man in a tan(?) shirt and white trousers holding something in front of his face. The impression I get is that a bunch of local folks have just had their picture taken in front of the airplane and are beginning to disperse. The shadows are not particularly long and seem (to me at least) to be consistent with mid, rather than early, morning. At the very beginning of the scene, the cockpit hatch can be seen to be closing and at the very end of the scene a man that looks like Noonan enters the frame from the left foreground and proceeds toward the airplane. The loop antenna over the cockpit is not apparent in this scene, apparently due to the lighting, but both pitot tubes can be seen and appear normal. For a minute I wondered if this airplane might not be NR16020 at all but one of Guinea Airways' 10As, but the engines do appear to be the big Wasps and I can see the chipped paint on the leading edge of the starboard wing from the rainstorm at Rangoon. Scene 6 (approx. 2 seconds) As this scene begins we see the Electra in profile from its port side as in Scenes Two and Three, but from farther away. The top of a large tree can be seen perhaps 30 yards beyond the airplane. Fred, dressed as before, is up on the wing and facing aft with his right hand extended toward AE as she puts her right foot on the trailing edge of the wing and reaches up and forward to grab the assist handle on the fuselage. As she heaves herself up onto the wing, Fred takes her left hand and propels her behind and past him in a big bouncy jump. In this scene AE seems to be wearing the same trousers as before, but her upper garment seems larger and clearly has long sleeves. My impression is that she has put on her leather flying jacket. As the camera pans forward to follow her we can see that the aircraft is nosed up fairly close to the corner of a building. Scene 7 (approx. 1.5 seconds) Fred begins to climb into the open cockpit hatch while AE waits to follow. It is very apparent from AE's wind-whipped trousers that the port engine is running. Scene 8 (approx. 5 seconds) The Electra taxis past the camera from left to right at a distance of perhaps 10 yards. Scene 9 (approx. 8 seconds) The aircraft first appears at the right of the frame at a distance of perhaps 200 yards. The tail is up and the takeoff run is well underway. Roughly two seconds into the scene the famous "puff" appears. The aircraft rotates abruptly at almost exactly the moment it passes directly in front of the camera six seconds into the scene at a distance of perhaps 50 yards from the camera. It staggers along in ground effect (half the wingspan of 55 feet or less), until the sequence ends 2 seconds later. My conclusions: Nothing in the film suggests that it is anything other than what it purports to be - a chronological series of brief scenes filmed on the morning of July 2, 1937 showing preparations for, and the departure of, Earhart and Noonan on what turned out to be their last flight. The briefness of the scenes is entirely consistent with family home-movies I have that were taken that same summer. Hand-wound clockwork drives and short film rolls dictated what now seems to be extreme frugality. The shadows are consistent with mid-morning and are not consistent with shortly after sunrise (06:35) when the only other takeoff from Lae was made. The takeoff itself is entirely consistent with the most authoritative descriptions available (Collopy and Chater). I have yet to hear from a pilot who has made over-gross takeoffs in a multi-engined tailwheel airplane who does not agree that the takeoff depicted is a very hairy affair. No positive rate of climb has been established at the time the film ends and the aircraft has not yet reached the embankment at the end of the runway. Given that the aircraft is still in ground effect when last seen, it would be very likely that once the embankment was passed, the aircraft would settle until ground effect was once again established with the surface of the Gulf of Huon. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:10:21 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: Two receivers? > From Ric I'll have to dig out the actual quote, but before leaving Miami she was asked if she'd be using her radio to stay in touch with ground stations along the way. Her reply was something like, "No. I plan to use my receiver mostly for taking bearings.">> That unpuzzles something that has been puzzling me since I read the radio transcript that's available on your web site. I may have missed it (or read it and forgot), but I don't remember seeing any complaints from Earhart that she was unable to hear anyone, yet it seemed apparent that she wasn't. Without some sort of reply there is no way to know if your transmitter is working. In my experience it is rare that, in this circumstance, the operator doesn't say "I can't hear you" hoping that the other operator will do something to fix the problem. Her lack of complaint indicates that she probably knew that her receiver wasn't working and that she wasn't concerned about it. Now her statement in Miami causes me to wonder if they intentionally left Lae without a receiver configured to receive voice replies. This would make sense if she wanted to either lighten the load or uncomplicate her inflight procedures. It could also be that she knew that the receiver had been disabled somehow after (or while) they departed Lae. Frank Westlake *************************************************************************** From Ric I think that her complaint to Itasca that "Have been unable to reach you by radio." is a pretty strong indication that she anticipated being able to hear voice from the ship. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:11:27 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Re: AE in custody William says: >The Japanese interned many caucasian females for the duration of the war. At >least dozens, probably more than 100. Sounds reasonable, William, but do you have a source for that? LTM (who's glad she wasn't interned) TKing ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:25:06 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Bendix RDF & WE Radios The WE Model 20B receiver used a 5-position rotary switch (one position was to ground) for band selection. The four bands were: 200-400 kilocycles, 550-1500 kilocycles, 1500-4000 kilocycles, and 4000-10000 kilocycles. (Western Electric's radios had rotary switch schematics that are hard to decipher, unlike other radio manufacturers of the era). There were two antenna terminals on the WE Model 20B receiver - a low-frequency terminal and a high frequency terminal. There were four external antenna alignment capacitors on the Model 20B (located below the antenna terminals) corresponding to the four frequency-bands mentioned above. A "test bench" receiver alignment for the WE Model 20B receiver included using a signal generator to tune BOTH the external antenna trimmers and several INTERNAL "inductance trimmers" for "best results." If someone ONLY "messed around" with the external 4,000-to-10,000 kilocycle antenna trimmer, it wouldn't mess up the 1500-4000 kilocycle antenna trimmer. The trimmers for each band were separate. Pilot and Co-pilot tuning for the WE 20B receiver was accomplished with an electro-mechanical system, based on the pilot hearing a sidetone signal from the WE 13C he/she electro-mechanically tuned in, OR, hearing an LF or HF signal, also tuned in electro-mechnically. The WE 13C transmitter was a popular AM crystal-controlled aircraft transmitter in the 1930's. The WE 13C allowed Pilots and Co-Pilots to electro-mechanically select three crystal-controlled LF and HF transmit frequencies. The WE 13C transmitter had a power output of 50 watts AM. Transmit / Receive was accomplished by a push-to-talk relay keyed by the pilot's microphone, located in the WE-13C, with receiver cables routed to the transmitter through the Electra's fuselage. Bendix RDF units were used with Bendix, Western Electric, and other receivers in the late 1930's. The matching, and mis-matching of antennas, receivers, and RDF units was bound to cause Earhart, and others, serious problems. How about a serious and systematic investigation of the problems Earhart and others encountered with the late-1930's radio equipment they used in their airplanes? Also, how about determining, for once and for all, the radio propagation on 3105 kilocycles on July 1-2, 1937? Janet Whitney *************************************************************************** From Ric You've described some well-known features of the standard WE 20B and 13C but I'd be very interested to know how you know that receiver cables were routed to the transmitter through the Electra's fuselage. Do you have a work order signed off as being completed? Do you have a photograph showing the connection? Or are you merely assuming that since the transmitter/receiver relay COULD be rigged that way, they WERE rigged that way. If you'd like to see a "serious and systematic investigation of the problems Earhart and others encountered with the late-1930's radio equipment they used in their airplanes" I'd like to know just what sources you know of that could be used in undertaking such a study. As for propagation on 3105 in the Central Pacific on July 2, 1937 from Earhart's Electra, we're not going to determine that "once and for all" without a time machine but Bob Brandenburg has done some excellent studies that are part of the 8th Edition which will be up on the website soon. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:26:16 EDT From: Patrick Subject: teletypes All the information about the Teletypes is interesting... One thing I wanted to add...The Teletypes I used in the late 70's in the Navy were ancient...I don't remember what model they were... They printed in all caps but they had a caps function...The caps function contained the numbers and special functions... This was done to save space on the keyboard... LTM (who never learned to type, but could take fast shorthand) Patrick (2239) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:33:44 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: Between rounds To answer P. Gaston - The DF "coupler" electronically combines the output of the loop antenna (figure 8 shaped) with the essentially non- directional (i.e., circular) pattern from the sense antenna. The result of the combination gives a directional cardiod pattern. As for the Vidal files, the last inventory I saw (a couple of years ago) there were several Earhart items missing. Should we suspect a TIGHAR mole at work? Cam Warren ************************************************************************* From Ric Smile when you say that. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:41:19 EDT From: Don Jordan Subject: Lae take off Would you please post on the forum Collopy's and Chater's description of the Lae take off, or let me know where I can read it. Thanks, Don J. *************************************************************************** From Ric Certainly Don. I had no idea that you would have publicly expressed all those opinions without being familiar with the facts. Chater's entire report has been available on the TIGHAR website at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Documents/Chater_Report.html since March 1, 1999. Collopy's entire letter has been available on the TIGHAR website at http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Documents/Collopy_Letter.html since August 30, 1999 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:51:48 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Lae Takeoff Film Clip Leslie Kinney wrote: >> 7) The shadows of the natives surrounding the aircraft in the pan scene are at least half the length of their bodies which leads me to believe this shot was either taken very earlier in the morning or later in the day.<< At 8.30am in July at aound 20deg south lattitude, a person's shadow is about 1/3 longer than their body.. At around 10.00am it will be somewhere near half the length of the body. It is more likely the film was taken mid morning or mid afternoon. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:53:42 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: The Brines Letter, Recordings Mike wrote: > I have seen something called an "Ediphone" in photos of offices from the > 1930s... it uses cylinders for recording and playback, very like the > cylinders used in the first record players made by Thomas Edison. Perhaps > "Ediphone" is a clue to the manufacturer. Most of the pix I have seen show a > secretary at a desk, typing a dictated letter while wearing a huge set of > "cans" (headphones) like those used by radio operators of the time > At any rate, such a device would be far more suited to shipboard use, since > the arm and recording head of a disc recorder would have a tendency to > "skate" across the disc because of the rolling motion of a ship... this is > NOT to say that I believe ANY sort of recording device was all that common > aboard merchant ships of the day (I have never seen references that indicate > it was, though some may indeed have had them... it'd take a lot of cylinders > to continuously record message traffic for even 24 hours). Actually, there was another type of "recorder" in use at this time designed to record continuous traffic and it was in use aboard ships and aircraft. The "wire recorder" (I had one back in the 60's) used a reel of magnetic wire instead of magnetic tape. It was used in aircraft and aboard ships, and in 1942 the US Navy issued a contract for further development of the device. To quote directly: "1898-1900--- Danish Inventor Valdemar Poulsen invents and patents his "Telegraphone," a telephone recorder utilizing steel wire.Within a few years, Poulsen also demonstrates a steel tape recorder and a machine to record magnetically on a steel disk. All three types are promoted as alternatives to phonograph-type dictating machines, or as telephone recording machines." "1941-2 Armour receives a contract from the United States Navy to develop a portable sound recorder. The original recorder is modified make it more rugged. Between 1942 and the end of the war, Armour and a licesned manufacturer,General Electric, have made perhaps a few thousand of these recorders." "The uses of the recorders range from specialized dictation machines (foruse in airplanes or other situations where phonograph recorders are to odelicate), to news-gathering devices." For anyone interested in more about these devices, the quotes came from: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dmorton/wire.html The "Tape Recorder" along the lines we are familiar with (oxide on plastic tape) was invented in Germany (see the same web page) around 1933! So there were in fact better devices that the wax cylinder or disk recorder well before the time of the letter we are interested in. Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************** From Ric Interesting, but off-topic. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:55:43 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Electra's Belly Antenna > From Janet Whitney > > There is a color photo of an Electra Model 12 in Walter Boyne's recent (1998) > Lockheed history "Beyond the Horizons." The Model 12 in the photo is > equipped with a short belly antenna, and a V antenna above the cockpit. Also > a RDF antenna in a fairing over the cockpit. > From Ric > > Welcome back Janet. Yes, those are relatively modern antennas on an airplane > in relatively recent service. Any relevance to the present discussion > escapes me. Some of us would love to know exactly what the "short belly antenna" and the "V antenna above the cockpit" are used for in the more modern aircraft. It may give an insight into "possible" uses of AE's aircraft antennae based on their locations. We have had all sorts of speculation, and there may be some relationship between useage "then" and "now" of those antenna structures. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:59:17 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene I've had my doubts about the identity of the man in scene 1 of the takeoff film for several days. I'm starting to agree with Ric's conclusion: The man in the white shirt is not Fred Noonan. william 2243 ************************************************************************** From Ric We have dozens of photos of Noonan taken at various times during the World Flight. He seems to always be wearing the same outfit (whew!). At no time is he seen in a light colored shirt or trousers. Besides, the guy in the white shirt does not even look like Fred. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 12:15:57 EDT From: Patrick Gaston Subject: Re: Vidal papers Your sarcasm is unwarranted. Nobody ever "questioned your credibility" in representing Dustymiss' findings. I merely said I didn't recall seeing her final report and wondered if I had missed it. In fact, the 10/18/99 post you reprinted is exactly the one I remember -- nothing so far, but she planned to request more documents. I assume from your choice of posts that the 10/18/99 report was indeed the last one from Dustymiss on the subject. However, since you seem to insist on turning the most innocent query into a personal attack, let's examine your credibility. It's clear from Dustymiss' post that she did not personally travel to Laramie to inspect the Vidal files, but wrote to the library staff requesting copies of "letters between Gene and Amelia and Gene and George Putnam." She then says that none of the 15 pieces of correspondence she "got" (i.e., received from UW) mentioned anything about a "Plan B." In other words, Dustymiss did not conduct an "examination of Box 19 at U of W," as you claim. Dusty made a very specific request for certain types of "letters" and relied upon the library staff to find them for her. It appears they forwarded exactly 15 pieces of correspondence from one box (out of how many?) which met the specific criteria identified by Dusty. We do not know how extensive their efforts were or whether they were aware of the exact information being sought. I do not mean to denigrate either Dustymiss or the U of W staff, but the efforts described fall far short of an exhaustive search, and provide no basis whatsoever for your assertion that "Rich provided an inaccurate citation." Similarly, if JHam's flippant "been there, done that," refers to the limited inquiry conducted by Dustymiss, then the Noonan Project has neither "been there" nor "done that." To repeat, the search appears to have been restricted to letters between three individuals -- ignoring notes, memoranda, letters to others, etc. -- and even then, the UW staff reported that one letter was missing. You explain away Doris Rich's citation of the Vidal files as mere sloppiness. Sorry, it won't wash. Fabricating a source is not "sloppy." It is dishonest. You can't have it both ways; either the citation was intentionally concocted or Rich actually saw something referring to a Plan B. Now, if she was allowed free access to the Vidal papers -- and if she's as sloppy as you say -- it's certainly conceivable that the document was simply misfiled after she copied it. It could be anywhere in the collection. (Perhaps you have never had the experience of opening up a file only to find five pages of unrelated info that got stuck in the wrong folder because they were paperclipped to something else last year when you were scrambling madly to clean up the mess on your desk. It happens to us mere mortals.) Speaking of that, your reference to the biblical story of "doubting Thomas" is curious indeed. Yes, Ric, these are wounds that do need to be probed -- unless you're now claiming to speak with the authority of Jesus Christ. The Vidal papers could be a treasure trove of pertinent Earhart information, and it appears the collection has never been exhaustively searched by anyone from TIGHAR. I regret I don't have the freedom of time or travel that Ron Bright apparently enjoys -- and I envy him for it. So, Ron, go to it! And keep us posted. LTM (who's getting increasingly reluctant to ask a simple question) Pat Gaston P.S. Dusty, if I have misrepresented the scope of your search efforts, please accept my apologies. I'm just going by what your report from last October seems to say. ************************************************************************** From Ric I failed to catch the fact that Dusty had not physically visited Uof W. It needs doing. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 12:19:54 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: The Brines Letter Hope all the tighars had a nice weekend. My recollection re: Teletype machines et al is that they were in fact all caps, whereas the Brines letter is clearly typed in upper and lower case. It just happens that lower case on this particular machine (and apparently on the machine used to type the "forwarding" message) is the same as the upper case typeface, only smaller. ltm jon 2266 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 14:21:36 EDT From: Leslie Kinney Subject: Lae Takeoff Scene - continued After reading your last post Ric on this issue, I must respectfully disagree with most of your comments - although this whole argument is probably a moot point except for whether the last takeoff scene is really the "final takeoff" on July 2 and the scenes depicitng a bright eyed Noonan were taken on July 2. Scene one - Your take from your last post - no disagreements Scene two - AE has the paper in her left hand as she climbs up the wing - Noonan does not pass it to her. I looked at this frame by frame in approximately 1/10 second increments - (moot point anyway) Scene Three - Noonan did not give the paper to her in the first place - she had it as she climbed up the wing -(look carefully) Scene 4 - No disagreements - except as a trained investigator I cannot presume this is the same paper - there is no corroboration for this statement. Scene 5 - "To the right in the frame is a white man in a tan(?) shirt and white trousers holding something in front of his face. The impression I get is that a bunch of local folks have just had their picture taken in front of the airplane and are beginning to disperse". - It would not be scientifically proper, and presumptuous to say the white man was wearing a tan shirt and white slacks since it could be some other light color (moot point) However, it is still my opinion; the white male appears to be holding a movie camera since he continues to pan and move slowly to the right even as the crowd disperses - (moot point) HERE IS A MAJOR POINT OF DISAGREEMENT - your statement - " The shadows are not particularly long and seem (to me at least) to be consistent with mid, rather than early, morning". PLEASE LOOK AT THE NATIVES IN GENERAL THE SHADOWS ARE ACTUALLY QUITE LONG - NOW LOOK AT THE WHITE MALE TAKING THE PICTURES - LOOK AT HIS SHADOWS - NOW LOOK CAREFULLY AT THE PERSON IN THE FOREGROUND AND TO HIS RIGHT FRONT MOVING THROUGH THE WHITE MALE CAMERAMAN'S SHADOW - HE IS MOVING THROUGH HIS SHADOW BUT IS NOT ANYWHERE NEAR THE CAMERAMAN'S PERSONAL SPACE - BECAUSE WE NOW CAN SEE THE DEPTH PERCEPTION, OF THE MOVING MAN THROUGH THE SHADOW - IT CERTAINLY "APPEARS" THE SHADOW IS EXTENDED OUT FROM THE CAMERAMAN PROBABLY THE LENGTH OF HIS BODY. Point - this is not in keeping with being close to the equator at 10:00 on July 2. As I stated previously this pan was probably taken either early in the morning or late in the evening. Now considering AE and FN arrived at Lae approximately 3:00 PM on 29 June this film clip could have been taken after they initially arrived on June 29, -- the shadows would be consistent with a time around 3:30 P.M. in the tropics, in the summer, since the sun sets much earlier than what we normally visualize - living here in most parts of the northern hemisphere. Scene 6 - The second time the film show AE and FN climbing the wing and entering the cockpit - please note the shadows again - Here I cannot be definitive - here it is a matter of perception - it appears to me the last one quarter of a second frame shot ( which is the best shadow shot) on AE pants leg on the fuselage is coming in at an angle - you can see her leg's shadow clearly on the fuselage for a split second which is quite clear -you could actually measure the height of the shadow on the fuselage if you wish. What time of day does it show? I could not judge - only guess - but I bet you could have this recreated for this latitude and longitude on July 2, if you had an aircraft with the same approximate height off the ground and actors in the same position as the film clip. This would be important if you want to validate whether the remaining clip is the actual clip of their final take off. Scene 9 - and conclusions - "The briefness of the scenes is entirely consistent with family home-movies I have that were taken that same summer. Hand-wound clockwork drives and short film roles dictated what now seems to be extreme frugality." I respectfully disagree completely - some of these snippets are less than a second - some only last for two or three seconds - even then, hand wound cameras of this day could last for two or three minutes - some even longer. It is not even plausible that some adult ( no -children here would be taken such a shot) who decided to go to the effort to take some footage of the famous Amelia Earhart - would shoot film in one second, or two second, bursts. Heck it would be like stopping a stop watch every couple of seconds. The clips are completely fragmented and possibly spliced. It would be fool hardy to say that it is in chronological order. In fact, it does not appear to be in chronological order at all, except for the final take off scene - if it in fact was taken on July 2. I agree with am earlier poster concerning the take off - I have run this take off frame, frame for frame to its end - It appears to me that the aircraft has achieved a positive airflow under its wing and is around four to six feet off the ground prior to leaving the runway and it appears to be actually climbing as it leaves the runway not dipping The last three seconds of the film clip show pretty much a positive lift . In fact the aircraft does not appear to have any lift problems whatsoever - often associated with numerous eyewitness accounts. It could be entirely possible this shot might be from AE's test flight of the previous day. The purpose of this discussion is two fold: 1) Fred Noonan, so energetic, bright eyed and bushy tailed in these clips might be the FN of July 1, when he thought they might take off - no evidence of any alcohol related hangover here. Maybe FN could not wait another day for a gin and tonic - maybe he believed they might not be leaving on July 2. - so he has a few too many on the evening of July 1. Hence the eyewitness accounts of him being "poured into the plane" might still be accurate after all. 2) Unless you can scientifically prove this complete thirty second clip was taken of her final take off - I do not believe you can continue to argue about the pitots and dragging antenna wire. It becomes irrelevant until you prove the validity of when these film snippets were taken. Thanks for letting me contribute to this forum Les Kinney *************************************************************************** From Ric Okay, let's look at this again. Scene One - I take it that you and I agree that the guy in the white shirt is not Noonan and that Amelia is dressed the same way she is in the rest of the film, with the execption of the final boarding scene where her sleeves are long. Scenes Two & Three - We see different things regarding the piece of paper but, I agree, it's a moot point not worth fighting about. Scene Four - I agree that there's no way to know whether it's the same piece of paper or not. Doesn't matter anyway. Scene Five - We agree that speculation by either of us about what color the guy's clothes were or whether he's holding a still camera, a movie camera, or a can of beer is of no consequence. What is of some consequence is whether or not the shadows in this scene are more consistent with early morning or mid morning, which might give some indication of whether the film was shot during preparations for the July 1st test flight or the July 2nd departure. Let's start from the assumption that the scene was shot in the minutes or hours prior to one of the two flights. (This assumption is important only to my hypothesis that the film is a chronological record of events on the morning of July 2nd, because if the scenes in the film were randomly shot and assembled it really doesn't matter when this shot was taken.) According to Chater, the test flight was made at 06:35 on the morning of July 1st. I don't know for sure when the sun came up at Lae that day but I can't imagine that it was a whole lot different in local time than when it came up at Howland two days later - in other words, around 06:15. So if this scene was shot before the test flight on July 1st it had to be shot in the first 20 minutes after sunrise when the shadows would be very long indeed. I have to agree with Th' WOMBAT who lives in the neighborhood. There's no way that this shot was taken that early. The length of the shadows and the highlights on the cowlings and nose of the airplane seem entirely consistent with mid-morning (say around 09:00 or 09:30, just to take a guess). Your suggestion that the scene may have been taken at the time of the aircraft's arrival at Lae on June 29th doesn't hold up too well when compared with the photos that were taken on that occasion. The airplane was taxiied up and nosed into the Guinea Airways hangar before AE and FN exited the cockpit hatch and greeted the assembled crowd. Subsequent photos of the airplane taken during its stay in Lae all show it in that same location. Scene Six - You see shadows that are inconsistent with mid-morning. I see the sun glaring off the top of the nose just in front of the windshield. Scene Nine and conclusions - You disagree that home movies in the 1930s were typically shot it very brief clips. As I mentioned in my original post, I have examples of home movies taken in the summer of 1937 that have exactly the same chopped up look as this film and I can look at the physical original film and see that it has not been edited or spliced but must be a straight chronological progression of scenes. These films, of course, don't prove anything other than what you say wouldn't be done was, in fact, done. Your comments about the airplane achieving "positive lift" after takeoff having achieved an altitude of roughly six feet suggests that you may not be familiar with a phenomenon known as "ground effect." I'll attempt a brief explanation here in the sure knowledge that my fellow aviators will correct and expand upon anything I get wrong. As long as an aircraft is within half of its wingspan of the ground (about 25 feet in the case of the Electra) it gets a "boost" to its lift from the "cushion" of air between the wing and the ground. Normally this effect is of no consequence because you climb right out of it and continue on your way, but when the machine is overloaded it needs a lot more speed than normal to climb and it is common practice to use "ground effect" to "cheat." You accelerate to the point where she'll just barely fly with the help of "ground effect": you haul her off the ground but then quickly release some of the back-pressure on the yoke or stick, letting her continue to accelerate without the drag of the wheels on the runway (just as you see in the Lae takeoff film), not asking her to climb much at all until she has enough speed to generate the lift she needs to climb away on her own. If you've ever seen the film of the only flight of the Spruce Goose you've seen a classic example of the use of "ground effect." The beast was too underpowered to truly fly but Hughes was able to haul it off the water and stagger along in "ground effect" for several minutes. At six or even ten feet of altitude, the Electra was still getting plenty of help from "ground effect." Of course, once it crossed the drop off at the far end of the runway (not yet reached when the film ends) the ground dropped away and the airplane would logically settle until it regained the "cushion." The scene presented to those standing beside the runway would be hair-raising indeed as the aircraft probably dropped completely out of sight before re-emerging flying very close to the surface of the water. Your speculation about Noonan's drinking is really out of synch with your scientific approach to the film. The uncorroborated anecdotal allegation that he got plastered one night in Lae has that happening on the night of June 30, not July 1st. And I'm aware of no eyewitness account, even anecdotal, that he was "poured into the plane." That phrase, in fact, appears in the Brines Letter as pure speculation. I'm not sure what scientific proof would satisfy you that the film was made on July 2nd. We have two images; the film, and the still photo taken by Alan Board, which purport to show the aircraft during its takeoff run on July 2nd. Both rather convincingly show damage to the airplane that is not mentioned as being repaired in the detailed list of service and repairs performed on the airplane in Lae. That, in itself, would seem to be a convincing argument that the damage occurred on July 2nd, but you may disagree. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 14:23:30 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: AE in custody Tom King wrote, >Sounds reasonable, William, but do you have a source for that? Sources?!?!? The best I can cite at the moment is that after reading thousands and thousands of pages of 20th century history over the years, I am under a very strong impression that there were hundreds of caucasian women in the region of the Japanese's projected "Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere" as the war broke out. Most were in missionary service and associated with military bases. Many got out before their areas and islands were overrun, but many had elected to stay (or were stranded) and were promptly placed in "camps" by the Japanese, where they endured conditions ranging from indifference to repeated assault and starvation, depending on local circumstances. If we really, really need to source this, I'm sure it's possible to bring all the threads together into some sort of a supportable estimate. However, since I don't think we seriously need to disprove the "Amelia captured by the Japanese" theories, I don't think it would be worth the effort. My undocumented remark was intended only as an aside: World War II era photos showing Japanese soldiers with unhappy looking caucasian women are reasonably explained by the fact that many were in Japanese custody throughout the war. This has always been a little-discussed facet of the war in the Pacific. And it's useful to remember the context of popular perceptions during that period. I suspect that average G.I. servicemen who saw these photos may have been more susceptible to accepting an accompanying story that they were looking at an image of Earhart because of a misguided assumption that caucasian females were wholly absent from Japanese occupied areas during the war. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 14:24:41 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: The Brines Letter, Recordings Mike wrote, >The "Tape Recorder" along the lines we are familiar with (oxide on plastic >tape) was invented in Germany (see the same web page) around 1933! This thread got started because someone asked if Russell Brines might have heard a recording of post-loss radio messages in the aftermath of the AE disappearance. He probably didn't, and he certainly didn't hear any tape recordings. The web site text that Mike cites is a little misleading. Oxide tape recorders were developed in Germany in the mid 1930s but were essentially useless lab toys and it wasn't until many years later that they were good enough to record voice and music on a professional level. Some time ago I mentioned in a post that allied intelligence officers late in the war were mystified as to how the germans could afford to have good quality, live symphony orchestras performing on the air at 3AM every night (the broadcasts contained none of the scratching and popping sounds associated with the shellac transcription discs of the era, so it was "naturally assumed" that the transmissions were "live"). The mystery wasn't solved until the allies began overruning cities with German radio stations, which contained reel to reel tape machines and spools of rust coloured, oxide coated celluloid tape bearing orchestral music. Tape machines "liberated" from these facilities by enterprising GIs formed the engineering basis of the American companies Ampex and Ranger (named after the U.S. army group), who dominated the pro tape machine market through the 50s and early 60s. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 14:29:06 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene "The man in the white shirt" question comes up every so often. Do check it out, but my recollection is that it was Eric Chater, who had good reason to be there. Also in white shirts - with neckties - were Louie Joubert and F. C. Jacobs, visitors from Bulolo. Cam Warren ************************************************************************* From Ric I'm not familiar with Joubert or Jacobs, but I don't think it's Eric Chater. Way too thin. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 14:36:46 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Bendix RDF & WE Radios Curious that the WE Model 20B receiver could not receive 500 kHz, the emergency frequency used in all maritime (and possibly land) communications. Very strange, indeed. ************************************************************************* From Ric Oh I dunno. Why would an airplane need to receive a maritime emergency frequency? I'm not sure, but I betcha they can't now. Anybody know what the current maritime emergency frequency is? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 15:13:35 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene My recollection is that Jacobs is pictured in one of the photos in Goerner's book, and is identified as being with the New Guinea Gold Company. As I recall the gentleman in the photo seemed of middle age, and was balding. ltm jon 2266 *************************************************************************** From Ric Yeah, you're right. So if Goerner's ID is correct, our mystery man in the white shirt is not Jacobs. There lots of guys in white shirts who show up in various photos taken in Lae. I'm not sure that it's worth a lot of effort to pin down each one. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 15:27:56 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: 8th Edition Ric said: " . . . has done some excellent studies that are part of the 8th Edition which will be up on the website soon." Speaking of the 8th Edition . . . . Each day I run to the mail box in wild anticipation of finding my copy of the 8th Edition snuggled among the vet's bills and the dunning notices from the cable company, but alas, an anticlimax. LTM, who hopes to receive her copy before it is posted on the web Dennis O. McGee, #0149EC *************************************************************************** From Ric Here's how we've decided to handle the 8th Edition. Everybody who has purchased, or purchases, an 8th Edition ($49.95 for members, $69.95 for non-members) will receive a three-ring binder and the first installment of completed chapters. As further chapters are finished they'll be sent out, three-hole punched, for insertion in the book. Simultaneously, the completed chapters will be mounted on the TIGHAR website in a special password-protected section. Only those who have paid for the 8th Edition will receive a password. So those who have supported the work will have the information both on-line and in hard copy as it is completed. Howzat? LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:01:15 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: The Brines Letter, Recordings William got the tape recorder trivia just about right, but the "liberator" was a Col. Ranger, who brought back a Magnetophon recorder, which was the basis of the "Rangertone". And the story was, the Allies were puzzled how Hitler could be giving radio speeches in city "C", when they (thought they) knew he was really in city "B" on that date. The Rangertone, and later the Ampex Model 200, operated at 30 inches/second (which made it wonder- fully easy to edit), although Ampex added a "low grade" 15 ips for "voice" recording. Bing Crosby was an early proponent (hence Crosby Enterprises was an Ampex distributor) since he had signed with NBC (circa 1948), but didn't want to do the (then prevalent) live repeat performance for the West Coast. Oh, and you COULD edit/splice wire recordings, by cutting the wire, knotting it to the next section, and using a glowing cigarette (everybody smoked during WW2) to "weld" the joint. The Navy used them on airplanes and certainly some ships. Cam Warren (ex-NBC) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 08:58:56 EDT From: Ric Subject: Spruce Goose news Speaking of the Spruce Goose, Tim Smith passed along this address for news about the wooden fowl's move into a new and really big hangar next month. www.newsregister.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=119150&category=local+news ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 08:59:54 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene More "man in the white shirt" - L.J. Joubert, manager of Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd., looked vaguely like Noonan (same big ears), but parted his hair on the right. Jacobs was bald on top. Cam Warren ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:00:42 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Re: 8th Edition Works for me. LTM, who works for nobody Dennis O. McGee #0149 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:43:56 EDT From: Mike Muenich Subject: Brines letter Much has passed over the forum this past week concerning the Brines letter and some of this may duplicate postings or I may have missed some due to depositing #2 daughter at college. The first and last sentence throw me. "The enclosed letter just came in, so I'm sending it to you this way. Richard, M'Lad:" (over) "Nothing new, so will get this in the mail" It seems clear that the first portion of the letter and the last portion of the letter are the writings of the sender, Russ Brines. Given the lead in, the enclosed letter, it is possible there is another document, i.e. an enclosure. If I were retyping the letter, received from a third party, I would lead in "the following letter" , or words to that effect, and I would indicate its source, i.e. "the following letter from Mr. Smith just came in," I would also type in the recepients name to avoid confusion. If in fact the "letter" was an enclosure, both the the writer and the recepient would be apparent from addressee and whomever signed the enclosure; if it wasn't an enclosure "Richard" would not know the source, since Brines does not identify the sender or provide a typed signature such as "/s/ Jim Smith" a common form indicating the author of a document when a signature is unavailable. Additionally "Richard" wouldn't have been the original recepient, Russ Brines would have been, thus the letter would not have been addressed to "Richard", unless Brines got a copy of a letter addressed to "Richard" from someone else. The body of the letter is not in quotations, which if copied by a correspondent, would have been common. Journalists don't usually copy something without attribution. There has been some discussion about teletype, all caps, etc. The letter appears to be all capitalized, but the first letter of every paragraph seems larger. The only teletype I have ever seen is an old civil defense model used by a local fire department and I have no knowledge of its typeface or capabilities. I have made inquiry and found out that it, at least that model, did not have the ability to make copies. At least one forum member has referred to the "strip" model machine that was then cut and place on a form, vis-a-vis a telegram format. This doesn't appear to meet that format. If this is the receipient's copy of an original document forwarded by mail, I can understand the presence of strikeouts and handwritten notations made by Brines on the original document to avoid re-typing or correction. If it is a teletype I cannot see how the markouts and notations were accomplished, unless someone, presumably Brines, had a latter conversation or message with or to the recepient correcting the first copy; and it doesn't seem important enough to require follow-up and correction. Similarly, I see no reason for Brines to mark up his copy as it would be different then the one sent to the recepient, and, given its topic, I doubt that he (Brines) would have felt it necessary to keep a copy of his personal correspondence. In reference to the notation "(over)" at the bottom of the first page, it would not be necessary or feasable if sent by teletype, the machine can't flip the document to save paper. Brines could and would since it would save postage by weight; two sheets instead of three. Finally the last sentence clearly refers to "get this in the mail", which leads me to the conclusion that it was not sent by teletype, but by regular (boat?) or air-mail. All of this leads me to believe this is a letter sent by Brines to "Richard" around August 3rd, 1937 with an enclosed letter to Brines from an unknown writer. Okay, targets up--shoot away. P.S. Have you seen the orginal document as it was located or is this a copy? If the original has been seen, is the original on onion-skin paper (air-mail to save weight)? Do we know the source of the document as recently located? This doesn't seem to be the type of document that would be commonly located in a public record, but rather from someones personal files; whose and what do "they" know? Why would it have been kept for sixty plus years? Where there other documents with this that relate to AE? ************************************************************************** From Ric We have not seen the original and know virutally nothing about the provenance of the copy we have. We've made inquiries of the person who sent it to us and hope to learn more. My take on this is that Russ Brines, the AP reporter in Honolulu, typed a letter to his friend and fellow journalist "Richard" (who may have worked out of the San Francisco or L.A. bureau) using the office typewriter which, as was apparently typical for wire service offices at that time, used all caps. He made some corrections in pencil. He ended the letter with "Right now, my fine friend, I can think of nothing more to say...but because boat day is a while off, I'll try to tack a line onto this before shipping it away." I'm not sure how often "boat day" came. The Matson Line serviced Honolulu from the West Coast with two liners (that I know of), "Malolo" and "Lurline." There may have been other service as well. Anyway, when "boat day" arrived there was "Nothing new, sow will get this in the mail." I agree with previously-expressed opinions that the letter was written in late July (maybe around the 20th when "We're still catching up on our sleep after Amelia's bath." The search was called off on the 18th.). There may have been nearly a week's delay before "boat day", then several days for the crossing. The August 3 date at the top of the letter is the day it gets forwarded to "Richard" (who may be on assignment somewhere) by whatever coworker opened the bureau's mail. The date and the sentence at the top were probably added by that person. The sentence at the top is a bit puzzling in the way it is worded, but I tend to think that the "enclosed letter" is the letter we're looking at and the "this way" refers to the particular medium in which it is being sent (maybe a pouch of regular forwarded bureau mail). LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:46:39 EDT From: Jim Tierney Subject: Re: 8th Edition Ric--Sounds like a good solution to the problem.......Situation....enigma...... Those of us who cant stand to read voluminous reports on the monitor should be happy---and those who delight in straining their eyes to read the monitor with their heads tilted back because of bifocals- might be happy also........ Looking forward to receiving the printed pages.... Jim Tierney ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:52:03 EDT From: Mike Muenich Subject: Brines letter, Round Two Okay--round two. I think, upon further review of the letter that this is an original document from Brines to "Richard" and that there was an enclosure, all forwarded by regular mail (boat). In support I offer the following: The first paragraph of the letter refers to some form of regular correspondence between Brines and "Richard" "Every time I look at that last book of yours" refers to a lengthy letter, a "book" if you will, from "Richard" to Brines. "I think what a swell guy dick is and howinhell am I going to duplicate such a letter?" refers to "Richard" as "Dick" and his, Dick's previous lengthy letter; how will Brines match it. "I'm glad to find somebody who can write more and say more than I." refers to the "book" or lengthy letter and the Brines is happy to find that someone, "dick", is more verbos than Brines. I think Brines works for the Honolulu Advertiser. It still exists and I have sent an e-mail to one of its editors requesting confirmation on Brines employment and asking about Jane Howard, "Roy", and "scoop" Culver. I had forgotten about "Clark" but will make further inquiry if I get a response. The second half of the second page and the third page bring "Richard"/Dick up to date on events in Hawaii and the Advertiser. All of this material, except for the lead in under the date and the closure above the signiture is indented. The last full paragraph indicates the letter was written over at least two days. "Right now, my fine friend, (richard/dick) I can think of nothing more to say--* * * *--but inasmuch as boat day is while off, I'll try to tack a line onto this before shipping it away." It is my understanding that various boats carried the mail on a regular basis out of the islands--"boat day" It was "a while off" and if anything new happened--"I'll try to tak a line onto this before shipping it away." Nothing new happened between the first writing and boat day and some time later, Brines added "Nothing new, so will get this in the mail" and signed the letter. Note the indented portion is in the first person, especially the portions about the events in Hawaii, as well as most of the material about AE. All of the indented material reads and flows as a complete letter. The last line, not indented, is a carry over from the last paragraph. At first I thought that all of the indented material could have been the "enclosure" copied, but since the last line ties to the last full paragraph, and the last line is part of the closing and ties to the signiture, I am convinced that the entire document was typed by Brines and forwarded by mail boat to Richard with an enclosure. *************************************************************************** From Ric We've established that Russ Brines was the AP correspondent in Honolulu. You may be right about the first sentence. It's a simpler explanation than the one I came up with. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:53:11 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: AE in custody There was a whole group of nurses marched from place to place over a large island for most of the war. Some died, some made it. I read the account some time ago and can't remember the number, but it was large. That was just ONE group. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:54:37 EDT From: Bob Sherman Subject: SUN-SHADOW For what it's worth: If I have calculated correctly, the sun would be 30d less than overhead [60d altitude] along the 7th. parallel South between June 30th. - July 2nd. and at it's zenith about 10 min. past 12:00 on the Lae clocks. [a 10 min. added acct. Lae is 3d west of the 150E meridian. Sunrise - sunset at 06:10 & 18:07 on Lae's clocks. Noon shadow would be 1/2 the height of an object. Morning & afternoon longer. Hopefully a navigator will not expose my ignorance. RC ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:57:38 EDT From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Bendix RDF & WE Radios << You've described some well-known features of the standard WE 20B and 13C but I'd be very interested to know how you know that receiver cables were routed to the transmitter through the Electra's fuselage. Do you have a work order signed off as being completed? Do you have a photograph showing the connection? >> Ric, my grandmother would say you have the patience of Job. If Janet has EVER responded to any posting I've missed it. I would certainly be pleasantly surprised to read her responses to your questions or will she merely dismiss them without comment as usual? Alan #2329 ************************************************************************** From Ric I have come to accept that any question asked of Ms.Whitney is rhetorical. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:09:20 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene Whoever it is, there may be more photos or film somewhere. Perhaps it's the guy that gave us the "still" photo that has been examined lately? Th' WOMBAT ************************************************************************* From Ric Could be. His name is Alan Board but there is no photo of local folks in front of the airplane among the images we have from him. Sid Marshall supposedly took the film that we have, so that can't be Sid in the film. There are other photos taken at Lae of unknown origin, some of which purport to show the last takeoff but are, in my opinion, more likely to be the test flight. We'll put together a little photo gallery of Lae pictures for everyone to chew on and put it up as a Document of the Week. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:10:52 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: The Brines Letter, Recordings > From William Webster-Garman > > Mike wrote, > > The "Tape Recorder" along the lines we are familiar with (oxide on plastic > tape) was invented in Germany (see the same web page) around 1933! Damn! I thought Th' WOMBAT wrote that.... Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:12:28 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Lae Takeoff Scene - continued > The scene presented to those standing beside the runway would be > hair-raising indeed as the aircraft probably dropped completely out of sight > before re-emerging flying very close to the surface of the water. Which would look very much like an F-14 Tomcat taking off with the aid of a catapult from an aircraft carrier. (Have you seen JAG or Top Gun take off scenes?) Often an older aircraft was still supported partly by "ground effect" when it reached the end of the flight deck. Even in the movies mentioned above, you can sometimes see late model powerful aircraft drop off the end for a moment before climbing away. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:23:32 EDT From: Dustymiss Subject: Re: Vidal papers Okey fellas, calm down - Sure, this is important but not worth getting quite so worked up about - Let us all try to be courteous to each other, eh? To answer everyone's questions - No - I never have set foot in Wyoming. Never claimed to - never have. Wish I did, but have spent all my money visting Atchison and Purdue instead. I did get every piece of correspondance Daniel Davis said the Vidal archives has (meaning there is a missing letter dated June 16, 1936 between Amelia and Gene) between Amelia, Gene and George and in none of this correspondance was there any mention of a plan B - Since I have not been to Wyoming, it is entirely possible that the information that Doris Rich said she got is in a letter from Gene to someone else, or between Amelia and Gene and just misfiled. I do have a list that Dan sent me of all the correspondence from boxes 19 and 19A, having to do with Gene and Amelia and Gene and aviation. There are no other recognizable names on this list (which I will be happy to fax whoever wants them) that might have either known or cared about Amelia's plan B, that I have not already received from Daniel Davis. It did occur to me that, just recently, since this plan B brou-ha-ha has erupted, that I should write Doris Rich, myself and ask her where exactly in the Vidal archives she got her plan B information. I work for the International Women's Air and Space Museum and have recently had correspondence from Doris. So, I will get her address this weekend and send her a letter early next week. She seems very approachable and I am sure she will answer this question. And also, since the time of this recent plan B resurgence, I have again e-mailed Daniel Davis at the Wyoming Vidal Archives to see if the missing letter has turned up and if he can do any further checking to see if he can find this information. Now you know everything I know about Gene, Amelia, Wyoming and Plan B - You may now cross examine the witness - :> LTM - Dustyspider - who's mother reminds everyone to e-mail unto others as you would have others e-mail unto you. ************************************************************************** From Ric Thanks Dusty. I don't think we need to worry too much about the missing letter being the source of the Plan B disclosure. In June of 1936 the airpane was still under construction and as late as November of that year AE was hoping to cross the Pacific with a nonstop hop from Honolulu to Tokyo, refueling in mid-air from a PBY over Midway(believe it or not). Howland Island had not yet even been discussed. You can't have a Plan B before you have a Plan A. Good idea to talk to Doris. (She sure won't talk to me.) LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:25:37 EDT From: Christian D. Subject: Re: Bendix RDF & WE Radios > From Janet Whitney > > The WE Model 20B receiver used a 5-position rotary switch (one position was > Pilot and Co-pilot tuning for the WE 20B receiver was accomplished with an > electro-mechanical system, based on the pilot hearing a sidetone signal > from the WE 13C he/she electro-mechanically tuned in, OR, hearing an LF or HF > signal, also tuned in electro-mechnically. > > Janet Whitney This seems to be an answer to one of my postings weeks ago: Looks like there was a simple procedure (the "sidetone"), when changing to a new receive frequency, to make it EXACTLY the same as the frequency of the transmitter. At least this was the case when one wanted to receive on one of the channels which were crystal controlled (ie. accurate) on the transmitter. There is little room to claim that AE could have been "mistuned" when trying to listen to somebody... Christian D. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:26:36 EDT From: Robert Klauss Subject: Re: Bendix RDF & WE Radios I seem to recall reading all of that information previously on various posts to the forum by radio wonks. Janet would seem to be a program that filters possibly connected factoids from a mass of data and strings them together in seemingly connected series. I don't believe this will be much use for historical research, but has a great future in writing advertising copy or political speeches. If it can foot out the citations it would be wonderful for Doctoral theses. Erudition without original content. Robert ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:33:40 EDT From: Kerry Tiller Subject: Maritime emergency freq. << Why would an airplane need to receive a maritime emergency frequency? I'm not sure, but I betcha they can't now. Anybody know what the current maritime emergency frequency is?>> It's still 500 kHz (Or was up until at least three years ago; the last time I went to sea.) We called it "International Life Boat". Automatically activated radio beacons that send out a distinctive signal on that freq. are standard equipment on modern life boats and rafts. International maritime law required us to have a dedicated receiver tuned to 500 kHz at all times we were underway. The same rule applied to "International Air Distress", a VHF frequency of 121.5 MHz. This is also a signal beacon frequency. The only maritime voice frequency we were required to be "up" was the VHF hailing channel 16, "Bridge to Bridge". We used a standard, commercial (usually Motorola) marine transceiver (actual frequencies preset to the channel designations similar to a CB radio) for this last requirement. I am ignorant of any requirement for pilots to monitor "ILB" (500 kHz). Modern commercial airliners fly too high (I would think) to be of much use, but smaller aircraft, flying at lower altitude, could at least report to someone if they heard a signal. Pilots on the forum? LTM (who says some things never change) Kerry Tiller #2350 *************************************************************************** From Ric I guess transoceanic flights still have HF radios. Do you guys guard 500 Khz? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:36:21 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: The Brines Letter, Recordings Off topic, but I'll try to bring it back on topic... Yes, Cam is right about Col. Ranger. My first boss in radio (a great guy and very sharp) had originally told me a part of the story when explaining the origins of an ancient and little used Ranger recording machine we had in the studio, saying the company had been named after the "Rangers" units of the US Army. I did some additional reading last night and that particular company was in fact named after Richard H. Ranger, an engineer who had snagged a few german tape machines for his personal use while investigating the subject on assignment for the army in post-war germany. Now that Cam mentions it, I do recall hearing about the confusion that allied intelligence people had when they heard apparently live speeches from nazi leaders coming from unexpected cities at strange times. I've also run across the "symphony orchestra late at night" story several times over the years. And yes, I can confirm that Bing Crosby was one of the first american entertainers to make record masters on tape, a few years after the war. To bring this back on topic as much as possible, it's extremely likely that the only device on which Mr Brines could have heard replays of post-loss radio messages would have been on a wire recorder. However, they weren't ubiquitous and were of very low fidelity*, and I've never heard anyone mention that any of the messages were ever captured on wire recorders (were any?). For this reason, Brines' characterization of the messages in his letter is probably based on second hand accounts and his own preformed opinions on the subject. william 2243 *Pre war, "good" fidelity was obtainable via two methods that were very impractical for "field" recording. The first was via huge 16-inch shellac radio transcription discs, which rotated at 33 1/3 RPM (the basis for the 10 and 12 inch "LP microgroove" vinyl discs developed by Peter Goldmark at CBS in the early 1950s), which sounded pretty good and were reasonably low noise on their first few plays. The second was optical film recording, which was used in Hollywood and was sounding reasonably OK by 1937, but was very expensive and required unwieldy equipment and chemical lab processing. Interestingly, the most accurate and noise free sound recording medium through the 1950s and early 1960s was 35mm magnetic film (gorgeous!), and hundreds of orchestral records were recorded by Mercury using the technology. However, it was a very expensive medium and was finally made obsolete in the mid 1960s by further advances in german-style tape technology showing up in machines introduced by Ampex and 3M, among others. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:40:54 EDT From: Mike E. the Radio Historian Subject: Radio details I don't want to get into a long "thread" on the internal workings of AE's radios here, but some things are needing clarification. While I agree that the schematic diagrams of the equipment are hard to read (and I know Janet Whitney is using the Morgan book as her source, and that is OK), Janet's got some things mixed up.... Yhere is no fifth position on the band switch in the receiver. Only four. Look at the other sections, Janet. They show FOUR contacts in each group. You are looking at the antenna input circuit switch, and the way the drawing is laid out, it does look like there's another set of contacts. Well, there are... the "common" contacts, or rotors. But those rotor contacts move through only FOUR positions. Yes, it is indeed confusing. You have to be careful reading this schematic. I had trouble with it too, until I got used to it. And I assure you of this beyond doubt: all of those band switch sections are "ganged" together on a common shaft. Band One: 188-420 KHz. Band Two: 485-1250 KHz (factory modified, for AE, to cover this range by "fudging" the tuning range from 550-1500). Band Three: 1500-4000 KHz. Band Four: 4000-10000 KHz. Having a "fifth" position to "ground" everything makes no technical sense whatsoever. And it is not there, anyway. The schematic symbols used in this diagram are the standard practice for the 1930s. Nothing wierd and special or unique about a WE diagram. That's the way they were drawn. If you want to cross check me, Janet, look at "The 'Radio' Handbook," 8th or 9th edition, by Editors and Engineers Inc. The symbology changed somewhat during the war and after, for simplification purposes; but what you see is what you get for the 1930s. The matters of the alignment procedure Janet brings up are not quite right. I don't believe she has ever aligned a superhet receiver, but I have... many of them in fact. The tuning adjustments for each band must be set rather precisely, on specific frequencies, usually one at the high end and one at the low of each band, to maintain "tracking" of the tuning across that band and keep the sensitivity maximized. This is also important regarding the dial calibration, because if the conversion oscillator is not tracked with the amplifier circuits, the dial is way off and maybe even meaningless unless the operator knows by how much and remembers the "fudge factors." Usually only the person who aligned the radio will be fully aware of this, not the operator -- unless they are one and the same. The dials on many radios of the age were not well-calibrated anyway. The numbers would usually be like, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 MHz. Between those numbers, if you were lucky, there would be tic-marks every 100 KHz, but maybe only 500! There was a lot of guesstimation about tuning them. This radio was remote tuned through a coffee grinder head and a tach shaft. There is considerable mechanical backlash in such a setup. This makes resetting tuning slow and difficult, especially setting to a precise freq. The dial calibration may not have been exactly perfect either. As an aside: One big reason the US air attacks fell apart at Midway, was that coffee-grinder radios got moved off freq. The various fighting and bombing squadrons could not communicate! But as Walter Lord says, Midway was an incredible victory... we still nailed three Jap flattops the first time out. If things had not gone the way they did, we might all be drinking Sake now.... I have actually experimented with several radios tuned in this manner, and with the tuning heads and cables used in the aircraft installations (the RU series, the ARB receiver, the SCR-274N, the AN/ARC-5, the SCR-183, the SCR-269 adf, the AN/ARN-6 and ARN-7 adfs, Bendix MN-26 and a few more besides) and can assure you that until you have had this experience, you don't fully appreciate how they work (or don't work). Thank goodness for frequency synthesizers and digital tuning! AE's radio had no crystal frequency standard (crystal calibrator) to check the dial against. Only high priced ground station type communication receivers had this luxury. OK, the Radio Historian is going out on another limb. I hear the chainsaws cranking up.... I am not ready to believe that the loss of the antenna at Lae was what killed AE's receiver. I don't know what it was used for either, but am pretty sure it was NOT the HF comm antenna. That was the dorsal Vee, common to the xmtr. Standard practice was to do it this way. And there I stand. I may move later, but for now.... My hypothesis is that what did AE and FN in was, pure and simple, COCKPIT TROUBLE. Here are the factors: Fatigue from a long flight (lack of sleep, an ear-beating airplane) Stress, when things started to come unglued A very user-unfriendly radio, whose switchology could be baffling (remember: 3105 KHz and 7500 KHz are in different bands! To switch between those freqs requires not only cranking the tuning dial, but also turning the band switch) A pilot who did not understand/did not care about/did not trust radio anyway. All this adds up to an accident going some place to happen. And it did. LTM (whose calibration is usually pretty good) and 73 Mike E. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:50:19 EDT From: Michael Holt Subject: Recordings > From William Webster-Garman > > This thread got started because someone asked if Russell Brines might have > heard a recording of post-loss radio messages in the aftermath of the AE > disappearance. He probably didn't, and he certainly didn't hear any tape > recordings. Is it possible that the term "recording" meant, at that time, the stenographic record of the messages? *************************************************************************** From Ric Yes, but Brines never used the term "recording." The passage in question reads, " ... the Moorby reported overhearing a 'conversation' which consisted of a series of unholy 'squeals' that might have meant something to somebody, but not to me, after hearing them." So how did Brines "hear" what the Moorby reported overhearing? A recording made aboard ship and brought to Hawaii seems so unlikely as to be pretty much out of the question. The only thing I can think of is that Brines was at a radio somewhere hearing the same thing that the Moorby was hearing. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 10:52:12 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: The Brines Letter, Recordings Correction to my previous post: I wrote too fast. Radio transcription discs were not shellac. They were usually coated with an acetate on a base of aluminum or glass. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 11:02:08 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Lae takoff, scene by scne I went over the film again last night for a while. In the scene where everyone is standing in front of the plane, and just starting to break up (looks to me like the guy in the white shirt to the right has just snapped everyone's picture with Amelia), I hadn't noticed before, but the top hatch of the Electra is being closed from inside during that clip (probably AE stood up on the seat for the photo, then sat down to move the plane -?-). Then at the very end of the clip, a man in a dark shirt, with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, with dark hair, walks into camera range from the left side, facing away from the camera and walking in the direction of the plane. He is only visible for one or two tenths of a second, but I'd bet lunch that it's Fred. It's right after that that we see the clip with the corner of the building, so I'm inclined to think that maybe they took this (souvenier or newspaper) picture away from the building, so there was enough room for everyone to get into the picture, then they taxied up to the building to top up the tanks, and get ready for takeoff. During the taxi-out, I noticed there is a large, odd shaped tree in the background - obscured at first by the plane - and then - surprise, a smoky bonfire that just seems to be starting in the background as well. The takeoff run part of the film is obviously taken from the same point, probably where the camera man was told he could see the plane getting off the ground. As the camera pans left, following the Electra, we again see the bonfire - lots more smoke now, but hugging the ground - and the same odd tree. It seems obvious to me that the fire is intended to show AE exactly what direction the wind is coming from, and it appears to be straight on from the left end of the runway (not the port end, as it were). Also, just before the clip ends, there is a figure dressed in light clothing at the left side of the picture, standing alone. I wonder if it's the same boy who held the door? ltm, jon 2266 ************************************************************************** From Ric I agree.. as I wrote in my Aug. 27 posting: <> Whether the smoky fire across the runway was especially for AE's benefit or not is a matter of conjecture. It's standard practice in New Guinea, even today, to regularly burn off areas to keep the grass and bush down so that the snakes stay away from where the people are. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 12:06:57 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Recordings Ric wrote, >The only thing I can think of is that Brines was at a radio somewhere hearing >the same thing that the Moorby was hearing. Brines says, "except the screwy reports of amateur operators who persistently heard 'voices' when we were trying to sleep. I bounced out of bed half a dozen times each night..." It sounds to me as though he was somehow in regular contact with the amateur radio enthusiasts who were very eagerly listening for transmissions from the missing Electra, was awakened several times by them when they thought they might have heard something significant (maybe he was sleeping down the hall, maybe they were telephoning him), and at some point he simultaneously heard the "squeals" as the Moorby heard them. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 13:03:42 EDT From: Patrick Gaston Subject: Re: Brines letter Okay, this horse has already been beaten to death, but ... Although I haven't used one in 25 years, after searching my memory I >seem< to recall that those old 5-bit, hand-keyed teletypes had a way of "faking" a capital letter by printing it just a point or two bigger, or maybe slightly out of register -- exactly like the Brines letter. Does anyone remember this feature or am I just wrong, as usual? P.S. I'm betting Noonan was a scotch drinker. Nobody that intelligent, erudite and good-lookin' would be downing gin-et-tonics on a regular basis. LTM (Teacher's with a splash, thenkew) Pat Gaston ************************************************************************** From Ric Now here's a topic for pointless speculation that we can get our swizzle-sticks into. The one reference to booze that we have directly from Fred is in his letter to Gene Pallette "looking forward to a highball with you." This was the heyday of the "cocktail" and a "highball", as I recall, could be most any simple mixed drink. A shot of Scotch, even polluted with ice, would not be a "highball" but a Scotch and Soda might be. Fred a Scotch drinker? Maybe. Or it could be that those years in Loosianna gave him an affinity for bourbon. (Never the twain shall meet.) Or maybe he was a traditional rum-drinking sailor. Gin and tonic does sound wrong for an Irishman and I would guess that Irish whiskey (if you can call it that) was not as commonly available then as it is now. By the way, Brines uses the term "six-bottle man." Anybody ever heard that expression before? I thought it might refer to somebody who could consume six bottles of whiskey in one day but I tried it and that can't be right. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 13:12:33 EDT From: Kenton Spading Subject: Signs of a Hang Over Patrick Gaston wrote: >Agree completely with WWG: The Lae takeoff film conclusively refutes the >"Fred-was-drunk" rumor. If the alert, chipper fellow depicted on the film >was coming off a King Hell bender, then I only wish I could hold my liquor >as well! I have spent a lot of time around alcoholics and heavy drinkers. Those that subscribe to the film being proof that Fred was not hung over have obviously never spent any up close and personal time with someone who is an heavy drinker and/or alcoholic. Many seasoned drinkers do not show obvious signs of a hangover. The film proves nothing about how much Fred did or did not drink the night before. LTM Kenton Spading *************************************************************************** From Ric I'm outside my paygrade here. I flew once with a booming hangover (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away). Sheer misery. But Kenton's point seems to be that "accomplished six-bottle men" do not get hangovers as we know them. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 13:14:30 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Recordings Brines does make reference to being up and down (in & out of bed) at all hours to pursue the story - I'd be willing to bet that's exactly what happened - signals started being heard, and he listened as well. Maybe had a set in his room, or nearby. ltm jon *************************************************************************** From Ric It's not hard to imagine that once the story got around everybody with a radio was listening for calls from Amelia. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 13:15:51 EDT From: Jon Watson Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene I suppose it's impossible to know, but that doesn't look like a burn-off to me - if I were going to do that, I would start a long fire, cross-wind, so it would clear a larger area. This bonfire looks pretty localized, and is in just the right spot to show wind direction without obscuring the runway. Not that it matters much, except that knowing exactly where the wind was coming from, and speed - probably pretty easy to guesstimate from watching the smoke - would be critical to a successful takeoff in an overloaded airplane from a grass strip. ltm jon ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 13:20:37 EDT From: David Evans Katz Subject: Six bottle man? Did beer bottles come in six-packs back then? David Evans Katz *************************************************************************** From Ric Good question, but I just don't see Fred as a beer guzzler. No gut and no indication that he liked football. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 13:34:06 EDT From: Doug Brutlag Subject: Emergency Freq's Answer to the guarding 500 Khz on comercial airliners: Nope. Do we still have HF's:Yep & they are as big a pain in the butt as ever. In oceanic airspace we monitor 121.5(standard emergency freq.) and 123.45(chatter freq.) To my knowledge the Coasties Rescue Coordination Centers monitor 5696 Khz & 8984Khz on the east coast, and 2828 & 5696 Khz in San Fransisco & Honolulu. For the past 3 years we have had SATCOM installed in our aircraft but oceanic control centers have yet to upgrade their facilities. A good part of the problem is ancestor worship and the fact that satellite comunications & automation will put alot of people out of work. The rest is simply money. The DOD along with the Russians have the capability to pick up emergency locator transmitters via satellite and get an instant GPS or GLONASS fix of an aircraft or maritime vessel in distress(if vessel is so equipped) and relay the position to AMVER -the Coasties Automated Mutual-assistanceVessel Rescue System that monitors the sailing plans of almost 3000 participating merchant ships daily. When given a report of an aircraft or ship in trouble AMVER will locate and contact the closest participating vessel and ask them to steam ASAP to the troubled aircraft/vessel and provide assistance & rescue if neccesary. It works beautifully and has already saved the lives of several maritime & aircraft crews. Doug Brutlag #2335 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:12:42 EDT From: Dennis McGee Subject: Hangovers Ric said: "But Kenton's point seems to be that "accomplished six-bottle men" do not get hangovers as we know them." Actually alcoholics are just better at disguising their hangovers, for two reasons: 1) they've had a lot of practice, and 2) they don't want people to know the extent of their drinking -- as if we don't already know, or at least suspect.. LTM, presently a teetotaler Dennis O. McGee #1049EC *************************************************************************** From William Webster-Garman Spading wrote, >I have spent a lot of time around alcoholics and heavy >drinkers.... Many seasoned drinkers do not show obvious signs >of a hangover. The film proves nothing about how much Fred did or did not >drink the night before. I can only reply that I did not say Noonan looks free of a hangover in the film, and never claimed that the film proved anything about what Fred had drunk the night before. Based on what we know about Fred, he probably did drink something (that it might have been scotch would be too good to be true ). What I did say is that based on the evidence of the film, Earhart did not "pour Noonan" into the aircraft (Brines implying that Noonan was roaring drunk, not merely "hungover"). Brines also expresses the opinion that Noonan was totally incapacitated by drink and that Earhart had to do all the navigating herself. Brines was still a very young man (who often naively perceive themselves as so worldly-cynical and wise), and certainly saw lots of booze flowing around Pearl (and flow it did). His remarks are possibly one of many sources of all the old rumours about Fred. I doubt Brines would have expressed that opinion so confidently if he had seen the Lae takeoff clip before writing the letter. Plainly put, Fred Noonan looks sober in that clip. It contains no proof that Fred was drunk on that flight, and provides reasonable evidence of the contrary. william 2243 ************************************************************************** From Patrick Gaston Finally a subject I know a >little< something about! Ric, I think "cocktail" is a generic term for any mixed drink. The term "highball" refers specifically to the combination of alcohol and soda water. The soda was supposed to speed up the desired effect, hence the term. I imagine it derives from the railroading expression for going really, really fast. To Kenton Spading: I didn't meant to sound flippant about alcoholism. I've also spent my share of time around "seasoned drinkers," and I agree that often they don't show obvious signs of a hangover. The key word here is "obvious". In my experience, mental impairment due to alcohol abuse generally manifests itself in at least some degree of physical impairment. A skilled drinker can indeed mask the more obvious symptoms, but the fact remains that the body is still being controlled by a booze-soaked brain. Slow, confused thinking tends to produce slow, confused movements. The real question isn't how much FN drank the night before, but whether he was mentally impaired on the morning after. Now take a look at the Noonan depicted on the Lae takeoff film. We see him walking briskly to and fro, helping AE (twice) up onto the wing of the aircraft -- even doing a quite graceful pirouette to avoid colliding with her as she moves past him. He is sure-footed, alert, agile. He moves quickly and with purpose. I submit, your honor, that these are simply not the actions of a guy in post-bender fog. Two weeks ago we had some friends over for dinner. I drank a single glass of white wine and it knocked me for a loop; I was still feeling the aftereffects 14 hours later. Last week I met some buddies at a bar and had my customary several scotches. I woke up the next day feeling fresh as a daisy. I think everyone who tips a glass occasionally has had the same experience. The point is that a given amount of alcohol does not always produce a given result. I stand by my conviction that the Lae takeoff film conclusively refutes the "Fred was drunk" theory, regardless of his consumption the night before. LTM (who does like it on the rocks) Pat Gatson ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:14:05 EDT From: Roger Kelley Subject: Lae takeoff, ground effect. Recently there have been postings referring to AE's takeoff roll and flight over the runway while in ground effect. I note in the very last frames of the takeoff film, the aircraft appears to gravitate towards the ground and/or horizon. If the aircraft is in fact descending, this might indicate loss of ground effect as she passes over the beach which is reported to be several feet lower than the end of the runway. I speculate that AE regains ground effect as the aircraft settles over the water. Then, the aircraft continues to gain speed and slowly climbs away. As mentioned before, such a scenario would account for reports by spectators that AE's aircraft descended, passed from site and then climbed up and away. Please take note of the very last frames of the film and voice opinions as to whether or not the aircraft is descending. Thanks. LTM, (who may be seeing things that are not there) Roger Kelley, 2112CE ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:18:45 EDT From: Tom King Subject: Six bottle man << I thought it might refer to somebody who could consume six bottles of whiskey in one day but I tried it and that can't be right. >> Just goes to show you're not Fred Noonan. Good thing, or there's no telling what island we'd have wound up on. LTM (a no-bottle mom) TK *************************************************************************** From William Webster-Garman A query on Google and Alta Vista yielded one single reference to the string search "six bottle man", is apparently a translation from german and refers somewhat fuzzily to bottles of wine: "...still, in the 18th century, in london, there was the club called the brilliants whose newcomers were named "three-bottle men" because they were required to empty three bottles of port wine per meeting. it was said that one of the club seniors, a "six-bottle man" said, in reply to the question whether he ever needed help with three bottles, "but no, the only help I got was from a bottle of madeira!" (text is at http://www.designboom.com/eng/shortessay/bere.html) william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:19:41 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Bendix RDF & WE Radios Question for Janet Whitney: Do you know Ananova? william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:21:10 EDT From: Cam Warren Subject: Re: Radio details Well, I'd say Mike has hit the nail on the head re Amelia's radio problems - COCKPIT TROUBLE. Or, as we used to say in the old, steam driven days, "a short between the earphones". (Pronounced "E-R-PHO-knees" by the cognoscenti). Mike does still seem to cling to the "one (Western Electric) receiver" however, but I think I can straighten him out on that score. And, admittedly, the addition of the Bendix RA-1 would only add to AE's switching and tuning confusion (which is why it must have been "preset" to 7500 at some stage of the game). Cam Warren ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:22:20 EDT From: Dan Postellon Subject: Re: Recordings: (radio transcription disks) My daughter worked with these at the Smithsonian. Glass was used during WW II during metal rationing, and the acetate often separated from the glass. Metal, usually aluminum for weight, worked much better. Shellac was used for some music master disk prior to WW II, and some old 78's were made with carnauba wax. Both of the latter have been melted down by fanatic woodworkers as a source of antique wood finishing material. This is also why 50's disk jockeys talked about "stacks of wax". Daniel Postellon Tighar #2263 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:24:04 EDT From: Ron Bright Subject: Vidal Collection for Gaston and Dusty Miss, I have emailed Prof Bowers of the American Heritage Center ,University of Wyoming to check out the Vidal Collection 6013,Box 19,page 97 (Rich's cite) re Vidal's remark about returning to the Gilberts. I"ll keep you posted. LLTM, RON Bright ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:28:14 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene > From Jon Watson > > Not that it matters much, except that knowing exactly where the wind was > coming from, and speed - probably pretty easy to guesstimate from watching > the smoke - would be critical to a successful takeoff in an overloaded > airplane from a grass strip. Especially if there wasn't sufficient wind to move the windsock much. Even the slightest tailwind could have killed them, conversely, the slightest headwind would have helped a lot. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:29:09 EDT From: Jim Tierney Subject: Re: Brines letter No- I have never heard the -'six bottle man'- expression before---- and I do admit that I have indulged in a few cases in my lifetime.... Also- you are right--NO self respecting Irishman- whether a social drinker or a dedicated boozer would have anything to do with G & T's- that effete drink that was a symbol of the English upper classes and the Colonial Service and the Foreign Office... LTM-who liked hers neat with a small water chaser... Jim Tierney ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:31:27 EDT From: Chuck Jackson Subject: Recording technologies > the arm and recording head of a disc recorder would have a tendency to > "skate" across the disc because of the rolling motion of a ship.. While a disk and needle player would "skate" out of its groove, the recording engine was a cutter guided and restrained by a leadscrew. The Presto recorder was well developed in the mid 1930s and used by major radio networks to make "electrical transcriptions". I wonder if any were used shipboard? Sadly, thousands of aluminum Presto disks were melted down for the war effort---thousands may still remain??? Many web sites are dedicated to the Presto recorder and its history-- but nary a word on possible shipboard use. If recording was used aboard Itaska wouldn't Bellarts or Thompson have mentioned it? Maybe not if it challenged their records!? ************************************************************************** From Ric It seems inconceivable to me that a recording could have been made and nobody now know about it. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:35:32 EDT From: Janet Whitney Subject: Re: Earhart's Radios According to Amelia Earhart herself, the WE 20B receiver was located under the co-pilot's seat and the transmitter was located in the cabin. The transmit / receive relay was in the WE 13C transmitter. WE produced a modified WE 20, the WE 20BA, that had two crystal controlled HF frequencies that could be switch-selected by the pilot or co-pilot. It appears that Amelia Earhart did not have this model aboard. (The WE 20B could be upgraded to the WE 20BA). Calibration for radios in Amelia Earhart's day, during WWII, and well after WW II was a tedious job. The signal generators of the era had "calibration books" with various "correction factors" for the various frequencies the signal generator was calibrating. Janet Whitney ************************************************************************** From Ric She's still in Transmit Only mode. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:40:09 EDT From: Mike E. the Radio Historian Subject: Several things Old time 5-bit Teletype machines used ALL CAPS letters only. The upper case was called "FIGS" and consisted of the numbers, punctuation marks etc. The keyboard was standard QWERTY layout, but each key had an upper case "FIGS" character. The only exceptions were Carriage Return and Line Feed (paper advance), plus one key that was blank. The numbers were the upper-case of QWERTYUIOP. Teletype paper came in single copy rolls, single copy fan-fold boxes (Heavy!), and I have also seen multicopy rolls... three copies even! Three sheets of paper and 2 carbons. "Sidetone" is not a term for a method of zeroing a transmitter and receiver to the same freq. Sidetone is transmitted audio, generated within the transmitter's speech stages (or a tone oscillator in a CW transmitter) and fed directly into the receiver headphone circuit. It is for the purpose of monitoring your transmission.... to let you know (after a fashion) that it's working. But it does not tell every thing you need to know, obviously. Again: This is NOT a method of getting the rec and xmtr on the same frequency. Absolutely not. The principle, on voice, is: if the speaker can hear his/her own voice in the headphones, they will not shout. Simple, effective automatic gain control. Same principle used in your telephone at home. I have seen nothing to indicate that there was ANY method of "whistle-thru" or "spotting" incorporated in AE's radio setup. As strange and/or ludicrous as it may sound, the method of tuning the receiver to the transmitter was, "look at the dial." (This was the norm, even in military a/c radios of the period.) Very dangerous practice, because often those old dials could be "off" and you had to know the fudge factors. And respect them! This could be hard for a non-tech (even anti-tech) person to deal with (a la AE). LTM (who always likes to hear herself talk) and 73 Mike E. *************************************************************************** From Ric Sounds like I just just stop posting the stuff from Janet Whitney entirely. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:45:49 EDT From: Ned Johnston Subject: Re: Lae takoff film I haven't viewed the film myself, but determining whether it is a piece of unedited film (and therefore a chronological record), or an assembly of shots edited from one or more longer pieces of film (and possibly rearranged in a different sequence) should be easy. When any film camera starts up it takes a fraction of a second for the mechanism to reach the nominal frame rate (normally 18 frames per second for silent film, 24 fps for film that will be projected with sound). Since movie film exposure is a function of the speed the film moves through the camera, the first frame or two of each shot is almost always a "flash frame" - a frame that is overexposed and appears much lighter than the subsequent frames. Almost always, an editor will chop off these overexposed frames when assembling an edited sequence. If you view the Lae film frame-by-frame, and do NOT see overexposed frames or flashes between the shots, you can be certain you are NOT looking at raw, unedited footage. LTM (who doesn't like any kind of flashers), Ned Johnston #2314 ************************************************************************* From Ric Thanks Ned. I've looked at the film again with your comments in mind. It looks to me like the "flash frames" between scenes are clearly there. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:49:24 EDT From: Christian D. Subject: Re: Recordings <> To me it still seems curious that Brines said "...AFTER hearing them." That seems to imply he was able to listen to the "squeals" later on, after he heard the Moorby report about them. If he had meant that he had heard the squeals in "real time", as we say nowadays, he would have been more likely to say "...but not to me WHEN I heard them." What do English language specialists think? Christian D. PS: are we anywhere near on topic? ************************************************************************** From Ric If we run southeast along the LOP we may be able to find it. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 08:58:45 EDT From: Dave Bush Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene Even the slightest tailwind could have killed them, conversely, the slightest headwind would have helped a lot. BUT, a headwind, fully overloaded with a 50' foot obstacle is no help in comparison to a slight tail wind with no obstacles (ie the beach/ocean). What would AE have been facing with a takeoff in the other direction? LTM, Dave Bush #2200 *************************************************************************** From Ric Rising terrain. Headed toward the water she had a slight headwind and no obstacles. Not exactly a tough call. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:59:44 EDT From: Dick Johnson Subject: Brines letter, Round two Mike Muenich wrote: >I had forgotten about "Clark" but will make further inquiry if I get a >response. For "Clark," might I suggest Clark Lee, AP reporter who was in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded and who wrote "They Call It Pacific" (1943) about the experience? Dick Johnson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:02:58 EDT From: Bob Brandenburg Subject: Re: Recordings > From Christian D. > > To me it still seems curious that Brines said "...AFTER hearing them." That > seems to imply he was able to listen to the "squeals" later on, after he > heard the Moorby report about them. If he had meant that he had heard the > squeals in "real time", as we say nowadays, he would have been more likely to > say "...but not to me WHEN I heard them." This thread about Brines and recording media has me somewhat confused. Perhaps I'm missing something here, and if so I would appreciate some guidance. Brines speaks of "Moorby" (actually it's SS Moorsby) reporting overhearing a "conversation" which "consisted of a series of unholy squeals which might have meant something to somebody but not to me after hearing them". But how does Brines know that the Moorsby reported such a conversation? The message from Moorsby, received at the Navy radio station at Tutuila, and relayed to the Itasca, and presumably to higher authority in Honolulu, states: "HEAR CONTINUOUS CARRIER WAVE 3105 KCS BEEN GOING LAST COUPLE OF HOURS BUT NO INDICATION AS TO WHAT IT IS NO WAY OF GETTING IN TOUCH UNLESS HE CAN READ MORSE SS MOORSBY POSITION 0740 GCT 4.50 N 185.28 W STEERING 2226 SPEED 10". There's nothing in the message about a "conversation" consisting of "unholy squeals". If Brines was listening to Moorsby's message to Tutuila as it was being sent, then he had to have been able to read Morse code. Did Brines know Morse? If he was listening after the fact to a recording of the "squeals", somehow made on the Moorsby, then how did the recording get from the Moorsby to wherever Brines heard it? If the "squeals" Brines heard were recorded in Honolulu, who recorded them, and how did Brines know they were the same "squeals" allegedly heard by the Moorsby? LTM, who has been known to squeal when confused, Bob Brandenburg, #2286 *************************************************************************** From Ric Good questions. Doesn't make any sense to me either. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:04:44 EDT From: Ross Devitt Subject: Re: Lae takoff, scene by scene > From Dave Bush > Even the slightest tailwind could have killed them, conversely, the > slightest headwind would have helped a lot. > BUT, a headwind, fully overloaded with a 50' foot obstacle is no help in > comparison to a slight tail wind with no obstacles (ie the beach/ocean). > What would AE have been facing with a takeoff in the other direction? My point was: a slight tailwind would have made the takeoff roll considerably longer, and they may not have had enough runway to get airborne with the load. No wind may have been ok, and a headwind, however slight would have helped a lot. Some days here when the wind sock is just flopping around on the mast, I can't tell the wind until I get the ATIS. But just watch the difference only a couple of knots makes to climb out. I don't think a takeoff inland towards the ranges would have been an option wind or no. It would involve manouvreing at a very dangerous stage of the flight. Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:06:53 EDT From: Mike E. the Radio Historian Subject: Re: Earhart's Radios >WE produced a modified WE 20, the WE 20BA, that had two crystal controlled HF >frequencies that could be switch-selected by the pilot or co-pilot. It >appears that Amelia Earhart did not have this model aboard. (The WE 20B could >be upgraded to the WE 20BA). Right out of Morgan's book... Janet, believe me, we have sources other than this which tell us AE's particular receiver had the tuning range on Band 2 modified to include 500 KHz. It was a 20B, modified, not a 20BA. AE's receiver may have been the prototype for this later production version. >Calibration for radios in Amelia Earhart's day, during WWII, and well after >WW II was a tedious job. The signal generators of the era had "calibration >books" with various "correction factors" for the various frequencies the >signal generator was calibrating. Obviously these facts are gleaned from reading from some old Instruction Book... sounds like probably either the one for the military SCR-211/BC-221 (Army) or LM series (Navy). Yes, I know they were cumbersome to use. Been there and done that... but they were also amazingly accurate (and still are even today!! I drag out an old LM-4 occasionally to check some freq or another)in the hands of a trained technician. US Navy aircraft of the day which carried a radio operator (anything larger than a single seat fighter) also carried a frequency standard to set the receivers to the correct spot. They did not rely on "netting" the receiver to the transmitter... for one thing, the xmtr could drift, and the standard was also used to check it. Not sure exactly what type designation the freq standards (also called a "CFI," or Crystal Frequency Indicator, actually a slight misnomer) were in 1937 though; just know they were aboard. A real nice and useful item. AE had no such luxury. Mike E. #2194 >Janet Whitney >************************************************************************** >From Ric > >She's still in Transmit Only mode. No, Ric... she lost her antenna on take-off. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:10:19 EDT From: Randy Jacobson Subject: Re: Recordings It is entirely possible that Brines was able to hear the PAA radio reception at Makapuu Point, Ft. Shafter, or Wailupe Navy Radio, the last two being very doubtful. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:15:09 EDT From: Vern Subject: Re: Bendix RDF & WE Radios Ric sez... (Responding to one of Janet's postings) >You've described some well-known features of the standard WE 20B and 13C but... ...And.... >If you'd like to see a "serious and systematic investigation of the problems >Earhart and others encountered with the late-1930's radio equipment >I'd like to know just what sources you know of that could be used >in undertaking such a study. I have the impression that Janet is making a sincere effort to pass along information that we might not know about. Clearly, she's not as aware as she might be if she had been immersed in all this for years as some of us have. I find it difficult to fault her for that. How much time does she have to study everything we've already flogged to death? And she's trying to suggest avenues of research that we might not have thought of. In the above instance, there's not much of any way to do the research and it wouldn't mean much relative to AE's particular equipment and that particular flight anyway. I think the best we could hope for would be anecdotal. But it does no harm to make the suggestion. In fact, I'm probably going to post some radio speculation that does sort of get into this. In a day or two, I hope. In essence, I'm by no means ready to write Janet off as a lost cause. If Ric will post her offerings, I'll sure read 'em! Whether or not she reads anything we post. *************************************************************************** From Ric My concern about posting her stuff is that she so often states facts with great authority that turn out to be just flat wrong. Somebody who has the expertise to catch her errors then has to take the time to post a correction. Seems to be a waste of time. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:18:37 EDT From: Vern Subject: Re: Electra's Belly Antenna Ric sez... (Janet's posting is quoted below) >Welcome back Janet. Yes, those are relatively modern antennas on an airplane >in relatively recent service. Any relevance to the present discussion >escapes me. For one who has not been in on all the discussions that have gone on for years here, it seems to me a reasonable question to suggest. Much information is available on the web site but there's an awful lot of stuff to work through. Janet sees another Electra (Electra Junior) with a belly antenna. May that suggest something pertinent to our questions about the belly antenna on the Earhart Electra? Would that it did! Remembering earlier postings about belly antennas on more recent planes, I think the forum would say that is probably for a LF Radio Range receiver -- thr "A" and "N" quadrant system. In that case, Ric is quite right in that it probably has no relevance to the present antenna discussion. Although, even that has been suggested in past speculation about the belly antenna. >From Janet Whitney > >There is a color photo of an Electra Model 12 in Walter Boyne's recent (1998) >Lockheed history "Beyond the Horizons." The Model 12 in the photo is >equipped with a short belly antenna, and a V antenna above the cockpit. Also >a RDF antenna in a fairing over the cockpit. *************************************************************************** From Ric <> I'm not aware of any such consensus. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:22:20 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re Recordings The proper archiving of old transcription disks is a serious issue, and there are lots of problems with those disks today. For example, over time they leach chemicals, creating a destructive gray "dust" on the surface that can make them unplayable. Removing the dust can accelerate the damage. Even worse, the lacquer has often separated from the base (aluminum, glass, sometimes even cardboard in WWII era disks). Old tape has equally serious preservation issues. Ancient splices break easily, and many tapes manufactured in the 1970s contain sub-standard binders that cause the oxide to literally peel off onto the tape deck components when played today. There are some uncertain "baking" techniques that sometimes help, but essentially, an archivist gets one chance to copy the contents of the tape onto a new medium. Playing these particular tapes often destroys them. william 2243 *************************************************************************** And further: I, too, have never heard of one of those old Presto disk recorders being used regularly onboard a ship. Although the cutting mechanism was guided mechanically, there were resonance and vibration issues with disk cutting, and the rolling motion and engine pulses of a ship could at times have definitely interfered with the smooth operation of all the relatively precise mechanical parts, along with the action of the cutter on the lacquer. As I've mentioned before, wire recorders were so lo fi in 1937 (due to very limited frequency response and poor speed consistancy) that a recording of a dodgy radio transmission on a wire would have often been rendered as unintelligible noise. Finally, apparently, we've never heard of any such recordings related to the Earhart flight. william 2243 *************************************************************************** From Ric So let's consider the "recordings" thread to be dead. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:23:54 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Recordings To Christian D., The phrase "...after hearing them" has troubled me too, but the meaning could just as easily be "I heard them myself" as "after I heard them later". I've listened to many people from that generation use the expression in both senses. The only way he could have heard a delayed recording would have been on a wire recorder, but the fidelity of those devices was bad, and the dubious quality of static filled, squealing transmissions recorded off the air would been even worse recorded on wire. There were also disc cutting recorders available back then, some "portable", but they were unusual and cumbersome for field work, the blanks were expensive, and the were easy to botch. Interestingly, these disc cutters mostly appeared in commercial broadcast stations (which in those days, in large markets, were also used as recording studios). Finally, yes, it is possible, but a bit early and expensive for an amateur radio operator in Hawaii in 1937 to have had a wire recorder or a small disk cutter, and I've never heard of any reference to wire recordings or disks of post loss transmissions. All taken together, I tend to conclude that Brines was more likely to have been awakened repeatedly by amateur radio operators and at some point was standing near a radio and heard some transmissions, from which he could make no sense at all, and dismissed them. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:25:47 EDT From: Christian D. Subject: Radio details Mike said: > Sidetone is transmitted audio, generated within the transmitter's speech > stages (or a tone oscillator in a CW transmitter) and fed directly into the > receiver headphone circuit. It is for the purpose of monitoring your > transmission.... to let you know (after a fashion) that it's working. But > it does not tell every thing you need to know, obviously. This raises another question: IF we are talking about a real sidetone, (as far as I know, a real sidetone is for CW only!?!?!?) then, we are talking about a transmitter with "true CW capability", then, aren't we? I thought last year the conclusion of a VERY long thread was that the only way for AE to send Morse was tapping the PTT switch on the mike... > Again: This is NOT a method of getting the rec and xmtr on the same > frequency. Absolutely not. > > The principle, on voice, is: if the speaker can hear his/her own voice in > the headphones, they will not shout. Simple, effective automatic gain > control. Same principle used in your telephone at home. > > I have seen nothing to indicate that there was ANY method of "whistle-thru" > or "spotting" incorporated in AE's radio setup. As strange and/or >ludicrous Sure sounds quite strange to me! It is many years since I've handled my "Command Sets", but I would have thought that there was a way to hear the transmitter in the receiver, possibly with a special position on some "Mode" switch... Again: I don't have the diagrams... Sure wish there was a way I could buy them, either tru faxing, or an electronic file or... > as it may sound, the method of tuning the receiver to the transmitter was, > "look at the dial." (This was the norm, even in military a/c radios of the > period.) Very dangerous practice, because often those old dials could be > "off" and you had to know the fudge factors. And respect them! This could > be hard for a non-tech (even anti-tech) person to deal with (a la AE). > > LTM (who always likes to hear herself talk) and > 73 > > Mike E. > *************************************************************************** > From Ric > > Sounds like I just just stop posting the stuff from Janet Whitney entirely. Sounds fine to me: will save a huge amount of bandwith, on my slow Internet connection... Cheers. Christian D. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:27:26 EDT From: Christian D. Subject: Re: Radio details >From Mike E. the Radio Historian #2194: > > And I assure you of this beyond doubt: all of those band switch sections > are "ganged" together on a common shaft. Band One: 188-420 KHz. Band Two: > 485-1250 KHz (factory modified, for AE, to cover this range by "fudging" the > tuning range from 550-1500). So we are saying that AE could receive the Itasca 500 kHz transmitter?? And possibly DF on it? Is this a new information? (Can't remember...) Regards Christian D. *************************************************************************** From Ric Yes, and no, it's not new information. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:30:39 EDT From: Marty Moleski Subject: Functional Alcoholics I'd like to say a few words about alcoholics and alcoholism. CREDENTIALS: I've been sober for about 19 years and some months. I'm not a trained alcoholism counselor or researcher, just someone who pays attention to things I read about it. I'll put the bottom line up front and give the analysis afterward: THESIS: We can't tell FN's mental or physical condition from a few seconds of film. SOME OBSERVATIONS AND ARGUMENT: Alcoholism is a progressive illness. People who suffer from this physical/mental malady may exhibit different symptoms at different phases of the progression of the condition. In early and middle-stages of alcoholism, deterioration of mental and motor skills may be relatively slight. Drinkers who have gained tolerance for alcohol may, in fact, perform better on certain tests when somewhat under the influence because the "hair of the dog" does, in fact, give relief from some of the symptoms of withdrawal: shakes, fever/chill, confusion of thought, general malaise, hallucinations, headaches, etc. In later stages of alcoholism, systems begin to break down and alcohol may cease to provide relief from the pain it causes. People in this condition do not function well either sober or under the influence. If we had a complete chart of FN's drinking history, it might be possible to make an educated guess about what a certain amount of alcohol might do to brain and bodily functions. But it would only be a guess. People vary from ideal types. "One man's meat is another man's poison." Winston Churchill drank a fairly substantial quantity of brandy, smoked cigars, and took long naps every day during WWII. If his drinking caused him any problems, they didn't seem to affect his leadership abilities. The film clip does show that FN was not "falling down drunk." It does not and cannot establish that he was not under the influence. If anyone knows for certain when, where, and in what quantity Fred drank in Lae, they either kept the information to themselves, the records are lost, or they have not yet turned up. Some alcoholics have a tremendous carrying capacity. In the early and middle stages of their career, they can drink other people under the table, pick them up, drive them home, and then go back to the bar for some more. Babe Ruth, among many other athletes, is said to have partied hard all night and then gone out and won games the next day. Ten seconds of film of him approaching the plate and taking some swings would not be enough to determine his Blood Alcohol Level. I personally think the whole pursuit of FN's drinking history is a red herring. Given the way TIGHAR reads the available evidence, FN put the Electra in a position to reach Howland. At the point at which he needed Direction Finding to complete the flight, there was a failure of equipment and/or Cockpit Resource Management. If radio communication had been established, we wouldn't be having this conversation about FN's drinking habits. Marty *************************************************************************** From Ric I agree. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:33:21 EDT From: Don Neumann Subject: Lae takeoff Since my Webtv doesn't permit viewing of the Lae takeoff film clip, I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage, having been unable to catch the entire sequence, however the thought occurred to me... is there available any contemporaneous, detailed description of the actual condition of the field & runway AE/FN used the morning of their last takeoff? Exactly how rough & crude was the surface of the ground the plane had to navigate to get airborne? Since this same field & runway was presumably in regular use by the New Guinea Airways, wouldn't they have periodically inspected the field's surface to spot any irregularities which would have been capable of damaging an Electra 10 such as AE/FN's (the same type of plane the airline used in their own operations)? Naturally, it must be considered that the fact that AE/FN's plane (given the substantially greater volume of fuel it was carrying, far greater than any ordinary Electra 10) may have had a 'lower' configuration in relation to the ground, while taxiing or before actual lift-off, making anything attached to the belly of the plane, much more vulnerable to striking any raised-up anomaly on the surface of the field, than another Electra 10 using the same field under similar conditions. Don Neumann *************************************************************************** From Ric I'm aware of no contemporaneous, detailed description of the actual condition of the field & runway. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 11:44:54 EDT From: Tom King Subject: More from Mungo Just got a letter from Sir Ian (Mungo) Thompson, and there are a couple of items in it that may be of interest to the Forum. I had asked him for his thoughts about why Sir Harry Luke didn't tell the Americans about the bones discovery. He says: "Remembering the refreshingly international attitudes that Sir Harry always displayed, I am certain that there was no sinister intent on his part. The American Consul resident in Fiji at that time was a Mr. Abbott, with whom Sir Harry was on good terms. I find it hard to believe that the Consul was unaware of the bones discovery." Perhaps we should look for Mr. Abbott, and into the State Department's archives. He also talks about the Americans (some of the Dept. of the Interior's Hawaiian "colonists" that he and Sir Harry were surprised to find on Enderbury when they visited there in December of '41, suggesting that we really need to talk with Interior (unfortunately, I can't easily imagine who, or what they'd know about Niku). It might be of some interest for someone to try to track down these guys, whose names conveniently appear in Sir Harry's 1945 book "From a South Seas Diary," as follows: D.N. Hartnell, James Riley, Joe Kepoo, James Bruhn. TK ************************************************************************** From Ric This is the first we've heard of there being an American Consul in Fiji and I have to wonder about Sir Ian's memory on this count. Had there been an American Consul resident in Fiji in 1940/41 why would Vaskess have suggested to the High Commissioner on October 9, 1940 that, " A communication might be addressed to the U.S. Consul in Sydney.."? The U.S. had laid claim to Canton and Enderbury, and in fact those two islands of the Phoenix Group are underlined in pencil on a Nat'l Geo map of the Pacific that is in the earhaet collection at Purdue. Neither of those islands, however, had yet been "colonized" by Dept. of Interior employees when Earhart's flight took place. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:00:47 EDT From: Andrew Mckenna Subject: Takeoff film I distantly remember discussions on the Forum about the dispositon of the lost original of the Lae takeoff film. With the ever expanding reach of the Forum, how about we try to initiate Project Takeoff Film and see if we can track down the original film? Somebody's got to have it, unleash the Forum and let's find that somebody. Can you refresh our collective memory on the details of it's disappearance? LTM (who is getting good at tracking down loose ends) Andrew McKenna ************************************************************************** From Ric Sometime in the early 1980s the EAA decided to produce a film based upon Buddy Brennan's book "Witness To The Execution." They asked the "99"s in Oklahoma City for the use of any Earhart film footage they might have. A whole box of film cans was sent to Oshkosh but none of it was used except for a print of the Lae takeoff. (Nobody seems to know if it was the original film or a copy print.) The EAA made a videotape of the film and supposedly sent it back to the "99"s but they apparently never received it. All anyone knows at this point is that it doesn't seem to be in Oshkosh or Oklahoma City. The personnel at both locations have changed several times since then. I've talked to both the "99's and the folks at Oshkosh repeatedly about this. With the discovery last year of a still photo taken during the takeoff (which has far better resolution than any of the frames of the film would show) the re-locating of the original film becomes a low priority item. LTM, Ric ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:02:24 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Recordings Bob Brandenburg, #2286 cited, "HEAR CONTINUOUS CARRIER WAVE 3105 KCS BEEN GOING LAST COUPLE OF HOURS BUT NO INDICATION AS TO WHAT IT IS NO WAY OF GETTING IN TOUCH UNLESS HE CAN READ MORSE SS MOORSBY POSITION 0740 GCT 4.50 N 185.28 W STEERING 2226 SPEED 10". This seems to offer a possible solution. A continuous carrier wave could easily have sounded like an "unholy squeal" to Brines (he may have interpreted variations in the sound as artifacts of a distorted conversation). If it continued for two hours he had ample opportunity to be called to a radio to hear it in real time. william 2243 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:11:25 EDT From: William Webster-Garman Subject: Re: Functional Alcoholics I should emphasize that my original characterization of Noonan as "chipper" in the Lae takeoff footage was exclusively in response to Brines' pure speculation that FN had been "poured into" to aircraft. "Poured into" implies "carrying", "helping", or "escorting" an incapacitated drunk, and the footage clearly contradicts that. Obviously, FN's BAC at the time the film was taken is utterly irrelevant to anything that the film can show us. Obviously, functioning alcoholics are capable of all sorts of "normal" behavior. It is well established that Mr Noonan drank alcohol regularly (boring). The Noonan rumours, such as the one nestled in the Brines letter, have usually implied that his drinking impaired his ability as a navigator on July 2, 1937 and caused the disappearance of the Electra. As has been mentioned often, we do know that Noonan was recognized as one of the best aerial navigators of his time, and that he got Earhart very close to Howland. My only point is that after the Brines letter, there is still zero evidence that Noonan's known drinking habits had anything to do with the unsuccessful outcome of the flight. william 2243 *************************************************************************** From Ric I think we're all in agreement on this issue. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 14:51:54 EDT From: Mark Cameron Subject: Re: Functional Alcoholics I think Marty hits the nail squarely on the head. No matter what Fred may or may not have had to drink before leaving Lae, he managed to get them close enough to their target to come through as a strong Five on the radio. The cause of their loss lies out at the end of their flight, not from any navigational error. LTM (who would need a few herself before going anywhere in that flying brick) Mark Cameron #2301 *************************************************************************** From Ric "The Flying Brick" is probably a less marketable name the "The Flying Laboratory." *************************************************************************** From Rick Seapin When did the rumors start about Fred's drinking problem? I'm aware of Brines' statement, but I'm not aware of Fred consuming alcohol on a regular basis. Are there tasty stories of his bar-hopping days that would lend credence to his alcoholism? *************************************************************************** From Ric Brines letter, if authentic (as it seems to be) is the first contemporaneous mention we've seen of Fred being a heavy drinker. There are lots of anecdotes but they all seem to have surfaced after Fred Goerner's 1966 best-seller which first publicly charged that Fred had an alcohol problem. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 14:54:38 EDT From: David Evans Katz Subject: Brines Could Brines have been listening "live" to a radio that was monitoring the transmissions of the various ships during the search? David Evans Katz ************************************************************************** From Ric I don't see why not. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:08:13 EDT From: David Evans Katz Subject: 1965 Collopy letter Marty Moleski wrote: <> Interestingly enough, Don Jordan just (today) posted a letter on his web page from Jim Collopy written in 1965 that describes his experience with Fred Noonan in Lae. It can be viewed at (http://www.cyberlynk.com/djordan/). David Evans Katz ************************************************************************** From Ric Interesting letter. Nothing particulary new and it was 28 year-old anecdote when it was written. Collopy can't even remember for sure what Noonan's fist name was. The reference to "the ball bearing bag in from of the great gas tank" must be a typo. Don must have meant to say "...in front of..." but it still seems like an odd expression. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:11:02 EDT From: Frank Westlake Subject: Re: Recordings > >From William Webster-Garman >Bob Brandenburg, #2286 cited, >"HEAR CONTINUOUS CARRIER WAVE 3105 KCS BEEN GOING > LAST COUPLE OF HOURS BUT NO INDICATION AS TO WHAT IT > IS NO WAY OF GETTING IN TOUCH UNLESS HE CAN READ > MORSE SS MOORSBY POSITION 0740 GCT 4.50 N 185.28 W > STEERING 2226 SPEED 10". > > This seems to offer a possible solution. > A continuous carrier wave could easily have sounded like an "unholy squeal" > to Brines (he may have interpreted variations in the sound as artifacts of a > distorted conversation). If it continued for two hours he had ample > opportunity to be called to a radio to hear it in real time. So sometime after 0740 GCT (1740 local?) the Mooseby has been hearing a continuous carrier for a couple of hours. Brines gets wind of it (he probably hears that there is a conversation) and beats feet over to the radio shack, but all he can hear is squeals. This might have been a conversation to someone, but certainly not to him. It fits with the rest of his letter. Frank Westlake *************************************************************************** From Ric Not Mooseby. Moose Berry. (squeal) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:18:11 EDT From: Paul Chattey Subject: Re: More from Mungo There may have been an American Consul in Fiji since we do have a name. Also, the confusion here may be linguistic as there is a difference between what Americans call a consul and an embassy. I suspect we had an embassy (and an ambasador) in Sidney, but Consul Abbott was probably an American businessman or someone else friendly to our interests who could process visas, report on deaths of Americans in Fiji, watch events of commercial interest, Etc. I think the State Department's archives require us to peer into them. LTM, who doesn't wear a striped coat and top hat to work Paul *************************************************************************** From Ric I entirely agree that it needs checking out, but if there was a Mr. Abbot in Fiji as American Consul then what Vaskess was suggesting was that Sir Harry break protocol and jump the diplomatic chain of command. Similarly, if Sir Harry had notified Mr. Abbot he can not have expected that Abbot would not pass along the information and it was clearly Sir Harry's intent that the Americans not be brought in on this matter. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 15:21:12 EDT From: Paul Chattey Subject: Re: Lae takeoff OK, I'm going to venture into pure speculation, as in: if "A" existed in 1930, then maybe "B" existed, too. I found a book showing sketches of 61 landing fields in Alaska in 1930 with notations as to available services (there weren't many). It was published by the Alaska Road Commission, which was--now--an odd place but probably made perfect sense back then. I don't know what survives from New Guinea Airways or from their counterpart of our CAA, but it could be worth a look. The question becomes, might such a document have been current on that day? And, would it lead to finding AE and FN? Paul ************************************************************************** From Ric It would be nice to have, on general principles, if it existed.