Date:         Mon, 2 Aug 2004 09:38:54 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Tucson fire

Basis the news article in The Arizona Daily Star - May 22, 1937, it appears that AE came into Tucson with the left engine on fire a day earlier.

I couldn't get a clear (large enough) picture of the article printed in the Star's paper on Nov. 4, 2003 - it showed a reproduction of the original May 22,  1937 article - to read the entire news report.  Perhaps someone in Tucson can give us a better report.

Anyway, does 2-2-V-1 show heat distress along the "keel" line rivets that would line up with a fire on the left side of the aircraft? i.e. what side of the plane does the artifact seem to fit, the left or right?

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

"AE came into Tucson with the left engine on fire" is a lot different from the story AE tells in Last Flight and in the Lux advertisement.  I think we need to find that article and any other contemporaneous accounts of what happened.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 2 Aug 2004 10:17:01 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Here is a link to the info I posted yesterday.

Ted Campbell
http://www.azstarnet.com/flight/earhart.html
***********************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Ted.  As you said, the image of the original newspaper article is impossible to read.  The recently-written blurb says:

"In the middle of a sandstorm, with the left engine of her $90,000 plane engulfed in flame, Amelia Earhart touched down in Tucson, an initial stop on her fatal quest to become the first woman to fly around the world.

"It was May 21, 1937. Activating a mechanical fire extinguisher connected to the engine of her Lockheed Model 10E Electra, Earhart assured onlookers that the damage was minor and that she planned to fly to El Paso the following day. She purchased a fire extinguisher in Tucson and took off."

The next day she went to New Orleans but it's possible that she made a stop in El Paso.  What she bought in Tucson was a new cannister for the Lux fire system.  I suspect that the bit about touching down in Tucson in a sandstorm with the engine engulfed in flame is baloney but it would be nice to see what the 1937 article actually says.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 2 Aug 2004 10:47:49 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

I agree.  Do we have any TIGHARs in Tucson?
Ted Campbell
*********************************************************************
From Ric

We have 11 TIGHAR members in Tucson including forum stalwart Kerry Tiller.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 2 Aug 2004 10:52:39 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric said;  "I suspect that the bit about touching down in Tucson in a sandstorm with the engine engulfed in flame is baloney but it would be nice to see what the 1937 article actually says.'

Yeah, you're probably right, but it does make exciting reading.

What better image of our heroine than her struggling with the controls (can you envision the image on the Big Screen?) as the aircraft rocks to and fro (not a good practice with an engine out, I think) and down to near-zero visibility, the wind howling outside, the aircraft bumping up and down, and BIG flames shooting from the left engine.  In spite of all this, she turns to Noonan (?) and says calmly, "Tell Tucson to clear the runway.  I don't know if I can hold it . . . .    I'll explain it to them when we get down."   Oh, the drama!

And just then the aircraft goes into a steep left turn (A real no-no - turning into a dead engine!!!)   The winds whistles, the airframe is banging away, the engine rpms rise, AE struggles  . . . struggles .  . . grimaces . . . .then slowly the plane rights itself, and she squints into the windscreen, then exclaims, "There's the runway!  I think we can make it!"

Well, you can fill in the details, but that's the way I want to remember AE!!! :-)

LTM, who never embellished for personal gain
Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

It's how legends are born.  Landing in a sandstorm with an engine engulfed in flames plays a lot better than screwing up the starting procedure and then forgetting to pull the fire extinguisher release.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 2 Aug 2004 12:18:39 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric wrote:

> We have 11 TIGHAR members in Tucson including forum stalwart Kerry
> Tiller.

I wasn't going to post anything until I had something to report. I have off today and tomorrow and will see what I can find. The news papers themselves are usually protective of their archives due to the copyright thing, so I am going to try public sources first (the public library and the Arizona Historical Society library). I did e-mail a friend in Phoenix who works for the paper there, and he agreed to try the phoenix paper archives. I'm assuming because a celebrity was involved they would have picked up the Tucson story. In the "old" days I would go to the U of A library for old newspaper articles, but I am not a card carrying alumnus and no longer have access to the stacks. Also, I believe in the 30s, the morning and evening papers were truly independent (though they may have shared he same press), so I am hoping for stories from two different reporters. I'll let you know when I get something.

LTM (who is stalwart in her own right)
Kerry Tiller
************************************************************************
From Ric

I knew you'd be on top of it.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 2 Aug 2004 19:16:13 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re; 2-2-V-1

You never did answer my question of which side of the plane you think 2-2-V-1 came from - the left or right of center?  I assume it's also from  aft of the rear door area, am I correct?

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

Sorry.  I get carried away.

2-2-V-1 seems to fit best on the starboard side of the aircraft, on the belly, directly opposite the cabin door.  One edge is right on the keel (centerline) of the aircraft.

I'll know more after Thursday which I plan to spend in the intimate company of our old friend Lockheed 10A c/n 1052 at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, CT.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 2 Aug 2004 19:19:40 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Poor Amelia. She will ever be pounded for flying ability or lack thereof. She had about the same mishaps as anyone else and probably less given the times. If you are going to fault her for anything it should be for violating one of the basic rules of flying.

ENDEAVOR TO HAVE THE SAME NUMBER OF LANDINGS AS TAKE OFFS.

If we count the reef at Niku she is off the hook.
Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

what AE had going for her was a good manager who could help her generate enough cash to keep flying despite the wrecks that would have put other flyers out of business.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 2 Aug 2004 19:22:57 -0400
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric Gillespie wrote:

> Thanks Ted.  As you said, the image of the original newspaper article
> is impossible to read.

Obviously, the first two headings are easy enough to read:

Fire Delays Amelia Earhart
Here While She Plans Flight.
---------------

Will start on World Trip near the End of This Month.
She Says While Searching for Fire Extinguisher After Duelling Small Flame In Plane.
----------------

The rest is a bit harder.  I've managed to get this much out so far, using the same techniques I did on the Niku aerial photos and the wreck photo, but my eyesight has deteriorated over the last few years and I am having a little more trouble because of the way the technique works:

Temporarily grounded in Tucson due to a minor fire which did little damage to the engine of her $xx,xxx Flying Laboratory, Amelia earhart announced xxxx xxx xxx xxxx that with good weather, her xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxx trip

Have also found George Palmer Putnam rates a mention further down, but have to stop for now and do some work.  Will try to reimage some more later.

Th' WOMBAT.
***************************************************************
From Ric

With a little bit of luck, Stalwart Tiller will make more forensic
skills redundant.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 10:06:59 -0400
From:         David
Subject:      Off Topic - fried chicken

Heres a change of pace for all those forumites working up an appetite reading the posts. The following is Amelias' moms  recipe for fried chicken Ive taken from an old magazine ad I bought several years ago with a picture of Amelias mom and her recipe -she was in an ad for Royal Baking Powder...for the biscuit recipe.

2 cut up fryers, 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup shortening, 3 tablespoons flour, 2 cups milk, salt and pepper.
roll chicken in seasoned flour, melt butter and shortening in deep fryer and brown chix on all sides. after browned,add 1/4 cup water and cook slowly till tender, about 30 minutes. remove chix, stir flour into fat in pan, remove from fire and add milk, then bring to a boil, stirring constantly till thick and smooth. simmer for 5 minutes, season with salt and pepper,  and pour over chicken, dont forget to arrange the Royal Biscuits around the platter!

souinds like Amelia ate good! Her mom really looks country with her ear length hair parted in the middle. this ad was from 1937.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 10:33:57 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

OK, I have copies of the Star and Citizen articles on the fire in my hot little fist. Ric, if you want them for TIGHAR's files, e-mail me an address and I will send them (5 pages of 8-1/2X11). I can also try to do the scan  thing, but I don't have OCR software and I'm not sure a photocopy would be high enough resolution to be able to read it. Without further ado, here are the essentials. There is no mention of a sand storm. Quoting the Star:

"The blaze Miss Earhart said was just minor and was caused when an overheated motor "backfired". It was quickly smothered by a mechanical chemical extinguisher which Miss Earhart released. She said this shot the chemical into all parts of the engine and put the fire out. The damage was negligible she said and she expects to take off today [May 22] for some eastern city, probably El Paso." yada yada yada......

"The aviatrix, who had left the plane, saw the fire break out in the left motor as the plane was being taxied to the hangar. The plane was stopped and she extinguished the blaze with the automatic extinguisher connected with the motor.

"The huge craft, twin-motored Lockhead Electra, was taken to the hangar, where attendants cleaned the soot and chemical from the engine."

The article mentions that she was flying with her husband, her navigator "Captain" Fred Noonan and her mechanic Bo McKneely. It is not clear if they were still in the aircraft or if they had exited with her. The article doesn't say who was taxiing the plane. It seems to me Fred was cockpit qualified, and Bo may also have been; or was a crewman from the municipal field doing the taxiing (who would not have been familiar with the workings of the extinguisher)?

As an interesting aside, the article spent half a column talking about or heroes trying to get their hand held fire extinguishers re-charged. They couldn't get the mechanical one credited with putting the fire out recharged because it took a special pressurized system to do it. that would have to wait for the return to Burbank. In the mean time (according to the article) George thought it would be a good idea to re-charge the hand helds. What is not said, is why they would need recharging (unless, of course, they were discharged by those one board as well). Anyway, they couldn't find anybody in Tucson (remember, it is getting on towards evening by this time) that could recharge the hand helds, so they wound up taking up an offer to buy a big, copper extinguisher of the type that is activated by inverting it.

Ric, if you think it is important enough I can, of course, quote the entire article verbatim. The Citizen story was of no help. The incident happened late enough on the 21st to miss the evening paper's coverage. The Star reported it Saturday morning (22), and by the evening it was old news. The Citizen for the 22nd had relegated the incident to half a column on page two (I have that as well), there was nothing in the Citizen to contradict or shed any more light on what the Star had reported.

Tomorrow, Tom Peterson at the Arizona Historical Society will save me a trip to Davis-Monthan AFB. The Society library has a copy of the Municipal Airport log. (Tucson Municipal, BTW, we claim is the oldest municipal airport in the country. It is now D-M, the civilian airport is now Tucson International to the southwest of D-M.) Tom is going to check the log for me to see if there is any amplifying information. I don't have my hopes up. The log usually just documents the pilot's name, the type of aircraft, names of passengers and landing and take off times. There is room, of course, for further comments. Because this landing involved an incident with a celebrity pilot there is a small chance more info was logged. I'd like to know who was taxiing the plane and exactly what the "attendants" did to clean up the plane after the fire. If we are really lucky, the log might give us an unbiased report on the fire itself. It might also mention her destination upon take off (no flight plans those days).

I will let you know what is in the airport log tomorrow. Obviously, if there is anything significant, I will obtain copies of the entries. Also, Ric, if you would like a copy for TIGHAR files anyway, let me know and I will make that happen.

As an historical aside, the hangar at the Municipal Airport where Amelia's Electra spent the night is still in existence on the D-M Air Base. There is currently  a proposal afoot to get it on the National Register of Historic Places. The fact that Amelia's around the world (read last) flight Electra spent a night there may help our cause.

LTM (who doesn't understand buildings being put on the Register that were built after she was born)
Kerry Tiller
************************************************************************
From Ric

Great work Kerry.  You can mail the copies to:

TIGHAR
2812 Fawkes Drive
Wilmington, DE 19808

I can scan and OCR them here or, if necessary, transcribe them.

As usual, the more we learn the less sense it makes. A hot R134o can be difficult to start. Overpriming and a backfire could start a fire, but a taxiing airplane should already have both engines running and I've never heard of a running engine backfiring and catching fire.  And who is taxiing the airplane but doesn't know enough to trigger the fire bottle?   The Lux advertisement says that hand-held extinguishers failed to put out the fire so it does seem that the hand-helds aboard the plane were used.

>... so they wound up taking up an offer to buy a big, copper
>extinguisher of the type that is activated by inverting it.

We found a big copper American extinguisher in the abandoned village on Niku.  We figured that it was probably from the Coast Guard station, even though it's a civilian type.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 10:35:35 -0400
From:         Ron Berry
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Its very hard to envision a sand storm in may. Although it could have happened but the chance of that happening in July would be more believable.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 11:32:26 -0400
From:         Tom King
Subject:      New Edition of Amelia Earhart's Shoes

The new, improved, updated, paperback edition of Amelia Earhart's  Shoes should be coming out in October, and the publisher, AltaMira Press,  is gearing up to market it.  We'd like to make sure that flyers or other  advertising material goes to air museums, aviation history organizations, and  other appropriate groups (Before anyone asks, we've got the 99s and Zonta International covered).  If anyone has suggestions, or marketing ideas,  please let me know at tfking106@aol.com.

Thanks, and LTM (who likes a good read)

Tom
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 11:46:38 -0400
From:         Art Carty
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

I don't suppose that there are any pictures of the extinguisher in the village...........

Curious coincidence
LTM ( who doesn't believe in coincidences)
Art
*************************************************************
From Ric

Oh ye of little faith.....we collected the extinguisher and we have it right here.  It was manufactured by "Fire-Gun", which was a division of American  LaFrance-Foamite Corporation based in Elmira, NY. It's a 1-1/2 quart pump-type carbon tetrachloride (vaporizing liquid) fire extinguisher, and would typically have been used to combat gasoline, oil, and electrical fires. The fluid would generate large amounts of fire-smothering gas on contact with heat, and could be used in  freezing climates.

This was a very common type of extinguisher from the 1920 up through the 1940s.  We know that the Army used them but we don't know for sure that the Coast Guard did.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 12:26:40 -0400
From:         Marsha Watson
Subject:      Re; Tucson fire

I live about 45 minutes southwest of Phoenix. This past February driving home there was a "sand storm" that was so thick I had to pull off the road for around twenty minutes to let it pass. This was the first time since moving to Arizona in 1962 that any of us could remember a dust storm of this strength and intensity this early in the year. As I continued my drive home there were two small accidents on the other side of the road and a couple of miles from home there was a serious multi-car pile-up. Just before I reached this one, another huge gust of wind blew across an open field and totally obstructed the view of the road where a police officer was frantically trying to direct traffic. Strange things can and do happen in the desert at times, so while dust storms happen more commonly in the summer months, I have no trouble believing that there could have been an early monsoon storm in May.

I am back to lurking now.

Marsha Watson
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 13:25:00 -0400
From:         Dan Postellon
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

The "big copper fire extinguishers, activated by inverting"  are soda-acid extinguishers.  The big copper body has water with a pound of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and the top has a bottle of sulfuric acid, with a lead stopper that fall out when you invert the thing.  This basically gives CO2 pressured water, and is good for paper fires.  I wouldn't want to use it on gas or oil, but anything in an emergency.  This is not the same as the carbon tet extinguishers, that were  taken off the market because the gases they form are toxic.

Dan Postellon  TIGHAR#2263
************************************************************************
From Ric

Sounds like the Niku extinguisher is not like the one they picked up in Tucson.

*******************************************************************
  From Art Carty

Wouldn't it be interesting if it had a serial number that could be traced.......hmmmmmm..........

********************************************************************
  From Ric

No serial number.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 14:20:32 -0400
From:         Carl Peltzer
Subject:      Re: New Edition of Amelia Earhart's Shoes

WELL THE CIVIL AIR PATROL MIGHT BE CONTACTED IN ALABAMA AND  ALSO THE EAA IN WISCONSIN ARE A COUPLE OF IDEAS THAT IMMEDIATELY COME TO MIND.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 14:23:17 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      The copper fire extinguisher

OK, here's the verbatim from the article about the copper extinguisher:

(Tucson Daily Star May 22, 1937)

"Finally the night man at the Motor Service company said he had one dandy big extinguisher of the "turn upside down and let 'er go" variety which he thought would be just swell for Miss Earhart's plane. The phones buzzed again and Putnam said, "Buy it, then we'll have something". But this extinguisher, bright and shiny with a pretty red handle, was not filled. That was an easy problem and was soon solved by one of Chief Joe Robert's men. He carefully measured each chemical and filled it properly.

"The copper extinguisher was promptly delivered to Miss Earhart..."

Kerry Tiller
*********************************************************
From Ric

Thanks.  Doesn't sound like the Niku extinguisher.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 15:46:03 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric wrote:

>We found  a big copper American extinguisher in the abandoned village on
>Niku.   We figured that it was probably from the Coast Guard station,
>even though  it's a civilian type.

What an off hand, casual comment! <G> It excited me.

Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

After 15 years on this roller-coaster I've learned to be often curious but seldom excited.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 16:27:32 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

The extinguisher does sound like the acid/soda type that Don Postellion described - I used to refill/recharge these things with my Dad.

Where I have a problem with the fire description is, it doesn't sound like an induction fire where the most common method to bring it under control  was to a) keep cranking the engine and it would snuff itself out or b) bring the power up if the engine was already running.  The second common fire on the radials was an exhaust stack fire (from over priming) - again keep cranking or add power to blow it out; Each of which would be hard to fight with hand  helds.

However, it could have been a fuel line fire under the cowling. The common airport CO2 (gas type NOT the acid/soda water under pressure) or hand held Carbon Tet type of extinguisher would be hard to direct under the cowl flaps if the engine was running, same aiming problem with trying to put out a running exhaust stack fire.  AE's action to reboard the  craft to activate the aircraft fire suppression system  also seems to  support the fire under the cowling guess, where the aircraft system  would have been the most effective.

All in all a very interesting diversion in the search for information on AE and company.
************************************************************************
From Ric

The copper fire extinguisher coincidence seems to be a dead end.  Wrong kind of extinguisher.

I'm much more interested in figuring out whether the incident could be responsible for the heat damage we see on 2-2-V-1.  To do that we have to get a handle on what kind of fire it was and where the flames were.

So far, all of the sources agree that it was a fire that was associated with the left engine.  Kerry says:

>Quoting the Star:
>
>"The blaze Miss Earhart said was just minor and was caused when an
>overheated motor "backfired".  ...The aviatrix, who had left the plane,
>saw the fire break out in the left motor as the plane was being taxied
>to the hangar. The plane was stopped and she extinguished the blaze with the
>automatic extinguisher connected with the motor."

That account differs from Earhart's own description in Last Flight:

"The weather was sizzling hot as Arizona can be in summertime.  After landing and checking in, when I started my motors again to taxi to the filling pit, the left one backfired and burst into flames.  For a few seconds it was nip-and-tuck whether the fire would get away from us. There weren't adequate extinguishers ready on the ground but fortunately the Lux apparatus built in the engine killed the fire.  The damage was trivial, mostly some pungently cooked rubber fittings and a deal of dirty grime.  The engine required a good cleaning and the ship a face-washing."

AE says that she is the one who started the engines but says nothing about getting out of the airplane when the fire started, but in the Lux advertisement she says that she got back into the airplane to pull the Lux handle.  The newspaper article also says that she had left the airplane.  Two of the three accounts refer to a "backfire" being the source of ignition.  That sounds like an exhaust stack fire caused by overpriming.  Under those circumstances you can have a pretty good sized puddle of gas on the ground before the fire starts and a pretty spectacular fire on the pavement when it ignites.  AE's comment that the ship needed a "face-washing" strongly suggests that there was sufficient flame to cause sooting of some portion of the skin.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 16:52:57 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

I agree with you up to a point; the Lux system wouldn't have been very effective against an exhaust stack fire but it would have been against a fuel  leak (your good size puddle on the ramp theory) from under the cowling.

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

But a fuel leak would be a really big deal requiring repairs that you would think would be mentioned.

What about an induction fire?  How does an induction fire get started? Can it be ignited by a backfire?

By the way, the are no cowl flaps on a Lockheed 10.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 3 Aug 2004 16:58:52 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Looking at this from a pilot's stand point the account in "Last Flight" makes more sense. I recognize the book was edited from her notes at least in  part and there was certainly a tendency to hype situations. Still, it rings truer than the newspaper account. Backfire on engine start happens frequently but during taxi it is far less likely.

Ric, is correct considerable fuel can puddle in such a situation but it would puddle under the engine not under the right rear side opposite the passenger door. If the event occurred while taxiing the plane could have taxied  over the puddle but it would take quite a fire to heat up the fuselage as much  as the artifact would require.

Another oddity is why and how did the two fire extinguishers get used? Lux took care of the engine fire.

On the other hand if the news paper story is correct we have a fire that is going to continue longer as the plane has to be stopped, AE has to board the plane and actuate the Lux extinguisher. If that's the case some folks could have  grabbed the two extinguishers and tried to extinguish the fire while AE was  boarding the plane. Very confusing set of stories.

Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

Whatever happened, it seems clear that the event went on for some considerable period of time.  A couple of minutes maybe?  How long do flames have to be licking at .032 aluminum sheet before it gets to about 600 degrees?  I don't know.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 2004 09:18:31 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: the extinguisher

Ric wrote:

>Sounds like the Niku extinguisher is not like the one they picked  up in
>Tucson.

Ric, are you saying that because Dan said, "I wouldn't want to use it on  gas or oil,......." or do you know there is a difference between the Niku and Tucson extinguisher? If the former it might have been the extinguisher they picked up just happened to be the only one available. Like Dan says, ".....anything in an emergency."

Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

I'm saying that because the newspaper article says it was a turn-upside-down type of extinguisher and the one we found on Niku is the carbon-tet type.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 2004 09:21:07 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: the extinguisher

Now back to the "big cooper American extinguisher" found in the village. Was this a turn-it-upside down acid/soda type or is it the hand  pumped carbon tet. type covered earlier on the forum?  One is a heck of a  lot smaller than the other - the acid/soda is about 3-4 gallon water  capacity. 

It would be a stretch to get the Tucson acid/soda type to Gardner because  1) it would have been little or no use on board the aircraft and 2) they are rather heavy and we know that AE was dumping all unnecessary weight before leaving Lae.  However, stranger things have happened in this saga!

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

The extinguisher from Niku is definitely carbon-tet, not soda-acid.  We can stop worrying about it.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 2004 09:53:01 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

An induction fire starts with to much fuel entering the carburetor (over priming on starting) and the firing of the cylinder ignites the fuel in the impeller up through the intake valves and then back up through the carburetor. That's why you keep cranking the engine - to suck it back into  the cylinders.

There is a lot of fire and noise but very little "free fuel" to run anywhere.  Remember AE said cooked rubber parts - these could be hoses, adel clamps, etc., this sounds more like a leak of some kind.

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

Okay, let me see if I've got this straight.

Induction fire - occurs during starting due to overpriming.  Can be started by backfire. Fire is confined to carburetor vicinity. Not much free fuel and not likely to cook hoses or involve an external fire that would necessitate cleaning the outside of the airplane. Usual remedy is to keep cranking to suck the burning fuel into the cylinders. Otherwise, should respond well to flooding the engine compartment with CO2 (i.e. the LUX system).

Exhaust stack fire - also occurs during starting due to overpriming.  Fuel runs out the exhaust stack and can puddle on the ground.  Usually ignited by a backfire.  Fire is mostly outside of the engine compartment and can cause ground fire that could smudge the outside of the airplane, but is not likely to cook hoses or respond well to flooding the engine compartment with CO2 (i.e. the LUX system).

Fuel leak - much more serious problem.  Fire is in engine compartment and could also be on ground depending upon the severity of the leak. Could be started by backfire. Responds only to flooding the engine  compartment with CO2 (i.e. the LUX system).  Hand held extinguishersmight be required to put out any ground fire.

If I've described the possibilities accurately, it sounds like we have either a combination induction AND exhaust stack fire, or a fuel leak.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 2004 09:54:24 -0400
From:         Tom Strang
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Did the R 1340's on NR16020 have up draft or down draft carburetors?

I hate to assume anything.

Respectfully:

Tom Strang # 2559
*********************************************************************
From Ric

I dunno.  Anybody know?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 2004 09:57:46 -0400
From:         Peter Polen
Subject:      Re: New Shoes

Tom King and Ric

If there is any way that you can tie Earhart to flying a Piper plane any Piper plane and come up with a picture of such we could use your shoes book in our museum. Since I have been director of the Piper Aviation Museum for the past five years I think I can swing it.

Peter Polen
Director
Piper Aviation Museum
Lock Haven Pennsylvania
************************************************************************
From Ric

I wish I could say yes but I've never seen such a photo.  The best I can up with is that Earhart was a classic example of a pilot who got in over her head and had to pay the piper (ouch).
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 2004 10:08:21 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

This may be a bit off topic but do you remember "Iron Annie" ? That was the three engine Junkers Ju-52 that used to tour the American air show scene until it was sold to Lufthansa. Now bearing its 1938 German registration D-AQUI again it is now flown (after having been completely overhauled by Lufthansa and brought to today's standards) carrying fare paying passengers to help paying its maintenance cost. It is owned and operated by a Lufthansa subsidiary and each Summer it tours Germany and flies to cities across Europe, also performing at air shows to fly the Lufthansa flag. Its like if American Airlines would fly a Ford Trimotor for PR purposes and... publicity.

Well, this airplane, when it was flown out of Quito (Ecuador) in 1979 (and where I saw it for the first time in 1974)i t suffered a broken fuel line after starting the engines. In no time there was a puddle of Avgas forming under the airplane. And according to Murphy's Law there was a Latin American mechanic standing by smoking a cigarette. That set fire to the Avgas and flames engulfed the Junkers. The airplane was saved by the quick reaction of the pilot who applied power and taxied out of the flames, saving the airplane. (I happen to know of this incident because I wrote the airplane's official history for Lufthansa. I also flew in the airplane a number of times. Sheer flying fun ! They don't make airplanes like that any more).

LTM
**********************************************************************
From Ric

Interesting.  A broken fuel line can ruin your whole day but it's hard to imagine that the Tucson fire could have been that serious and due to a specific failure like that and yet it not be mentioned anywhere. Come to think of it, in none of the three accounts we have of the incident is any explanation for the fire given except that there was a backfire.  Engines do not burst into flame every time they backfire. Earhart never hesitated to blame mishaps on mechanical failures (even when they weren't really the cause) but she was not one to admit to errors in judgment or poor technique.  I think that the lack of an explanation for the fire argues for overpriming.

We have a piece of newsreel film outake from before the first World flight attempt in which Earhart is trying to start the Electra's engines for the cameras and she has a terrible time.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 2004 12:47:38 -0400
From:         Peter Polen
Subject:      Re: New Shoes

>The best I can up with is that Earhart was a classic example of a
>pilot who got in over her head and had to pay the piper (ouch).

Ok, OK, I think it't time I went back to lurking

Peter

PS: What's the latest on the big book of post-loss-messages???
************************************************************************
From Ric

Working on it.  We've just finished the full report on the Jaluit Survey which will be sent out next week as a special issue of TIGHAR Tracks.  New developments on artifact identification involving the section of airplane skin (2-2-V-1) and the dados have also taken time, but we're doing the best we can.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 2004 14:19:40 -0400
From:         Ric Gillespie
Subject:      No forum Thursday

Tomorrow (Thur.) I'll be in Windsor Locks, CT doing research at the New England Air Museum.  The forum will resume on Friday.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 11:16:52 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

I sent the newspaper copies off to you this afternoon. After reading them one last time it occurred to me that there are some real gaps in the story as reported. Gaps that I don't think the reporter (there is no "by" line) intentionally left. The gaps are due to editing. The proverbial light bulb went off. We need the story as originally filed. Just in case anybody else has the same thought, it ain't gonna happen. I just got off the phone with a research librarian at the Star. I thought it would be a long shot at best anyway due to the time frame. It turns out it would be a long shot even if I was looking for a story filed last week. The news paper religiously destroys such material and does not allow reporters to even keep their own notes. That way a court can't subpoena documents that don't exist. This country spends way too much time in court. I know we have lawyers on the forum so I won't get started.

LTM

Kerry Tiller
************************************************************************
From Ric

Copies received.  Many thanks. I'll get it OCRed for the forum.

I'm not surprised that you can't get the unedited story or the reporter's notes.  We've tried in other cases.   No way.

It's pretty clear from the article that the reporter did not witness the incident but is relating his understanding of what Earhart (or some other witness) told him happened.  His account generally agrees with the accounts that appear in Last Flight and the Lux advertisement except for the implication that someone other than Earhart was at the controls when the fire broke out.  I think that is probably just a misunderstanding.

The article contains frequent references to statements by Earhart that this is just a shakedown flight before she begins her World Flight. "I'd like to put 50 hours on it before the big flight."  She says nothing about being on her way to Miami.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 11:19:15 -0400
From:         Tom Hickox
Subject:      Re: extinguisher

I am curious about the carbon tet type extinguisher.  We have a family camp in Northern Vermont that has been in the family since about 1919 and has accumulated junk, one of which was a brass, pump-type fire extinguisher which at one time was on a boat.  The extinguisher was about a foot long, and three inches or so in diameter, and was operated with a built-in pump handle.  It made a terrific weapon in water gun wars.  I was told at the time, early 1950s, that it originally held carbon tet, an excellent extinguishing material but with many disadvantages, mostly involving toxicity.  I would be interested if this extinguisher we had was likely a carbon tet one.

As an aside, the Rock of Ages outlook there in Newport still has the carbon tet filled glass "grenades" that were used in the fire protection system in their engine room.  These glass grenades were mounted on fusible supports and dropped when the temperature was high enough.

Tom Hickcox
************************************************************************
From Ric

Sure sounds like a carbon-tet extinguisher.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 11:25:21 -0400
From:         John Barrett
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric, I have never worked on an airplane engine but do have a fair amount of experience with other types of internal combustion engines. Most will have a fuel supply line of some type of metal which then has a short length of rubber hose at one or both ends where it connects to the fuel tank and carburator (or fuel pump). the purpose of the rubber hose is to eliminate the metal fatigue that the vibration of the running engine would cause to a steel line. The rubber allows for some flexibility and absorbs the vibration. The rubber will, however, become weakened by a number of factors including heat, chemical breakdown from the fuel, and vibration, and eventually need to be replaced. I am not familiar with the setup on AE's plane, but if there was a section of rubber line between the fuel pump and carb, a fair amount of fuel could leak from a small hole while under pressure. The rubber hose would, of course, be damaged or destroyed by the fire itself. Not to say that AE didn't overprime the engine on startup but maybe she had a fuel line rupture and spray a hot engine or exhaust with fuel. How long was it between landing and the restart with the fire? How long between startup and the fire? Also, she may have had a leak prior to startup which deposited enough fuel inside of the engine compartment and even on the ground before she started the engine which could cause a ground fire as well. I would hope that a pre-flight walk around would have discovered that. Again, not a pilot, just someone who loves old mechanical stuff. Back to my lurking.

LTM,

John Barrett
************************************************************************
From Ric

According to Amelia's own account in Last Flight (which I recently quoted on the forum) she had landed, shut down, went into the airport office and signed in, then went back out to start the engines and taxi to the "filling pit".  My guess would be maybe 5 or 10 minutes between shutdown and restart.  The fire almost certainly occurred during the restart.

Bear in mind that this airplane had just come out of the shop after a complete rebuild and inspection two days previously.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 11:34:23 -0400
From:         Ron Berry
Subject:      Re: extinguisher

Ric isn't there a picture of the loading of the final trip and a carbon-tet pump type fire extinguisher is waiting to be loaded along with some thermos bottles. Is that the fire extinguisher that you are talking about being found on Niku? One last question wouldn't safety require both kinds of fire extinguishers, to fight any kind of fire?
************************************************************************
From Ric

There is a photo that shows something that might be a fire extinguisher waiting to be loaded along with some thermos bottles.  Whatever it is, it does not look like the extinguisher we found on Niku.

>One last question wouldn't safety require both kinds of fire extinguishers, to >fight any kind of fire?

I don't think there was any regulation to that effect.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 11:44:00 -0400
From:         Andrew McKenna
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Lets just say that the fuel gets spilled, through over-priming or fuel leak, enough to spill some on the ground, but the pilot doesn't know it yet and starts to taxi by making a hard right turn, swinging the fuselage over into the flames.  At the very least this would result in smudges and potentially cook some of the belly skin.  You know the rest.

Pure speculation, but AE does say that the incident took place while taxiing.

LTM (who likes her skin crispy)
Andrew
************************************************************************
From Ric

It's the newspaper article that says the plane was taxiing at the time and that just doesn't make a lot of sense unless she started the right engine and began to taxi while stating the left one.  In Last Flight she says that she was starting the airplane in order to taxi to the fueling area.

I don't think we're going to get any definitive answer about exactly what happened.  All we can with any certainty is that there was a fire that resulted in considerable flames which required some minor repairs and some cleaning of the airplane.  We can't say that heat damage to a  belly skin occurred but neither can we say that it did not.  The Tucson incident is a possible explanation for the heat damage we see on 2-2-V-1.  I think we have to leave it at that.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 12:14:41 -0400
From:         Carl Peltzer
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Those rubber fuel and oil hoses were almost brand new in this case, but one of the installers might have failed to tighten it to the right torque value which happens sometimes- they are pressure tested during manufacture very carefully and that by the way is why we owners are really test pilots after one of these things are taken out of maintenance or annuals.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 13:55:49 -0400
From:         Gene Dangelo
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Just a quick thought, relating to my radio hobby and also my collecting of antique recordings, relating to my musician profession: might some radio stations have some archives of transcriptions of news broadcasts (some of these were made on aluminum discs) from the period. Everything was essentially AM in those days, and some stations did maintain libraries of transcriptions for either rebroadcast or posterity. If no one has researched this particular avenue yet, it may be worth examining! Perhaps whatever station(s) were in Tuscon at that time, or their successors, may have something tucked away in such an archive! Wouldn't that be great?

Amor ad Mater,
---Dr. Gene Dangelo, N3XKS, # 2211
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 14:34:57 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Amor ad Mater

Gene Dangelo said "Amor ad Mater,"

Oh, I get it, now.  See, two years of Latin did come in handy.

Is this another thread?  How many languages do we have on the forum that can accurately translate LTM?

Ove-lay O-tay Other-may, guess that Latin didn't help as much as I thought it did.

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

No.  This is not another thread.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 6 Aug 2004 17:01:20 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

>Did the R 1340's on NR16020 have up draft or down draft
>carburetors?

The 10E used various Bendix-Stromberg carburetters, NA-Y9B, NA-Y9C, NA-Y9E1 and NA-Y9H. All were updrafts.

Regards Angus.
*************************************************************
From Ric

Does it make a difference to our various fire scenarios?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 7 Aug 2004 12:18:32 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

>It's the  newspaper article that says the plane was taxiing at the time
>and that just  doesn't make a lot of sense unless she started the right
>engine and began  to taxi while stating the left one.

She could have done that if the Electra had a steerable tail wheel. Steerable by rudder pedals. Absent that she had to steer with differential  engine power in which case she could not start out with only one engine running.

Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

Good point.  The Model 10 did not have a steerable tail wheel.  It did have differential braking on the mains but it was an awkward system involving hauling on a big lever in the cockpit and punching a rudder pedal.  Taxiing that beast on one engine seems like it would be very difficult if not impossible.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 7 Aug 2004 12:19:42 -0400
From:         Gene Dangelo
Subject:      Off Topic linguistics

What a tribute to our linguistic versatility here on the forum! More power to Dennis!

Lieb Zu Mutter,
Gene Dangelo
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 7 Aug 2004 12:25:31 -0400
From:         Carl Peltzer
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Food for thought: whether the carb and it's attendant hoses were in front as if so would spill gasoline on hot cylinders anyway in case of a leak or over priming.

To help clear this thread, In the case of artifact  2-2v1- does it not make sense to all  to keep the bird clean top and bottom especially with the gread deal of oil radials leak?  I certainly would've insisted had I been her making the likelihood of burning the metal once it reached the island after landing more likely?
******************************************************************
From Ric

We can see from the photos that the airplane was clean when it left Lae but after a ballpark 24 hour flight it ain't gonna be clean no more.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 7 Aug 2004 13:43:31 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

>>> Did the R 1340's on NR16020 have up draft or down draft
>>> carburetors?
>>
>> All 10E carburetters were updraft.
>
> From Ric
> Does it make a difference to our various fire scenarios?

It certainly makes a difference to the likelihood of an overpriming fire. In downdraft carbs, surplus fuel from overpriming runs down into the inlet manifold but just gets drawn into the cylinders when the engine is rotated. In an updraft, the excess fuel runs down into the carb air box and gravity resists it being pulled into the cylinder on rotation. A backfire can ignite a considerable quantity of fuel which continued starter operation cannot easily rectify by removing the pooled fuel into the cylinders where it can be safely burnt.

The mixture at starting on an aircraft engine is excessively rich and in order not to soot the plugs and unduly wash the oil off the cylinder bores, it is an advantage to lean off as soon as possible whilst taxiing. At low rpm and on overlap, when both intake and exhaust valves are open, an afterfire in the exhaust (caused by unignited fuel due to a plug failing to fire or overrich mixture being ignited by the gas from other cylinders) can travel back through the cylinder into the carburetter and set fire to any pooled fuel in the carb air box. Whilst the mixture in the inlet manifold is full rich, this won't happen but excessive leaning will allow the mixture to burn and travel backwards up the inlet manifold.

Even suddenly opening the throttle too far can be enough to produce the required weaker mixture and a carburetter backfire on a cold engine. Overpriming will create both the conditions for the afterfire (which then creates the backfire through the carburetter) and the pooled fuel necessary for a fire. There is therefore a good possibility that overpriming and then sudden overleaning whilst taxiing could induce an airbox fire. The description in the paper of the fire happening whilst taxiing is thus completely believable.

Ric said:

>If I've described the possibilities accurately, it sounds like we have
>either a combination induction AND exhaust stack fire, or a fuel leak.

Exhaust afterfires are caused by unburnt fuel which has failed to ignite in the cylinder, passing into a hot exhaust stack which causes the fuel to spontaneously ignite or it is ignited by the burning gas from other cylinders. The exhaust is generally sited well away from anywhere that pooled fuel or fuel system leaks can drain so I think an "external" combination fire (involving a fuel leak) much less likely, especially as there is rarely enough fuel in the exhaust stack for it to burn anything other than momentarily and even rare "torching" from unburnt fuel in the exhaust is spectacular but usually harmless.

However, inlet backfires (leading to induction fires from pooled fuel) at starting are usually caused by exhaust afterfires and so this is certainly an "internal" combination event.

Regards Angus.
************************************************************************
From Ric

If I understand you correctly, a credible sequence of events might be:

1. Overpriming resulting in pooled fuel in the engine compartment and on the ground.

2. Engine starts.  No fire yet, but fuel from the overprime continues to dribble as airplane begins to move.

3. Backfire ignites the pooled fuel in the engine compartment and on the ground.

4.  AE notices the fire and stops the airplane.  If she has turned the airplane to the right at all then the ground fire could be directly under the belly of the aircraft.  Not good.

5.  AE exits the airplane.  How?  The fastest way is out through the overhead hatch but that puts her on the wing right there beside the burning left engine.  Doesn't sound like a great idea.  If she climbs over the tanks and goes out through the cabin door she can grab a hand-held extinguisher on the way.  She is probably alone in the airplane at this time, Putnam, Noonan, and McKneeley having exited with her when the flight arrived (why stay aboard?).  AE was just moving the plane to fuel it.  We know that the hand-held extinguisher aboard was expended in trying to put out the fire so it seems likely that AE went out through the cabin door and grabbed it on the way.

6. At some point AE re-enters the plane, makes her way back to the cockpit, and pulls the fire system handle which extinguishes the blaze in the engine compartment but does nothing for the ground fire.  If the ground fire is under the belly right there at the cabin door she pretty much has to put it out with the hand-held before she gets back in.

The above described scenario is speculative but it does fit the few facts that we have.   The point is, if 2-2-V-1 is from the belly of NR16020, the heat damage on the artifact may have been caused by the incident in Tucson.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 7 Aug 2004 16:04:24 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric wrote:

> If I understand you correctly, a credible sequence of events might be:
>
> 1. Overpriming resulting in pooled fuel in the engine compartment and
> on the ground.
> 2. Engine starts.  No fire yet, but fuel from the overprime continues
> to dribble as airplane begins to move.
> 3. Backfire ignites the pooled fuel in the engine compartment and on
> the ground.
> 4.  AE notices the fire and stops the airplane.  If she has turned the
> airplane to the right at all then the ground fire could be directly
> under the belly of the aircraft.  Not good.

This scenario depends very much on the exact provision for fuel drain on the carb air box. If it drains easily, fuel is not likely to catch fire from a backfire.

If it is poorly drained or the drain easily blocked, most fuel will be retained within the air box. It is not then difficult to envisage  a healthy fire within the engine nacelle; a little fuel can cause a lot of flame. But I don't then see much of a fire on the ground. We are only talking about of cupfulls of fuel not gallons. The only likely scenario that could produce an appreciable ground fire is one where the engine fire burnt flexible hoses which then gave way and allowed pressurised fuel to escape. Rubber is surprisingly resistant to fire and although it burns it requires quite high temperatures to ignite and burns fairly slowly, allowing time for the CO2 system to extinguish the fire. In the event a hose was breached, it would very likely produce a disastrous fire and the CO2 system would be unable to extinguish burning fuel falling from the aircraft. It seems from AE's  description of the aftermath that not enough damage was caused for this to have happened however.

Additionally it takes time for the temperature of aluminium (which conducts away heat well) to rise to 600 deg. If AE extinguished any ground fire, either on exit or entry from the plane and yet subsequently put the engine fire out fast enough to do little damage to the engine and ancilliaries, I doubt the ground fire would have long enough to heat the aluminium to reach that temperature in the open air. In the confined engine nacelle it could get a lot hotter however.

> 5.  AE exits the airplane.  How?  The fastest way is out through the
> overhead hatch but that puts her on the wing right there beside the
> burning left engine.  Doesn't sound like a great idea.  If she climbs
> over the tanks and goes out through the cabin door she can grab a
> hand-held extinguisher on the way.  She is probably alone in the
> airplane at this time, Putnam, Noonan, and McKneeley having exited with
> her when the flight arrived (why stay aboard?).  AE was just moving the
> plane to fuel it.  We know that the hand-held extinguisher aboard was
> expended in trying to put out the fire so it seems likely that AE went
> out through the cabin door .

Not so likely if it was directly over a ground fire

> and grabbed it on the way
> 6. At some point AE re-enters the plane, makes her way back to the
> cockpit, and pulls the fire system handle which extinguishes the blaze
> in the engine compartment but does nothing for the ground fire.

Which may well already have been extinguished - if indeed there was one.

> If the
> ground fire is under the belly right there at the cabin door she pretty
> much has to put it out with the hand-held before she gets back in.
>
> The above described scenario is speculative but it does fit the few
> facts that we have.   The point is, if 2-2-V-1 is from the belly of
> NR16020, the heat damage on the artifact may have been caused by the
> incident in Tucson.

My own view is that there are too many hypothetical circumstances that would have to come together for any ground fire to be big enough and last long enough to cause the 600 deg heating.

Regards Angus.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 10:00:20 -0400
From:         Tom Strang
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Exploring the possibilities of what transpired during Amelia's spontaneous un-scripted Tucson fire drill - Consider the following question.

What if Amelia was not at the cockpit controls of NR16020 during the engine start up sequence and possible attempt to taxis?

Respectfully:

Tom Strang # 2559
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Okay, let's suppose that AE's own account as it appears in Last Flight is a fabrication (other a passages in Last Flight appear to be untrue). Let's suppose that he newspaper account is accurate and AE is standing on the ground watching the airplane being taxied by someone else and notices the engine fire.  The unnamed person stops the airplane, Earhart gets aboard and triggers the Lux system. I don't see how it changes the possibility that there was a ground fire 
that caused heat damage to the underside of the airplane.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 10:26:43 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      dados

You say all pics show no dados in the cabin with possible exception of the lavatory bulkhead. All rib stations behind the bulkhead in lavatory are smaller spaced than 15" so 15" and longer dados can't come from there. Only place possible is the lavatory bulkhead. Why put dados there? There's no gap for stuff to fall into the bilge, there are no cables, pipes or electrical wiring to protect. What would their purpose be? I believe there are four dados. What is their total length and individual lengths ignoring shortening? Do we know the width of the lavatory door and the panels each side and do these correspond to any of the dado widths? Do the dados show evidence of having been overlapped and would this be possible? If it is not possible, how were adjacent dados mounted when a single dado would monopolise all the space between ribs/frames?
************************************************************************
From Ric

We've been doing a lot of work on the dado question and have some new answers and new questions.

The 15 inches between the mounting holes turns out to be of no particular significance because the mounting holes aren't mounting holes.  They accommodated fasteners that held the insulation to the face of the dado.  We know that because we can see the rust stain from a Tinnerman nut (or similar fastener) on the aluminum.  The dados were apparently not secured to the wall at all but were simply nailed or screwed (we think nailed) to the floor.

A joint TIGHAR/U.S. Forest Service expedition has just returned from Alaska where our team was successful in locating and surveying the undisturbed wreck of an Electra that crashed (and did not burn) in 1943.  Many of the original cabin furnishings and non-structural features that are typically long-gone from Electras in museums are still present on the wreck and the team was able to recover examples for comparison to the the material we have found on Niku .  Based on initial reports it doesn't look like we have an exact match but there do appear to be similarities.  I should have the artifacts today or tomorrow.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 10:45:18 -0400
From:         Ric Gillespie
Subject:      The Kenner letter

Here's a new/old piece of information.  On August 10, 1937, Lt. Commander Frank T. Kenner, the Operations Officer aboard USCG ITASCA, wrote a letter home to his wife describing briefly his experiences and impressions regarding the Earhart disappearance.  About 25 years ago memorabilia collector Jon Krupnick acquired the letter from Kenner's widow.  The letter is reproduced in Krupnick's lavishly illustrated coffee-table book about Pan American's Pacific Division "Pacific Pioneers - the Rest of the Story".  (see www.pacificpioneers.com)

The letter is interesting as an insight into the attitudes aboard Itasca after the search that were institutionalized in Commander Thompson's official report "Radio Transcripts Earhart Flight". 
-------------------------

TREASURY DEPARTMENT
UNITED STATES COAST GUARD
HONOLULU, HAWAII

OFFICE OF COMMANDER
HAWAIIAN SECTION

10 August

Dear EVE-

While some free time is available, will drop you a line, and thank you for your letter. I guess Betty's letters informed you that I had once again returned to Honolulu. It was some cruise to say the least. In spite of the tragic events that took place it was filled with interesting moments. I did enjoy getting back in the South Pacific, with old ITASCA crowd. Doebler and Nelson are gone but the others were still on her. Our cruise lasted 36 days cruised nearly nine thousand miles.

As to Amelia losing herself, she had only herself to blame. We all admired  her nerve and pluck to attempt such a flight, but we can not admire her good sense and judgement [sic] in her conduct of it. She was too sure of herself, and too casual. She devoted no effort to the details at all. When it was too late and she was going down she hollered for our aid but that was too late. We did all we could. She never gave us any of her positions as we repeatedly request of her to do, she never answered or acknowledged any of our messages. She gave us no information as to her plans, what plans she had for communications she changed in the middle of the flight. All in all it was a mess. I heard he last broadcasts myself. She realized too late that she was in trouble, then she went to pieces. Her voice plainly indicated that fact, by the desperate note in her transmissions. She asked us to do the impossible, knowing ahead of time that we could not furnish her with the services that she wanted. She clearly indicated throughout the flight that she was not familiar with her radio equipment. If she had only answered our messages earlier in the flight we might have had some idea where to look for her, and might have been able to save her. It would take hours to write the whole story, some day will tell it all to you, for it is interesting. There is so much that we had to assume, that we really can not find all the answers.

No more new so will close for this time. Give my best to all. Do write again soon. Take care of yourself, don't work too hard. Life is too short to rush things. (the tropics have me). If you need or want anything, just holler.

With much love,
Frank
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 11:17:01 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric wrote:

>The  unnamed person stops the airplane,
>Earhart gets aboard and triggers  the Lux system.
>I don't see how it changes the possibility that there was a  ground fire
>that caused heat damage to the underside of the  airplane.

Actually I think this scenario is even more difficult to buy. If there is a ground fire under the fuselage in the vicinity of the passenger door how does she board the plane? Does she stand in the fire to open the passenger door?

Alan
************************************************************************
From Ric

I think it's pretty clear that any ground fire in the vicinity of the cabin door, if there was one, must have been extinguished before anyone entered the airplane that way. The only real indication we have that there was a ground fire is Earhart's comment that, after the incident, the airplane needed a "face-washing", but that's a pretty good indication.  We also know that hand-held extinguishers were used and expended.
======================================================================== 
=
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 11:20:46 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: extinguisher

Kerry wrote:

>OK,  here's the verbatim from the article about the copper
>extinguisher:
>(Tucson  Daily Star May 22, 1937)
>"Finally the night man at the Motor Service  company said he had one
>dandy big extinguisher of the "turn upside down  and let 'er go"
>variety which he thought would be just swell for Miss  Earhart's plane.
>The phones buzzed again and Putnam said, "Buy it, then  we'll have
>something". But this extinguisher, bright and shiny with a  pretty
>red handle, was not filled. That was an easy problem and was soon
>solved by one of Chief Joe Robert's men. He carefully measured each
>chemical and filled it properly. The copper extinguisher was  promptly
>delivered to Miss Earhart.... "

I am not entirely clear how we determine THIS newspaper account is 100% accurate and the one describing someone else taxiing the plane and the ensuing fire is NOT accurate.

Personally the fire extinguisher story doesn't ring true. The reporter quotes a telephone comment by Putnam which he could not hear and the "pretty red handle" sounds like a reporter coloring up an event he didn't witness. Fortunately he just happened to be in the hanger at the time. <G>

The point of this is that I think we are writing off the Niku fire extinguisher based on pathetically inaccurate reporting. I'm not sure how the  question could be resolved but I'm thinking. <G>

Alan
======================================================================== 
=
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 12:02:46 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Re: the Kenner letter

How sad.

A lot of what Kenner said about her casual attitudes toward this flight has already been reported by TIGHAR and her unfamiliarity with the equipment etc. is also no surprise.  What I find so sad is Kenner's statement that she went to pieces when she realized she couldn't find Howland.  Not exactly the image we'd like to have of our heroine.  But then, how would any of us handle a similar situation?

While Kenner claims to have actually heard her last words, is there any other indication that he was in the radio room at the time of the final broadcasts?  I know he was the Ops officer but that doesn't mean he was really there.

LTM, who hates to see anyone cry

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

As best we can determine from the various reports, Kenner was not in the shore party so he should have been aboard ship at 08:43 and may well have heard Earhart's last transmission.

It's really hard to know to what extent AE really went to pieces and to what extent the crew of the Itasca needed to characterize her that way in making sure that they didn't feel responsible for her loss.  It is interesting, however, that Kenner's description of the "desperate note" in her voice matches Betty's recollections and notebook.  We've also just been talking about the incident in Tucson where, if she did exit the airplane without triggering the fire extinguisher, she momentarily "lost it".
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 12:16:52 -0400
From:         Tom Strang
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

The Tucson fire incident has become a "Pandora's Box" of forum speculation to give reasonable credence as to the origin of the heat damage associated with panel 2-2-V-1.

To offer intelligent speculation on an event, you must have some reasonable understanding of the event in question - From my vantage point that reasonable understanding of the Tucson fire incident has not been met as of this date in time.

Not to bust your bubble, but anyone with round engine flight line experience would find your speculation of this type of fire causing the amount of heat necessary to inflict the damage you see on panel 2-2-V-1 doubtful at best - But then again if there is more to the Tucson fire incident than what has come forth so far your speculation may still have possibilities. But that requires more understanding of the incident than we have right now.

What is this forum fixation with "Last Flight"?
   
Respectfully:

Tom Strang # 2559
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

I agree that we really don't have a good handle on what happened in Tucson.  There was a fire.  It got put out.  The damage was apparently confined to some "cooked hoses" and the need for a "face-washing".  The possibility would seem to exist that parts of the exterior of the aircraft were exposed to flame for some period of time. That's about all we can say.

The passage in "Last Flight" is one of three primary sources we have for descriptions of the Tucson incident (the other two being the LUX advertisement and the newspaper article).  I think that everyone realizes that "Last Flight" was heavily edited and not terribly reliable; that the LUX advertisement may not accurately reflect what happened; and that newspaper articles are notoriously untrustworthy.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 12:38:55 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: dados

> The 15 inches between the mounting holes turns out to be of no
> particular significance because the mounting holes aren't mounting
> holes.  They accommodated fasteners that held the insulation to the
> face of the dado.  We know that because we can see the rust stain from
> a Tinnerman nut (or similar fastener) on the aluminum.

I had guessed that was the case. Obviously the insulation is secured by the veltrim at the top but needs to be secured at the base - hence the holes. Apart from the fact that the tinnerman nuts would need to be held and therefore must be assembled before fitting the dado, it would be impossible to mount adjacent panels on 15" centers anyway as the ribs would not then be available for adjacent panels.. A tinnerman nut would be superfluous for mounting unless it were a captive one, mounted on the rib. This would allow easier removal however.

The real centres are actually the overall length of the panel. The panels were probably secured right at the top by the hole which is very close to the  edge. It would be interesting to see if there is sufficient space on a single rib to take two of these holes at the appropriate separation.

The idea that they were only nailed or screwed to the floor and otherwise unsecured seems unlikely. They are quite elaborately made for such a simple purpose and in an aircraft engineering environment, overkill on mounting provision is more likely than only securing the lower flange.

You didn't comment on my question as to what possible purpose dados could serve on the rear bulkhead - especially in view of the fact that you say that such dados were definitely not fitted in positions where they might actually have been useful. Why fit such panels where they are useless and fail to fit them where they might have some use?

You also didn't say what lengths the panels actually are.

Regards Angus.
************************************************************************
From Ric

I'm afraid you're going to have to wait until we can get a new research bulletin up on the website.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 12:42:54 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: extinguishers

>We also  know that hand-held extinguishers were used  and
>expended.

That's true but weren't they ON board the plane?

Alan
********************************************************************
From Ric

It's not clear whether or not all of the portable extinguishers brought to bear came from onboard the airplane.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 13:03:50 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

> From Alan
>
> I am not entirely clear how we determine THIS newspaper account is 100%
> accurate and the one describing someone else taxiing the plane and the
> ensuing fire is NOT accurate.

My take on the newspaper article is that the reporter was sent out to the Municipal airport to get an interview with AE for a human interest story. When he got there, she had already landed and the whole fire incident was over. The reporter got his interview and the fire bumped the story to Page One. He then stuck around for anything else of interest and grabbed the fire extinguisher angle to fill out the story. I suspect he was an eye witness to most of that part of the story and may well have overheard Putnam's half of the phone conversation. He then followed AE's party to the Pioneer Hotel for a wrap up. Since this was the morning paper, his deadline was probably not until Ten PM or so.

BTW, in an effort to find a good eye witness account of the incident, Tom Peterson at the Arizona Historical Society tracked down a copy of the Municipal Airport log  book for me. Apparently only the first book was saved for posterity. It frustratingly ends in November 1936.

LTM
Kerry Tiller
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 14:07:44 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Journalism

Ric said:  "I think that everyone realizes that "Last Flight" was heavily edited and not terribly reliable; that the LUX advertisement may not accurately reflect what happened; and that newspaper articles are notoriously untrustworthy."

As a reformed journalist, I gotta jump in here and offer some sort of defense to that poor schmuck from the Tucson newspaper.  Yes, journalistic standards of the 30's left a lot to be desired, and from all appearances the reporter probably was not even at the airport when it happened and got everything second hand.  Reporters still do it that way today, but at least nowadays they offer some type of attribution, i.e. "Airport manger Joe Smith explained . . . ." or "A mechanic working on the damaged aircraft suggested . . . ".  Imperfect, yes, but at least it offers the reader an idea of the expertise of whoever is making the comment.

And of course, the greatest excuse we all learn in J-school: "Newspaper reporting is the first draft of history."  Damn, ain't that noble? :-)

LTM, who prefers dollars to nobility
Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

Today it would be, " A mechanic, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.....".
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 14:38:22 -0400
From:         John Bayless
Subject:      Re: Journalism

As another reformed journalist, I second those sentiments. However, the guy who wrote the article did have a nice style.

John Bayless
San Antonio, TX
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 15:00:21 -0400
From:         Kerry Tiller
Subject:      Re: Journalism

> From John Bayless
>
> As another reformed journalist, I second those sentiments. However, the
> guy who wrote the article did have a nice style.

That's why he got assigned human interest stories instead of "hard news". It is also why, when a document that could contain something of historical interest is reviewed decades later, we are confronted with stuff like "pretty red handle". In defense of the "poor schmuck", he could not have known the significance of what he was party to, and is probably laughing in his grave right now at the thought that someone has taken an interest all these years later in something that he wrote.

Are we wandering off topic again, Ric? Sorry.
LTM (who wanders off topic frequently)
Kerry Tiller
************************************************************************
From Ric

No.  We're often faced with trying to assess the accuracy of a newspaper report.  It's a thorny issue.  Sometimes the media are not as fair and balanced as we might wish.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 9 Aug 2004 16:01:29 -0400
From:         John Bayless
Subject:      Re: Journalism

In modern newspapers, the bias is not as easily discerned as in the olden days, but it's still there. Every journalist filters his or her information ... and what the journalist will view as most important is generally what he or she thinks will interest the MOST viewers in his or her target audience.

Sometimes important details are left out of stories because of this  - or cut out by an editor before it went to press. The sort of AE details that are crucial now are just the sort that would be "dull" background to an editor cutting copy.

As a side note ... let me know if I can ever lend a hand with anything in the San Antonio area. I've been reading the forum for a while now, but have not posted before today.
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks John.  According to my list (which is not necessarily current) I don't show you as a TIGHAR member.  If you're not I hope you'll consider joining.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 10 Aug 2004 08:12:57 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Supersonic Devastator

I just got the latest Tighar Tacks detailing Tighar's recent work at Jaluit lagoon and I'm in awe of the quality of the photos.  I had no idea the water was that clear even at those depths.  Muy kudos to the photo team for a great effort! I did notice one discrepancy, though in the text: you have the maximum speed of the TBD-1 Devastator (page 8) listed at "2006 mph."  That would approximately Mach 3, wouldn't it?  Not bad for a straight wing, aluminum, prop-job, not bad at all!   :-)

LTM, who's made a few typos herself
Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

Aaargh!  Now matter how many times you proof-read it something always slips through.

It should have read "206 mph".  (2006 in a dive, wings folded)

The photos are indeed breathtaking but, in all fairness, most of the still photos were taken within the last year or so by photographers other than our own team members (each photo is properly credited). What we can't show you in TIGHAR Tracks is the truly kick-butt video our underwater cameraman, Rob Barrell, shot of the TBDs and other wrecks in the lagoon.  It's quite literally the best video photography of underwater aircraft wrecks any of has ever seen.  Our "topside" cameraman, Mark Smith, also shot spectacular footage of the onshore wrecks and Japanese installations in addition to evocative interviews with local people who witnessed the wartime events.  We're currently investigating the production of a documentary for broadcast.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 10 Aug 2004 09:14:38 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Regarding the whole Tucson fire issue:

1.  At this time of the 2nd attempt was it not generally known to the public that the 2nd attempt was underway?  If so, what brought the reporter to the airport?  I seem to recall that AE & company was keeping the  trip under wraps until she actually left the US.

2.  What (if any) weight should be given to a contemporaneous  newsman's account of what happened in Tucson?  We are trying to reconcile  the differences in three accounts of the same event; the newspaper article -  written the day of or day after, the text of the event in "Last Flight" - I am  not sure how long after the event the author would have written down his first  words concerning this matter and the Lux advertisement - where can we find a copy this?

Keep in mind that according to AE (as quoted in the newspaper) this whole matter wasn't a big thing.  However, someone judged that the Tucson event  was significant - it made it into the book and also into a Lux  advertisement,  any idea how long after the event Lux put it into print?

3.  Getting back to the fire extinguisher  I don't recall the acid/soda type extinguisher having a "handle", red or otherwise.  The top  was screwed on and a ring was incorporated into the top to hang onto.   However, there was another type of extinguisher available that may have had a  handle and it was a powder/gas cartridge type where you had to drop the  extinguisher on its head to drive a pin into the gas cartridge in order to  trigger the extinguisher.  I believe this type of extinguisher was usable  on a fuel fire whereas the acid/soda type wasn't.  Finally, this later type  of extinguisher was also easy to service, hence the charging of the unit while  everyone waited around the hanger. As I recall all the components were packaged  as a "kit," powder in a cardboard tube, gas cartridge and the casing  itself.  Perhaps someone on the forum could shed a little more light on  this possibility.

4.  I can't help myself from thinking that this Tucson fire was more significant than first thought concerning 2-2-V-1.  Let me see if I can summarize what we know - Ric please correct me where I am wrong.

a.  2-2-V-1 has had some heat applied to a portion of its surface - approx. 600 degrees or so.

b.  The trip was hush-hush at this point in time and AE pooh-poohed  the event, yet the incident found its way into two post event recollections -  "The Last Flight" book and the Lux advertisement.

c.  There is other distress on 2-2-V-1: the sheared rivet heads, the bulging out and tearing along the seams.  Could heat damage, albeit not  high enough to temper the aluminum sheet in other areas contribute to the  overall distress seen?  e.g. what is the effect of heat, and how much it needed, on hardened (from bucking) aluminum rivets?

d.  The artifact "comes close" but is not an exact fit to portions of the L10E however, there is no other aircraft that has been looked at that gives  a better fit.  We don't have your info on what you found out in Windsor Locks during your most recent visit.

e.  The sheet does match what was used in repairs and what was aboard the aircraft according to the Luke Field inventory. 

Finally, a whole bunch of circumstantial evidence but yet no smoking gun! It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck but is it a *****?

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

Good questions and a good summary.

>1.  At this time of the 2nd attempt was it not generally known to the
>public that the 2nd attempt was underway?  If so, what brought the reporter
>to the airport?  I seem to recall that AE & company was keeping the  trip
>under wraps until she actually left the US.

You're correct.  No one was supposed to know that the 2nd attempt was under way and Earhart repeatedly misled the reporter about the trip. I'm sure that the unannounced arrival of famous flyer Amelia Earhart would have been newsworthy enough to bring a reporter to the airport even if there had not been a fire.

>2.  What (if any) weight should be given to a contemporaneous
>newsman's account of what happened in Tucson?  We are trying to
>reconcile the differences in three accounts of the same event;
>the newspaper article -  written the day of or day after, the text
>of the event in "Last Flight" - I am  not sure how long after the
>event the author would have written down his first  words concerning
>this matter and the Lux advertisement - where can we find a
>copy this?

Of the three accounts, the newspaper article is the most contemporaneous with the event and, in some respects, might be considered the least likely to be influenced by any agenda.  If Earhart wrote the passage in Last Flight, she must have written it sometime during her 10-day stay in Miami.  That must also be when the quote used in the Lux ad was obtained.  It's not hard to imagine AE getting a new Lux canister in Miami and Putnam seeing an opportunity for another product endorsement.

Once the World Flight began she made rough notes about the progress of the flight and sent them home periodically.  Purdue might have the rough draft of the Tucson incident.  I don't know.  It's also possible that Putnam wrote the passage attributed to AE in Last Flight.  He was there.

>3.  Getting back to the fire extinguisher....

I think the fire extinguisher is a dead end.  The extinguisher we found n Niku is clearly a carbon-tet unit.

>4.  I can't help myself from thinking that this Tucson fire was more
>significant than first thought concerning 2-2-V-1.  Let me see if I can
>summarize what we know - Ric please correct me where I am wrong.
>
>a.  2-2-V-1 has had some heat applied to a portion of its surface -
>approx. 600 degrees or so.

The heat damage to 2-2-V-1 is odd.  About a third of the external surface was exposed to considerable heat for a relatively short period of time and the damaged area is along the edge that seems to correspond best with the keel of the Electra.  We've wondered whether the sheet may have been use as a cooking surface but if that were the case you'd expect the middle part, if not the entire sheet, to be heat damaged. The belly of the airplane in the area where the rivet pattern matches best is sort of boat-shaped and the keel is, of course, closest to the ground.

>b.  The trip was hush-hush at this point in time and AE pooh-poohed
>the event, yet the incident found its way into two post event recollections

I don't see anything particularly remarkable about that.  It was a scary incident that turned out okay.  Just the sort of thing that makes for good copy.

>c.  There is other distress on 2-2-V-1: the sheared rivet heads, the
>bulging out and tearing along the seams.  Could heat damage, albeit not 
>high enough to temper the aluminum sheet in other areas contribute to the
>overall distress seen?  e.g. what is the effect of heat, and how much it
>needed, on hardened (from bucking) aluminum rivets?

The effect of the heat was to reduce the ductility of the metal.  In other words, the heat damaged area is more brittle than the rest of the sheet.  This was demonstrated rather dramatically when an Alcoa metallurgist was removing rectangular samples from the sheet for testing.  When he tried to bend out a strip from the damaged area it snapped off instead of bending (depositing him on his butt on the lab floor).  On the airplane, the heat damaged edge is where the sheet first fractured from the fore that struck it from the inside.  In other words, it does appear that the heat damage was a major factor in the failure of the sheet.

>d.  The artifact "comes close" but is not an exact fit to portions of
>the L10E however, there is no other aircraft that has been looked at that
>gives  a better fit.  We don't have your info on what you found out in Windsor
>Locks during your most recent visit.

The visit gave us lots of raw data which must now be digitized and put into a format where we can accurately explore the question of just how close the fit is or isn't.

>e.  The sheet does match what was used in repairs and what was aboard
>the aircraft according to the Luke Field inventory.

We do know that the sheet is "reserve stock" used for repairs and modifications but not for original construction.  The Luke Field inventory makes mention of "2 pieces, sheet metal, Alcoa" but there's no reason to think that those have anything to do with 2-2-V-1.

>Finally, a whole bunch of circumstantial evidence but yet no smoking gun!

Yes, we'd all like to have a smoking gun but that rarely happens in any investigation.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:07:30 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

I suppose we may be beating a dead horse with the Tucson fire and the fire extinguisher story and I recognize, Ric, you think there is no connection with the Niku fire extinguisher. At the same time it appears to me the reporter's account cannot be relied on for any fact and it is only his account that throws  us off on the type of fire extinguisher. He reported what the fire extinguisher  looked like AND hearing Putnam's phone conversation to buy it. The reporter is  piecing things together after the fact and may have been familiar with that type  of extinguisher and hyped his story. I see nothing to convince me he had any  first hand knowledge of what he reported nor anything to convince me he could  have reported Putnam's phone conversation accurately or accurately described the  fire extinguisher.

Putnam was there with Amelia so who is he calling and telling them to "buy it?" The reporter's story makes no sense.

Unfortunately I see no way to resolve what extinguisher was picked up at Tucson.

Next subject. <G>

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:23:03 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Supersonic Devastator

Congratulations to Ric on the latest Tighar Tracks which arrived today. I want to join those who express admiration on the fine quality of the underwater  photography.

As for the "supersonic TBD", don't worry Ric. The day before yesterday I read on a serious aviation website that Concorde was the first SUBSONIC airliner in history! There are two kinds of readers: intelligent ones and others. The first will have corrected the mistake already themselves. The others will not notice the difference.

LTM (who loves to dot her i's and cross her t's to show the world she knows the value of little things like these)
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Herman.   There are two kinds of people in the world.  Those who divide everything into two categories and those who don't.

************************************************************************
From: Mike Haddock

Great job with Tighar Tracks, Ric. (You're getting a little gray there old buddy!) Will the underwater video ever be available in VHS format? I'd love to have a copy for my TIGHAR library. Thanks also to Pat for a wonderful job on the publication.

LTM,

Mike Haddock, #2438
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Mike.  It's boat rides like the one we had just before that photo was taken that make me gray.  We got caught by a squall out in the middle of the lagoon.  Either the waves were too big or the boat was too small, but we were getting awful wet and slammed around, and then we lost one of the engines because it was so rough that sludge from the bottom of the tank had clogged the fuel line.  If we had lost the other engine we wouldn't have been able to keep from broaching but it kept running and we limped in.  The grins in the photo are genuine. I'll second the kudos to Pat.

The video will eventually be available.  We're still working out the details.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:27:48 -0400
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric -- The discussion of heat-damage on 2-2-V-1 has raised a question in my mind, and it's been long enough since I had the artifact in hand that I need to  ask it.  The heat damage is along one side of the piece, which I agree suggests that it's not the result of using it for cooking.  Unless, and this is the question, 2-2-V-1 were part of a larger piece, which was cut in two (or more) pieces after it was used for cooking.  Imagine a piece twice 2-2-V-1's size, placed over a fire and used to cook fish (or something), and then cut in half.  Is this a possibility, given the nature of the cut/break  along the heated edge?

************************************************************************
From Ric

Good thought.  Wrong edge.  The heat damage is on the edge that fractured.  The edge that may have been hacked free is the opposite side.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 10 Aug 2004 14:13:27 -0400
From:         Pat Gaston
Subject:      Re: the Kenner letter

Thanks for posting the Kenner letter, which is achingly poignant and  has the ring of truth.  After all this was a private letter from a man to his wife -- circumstances in which one would least expect the writer to  parrot the "company line," if in fact there was an Itasca CYA conspiracy.

I see no connection to Betty unless the contention is that AE was down on the Niku reef flat by 8:43 am.  Her notebook portrays an entirely different scenario.  However, the letter does support the recollections of Bellarts and Galten many years later.

Breathlessly awaiting the results of the dado comparison.

AMC (A Mam‡ con Cari–o)

Pat Gaston
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Allow me to elaborate on what I think happened aboard Itasca. The entire crew had an intense experience that was confused, confusing and frustrating.  Earhart was lost on their watch.  For the first three days after she disappeared they were quite sure that she was afloat on the ocean and calling for help.  Their hopes reached a crescendo on the night of July 5 when they arrived at "281 north Howland" and saw what they thought were signal flares. ("WE CAN SEE YOUR FLARES AND ARE PROCEEDING TOWARD YOU").  The flares turned out to be meteorites and word finally arrived from California that she could not be sending distress calls if the plane was alfloat.   The disappointment must have been crushing and they had to confront the fact that they had spent crucial days searching north and west of Howland while the Navy experts had concluded that the search should be conducted southeastward along the LOP.

In the wake of any complex catastrophe there is always a lot of discussion and reflection and the survivors inevitably construct a simplified version of events that fit their own needs.  (Think 9/11.) There is seldom any intentional departure from the truth but the consensus of what happened can often be quite different from the picture painted by the real-time records.  In the case of the Itasca, it appears to have been agreed among the ship's crew that they had done its best but Earhart was so unprofessional, disorganized and, at last, upset that she defeated all of their attempts to help her.  She had probably gone down at sea right where they thought she did but sank without a trace.  Misunderstood radio messages and outright hoaxes had misled them into thinking there was hope when, in fact, there was none.

This victim mentality shows up repeatedly in Thompson's "Radio Transcripts - Earhart Flight", the Kenner letter, and the later recollections of Bellarts and Galten but it does not appear in any of the hundreds of radio log entries or messages generated during the search.

If Earhart was indeed audibly upset at the time of her 08:43 transmission the connection I see with Betty is that Betty also describes someone who is audibly upset but still able to function.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:49:37 -0400
From:         Art Carty
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

I think that we have gotten too hung up on the Tucson fire; as I understand it, there is no realistic scenario that would cause 600 degree heating while 2-2-V-1 was still on the plane.  What temperature would a  gasoline flame be anyway assuming a ground fire and the height of the artifact off of the ground?  How long would this flame have to burn to heat the artifact to 600 degrees?  I'm a history major so I'm baffled.

We need another idea.

Ric, for clarity, is it "required" by the physical condition of the artifact that it has to have been heated before the fracture; is there anything that says the fracture has to have happened while the artifact was still in the plane (ie, could the fracture have happened in the village and could  the "missing" piece still there somewhere?

LTM

Art Carty
************************************************************************
From Ric

It should be possible to quantify this within reasonable parameters. We're not talking rocket science. We have a sheet of .032 Alclad at a height of just about exactly 2 feet off the ground. We have a theoretical fire on the ground fueled by gasoline.  I don't imagine that 1937 avgas burned at a wildly different temperature than present day gasoline from the Shell station. How much time does it take to get the metal hot enough to cause the effect we see on 2-2-V-1?

Sounds like the kind of experiment I'd have killed to have an excuse to perform when I was 15.

>is it "required" by the physical condition of the artifact that it
>has to have been heated before the fracture;

No.  We know that the heat damage made the metal more susceptible to fracture and we have the observation that the fracture occurred in the same place where the heat damage is now.  It could be coincidence.

>is there anything that says the fracture has to have happened while
>the artifact was still in the plane (ie, could the fracture have
>happened in the village and could  the "missing" piece still there
>somewhere?

It takes a whopping great force (in metallurgical jargon) to cause aluminum sheet to fracture the way we see on 2-2-V-1.  I can't imagine anything that anyone could do to a sheet of aluminum in the village that could generate that kind of force.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 10 Aug 2004 16:48:20 -0400
From:         Marty Moleski
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Ric wrote:

> ... Sounds like the kind of experiment I'd have killed to have an
> excuse to
> perform when I was 15.  ...


It probably is unnecessary to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway: I hope that no one takes up the challenge unless they really know what they're doing and take all the necessary precautions.

I've seen a person burned by a gas explosion and come close to it myself (I shoulda known better!).

Gasoline vaporizes readily.  When mixed with air, the fumes are highly explosive.  The combustible mixture of air and vapor is invisible--you won't know the location or dimensions of the fireball until it ignites.

LTM.
Marty #2359
**********************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Marty.  Good Lord no.  Kids, don't try this at home.  If it looks like we really need that information I'll set up the experiment with suitable precautions.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:13:38 -0400
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

I don't believe any notes on the Tucson fire are in the Purdue Archives. Most of Last Flight is copied directly from press releases AE sent to the Herald Tribune.  I have the complete set, but I'm not at home and can't consult them as to when they started.  I wonder if it is possible that AE sent releases to the Tribune, which held up their publication prior to AE's announcement and then published them.  It might be worthwhile checking the Tribune columns.
************************************************************************
From Ric

All of this raises an interesting question about when much of Last Flight was written and by whom.  The book is written in the first person, supposedly by Amelia, except for a brief introduction by GP. In it, he explains that, "She had promised her publishers the manuscript promptly; that was one of the chores she accepted to make possible her ambition.  So when she was turned back from Honolulu by the accident there in March, she did what she could to get the book well launched."

Reading between the lines, it looks to me like the book was intended for the Christmas 1937 market.  Had the flight gone off as planned, she would have been back home by May with time to write up her notes from the trip and still make deadline.  The Luke Field wreck and subsequent delay really put the pressure on.  Almost half of the book covers the period from 1935 when she decided to try an around the world flight until the departure from Miami and was apparently written at least in draft form by AE between her arrival back in California in late March and her departure from Miami on June 1.   The rest of the book is assembled and edited from rough notes she sent back during the trip. ======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:18:58 -0400
From:         Christian Duretete
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

>  From Ric
>
> Good thought.  Wrong edge.  The heat damage is on the edge that
> fractured.  The edge that may have been hacked free is the opposite
> side.

Still: isn't there a possibility that 22v1 came off the plane as a bigger piece, and, after suffering the effect of a camp fire on Niku, it ended up breaking in two, from the heat sustained *on* Niku?

Christian D
************************************************************************
From Ric

Not really.  The sheet did not simply break in two.  (Try breaking a sheet of .032 Alclad in two.)  It fractured from the application of a very powerful fluid force that also caused the rivet heads to fail.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:22:25 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

I have a feeling we are paying too much attention to the Tucson fire and the damage it COULD have done to the Electra. All sorts of scenarios have been invented that do not sound very convincing to me. The most credible one is that when starting the engines to taxi to the fuel farm, one engine caught fire as piston engines sometimes did because of overpriming. That's why in the old days there was always a guy with a fire extinguisher standing near the engine being fired and that procedure lasted until the days of the DC-6. It sounds doubtful that AE would have let somebody else taxi to the fuel farm. I also find it unlikely she would have started one engine only to taxi. It does sound credible however that a fire developed through overpriming which was immediately extinguished using the on board extinguisher.

Never mind the newspaper story. I am a retired journalist. I know how stories are written. They are usually written at a desk by someone who never was there and had to rely on reports, sometimes based on witness accounts. Witness accounts are historically unreliable. Most people have their information from hearsay. And even those who did witness an incident have varying descriptions. I don't think the Tucson story was treated much different. Unlike today news stories were more matter-of-fact in the Thirties. One of the first things we were taught when we started out in journalism in the Sixties was NEVER USE YOUR IMAGINATION. STICK TO THE FACTS. Yet even as early as the Thirties in Anglo-Saxon countries stories were already being embellished. Today newspapers have changed worldwide. Stories are written to increase sales. Therefore they are notoriously unreliable because all too often an editor has used his imagination to write a "good story".

I'll never  forget the day when someone wrote an interesting story, adding an interesting detail : birds could be heard singing from the trees in the square. The next day a letter arrived from a reader telling the newspaper that there were no trees in that particular square and therefore no birds can be heard singing from them...

Returning to AE at Tucson, I personally find it hard to believe the airplane taxied out of a pool of flames caused by leaking Avgas. It is a possibility of course. But if it did and if it damaged the airplane to the extend we now seem to believe it did, why not find out how credible that is ? Why not ask the guys from Lufthansa who experienced a similar incident with their Ju-52 in 1979 ? The airplane was sanding in a puddle of Avgas that had leaked from a broken fuel line that took fire. The pilot taxied out of it. After the incident (and repairs to the  fuel line) the airplane was flown to the US. It received new P & W engines before being sold to Lufthansa, as I explained in a previous posting.

I have seen that airplane when it had been disassembled for overhaul at the Lufthansa Hamburg maintenance shop. It would be interesting to ask them if they found any piece of aluminum damaged by the fire when the airplane had been taxied out of burning Avgas on the tarmac. Personally I have no recollection of it. But  one might always ask. I have a feeling that if artifact 2-2-V-1 shows signs of fire, it may be the result of things that happened to it in its later life.

LTM (who finds it hard to believe farfetched stories)
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:39:41 -0400
From:         Ric Gillespie
Subject:      Digging on Tinian

As most forum subscribers know, there's a group of folks who are convinced that Earhart and Noonan were executed by the Japanese and buried on Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas. This hypothesis is based on the testimony of a WWII Marine who was shown their alleged graves by a local. He has identified the location for Jennings Bunn, the U.S. Navy's archaeologist on Guam, who is an adherent to the "Tinian Hypothesis." Jennings Bunn has been working for some time to get permission from the Northern Marianas Historic Preservation Officer to excavate the alleged grave site.

Mr. Bunn has now received the necessary permissions and an excavation of the site is now planned to begin on November 12 with Dr. Gary Heathcote of the University of Guam anthropology department acting as Field Director. Mr. Bunn has extended an invitation to anyone else who would care to participate.  We don't yet know whether any of the members of our Earhart Project Advisory Council (EPAC) will be able to make it but if any forum subscribers are interested you can contact Jennings Bunn at: N455@guam.navy.mil
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 11 Aug 2004 10:13:28 -0400
From:         Ric Gillespie
Subject:      The Tucson article

As promised, here's the full text of the Tucson Daily Star article from May 22, 1937.

************************************************************

Fire Delays Amelia Earhart Here While She Plans Flight

Will Start on World Trip Near the End of This Month, She Says While Searching for Fire Extinguisher After Dousing Small Blaze in Plane

Temporarily grounded in Tucson due to a minor fire which did little damage to the motor of her $90,000 Flying Laboratory, Amelia Earhart announced here last night that with good weather, her second globe girdling trip would start sometime near the end of this month. The route will be the same except for minor changes called for by shifting weather conditions.

The blaze Miss Earhart said was just minor and was caused when an overheated motor "backfired." It was quickly smothered by a mechanical chemical extinguisher Miss Earhart released. She said this shot the chemical into all parts of the engine and put the fire out. The damage was negligible she said and she expects to take off today for some eastern city, probably El Paso.

With Husband

Miss Earhart, with her husband, George Palmer Putnam, New York publisher, her navigator, Captain Fred Noonan, and her mechanic, Bo McKneeley, had just landed at the municipal airport after a flight from Burbank, California, when the flames shot from the engine. The aviatrix, who had left the plane, saw the fire break out in the left motor as the plane was being taxied to the hangar. The plane was stopped and she extinguished the blaze with the automatic extinguisher connected with the motor. The huge craft, twin-motored Lockhead [sic] Electra, was taken to the hangar, where attendants cleaned the soot and chemical from the engine.

Just Out Of Shop

Miss Earhart and her party came to the Pioneer hotel last night after the plane was taken care of in the municipal hangar. She said the plane had just been out of the factory at Burbank for two days after having been completely overhauled following the crack-up in Honolulu. "It's just like new now, and has to be taken on a shake-down flight. I'd like to put 50 hours on it before the big flight."
Thursday they flew from Burbank to Oakland and return and yesterday they came here. Putnam is returning to New York and Miss Earhart will fly him part way. "I'm just flying anywhere," she said, "merely to check the plane and see that everything is working properly. We made all our fuel tests before and of course don't have to do that again. Our course this time will be much the same as the last one with the exception of a few changes due to shifting weather. That course was made for conditions as they were in March and now, 60 days later, the weather has altered in some places. The route will be primarily around the world following the equator."

Something To Do

Miss Earhart said she would like very much to make this first round the world flight. "If I don't some one else will," she added. She said lone flyers have pioneered all the present commercial routes and it's up to lone flyers to continue making new course. "And besides this flight gives me something to do," she concluded. In the meantime Miss Earhart was without a serviceable fire extinguisher. Her trick mechanical  one that so neatly put out the fire last night was exhausted and as it must be filled with a special "under pressure" system which the local airport does not possess, she could not have it recharged until she returns to  Burbank. She also carries in her plane several of the small quart size hand operated extinguishers. These were also played on yesterday's blaze by mechanics and were empty.

Extinguishers Needed

Putnam and Miss Earhart decided that they would have to have some servicable [sic] fire fighting equipment before they left in the morning, just as a precautionary measure. They decided, at least, to get their small hand operated extinguishers recharged. Surely, they thought, they could get them filled in Tucson. A half hour on the telephone calling everyone possible from the fire department to the airport revealed no recharge chemical for the extinguishers. They decided to abandon that idea and get an extinguisher, but the little extinguishers like the ones they had cost $14. Now $14 is a good bit to pay for additional extinguishers even for a $90,000 plane, when you already have some and all you need is the chemical.

Filler Provided

Finally the night man at the Motor Service company said he had one dandy big extinguisher of the "turn upside down and let 'er go" variety which he thought would be just swell for Miss Earhart's plane. The phones buzzed again and Putnam said, "But it, then we'll have something." But this extinguisher, bright and shiny with a pretty red handle, was not filled. That was an easy problem and was soon solved by one of Chief Joe Robert's men. He carefully measured each chemical and filled it properly. The copper extinguisher was promptly delivered to Miss Earhart. She started to write out a check to pay for the apparatus and said, "What date is today?" She was told "May 21." "Why that's right," she said, "five years ago today I landed in Ireland."

Made History

Miss Earhart went on talking about her proposed trip. She might also have mentioned that on that trip five years ago she made world history, being the first woman pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic ocean, her flight was from Newfoundland to Ireland. In January, 1935, she flew from Hawaii to California and in May of the same year she flew from Mexico City to New York in a non-stop jump. This past March she set a new record in her flight from California to Honolulu. The fire extinguisher man pocketed the check and left. Then half of Tucson called up with extinguishers of all descriptions. Her mechanic secured recharges for the hand extinguishers and all was well. She was told to be sure and keep this newly purchased extinguisher in an upright position. Not expecting to do any loops, she said she would.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 11 Aug 2004 11:58:59 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

> From Herman De Wulf (#2406)
> Why not ask
> the guys from Lufthansa who experienced a similar incident with their Ju-52
> in 1979 ? The airplane was sanding in a puddle of Avgas that had leaked from
> a broken fuel line that took fire. The pilot taxied out of it. After the
> incident (and repairs to the fuel line) the airplane was flown to the US.

By a remarkable coincidence, I may have photographed this aircraft extensively if it landed at Liverpool (Speke) airport en-route for the US. Anyone know?? I don't remember the date but it could well be the same one. I'll look for the photos and see if it shows any fire damage.

(And a few minutes later....)

Ric,
Interestingly the Ju 52 I photographed shows extensive sooting of the fuselage and wing leading edge between the starboard and centre engines. This is also the area where one of the centre engine exhausts discharges but - significantly - the same area on the other side of the engine behind the other exhaust, is completely clean.

Regards Angus.
************************************************************************
From Ric

Of course, the sooting is not the damage.  The kind of heat damage present on portions of 2-2-V-1 is very difficult to discern from just looking at the metal.  We had no idea there was any such damage to 2-2-V-1 until a metallurgist at Alcoa was cutting three rectangular sections out of one end of the piece for testing.  He would make two parallel cuts with a big pair of tin snips, then bend the strip up and cut it off at the base.  Two rectangular strips were thus cut out without incident (except for the anguish of watching our artifact butchered).  But when he went to bend back the third strip it snapped, almost resulting in injury to the metallurgist.  At that point everyone sort of said, "Whoa, what's going on here?"  Microscope examination of a cross-section of the aluminum revealed a change in the molecular structure due to heat damage.  Knowing that the damage is there, if you look carefully at the exterior surface of the sheet in good light you can see a subtle difference in the sheen of the surface.

I can easily see someone cleaning off the soot, looking at the skin, and saying, "Looks fine.  No damage."  What your photos of the Ju 52 seem to suggest is that an aircraft exposed to a gasoline ground fire needs a "face-washing".
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 11 Aug 2004 16:25:32 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: Digging on Tinian

I would certainly like to go to Tinian and help with the dig but I think it is an exercise in futility. Perhaps the Japanese capture folks would be interested. At least I have far more capability of reaching Tinian from Texas  than AE did from Howland.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 12 Aug 2004 08:41:28 -0400
From:         Robert Ward
Subject:      Re: Kenner letter

I'm a fairly new person ....and I'm lurking at the present.....I wanted to Thank the person(I think it's you)who put in that link to Pacific Pioneers, which in turn led me to purchase that book "Pacific Pioneers" The rest of the story....I'm a Flying boat person....and...flew the South pacific during the 50s....
Thank you very much...
Robert Ward
*************************************************************
From Ric

You're welcome.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 12 Aug 2004 08:43:48 -0400
From:         Tom Strang
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Did 1937 Tucson Municipal Airport have a fueling pit or designated fueling area? - People continue to speculate about NR16020 taxing to a fueling pit at the time of fire incident - I find it unusual for the time period - Most fueling was done plane side by truck transport.

Respectfully:

Tom strang # 2559
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

The reference to a "fueling pit" comes from Amelia in Last Flight.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 12 Aug 2004 09:25:39 -0400
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Re; Kenner letter

Welcome to the Forum, Robert.  I'm wondering: did you by any chance fly Flying Boats into Canton Island?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 12 Aug 2004 09:51:46 -0400
From:         Ted Campbell
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Thanks for the reprint of the Tucson article.  Just some observations and thoughts to ponder:

1.  Well, AE lets the cat out of the bag regarding the second  attempt by announcing that by the "end of the month" she hopes to start out on the fateful voyage.  This seems to support Ric's contention that it was the "famous" aspect of AE persona that brought the reporter to the airport and not the fact that it was the start of her second attempt.

2.  It does seem that someone else was taxing the aircraft to the hanger and I would suggest it was Bo McKneeley. I recently ran across a web page that had an interview with a person who had interviewed Bo and it was clear that Bo took his position  of being responsible for the aircraft Very seriously. Therefore, it seems like a reasonable assumption that if AE "saw the fire break out in the left engine as the plane was being taxied to the hanger." she wasn't aboard and that  Bo was at the controls.

3.  The fire was a major event.  It took the engine system  and "several of the small quart size hand operated extinguishers" to put it  out.  The article doesn't say anything about a face washing, etc. that has  been quoted earlier on the forum.  I guess these quotes came from the book  "The Last Flight."  By everyone's account there was a lot of activity going  on around the plane on the afternoon of the 21st of May 1937 i.e. the lines of  print in the newspaper story, the recollection of the event for the book  "The Last Flight" and the Lux advertisement seem to support the major  incident hypothesis.

4.  Concerning AE's action that day:  The reporter's account of  how the fire was finally put out by "the automatic extinguisher connected  with the motor." congers up three scenarios in my mind: a) Bo (or whomever  was taxing automatically pulled the extinguisher) and AE took credit for  it,  b) the fire was not present in the area under the belly near the rear  door, under the trailing edge of the left wing or lapping up from under the  cowling over the top of the left wing near the cockpit door and therefore was  not a major concern as described and AE did jump into or onto the plane and  therefor could have activated the engine system, or c) AE could have been on the  ground yelling to Bo to pull the engine extinguisher and later took credit for  the correct action. In my mind a) or c) seems to be the most likely.  Reason:  The  fire was major - see reasoning in 3) above.  There were only two ways to  get into the plane, through the rear door and up over the long range tanks - try doing that in a hurry - or by jumping up on the wing and walking to the cockpit  door. Either way, a fire large enough to require the engine system to be activated (rather than the customary running the engine to suck the fire back into the engine) and the "several quart size hand operated" types being "played on yesterdays blaze" seems to suggest that the fire was such that no one would  try to mount the airplane to take the action AE said she did.  I could see other mechanics/attendants riding in the rear of the plane while it was being taxied to the hanger and fighting a fire on the ground out the rear door with the handhelds from within. These same guys could be relaying AE's instructions  to Bo to pull the engine system if she was running along side yelling through the door.

5.  The "red handled extinguisher" was an acid/soda type and not like that found by TIGHAR.  AE was told, and she acknowledge, to keep it upright.  Tip an acid/soda extinguisher and you've got discharge.  The  other hand helds were most likely carbon tet. and were finally refilled the day  following the incident by "Her mechanic (that) secured recharges...and all was  well."

In conclusion I would suggest that the extinguisher from Gardner COULD have came from AE plane, and it wasn't the "red handled" one, but it certainly could  be from other sources.  The fire was more than just "minor" and COULD have caused the heat distress found on 2-2-V-1 and further research (go ahead and contact the paper - forget about the copyright issue - they may have additional  photos, notes, etc., on file) into this Tucson event is warranted.  The artifact 2-2-V-1 should be thoroughly examined for  other evidence of a fire's effect:  for example does the brittleness along  the edge stop abruptly or does it taper off, do any of the remaining rivets  exhibit heat distress, does the exterior side display a different  harding/heating effect than the interior side - what side was exposed to a  flame, is there any residue still lurking in the rivet holes or under the  still intact rivets, etc.?

Ted Campbell
************************************************************************
From Ric

We could argue all day about which of the available sources is more reliable and at the end of the day all we'd have is opinion. Personally, I think it was Amelia who overprimed the engine, was taxiing the airplane, noticed the fire, exited the aircraft, re-entered the aircraft, and pulled the fire handle in the cockpit - just as she said.  (For one thing, I don't think Bo would have overprimed it.)

I think that it's possible that the carbon-tet extinguisher we found on Niku ccame from the airplane but I can't think of any way to prove it and I think it's much more likely that it was scavenged from the Loran station.

I think a ground fire associated with the Tucson incident is a possible explanation for the heat damage we see on 2-2-V-1 but I can't think of any way to prove it even if we can establish that 2-2-V-1 came from NR16020.  Unless some long-lost newsreel footage miraculously emerges I'm afraid that the Tuscon fire will join the long list of enigmatic events associated with the Earhart flight and disappearance.

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 12 Aug 2004 10:17:20 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Re: the extinguisher

Ric said:  "I think that it's possible that the carbon-tet extinguisher we found on Niku came from the airplane but I can't think of any way to prove it and I think it's much more likely that it was scavenged from the Loran station."

Is there any way to date the manufacture of the carbon-tet bottle you have?  Serial numbers, manufacturing techniques etc. etc.  contact the company? And run it past their experts, like we did with the Cat's Paw shoe heel and other parts.

If you can prove it was made c.1938 or later then we can definitely toss it out (figuratively, of course) as part of AE's 10E.  If it was made prior to July 1937 then it is still in the mix of possible clues.

LTM, who's no fire bug

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

There is no number of any kind on the extinguisher and the design seems to have been around since the 1920s.  I'd rather spend our limited time and resources on artifacts that have the potential for being more conclusive.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 12 Aug 2004 10:18:45 -0400
From:         Robert Ward
Subject:      Re: the Kenner letter

I  apologize for mis-leading.....

I flew MATS throughout the South Pacific, i.e. R5ds (DC4s)....The flying boat was the MARS , and that was from Alameda to Hawaii(one was lost in the Philippians earlier on.....One piece of trivia...... There are still two Mars Flying boats working as Water droppers in Canada..despite the fact their almost 60 years old !
Robert..
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 12 Aug 2004 20:51:31 -0400
From:         Tom Strang
Subject:      Re: Tucson fire

Understand source of "fueling pit" - I have never found any hard copy reference to "fueling pit" at Tucson Municipal Airport in the year 1937 - Which adds credence to the lack of accuracy to the story telling found in "Last Flight" - May suggest dramatization by GP. Suspect NR16020 parked in front of main terminal area at time of fire - Possible reason for lack line fire bottle(s)- Time of day reinforces possible taxi to hangar area rather than fueling - Add aircrew temperament after long hot flight -Logic would dictate early AM fueling when air temp cooler - AE's mechanic most likely candidate for taxi effort outside of Amelia during this fire incident - No mechanics DO NOT always know cockpits and their controls as well as pilots especially a new aircraft with a relatively a short service life as NR16020.

Suggest researching Miami airframe and engine maintenance performed on NR16020 to better understand if major damage occurred from this Tucson line fire incident.

The Tucson Daily Star article may shed light on more than just the Tucson fire incident.

Respectfully:

Tom Strang # 2559
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

You seem very comfortable substituting your own speculation for the information in the primary sources. "Fueling pit" may have just been the way AE referred to wherever the fueling was done.  I've been in aviation as a pilot for 39 years and  I've never heard of a "fueling pit".  Seems like an odd term.  I can't imagine that aircraft were ever fueled in "pits".  Can anyone shed some light on this?

I've also never postponed fueling for the sake of cooler morning temperatures, but such speculation is pointless in this case because Earhart's original intention was to refuel and continue on that same day.  It was the fire that necessitated the overnight stay. If you know of any way to research whatever airframe and engine maintenance was done in Miami beyond the little bit that is already known we'd all welcome that information.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 13 Aug 2004 07:42:28 -0400
From:         Don Robinson
Subject:      Fueling pits

Way back in 1941 I learned to fly on the CPT program in Greenville, SC. The FBO there had what we called the "gas pit" for refueling. It was close to the one and only hangar that was on the field at that time. It was a underground tank with a metal box over the tank that contained a pump and a reel of hose for refueling aircraft. Concrete was poured around the box from bottom to top making it sort of a dome. The metal box had a metal cover when not in use. I guess that is why it was referred to as a "pit".

If I am wrong, I apologize.

Don Robinson
************************************************************************
From Alan

In my early days of flying we used the term fuel pits. The pits being simply underground tanks. It was just an area of the ramp away from the main hangers and parked airplanes.

In B-47s the pits were built under the ramps right where the planes were parked and we connected a hose to the pit receptacle and to the single point refueling point of the plane. That turned out to be a very bad idea when a plane caught fire and the fire got to the underground pit. Lost a number of planes and blew up a lot of the ramp.

Other planes simply had a truck pull up and the plane was refueled. Sometimes that was where it was parked but usually it was towed to a separate place for refueling.

Alan
************************************************************************
From Jim Tierney

Ric--Regarding 'fueling pits'---I have heard the term and seen some of the 'pits ' at some Naval Air Stations on the East Coast----primarily  in the late 50s at NATC-Patuxent River , MD at the Flight Test Area...also at Floyd Bennett Field in NYC-at the Navy side.... I think I also saw one at NAS Mayport -outside of Jacksonville.....

They were designated areas for fueling piston engine planes and were mostly relics left over from WW II and were being phased out and replaced as bigger/better/safer trucks became available...

Anybody else got sightings?????????

LTM and BTL-back to lurking-
Jim Tierney
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks guys.  So the "pit" was the underground storage tank.  Another one of those now-archaic aviation terms.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 13 Aug 2004 08:52:15 -0400
From:         Jack
Subject:      Re: Fueling pits

A fuel "pit" is a term still used by the Air Force to describe  the area where the various modulating valves are located to provide a continuos constant pressure to the "hydrant" hose connection located on the field where the refueling actually takes place from a hose cart.

Jack
*****************************************************************
From Dennis O. McGee

Ric said: "I've been in aviation as a pilot for 39 years and I've never heard of a "fueling pit".  Seems like an odd term.  I can't imagine that aircraft were ever fueled in "pits".

Pits, as I suspect you know, is a term is widely used in automobile racing to identify the area where cars are repaired, refueled, and generally serviced before, during and after races.  While these areas never were actual pits, i.e. holes in the ground, it is easy to see where the term originated.  In the early days of the automobile, vehicles were often serviced by driving them over deep holes in the ground giving a mechanic easy access to the car's undercarriage, exactly like they do today at Jiffy Lube and other fast oil-change stores.

Seeing as automobiles and aircraft were evolving at approximately the same time it is not a stretch - though it is speculation, I'm sure - that both communities freely borrowed each others' terminology to define similar activities.

Therefore AE's use of the term "fueling pit" would be understood by most, however parochial it may have been.

LTM, who likes to go fast and have fun

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 13 Aug 2004 13:24:22 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Fueling pit

I wonder if the fuel pit has anything to do with the hole in the ground as Jack suggests. I do not I pretend to have the answer. But it strikes me that a man sailing a yacht is steering it  from the cockpit. So does the pilot who flies an airplane. Now here comes an interesting observation. When I visited the Duxford airshow (England) a couple of years ago I was looking around in the stalls that flower at airshows and sell aviation related things, including WW II-style goggles and leather jackets. Trying to have a better look at one of the products I stepped behind the counter. The shopkeeper asked me to "leave the work pit, please Sir". My Webster Dictionary (1981 edition) tells me that a pit is : 1. a hole in the ground; 2. a depression: 3. a small arena; 4. an area for trading in a stock or grain exchange... Remembering the Duxford "work pit" it seems to me that a pit used to be the place where important action took place (the arena), where work is done. I think the "fuel pit" was originally the place where airplanes were fuelled, Fuelling being the action, it took place in a fuel pit. That reminds me of that other pit where racing cars are refueled and tires changed. In 25 years of flying I have never heard anyone referring to a fuel pit. When I learned flying one had to ask the tower permission to "taxi to the fuel station". Nowadays I hear pilots referring to the fuel station as the "fuel farm". Anyone on the forum familiar with Etymology ?

LTM (whose English has improved by reading this forum)
************************************************************************
From Ric

"Fueling pit", "the work pit", the "pits" in auto racing, all sound like they may have had a common origin.  I would guess that "cockpit" is different.  The cockpit of an 18th century ship was the area deep below decks where the surgeon worked.  The bloody confines probably looked much like the fighting arena for gamecocks after a tough match.

Why do we put an automobile in a "garage" but we put an airplane in a "hangar" (often misspelled "hanger")?

Pat keeps lobbying for TIGHAR to pay $300 for access to the online unabridged Oxford English Dictionary.  I love language and I'm constantly curious about usage and the origins of words but I'm not sure my love runs that deep.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:09:03 -0400
From:         Stretch
Subject:      Re: fueling pits

"Fuel pits" is a fairly common term in the military and has been for at least the 26 years I've been in.  Any fueling area in which the aircraft is brought to the fuel is generally considered a fuel pit.  Probably because the pits are usually located at a low spot or on a slight slope to a low spot, for drainage in case of spills.  Most fueling is generally done with the fuel coming to the aircraft by truck.  In combat or contingency operations when the aircraft are taxied into a fueling area and refueled with engine(s) running they are called "hot fuel pits" or more commonly just "hot pits".

FWIW, Stretch
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:18:38 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      OED drive

Ric said:  "Pat keeps lobbying for TIGHAR to pay $300 for access to the online unabridged Oxford English Dictionary.  I love language and I'm constantly curious about usage and the origins of words but I'm not sure my love runs that deep."

Is this another contest?  A fund-raising drive?   A new thread?

Hey, gang, let's buy Ric a book (actually a CD, I suspect) by all chipping in a few bucks each to get Ric his much coveted subscription to the OED.  I'll pledge $5 to get the bidding going.  And if we collect more than is needed TIGHAR can use it to pay for some needy intern's membership dues.

Whaddayasay, gang?  No dream is too big.  No word is too obscure.  Let's make TIGHAR the most erudite site on the WWW!  Let's buy Ric his damned book!!!!

By the way, here's a corpse we haven't beaten for a few months - Occam's Razor.  It' listed in the 1990 edition of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary stating ". . . requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex . .  ."

LTM, who also appreciates words

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

It really wasn't my intention to launch a funding drive but since you ask......

It's not a book and it's not a CD.  The $300 is for a year's worth of access to the OED's constantly updated online service.  All of us on the forum benefit from the information generated by our inquiries and research so equipping TIGHAR with such a resource would seem to be in everyone's interest.

Pat and I will pledge $100 to help get the ball rolling.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 2004 10:37:20 -0400
From:         Hue Miller
Subject:      TBD photo mystery item

Tracks #20 arrived and it is *very* interesting with great photos and text!

Now on page 14, there is a photo of the gunner's seat in the TBD, with an object which "looks very much like a broken radio".   It took me a minit or two of puzzling over that, but the 4 vertical cylinders visible in it, plus the giveaway handle,  identify this as: a "plug in tuning unit for the type RU radio receiver".  This receiver was of a quite older  design and one of its dated technologies was that instead of a "bandswitch" or range switch you had to bring along these "TU's" which inserted into a horizontal large slot- like opening on the receiver's port side. The TU only covered one or 2 frequency ranges, typically one LF (low frequency) band for navigation on beacons, and one HF (high frequency, shortwave) range for communication. On the 2-range TU's a little lever at the front switched between the two ranges. I don't have the manual handy, but i recall one typical HF range was 5500 - 7700 kHz, so if you needed to work on a different communication channel, you had to grab another tuning unit - i believe stored in holders mounted to aircraft wall-and swap it in.

The matching transmitter, type GP, nicknamed "Jeep", also had the same idea, using plug in TU's, except larger.

The RU-GP setup is "textbook" and exactly as you would expect to find, from Navy texts and photos.

From about 1943, i think, the RU-GP setup was replaced in TBF/ TBM and SBD aircraft by state of the art equipment, including a transmitter by Collins that could automatically retune itself to one of 10 preset channels, selected either radioman or pilot, and a receiver that tuned all these working frequency bands by means of bandswitched ranges. No more carrying along tuning units and having to change them out, in flight.

When radioman Dalzell mentioned new technology that made the RDF-1, etc., obsolete, he no doubt is referring to the YG-ZB system, which worked in the VHF (very high frequency) range, around 230 - 240 MHz. The RU i talk about above actually had a 'navigation adapter' a little smaller than the TU pictured in the photo; the adapter attached to the top of the RU and converted the VHF down to the standard broadcast band ( 540 - 1600 kHz ) in the RU.  The carrier's YG transmitter had a rotating commutated antenna which sent different morse letters at different degrees of its rotation. The mission pilots were issued a "code chart" which showed them which letter accompanied which sector for this day only. This VHF navigation stuff was very secret in those days.

Probably more detail than you need even in this pared down version, but probably you can winnow out a fact or two for use with this material.

The tuning unit shown certainly wasn't stored on the seat nor did it float around the gunner's position loose. I would guess some diver extracted it from its storage box, then maybe decided it was too unattractive for a worthwhile souvenir, or maybe just forgot it.

-Hue Miller
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Hue,  That's very useful information.  Yes, Dalzell said that his airplane was equipped with the new "YG" receiver and may not have carried the old loop antenna.  He said that only "section leaders" had the new receiver.  Johnson, his pilot, was the squadron's XO and was a section leader.

The presence of the TU on the seat suggests that it was removed from its stowage after Dalzell exited the airplane.  I can think of one scenario that could explain it without postulating a looter.   As the aircraft sank, the nose struck a coral ledge which knocked the engine off.  The aircraft then settled onto the sloping reef face and slid backward/downward a few feet until the wings jammed against coral outcroppings.  I think that the TU was stowed with the other radio gear just forward of the gunner's seat.  If the initial impact with the coral ledge knocked the TU free, the abrupt stop of the rearward slide might have caused it to land in the seat pan where we see it today.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 2004 11:02:20 -0400
From:         Dale Intolubbe
Subject:      Re: OED drive

Ric said:  "I love language and I'm constantly curious about usage and the origins of words....."

I'm a subscriber (free) to the following site which is an interesting "word" source.

http://wordsmith.org/
************************************************************************ ****
From Ric

Thanks.  That's an interesting website.  There are lots of great resources available on line but the unabridged OED is the "be all and end all".
************************************************************************ 
From Mark Guimond

The Oxford, you say? Now y'all gone and dunnit!

Next thing you know, Ric will be using words like aeroplane, aluminium, tyre and metre.

Mark
(There are no great mysteries.
There is only great ignorance.)
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Or we could change the name of the Earhart Project to the Earhart Scheme, which would delight our critics.

************************************************************************ 
From Dan Postellon

Here's $20, in honor of my daughter getting her masters in library science Daniel Postellon
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Thanks Dan, and congratulations to your daughter.
************************************************************************ 
From Randy Jacobson

I have bought the OED on CD for about $371 from Amazon.com, and yes, it will run on a MAC (supposedly!).  If a year's subscription is $300, I think buying a CD for $370 is a better buy.  Having just checked, the MAC version is currently unavailable (out of stock), but the WINDOWS version is.
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Good point.  The advantage to the on line version is that it is constantly updated but we're more concerned with old words and etymology. We'll try to find an available MAC version of the CD.

************************************************************************ 
From Jackie

Hi all.  I can't think of a more deserving project.  I'll pledge 25 bucks. Will mail a check tomorrow.

LTM who loves anything that increases knowledge and makes life more interesting..
Jackie #2440
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Thanks Jackie.  Power to the forum.

************************************************************************ 
From Jim Tierney

OK--OK--OK---put me down for $5 so RIC can get his bleeding book/CD/Service--whatever....

Jim Tierney
Simi Valley, CA.
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Jim.  (It's okay folks. Jim is originally from Brooklyn.)
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 2004 11:03:24 -0400
From:         Jim Preston
Subject:      Re: fuel pits

when I worked at LAX they would refuel the planes from connections in the ramp. Both Avgas and Jet Fuel. LAX was one of the few Airports when built that had direct connections (read pipelines) to the Standard Oil Refinery in El Segundo across the field. These were still referred to pits even though they were in the ground at each gate, very innovative at the time. They used pump trucks like Ford F-250/350's to do the fueling and I never heard of a spill. They were spills but they were from overfilling plane and the fuel would come out the vent tubes at the wing tips.
Jimbo
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 2004 11:04:19 -0400
From:         Tom King
Subject:      Presentation in Columbia, MO

In case any Forumites live in or around Columbia, Missouri, or know anyone who does -- I'll be giving one of my ever-popular illustrated lectures on the pursuit of the Nikumaroro Hypothesis, in the Friendship Hall at the Columbia Unity Center, downtown Columbia, on Monday August 16th at 7 PM.   Free to all.    Sorry for the short notice; I just got the word myself.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 2004 12:26:44 -0400
From:         Marty Moleski
Subject:      Re: OED drive

>  From Randy Jacobson
> ... If a year's subscription is $300, I  think
> buying a CD for $370 is a better buy. ...

Agreed.  You can draw $25 from my credit card account.

LTM.
Marty #2359
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Marty.

Let's see that's:
$5 from Dennis
$100 from me and Pat
$20 from Dan
$25 from Jackie
$5 from Jim
$25  from Marty

Looks like pledges totalling $180 so far.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 2004 13:58:21 -0400
From:         Jim Tierney
Subject:      Re: OED drive

Ric--OKay--I can squeeze some extra dollars out of my SS money this month... Put me down for $20 instead of  $5... Check will be in mail this week.....
Jim Tierney

*******************************************************************
From Ric

Thank you.  That puts us at $200.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 2004 14:19:12 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: OED drive

I'll join the crowd. Ric, you can draw $ 20 from my credit card account too.

LTM
*******************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Herman.  You're in good company.

$220 and counting.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 2004 14:27:40 -0400
From:         Hue Miller
Subject:      More on TBD mystery item

http://members.cox.net/aafradio/

The part i recently identified is from the Navy's type RU receiver. I won't be able to come up with a convincing photo for a while, but the above link, navigating

Flight Deck > Classics > Navy Day  and scrolling down, on the deck below the GP display, to the very right of the shelf, is the RU receiver, but not viewed at the best angle to display the "mystery item". This is the narrow long thing with the 3 white antenna posts and large round dial. Toward the RU's right side, probably if you know what to look for, you can make out the 'tuning unit' plugged in flush to the receiver proper. You can make out the 4 Dzus slide fasteners at the edges of the tuning unit and if you know what to look for, the handle. When the TU is pulled out its internals are covered and protected by a bare metal housing, but in the photo, this cover has apparently dissolved and/ or fallen off.

Maybe i can persuade Mike Hanz, the site's owner, to post a better photo of the unit.
-Hue Miller
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 12:15:19 -0400
From:         Rich Young
Subject:      Re: fueling pit

Motor vehicles (and their technology that transferred over to aviation) only became common shortly before World War I, meaning that they were really a factor in most people's lives about 20 years before Amelia's time.  As with any new technology, changes in techniques, and words, accompanied the shift from horse power to "horsepower".  A horse drawn conveyance, from hearse to buggy to "honey wagon", has very few parts beneath it that require frequent or routine maintenance, and is high enough off the ground that most such maintenance can be performed when necessary by simply sliding underneath the vehicle.  The motor vehicle, however, is chock full of sumps, petcocks, suspension, driveline, exhaust, and other bits that need access occasionally or routinely, and are located underneath the lower-slung "motor car".  In the early days of motoring, the local repair facility was the local blacksmith or livery stable that had been repairing the horse-drawn vehicles, and these facilities now had a problem: in an era when few hydraulic or pneumatic lifts were available, much less affordable, how do they get access to the bottom of these vehicles?  The near-universal solution was to dig a hole in the ground, (a "pit", as in "pit barbecue"), with sturdy boards along the sides if necessary, and simply drive the vehicle over the repairman, soon to be nicknamed a "grease monkey, for self-obvious reasons.  The frequent change, leakage, and spillage of lubricants led this hole to be called a "grease pit", soon shortened to just "pit", a moniker for service facilities for motor vehicles that rings archaic in our ears today, but is still used in auto racing - "pit road", "pit box", "pitting", etc - even though no actual "grease pit" is present. I propose that A.E. was using "fueling pit" in the generic sense as a motor vehicle servicing area, and not as an actual hole in the ground.

LTM
Rich Young
************************************************************************
From Ric

Your proposed etymology for "pit" makes sense but it's pretty clear that "fueling pit" has been a term referring to the place on the airport where you put fuel in airplanes for a long time.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 13:26:08 -0400
From:         Simon Ellwood
Subject:      Re: OED drive

>> Next thing you know, Ric will be using words like aeroplane,
>> aluminium,
>> tyre and metre

Simon says $25 if Ric does !! ;-)

Second thoughts - Nah..... TIGHAR would never be the same :-) Take $25 from me please.

Simon #2120
***********************************************************************
  From Ric

Thanks Simon.
**********************************************************************
  From Jon Watson

Hi Ric,

If it's "old" words you're interested in, I have the 1928 edition of the Funk & Wagnalls Practical Standard Dictionary. Happy to look up "old" words any time. Of course the old definitions of so many words don't match current versions.  Why, I remember when "goes" didn't mean "says", but had to do with physical movement in two or three dimensions...

For Mark, rest easy - Howard Alldred has been after Ric to pronounce it "aluminium" for several years, but Ric hasn't caved - yet. 

Put me down for twenty bucks too. I'll call Pat next week with the current credit card number.

ltm,
jon
2266
*****************************************************************
  From Ric

Word.  Thanks Jon.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 13:29:46 -0400
From:         George Werth
Subject:      I'M FLUSTERATED

The subject phrase is what drew my attention to the lady that became my second wife. Turns out that she brought an unabridged dictionary to our marriage. On one occasion she accused me of "marrying me for my unabridged dictionary." I replied, "No, dear, I may spend a lot of time looking in your dictionary, but, you're the one I go to bed with at night!"

George R. Werth
TIGHAR member #  2630S

PS. Saw your picture, Ric, in the latest 'Tracks'. You don't look at all like I had imagined. But, then, who does? The picture of the B-25 aircraft reminded me that the last time I was at the controls of one was in 1953 at Reese AFB in Lubbock, Texas
************************************************************************
  From Ric

I'm probably going to regret asking this but....what did you think I look like?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:22:31 -0400
From:         Rich Young
Subject:      Why "hangars"

why we put airplanes in "hangars"

Since I was slow on the draw about "pits". I'll take a stab at this one...

The first "aircraft weren't the heavier-than-air "airplane", as we know it, but rather balloons and their derivatives.  As early as the War Of Northern Aggression, (AKA the Civil War), balloons were used by primarily the North, to observe enemy troop movements and adjust the fall of artillery fire, especially in circumstances where no suitable high terrain was available. Balloons were expensive, however, and fell out of favor.  The Artillery branch of the United States army even went so far as to build concrete observation towers on their artillery range so that observers could see the accuracy and effects of artillery.  Eventually, saner heads realized that the enemy in a shooting war probably wouldn't let you build towers on the battlefield, and advances in technology, specifically rubberized, vulcanized fabrics, drastically reduced the cost of fabricating and maintaining balloons over their silk Civil War counterparts.  But how do you store and maintain a balloon?  The solution was to build a tall structure with big doors, such that a balloon, blimp, or zeppelin could be brought in or out fully inflated.   The problem then becomes, "How do we store a lighter than air craft while it is under construction, maintenance, or otherwise uninflated?"  The answer was to hang the balloon or other vehicle from the uppermost rafters of the storage, erection, and repair building, which thence became known simply, as "the hangar, (hanger)".  An example of which can still be seen on Fort Sill - known as "Hero's Hanger" now, as it is principle used to welcome returning troops.  Originally a Navy blimp hanger, it was disassembled in the twenties and shipped to Fort Sill, Oklahoma by rail and reassembled, piece by piece.   One look up to the top, and with a little imagination, you can understand how the term "hangar" came into being.
LTM, (whose always hanging around...)
Rich Young
****************************************************************
  From Ric

Interesting speculation but it doesn't explain the distinctive spelling. We have a Webster's Unabridged dictionary from 1950 which gives as the first definition of hangar:

"1.  a shelter or shed; as for a coach."
The aviation-related definition is only second, so hangars were clearly around  long before airplanes and were for coaches and such. The word is thought to derive from the Medieval Latin word "angarium" - a shed for shoeing horses.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:25:02 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Looks aren't everything

George Werth said:  "You don't look at all like I had imagined. But, then, who does?"

Ric said:  "....what did you think I look like?"

Ooooo, a new thread?  Can the rest of us answer this one, too?

LYM, a former looker herself

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
*****************************************************************
  From Ric

I knew this was a bad idea.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:29:59 -0400
From:         Tim Collins
Subject:      Re: OED drive

Far be it for me to dampen your fund raising enthusiasm for such a worthy cause, but have you thought to ask if any of the forum subscribers are academic librarians that happen to already have access to OED and other research databases?  I would think that that would prove to be a most cost effective relationship.

Tim Collins
************************************************************************
From Ric

It would indeed be cost effective if there is a lurker out there who has access to the unabridged OED and willing to read all the postings and stand by for whenever a question arises, but generally we find that it's a good idea, whenever possible, to equip the organization with its own tools.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:32:46 -0400
From:         Dennis Mcgee
Subject:      Re; OED drive

I glad to see the OED fund raiser is gong along so well, but I'm kind of embarrassed at being on the record as having given only $5.  Rather than assuage my guilt by donating a large sum of unmarked bills I feel compelled to justify my paltry pledge.

I was doing it for the forum. That's right . . .  for the forum.  I purposely gave only $5 because I assumed that due to the small amount of money needed everyone could chip in a similar amount.  I was trying . . .ah . . . trying to . . .  ah . . . . .ah . . . . trying to make it a participatory event!  Yeah, that's it!  Yeah, that's the trick!  A participatory event.  Everyone gets involved and everyone feels good about themselves and their self esteem soars, and everyone hugs and smiles and stuff like that.

A participatory event, that's what I was trying to do.  Yes, sir.

Really.

No lie, man, I wanted a participatory event.

Word, DUDE!!
************************************************************************
From Ric

A truly noble effort.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 14:36:03 -0400
From:         Mike Haddock
Subject:      Re: I'm  Flusterated

Knowing that Pat is a woman of impeccable taste, it must have been your charm & guile that won her over!! LOL

LTM,
Mike Haddock, #2438
***********************************************************************
  From Ric

Talk about off-topic.........

She says it was the kilt (we met a Scottish function).
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:34:53 -0400
From:         Gene Dangelo
Subject:      off-topic wardrobe questions

Ric, This is too much! I have to ask----at the Scottish function, did you go regimental? (Remember, I'm a band director...)  If so, maybe it wasn't just the kilt....'nuff said!

Love To Hibernia,
--Gene Dangelo, # 2211
*************************************************
  From Ric

You're right.  This is too much.
When someone asks what is worn under the kilt the correct response is, " Nothing is worn.  Everything is in excellent condition."

Alba go bragh.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:36:41 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: I'm Flusterated

>Saw your picture, Ric, in the latest 'Tracks'. You don't
>look at all like I  had imagined.

I was disappointed Ric DID look like I had imagined.

Only kidding Ric. As you know I've seen your picture a hundred times but I couldn't resist.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 16 Aug 2004 16:58:06 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: I'm  Flusterated

>She says  it was the kilt (we met a Scottish function).

Ric, that was too easy of a straight line. I'm not going to respond. If you keep this up we will be forced to cure you of such off topic postings. You cannot believe how hard it is not to say.............................
<G>

Alan
***************************************************************
  From Ric

Every once in a while I like to toss your guys an easy one.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 10:59:08 -0400
From:         Mark Guimond
Subject:      Re: OED and l'Oiseau Blanc

Item 1:

"I love language and I'm constantly curious about usage and the origins of words....."

Now how can one ignore the needs of such a kindred spirit? Put me down for a tenner... I'm sure Mother will understand having to wait a little longer for her life-saving operation. After all, she was a dedicated teacher. Will send you a check as soon as I dig up your address. As an ex-linguistics major and a now out-of-work av-industry technical writer and editor, not to mention history and anthropology buff, you have keyed in on one of my true weak spots.

Item 2:

"Or we could change the name of the Earhart Project to the Earhart Scheme, which would delight our critics."

Speaking of critics....

Pardon me Father, for I have sinned... I picked up Clive Cussler's book 'The Sea Hunters II' at the deep discount bin. To use the vernacular - man, that cat don't know diddley 'bout airplanes! And could he ever use an editor, especially a tech editor. I wrote to tell him so. He doesn't think much of TIGHAR, does he? Matter of fact, he can't even spell the name. What got my attention was a chapter on l'Oiseau Blanc. I know you did some research on it, and pretty much put that project to bed, though I have not read up on it. Back in 1968, when I was doing geological exploration out in the Maritimes, I made the passing acquaintance of an elderly gentleman as we tanked up and took a break at a rural gas station. He described what I belatedly concluded was almost certainly that very aircraft passing overhead. He himself clearly had no idea as to the historical relevance of what he had apparently seen some forty-one years earlier.

If it is of any interest to you, I'd be happy to transcribe our conversation and my observations just to have it on record.
************************************************************************
From Ric

Item 1

Thanks Mark.  The mailing address is:
TIGHAR
2812 Fawkes Drive
Wilmington, DE 19808

Item 2

I'm afraid that Mr. Cussler and I have rather low opinions of each other. Yes, you could say that TIGHAR has done some work on l'Oiseau Blanc - 28 expeditions over the course of 20 years.

Where in the Maritimes was the elderly gentleman when he heard the plane?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 11:09:52 -0400
From:         George Werth
Subject:      Re; I'm Flusterated

Ric wrote

>I'm probably going to regret asking this but ...
>What did you think I look like?

---Tall, dark and handsome, of course! You had to ask?

My first reaction was--My Gawd, Ric resembles Joe Bonsall--you know, the Oakridge Boy that sang lead in the song ELVIRA!

A very distinguished looking group, I must say.

GRW1
************************************************************************
From Ric

Having looked up some photos of Mr. Bonsall I can see how you got that impression from the photo in TIGHAR Tracks but, aside from the mustache, there's really not much resemblance. Our Jaluit gang would undoubtedly be flattered by your description of them as "distinguished".
======================================================================== 
=
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 11:10:02 -0400
From:         Ross Devitt
Subject:      Re; Why "hangars"

Ric Gillespie wrote:

> The word is thought to derive from the Medieval Latin word "angarium" -
> a shed for shoeing horses.

Hof course then the brits got hold hof hit hand with the habit hof some classes hadding h's to the front hof some words, hit became "hangarium".......

Th' WOMBAT
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 11:40:30 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Re: Jaluit gang

George Werth said:  "My first reaction was--My Gawd, Ric resembles Joe Bonsall--you know, the Oakridge Boy that sang lead in the song ELVIRA! A very distinguished looking group, I must say."

Ric said:  "Our Jaluit gang would undoubtedly be flattered by your description of them as "distinguished"."

I thought George was referring to the Oakridge Boys, not the Jaluit gang. . .  :-)

LTM, who's far from distinguished

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
********************************************************************

That would make more sense, yes.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 11:48:58 -0400
From:         Randy Jacobson
Subject:      Re: Why "hangars"?

I consulted the OED regarding "hangars" and "fuel pit".  The latter is not entered.  Here's what they have for hangars.  Note that the first aeronautical usage claimed is 1935, which seems late to me...

[Fr.; ulterior origin uncertain: see Du Cange, Diez, LittrŽ.]
     q  a. (hZgar). A covered space, shed, or shelter, esp. for carriages.
     1852 Thackeray Esmond iii. xiii, Mademoiselle, may we take your coach to town? I saw it in the hangar.  1861 tr. Du Chaillu's Equat. Afr. xv. 253 The people gathered under the immense hangar or covered space.  1886 Sheldon tr. Flaubert's Salammbo vii, The rumbling chariot halted under a wide hangar.

     b. ("h&N@(r)). A shed for the accommodation of aircraft or spacecraft.
     1902 Daily Chron. 31 Oct. 5/3 Mr. Santos Dumont will construct a hangar in the Bois de Boulogne.  1935 H. G. Wells Things to Come ix. 48 Inside an aeroplane hangar.  1962 A. Shepard in Into Orbit 97, I tried to avoid moving into Hangar S -- our quarters at the Cape -- for as long as I could.
    1962 V. Grissom Ibid. 119 On 1 July the capsule was taken from the hangar to the launching pad to be mated to the Redstone.
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

First aviation use in 1935?  Ah, but no monsieur.  The hangar  constructed by 1902 in the Bois de Boulogne was for a dirigible in  which the indomitable Brazilian Alberto Santos Dumont planned to cross the English Channel.  Alas, he took a bath, but he later went on to be one of early aviation's greatest pioneers.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:42:14 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      off-topic mysteries

Seeing as the origin of the word hangar is of dubious relevance to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, I feel fully justified in bringing to the attention of mystery lovers throughout the globe, the origin of another word crucial in understanding that other great mystery of the 20th century. That is of course the true identity of the Lone Ranger.

The key to this mystery lies in his pseudonym "Kemusabe". Translation from American Indian languages have not done much better than "soggy shrub" or "white shirt" for a meaning. However, by far the most attractive derivation is based on the word being of Spanish origin. The word "Tonto" is Spanish for "stupid" and there seems little doubt that Tonto, being trilingual, was able to reply in kind with the endearing epithet "Qui no sabe" - or "He who knows nothing".

Regards Angus
*****************************************************************
From Ric

There is apparently no mystery the forum cannot solve - with the possible exception of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 13:30:24 -0400
From:         Angus Murray
Subject:      off-topic mysteries

>  From Ric
>
> There is apparently no mystery the forum cannot solve - with the
> possible exception of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.
>

No - that one's been solved too.

Regards Angus.
************************************************************************
From Ric

Which raises the philosophical question - when can one say that a mystery has been solved?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 13:55:07 -0400
From:         Alfred Hendrickson
Subject:      Solving mysteries

Ric: Is your question, "When can one say that ANY given mystery has been solved?", or is it "When can one say that the AE mystery has been solved?" In my opinion, the answers are different.

The solution to the AE mystery is a Holy Grail of sorts. It is in a class by itself, and therefore it demands an extremely high standard of proof. Personally, I believe that AE landed on Gardner. But, I also think that before we can trumpet "Mystery Solved!", we have to have it locked down tight, rock solid, iron clad, & indisputable.

I am not saying that we have to convince the "abducted by aliens" crowd, but I am saying that we have to have very good and very solid evidence.

LTM,
Alfred Hendrickson #2583
********************************************************************
From Ric

My question was, "When can one say that a mystery has been solved?"

I think it may be instructive to identify other mysteries that have been solved and ask ourselves what it took for them to attain the status of being considered mysteries that have been solved.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 14:44:09 -0400
From:         Jackie Tharp
Subject:      Re: Solving mysteries

Now, Now, Ric....

We WILL solve AE's disappearance, we're just taking our  time and doin' it right...

Jackie #2440

************************************************************************
From Ric

I couldn't agree more, but I guess I'm asking what it takes for the general public to say, "There. That mystery is solved."
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 17 Aug 2004 14:45:16 -0400
From:         Alfred Hendrickson
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

>I think it may be instructive to identify other mysteries that have
>been solved and ask ourselves what it took for them to attain the status of
>being considered mysteries that have been solved.

Agreed. One example: The Antoine de Saint Exupery mystery was solved by finding the plane! :-)

I keep hoping AE's 10E awaits us.

LTM,

Alfred Hendrickson #2583
******************************************************************
From Ric

Yeah.  That would do it.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 2004 09:14:38 -0400
From:         Mike Haddock
Subject:      Re: Solving mysteries

As you know, the public clings to mysteries. There are still people who believe the concentration camps in WWII were simply propoganda and that the Apollo moon landings were staged in an abandoned hangar somewhere in the Mojave desert. Remember the movie "Capricorn One"? Sigh.

I think the only way we will ever be able to convince the general public that the AE mystery has been solved is to have video footage from a submersible of the airplane on the bottom of the ocean just as was done with the Titanic. And that probably won't convince the C & S crowd. The question is, will we ever be able to raise the funds to look for the plane in deep water? I know it's very costly and I support everything we're doing to find the plane. Having said that, if money was no object, the first thing I would do is look in the deep water for the plane and I think anything short of finding the plane itself will not allow this mystery to be considered solved.

LTM,
Mike Haddock, #2438
************************************************************************
From Dennis O. McGee

Ric said:  "I'm asking what it takes for the general public to say, "There. That mystery is solved."

I guess it would depend on the parameters of the mystery.

Such as, "How come the Titanic isn't where it was supposed to have sunk?"  Answer: Erroneous position reports.

Or "Why did the unsinkable Titanic sink."  Answer:  Its "watertight" compartments weren't.

Last example (and I've also reached the extent of my Titanic knowledge) "It hit the berg with only a glancing blow.  Why did that doom the ship?"  Answer:  A combination of poor techniques used to forge the rivets and the prolonged exposure of these substandard rivets to the extreme cold of the northern Atlantic caused the rivets to fail, allowing the steel plates to separate at the seams.   The water in-flow exceeded the capacity of the pumps out-flow, thus  . . . ."

In the case of AE, I suspect the public will consider the mystery solved when we can offer "smoking-gun-proof" that the flight ended on Niku. But more importantly, do you realize there is a whole universe of people out there that assumed she was lost at sea, and even more stunning, there is a whole universe of people out there who don't care what happened to AE and FN.  I know.  I know.  We toil in a garden of apathy and ignorance.  Sigh . . .   :-)

LTM, who really does care and is smart
Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Angus Murray

Ric,

> I couldn't agree more, but I guess I'm asking what it takes for the
> general public to say, "There. That mystery is solved."

There are three ideal requirements to satisfy:

1) Unequivocal and overwhelming evidence.
2) Faultless logic in interpreting that evidence as a case.
3) That the answer should seem to be beyond reasonable doubt  rather than presented on the balance of probabilities.

All requirements are of course a matter of judgment and cannot even be ascertained demonstrated in any very meaningful way by just how many people believe them to be fulfilled.

However, if "the general public" means the majority of people - then the answer is just that - when most people agree it has been solved. Expert review is similarly flawed as a test as most experts are not experts at all. Most will say "Of course I knew that all along". However they do on the whole know a little more than "the general public" (which is how they maintain their expert status) so if they agree, you (probably) have the answer.

Regards Angus
************************************************************************
From Kerry Tiller

> Ric said:
>
> My question was, "When can one say that a mystery has been solved?"
>
> I think it may be instructive to identify other mysteries that have
> been solved and ask ourselves what it took for them to attain the
> status of being considered mysteries that have been solved.

I think this would be a worthwhile pursuit in "perspective keeping", but we need to define what a mystery really is. Some "mysteries" are only potential mysteries spawn from ignorance of easily discernable facts.  Scenario: I walk into the gun shop where I work, notice olfactorally that the trash can needs to be emptied of last night's beer bottles before we open. I go for the dumpster key: it's missing. A mystery? Perhaps. I call out to no one in particular: "Has anybody seen the dumpster key?" Chuck responds: "Oh yeah, it's in my pocket....here." Mystery solved. Well, no. It wasn't a real mystery. Not any more of a mystery than where the Titanic was. In the early days of deep submersible searches for the Titanic wreck, a mystery-like atmosphere developed because she wasn't where we thought she should be. OK, the last reported radio position was off by a few miles, but with Methodical determination Ballard finally found her where we knew she more or less had to be. No mystery there.

Another example of a potential mystery is John Paul Jones' body. In the 1890s (I think, and I know I will be corrected if wrong), the U.S. government decided our Rev. War naval hero John Paul Jones should be buried at Arlington. The problem was nobody knew where or when he died, or, more importantly, where he was currently buried. A mystery? No. The historic record was intact and accurate without any discrepancies or counter claims. JPJ died in Paris and was buried in a known Paris cemetery. The glitch, that produced an interesting and some what bizarre adventure was that the cemetery was paved over by modern Paris. But, historical records were good enough to give the excavators enough info to know where the cemetery was in relation to current surface streets and where JPJ's grave was likely to be. After tunneling under Paris streets for a while, John Paul Jones' lead casket (with "JPJ" embossed on the lid) was discovered, exhumed, and when opened, revealed a perfectly embalmed head (with the exception of a flattened nose from the coffin lid) of an exact likeness of JPJ to the bust sculpted from life. Mystery solved? What mystery? There was no contrary evidence to what we had discovered.

The "Lady Be Good" is an excellent example of a potential mystery. Actually, two potential mysteries. She disappeared. At the time that was a potential mystery. Due to it being War Time, nobody went to look for her. When she was found it was another potential mystery. "Where did this B-24 come from?" Reconcile the historical documentation and there is no real mystery.

So, what is a real mystery? One in which there are two or more possible scenarios, all of which are supported by some kind of evidence. Case in point: what happened to Fletcher Christian (of the Bounty mutiny fame)? When re-discovered, John Young was the only surviving member of the original mutineers on the island. He told a grim tale of intrigue and murder. Contemporary  Polynesians told different stories, and Fletcher's brother Edward claimed he saw Christian back in England many years later. Now, THAT'S an unsolved mystery.

LTM
Kerry Tiller
************************************************************************
From Warren Lambing

Sadly Ric, the general public has concluded the mystery has been solved several times with all the differing views, such as AE was capture by the Japanese (no real evidence),  went down in the drink, or landed on Gardner.   Plus I doubt most people under 30 years of age even know who AE was.  The sad part is, so many people have claim to have solved the mystery, with so many smoking guns (that aren't even warm, let alone smoking), that unless you come up a tangible, traceable piece of evidence, you will continue to be working on an unsolved mystery.  My two cents, you may be able to sell the idea to some of the general public, but not conclusively to all the general public, and so many years have past since the event, I really don't think you will find the conclusive evidence to solved the mystery, I doubt any solid traceable evidence still exist.

Warren Lambing
************************************************************************
From Ric

Well, you get the prize for the most pessimistic view yet, but I can cheer you up on at least one point.  There are lots of people under 30 who know who AE was (or, more accurately, worship the legend).
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 2004 09:24:38 -0400
From:         Mark Guimond
Subject:      Re. l'Oiseau Blanc

When I met the man in question, in 1968, he appeared to be about 65 to 70 years of age. It was on the Bay of Fundy coast between St John, New Brunswick, and Calais, Maine. However, that is not relevant, as he clearly was not native-born to that area. I was wearing a T-shirt with the image of a white OX-5 powered Waco or TravelAir biplane on it that caused him to come up and start talking to me while a friend and myself stretched our legs as the car was being gassed up. His speech was not the easiest to understand for a listener unaccustomed to the various dialects of the Maritimes, and he spoke with a combination of them. The most prominent though, was unmistakeably  that of a Newfoundlander. This was backed up by a number of Newfy colloquial expressions that he used. He had apparently also lived in the U.S.A. for some time as he employed equally certain 'Americanisms' that locals would not likely have used at that time (i.e. before the modern communications explosion hit).

He did describe the aircraft quite precisely as it passed by almost overhead at very low altitude. It banked first to one side then the other, as if the TWO pilots were looking for something, then flew straight on, slowly climbing. It was all-white, much larger than any single-engine biplane he had ever seen since that time, and had an enclosed engine, not a radial. The weather must have been cold and wet as he mentioned that he had been out since dawn looking for a pregnant cow that had wondered off in the woods and he had to find it before she calved or the calf might develop pneumonia.

I did not ask him specifically where he saw the aircraft, only if it had been in the local area. He replied, equally imprecisely, that it was not anywhere around those parts. He did specify that this occurred just about the same time that Lindberg crossed the Atlantic. It was not until we were an hour down the road that the light started to come on in my head. At that time the only thing I knew about N&G's crossing attempt and the aircraft was from an article by Walter Musciano, with one poor picture, that I had read years earlier in Air Progress or some model airplane magazine.

Had I known what I had on my hands I would have grilled him. I wanted to go back and specifically ask him questions about just where this happened, what time of day, did he see any radiator(s), and most of all, about the landing gear and whether the pilots were side-by-side or in tandem. The driver, who owned the car and thus had the final word, absolutely refused. Damn!  That's roughly the extent of it. I know it will not answer any questions as to the fate of the flight, and that you probably already have books full of such anecdotal data. But after all these years this is the first time I have ever recounted it, so if a city bus runs me down tomorrow, at least the pertinent facts, if not the actual dialog, are on record.

Have a good day

Mark Guimond
Dorval
(There are no great mysteries;
there is only great ignorance.)
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Mark.  Your witness almost certainly did see l'Oiseau Blanc. His story matches affidavits worn before magistrates within days of the event.  There was a string of hearings and sightings that stretched north to south across the Avalon Peninsula. The reported times are sequential and match the cruising speed of the airplane.  There were no operational aircraft in Newfoundland at that time.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 2004 09:29:27 -0400
From:         Bob Wilson
Subject:      Tidbits

I recently started a job with a newspaper here.  I found a couple of tid bits that you might find interesting. Although I don't get to keep up with the forum as much as I would like, this might be old news to you, but still I found it to be very intersting. Along the walls there are enlarged copies of the front page from several old newspapers descibing national events of the time. For example: Pearl Harbor, Nixon Resigns, etc.  On one of the front pages is a picture of Amelia Earhart right after she had made her solo flight across the Atlantic in 1932.  In it, the article states that her original destination was Paris but had to change plans when her "exhaust manafold burned out, and her gasoline gauge broke, causing a slight leak." In the article they also referred to her as Mrs. Putnam, and explained that when she had arrived in England she went to find a way to contact her husband in New York. Now please correct me if I am wrong, but was this marriage, a business marriage or the "real deal"? Also, One of the guys that I work with is a 65 year old man who told me that his mother had went to school with AE. She still has their yearbook with AE's signature. Nothing real exciting, just a couple of things that I found interesting.
Thanks,
     Bob
******************************************************************
From Ric

The Earhart/Putnam marriage was unconventional to say the least, but most agree that there was real affection between them. ======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:58:48 -0400
From:         Ric Gillespie
Subject:      Send Kar To Tinian

As you all know, it now looks like the excavation of the alleged AE and FN burial site on Tinian is scheduled to occur in mid-November. Naturally, we welcome the testing of the hypothesis even though it is different from our own and I think that all of us, regardless of our opinions about whose hypothesis is most probably correct, have an interest in the excavation and evaluation of whatever may be found being carried out according to high standards of scientific rigor and professionalism.

Toward that end, noted forensic anthropologist Dr. Karen Burns has volunteered to go to Tinian to observe the excavation and assist in any way she can.  Kar's credentials are impeccable.  When she's not teaching at a major university she is doing human rights work excavating mass graves in Iraq, Eastern Europe or Central America. She's a member of TIGHAR's Earhart Project Advisory Council and is co-author of the research paper "Amelia Earhart's Bones and Shoes - Current Anthropological Perspectives on an Historical Mystery"
(http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Bulletins/11_Bonesandshoes.html) 
She has been to Nikumaroro twice.

It's an expensive trip and to help defray the costs we're launching a "Send Kar To Tinian" funding drive.  Who will help?

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 2004 13:21:36 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Re: send Kar to Tinian

In a feeble and tardy attempt to make amends for my paltry contribution to the OED, put me down for $25 to send Kar to Tinian.  I hope they have air conditioning over there.

LTM, who keeps her cool

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Jim Preston

Ric, interesting note regarding the Tinian burial. I thought all the books and eyewitness reports had her being buried on Saipan. I get the Pacific Island News from Guam daily over the internet and have been watching.
Jim Preston
************************************************************************
From Dale Intolubbe, Rathdrum, Idaho

Ric:  You have my Visa number and can put me down for $50.00 for Dr. Burns' trip.

LTM

Dale #2656
***********************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks guys.  Who else wants a piece of this?
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 2004 15:56:00 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

Alfred Hendrickson wrote : "The Antoine de Saint Exupery mystery was solved by finding the plane". Actually the only mystery remaining was : where is his plane ? Antoine de Saint-Exupery was known to have been missing over the Mediterranean while returning from a recce flight in 1944. A German fighter pilot claimed to have shot down a P-38 around that time. Luftwaffe documents showed the area and even produced the name of the fighter pilot. Although these claims have bee said to be false, some ten years ago a French fisherman found a wrist watch believed to have been Saint-Exupery's. This again was disputed. But ever since that day the location of the airplane was known. The only recent development is that the airplane wreck has been positively identified. As has been the case with Antoine de Saint-Exupery one day Earhart's Lockheed 10 may be found and it will be proven that TIGHAR had known all the answers for years.

LTM
************************************************************************
From Ric

Way back in 1992 I thought we had reached a point in our investigation where we had enough evidence that any reasonable person would agree that we had solved the basic mystery of what had happened to Amelia Earhart - she landed and died at Gardner Island.  Boy, was I mistaken. Or maybe there weren't nearly as many reasonable people around as I had thought.  In any event, it was a gross  underestimation of what it will take to put the Earhart riddle to rest.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 2004 15:57:04 -0400
From:         Mike Haddock
Subject:      Re; send Kar to Tinian

Oh hell, put me down for $20.00 also. I'll put a check in the mail today. Can't stand lurkers!

LTM,
Mike Haddock, #2438
**********************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Mike.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 2004 16:31:32 -0400
From:         Jim Tierney
Subject:      Re: send Kar to Tinian

Ric---OK--Now I owe you $40...----$20 for your bleeding OED whizbang and $20 for the good DR to go to Tinian...... Check on way by Friday-snail mail....

LTM/BTL
Jim Tierney
**********************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Jim.

You guys are great.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 19 Aug 2004 10:39:31 -0400
From:         Jon Watson
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

While I know that not having it generally accepted that Amelia wasn't found in 1992 was a disappointment to you, I for one am glad that the mystery wasn't solved then. If that had been the case, I would have missed out on all the fun I've had since finding the forum, joining TIGHAR, and (thanks to what must have been a colossal blunder on your part) being selected to participate in EPAC.

We in law enforcement from time to time refer to the shield we wear as a front-row ticket to the greatest show on earth. Being a member of TIGHAR has been a close second. The entertainment value has been enormous, the education has been without peer, and the personal interactions, both on line and at the EPAC meetings, have been wonderful. The chance to actively participate in the solution of one of the greatest mysteries in modern history has, to a professional mystery solver, been a rush to say the least.

Eventually, the mystery will be solved, and I am confident that we - TIGHAR - will solve it.  An aside to those out there who enjoy the forum who haven't yet become members - don't wait. Join now so you too can be a real part of the process.

BTW, when I call Pat, I'll tack on another $20 for Kar's trip.
ltm
jon
2266/EPAC
************************************************************************
From Ric

Jon, putting you on the EPAC team was not a blunder.  Cops like you and Roger Kelley bring terrific real-world insight to the investigation.

I have no regrets about the flap we caused back in 1992.  We presented our evidence and our conclusions in a very public forum (press conference at the National Press Club, feature article in LIFE magazine, etc).  The media. quite correctly. sought "balance" and Elgen Long was Johnny-on-the-spot with a dissenting view.  The end result was not the acceptance of our conclusions that we had hoped for but the ruckus we stirred up catapulted the Earhart mystery to a new level of public awareness.

A dozen years later we have far more evidence than we had then and it all points to the same conclusion we reached back then.  We're just a bit older and wiser about what it will take to "solve the mystery".
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 19 Aug 2004 10:40:00 -0400
From:         Jackie Tharp
Subject:      Re: Send Kar to Tinian

Ric:  I'll pledge $50 for Dr. Burns trip.  I'll put it in the mail in the next day or two..  This is a nice way to show how much we value her...

Jackie #2440
****************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Jackie.
***************************************************************
From Bill Shea

Mike Haddock wrote:
<<... I'll put a check in the mail
today. Can't stand lurkers!>>

Hi Ric, from a lurking 'crashed and sanker'  who gets his tail shot off everytime he joins in would like to send you $25 to help Kar watch them dig up Amelia on Tinian. (I saw them digging a trench along side Beach Road in Saipan for Amelia in early 64 and so while I don't believe it for a minute - I do have an interest).

And another $25 to help buy your book, as long as you look up the word "Proof" for me. I never could figure out how your 'finds' on Gardner could be 'proof' before they were even tested, but then I am a bit thiCk these days. so get your book and bring me up to snuff on the word "proof".

All the best to Kar (and give her enough expenses to have a good time, hehe.)

(Tell me how to send you the $50)

Cheers from Bill Shea
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Bill.  Just send your check to:

TIGHAR
2812 Fawkes Drive
Wilmington, DE  19808

and include some kind of note that it's for the Tinian trip and the OED.

Proof, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
*********************************************************************
From Ron Dawson

Put me down for $30.00. Check will go out tomorrow.

Smooth Sailing,
Ron Dawson
2126
*********************************************************
From Ric

I thank you, Kar thanks you and Amelia thanks you.
======================================================================= 
Date:         Thu, 19 Aug 2004 12:19:26 -0400
From:         Gary Fajack
Subject:      Re: send Kar to Tinian

I feel like I've been swept up in an old revival meeting. Put me down for $25 for Kar and $25 for the Lexicon. You have my card number.

Gary Fajack
*********************************************
From Ric

Hallelujah!  Dig deep brothers and sisters.  As we used to say in Newfoundland, "Many are cold but few are frozen."
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 19 Aug 2004 13:13:31 -0400
From:         Anne Springer
Subject:      Re: send Kar to Tinian

If you hang on tight, I'll see what I can contribute for you in the next week- for the OED and for Kar's trip. I'm a bit tight on money currently, but TIGHAR is such a good cause, how can I not help??? And I might be able to get my membership dues in too...

Anne
************************************************************************
From Ric

Hangin' on tight is what we're best at.  We'll appreciate whatever you're able to do.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:03:56 -0400
From:         Ric Gillespie
Subject:      Research needed

Lest anyone think that all we do here is try to get people to send money....

We've been hard at work on the question of whether our piece of airplane skin -  infamous Artifact 2-2-V-1 - came from Earhart's Electra.  We now have some good precise measurements of the belly structure of the New England Air Museum's Electra and matching it up with 2-2-V-1 is looking like a case of close-but no-cigar.  To make it fit you have to change the airplane in ways that are hard to rationalize.  And yet, so many aspects of the skin are so right for the Electra,  and all of our attempts (and the attempts of our critics) to find any kind match with any other airplane have failed.  The section of skin is like the jigsaw puzzle piece that you know must fit and yet, for the life of you, you can't get it to fit.

In frustration we made an effort to think "outside the box" and decided to disregard the skinning diagrams for the airplane and what areas were and were not supposedly repaired.   We looked only at the underlying structure and asked ourselves if there was anyplace you could rivet this thing to the airplane and end up with the dimensions and rivet pattern we see on the artifact.   We've identified a place on the aircraft where everything (dimensions, skin thickness, rivet size, rivet pattern, etc.) seems to match incredibly well but it's a place where there should be two adjoining skins instead of one sheet and it's not a place that was damaged and later repaired.  That's a real conundrum, but there may be an explanation.

The place where everything seems to match up is on the cabin roof just inside the cabin door.  Just as with the belly, it's a spot that can't be seen in the many photos of the airplane.  As those steeped in Earhart lore know, during the preparations for the first World Flight attempt there was a large window installed in the starboard side of the cabin opposite what was the lavatory in the airline version of the Electra.  The window has been described by some authors as a removable hatch.  The opening was apparently skinned over while the airplane was in Miami and the patch that covered the former window does not match 2-2-V-1 (darn it).

Back in the dim dark reaches of my often-faulty memory there is a recollection of reading in some primary source about a hatch through which Noonan could take celestial observations.  I remember thinking, "This is where the idea that the window was a hatch probably came from but it sounds to me like there was a hatch in the roof."  If, by any chance, there was a removable panel installed in the top of the fuselage for the purpose of making celestial observations (which, as I recall, is exactly what Pan Am did on the Clippers) the area just inside the cabin door would be a good place to put it and 2-2-V-1 could either be part of the hatch or, if a hatch was removed and the opening skinned over as was done with the window, it could be from that modification.

So....is there, somewhere, some reference to a removable hatch or panel?  Does that ring any bells with anyone?

LTM,
Ric
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 20 Aug 2004 13:59:10 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Funding drives

How we doing on the OED and Kar fund-raisers?

LTM, who no longer kites checks

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

If all the pledges come in we'll be in good shape on the OED and so far we have ballpark $400 in pledges for the Tinian trip.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 20 Aug 2004 14:04:14 -0400
From:         Gene Dangelo
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

Just curious---did anyone ever do a spectrographic analysis of the artifact in question to see if the alloy used in it was appreciably different from that expected for the skin of the Electra's? Perhaps it could be compared with those Electras still in existence, with the tenuous assumption that the alloy of those planes was alike or at least significantly similar to that of AE's. Just a thought. Perhaps you've already done this, as you are pretty thorough!

Love To Metallurgy,
--Gene Dangelo #2211

************************************************************************
From Ric

Back in December of 1996 metallurgists at Alcoa in Pittsburgh did a spectrographic analysis of three samples cut from 2-2-V-1.  What they found is that, although the labeling remnant and the rivet type indicate prewar manufacture, the alloy is indistinguishable from current production 2024 Alclad.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 20 Aug 2004 14:07:06 -0400
From:         Bill Leary
Subject:      Re: Solving mysteries

> public that the AE mystery has been solved is to have video footage
> from a submersible of the airplane on the bottom of the ocean just as
> was done with the Titanic.

It may be worth noting that finding the Titanic, and even the numerous trips (the research ones) to her solved virtually none of the mysteries involving her end or last days.  No, not even where she was when she sank, why she sank, or whether she  broke up before sinking.  At best, the evidence found in, on and around the wreck lent support towards some theories and, in a few cases, eliminated some very few.

> Last example (and I've also reached the extent of my Titanic knowledge)
> "It hit the berg with only a glancing blow.  Why did that doom the
> ship?"  Answer:  A combination of poor techniques used to forge the
> rivets and the prolonged exposure of these substandard rivets to the
> extreme cold of the northern Atlantic caused the rivets to fail,
> allowing the steel plates to separate at the seams.   The water in-flow
> exceeded the capacity of the pumps out-flow, thus  . . . ."

This is very a  very popular theory (and one I'm partial to myself) but hasn't been "proved," and probably can't be.  Some of the rivets (most of those tested) were indeed substandard for the day, and perhaps enough were to have done exactly what is said here.  But, if the blow was hard enough and came at the proper angle, it wouldn't matter if they were all perfect. It could still have popped them and/or ripped the plates anyway.  What I'm getting at is that "solving" a mystery is a slippery thing.  If you're convinced by the rivet evidence above then it fits the scenario and the mystery is solved for you.  If you're not, then it isn't.

For example, if it can be proved that 2-2-V-1 came from Earharts 10E, that does not prove she landed on Gardner.  She could have, for example, crashed 200 yards off shore, the plane broken up, and the part washed ashore. Yes, I'm ignoring the post-loss messages for this scenario.  Of course, that would still put her there rather than off Howland.

What I'd really like to find is something so heavy that it had to have gotten there by dint of being put there by landing.  Like, say, a pair of engines the right distance apart 3/4 buried in the dirt and covered by undergrowth way above the tide line and with the right serial numbers on some of the cylinder heads.  Perhaps there might then be some way to figure out if the plane "landed" or "crashed" from examination of the rest of the site.

OK.  So I like to dream.
- Bill #2229
*******************************************************************
From Ric

Good points.  That's why a preponderance of evidence is stronger than a single smoking gun.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 20 Aug 2004 14:11:33 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: Research needed

When looking again at the film of AE"s final take-off from Lae One can clearly see in the opening seconds that there was a window opposite the cabin door. That same window can also be identified on the still picture taken of AE's flight supposedly over the Dutch East Indies (today Indonesia). When looking more closely I noticed there was a bubble on top of the fuselage, above the window I just mentioned and supposedly over the place where Fred Noonan was to sit at his navigation table. It does not look like a life size astrodome, still it is a bubble. There is otherwise no opening or window to be seen, which could account for the fact that a hole might have been made there for the bubble, which was later covered  by artifact 2-2-V-1.

I realise it's not easy to judge from the documents at my disposal (borrowed from Purdue). However, I don't recall ever having heard anything being said about that bubble. Do look at the 30 " movie film again.

LTM

Herman
**********************************************************************
From Ric

NR16020 had the standard cabin windows in the two aft-most positions. There is no window directly opposite the cabin door.  There are windows opposite each other just forward of the cabin door.  The "bubble" you're seeing is the fresh air scoop that is standard on all Electras.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 20 Aug 2004 16:07:03 -0400
From:         Bill Leary
Subject:      OED drive / Kar trip ?

The amusing coincidence is just too much for me to resist.

In tomorrows post I will send a check for $40, $20 towards each of these "drives."

- Bill
*****************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Bill.  Unintended humor is the best kind.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 20 Aug 2004 17:00:10 -0400
From:         Herman De Wulf
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

> Last example (and I've also reached the extent of my Titanic knowledge)
> "It hit the berg with only a glancing blow.  Why did that doom the
> ship?"  Answer:  A combination of poor techniques used to forge the
> rivets and the prolonged exposure of these substandard rivets to the
> extreme cold of the northern Atlantic caused the rivets to fail,
> allowing the steel plates to separate at the seams.   The water in-flow
> exceeded the capacity of the pumps out-flow, thus  . . . ."

I am not convinced this recent Titanic holds any truth. Titanic was one of three sister ships Titanic was built alongside Olympic on the same wharf. The three were built from the same type of thick steel, using the same type of steel rivets. True, Britannic was built after Titanic sunk and was an updated version with higher bulkheads and more life boats. But Titanic and Olympic were built together from the same steel plates and the same rivets. Yet Olympic survived a collision with a cruiser which made a hole in her side and with a lightship which it sank. Last but not least Olympic sank a German submarine in WW I by running over it, thus becoming the first ever liner to have sunk a U-boat.

Olympic was a popular ship and made people forget Titanic. She was popular enough for its owners to have her converted from burning coal to burning oil after WW I. Olympic was eventually withdrawn from service only after the merger of the White Star Line and Cunard, I believe in 1936, as the British government had suggested to make room for the new Queen Mary and Queen Elisabeth. These  too were built the old fashioned way from thick steel (some modern engineers say the plates were too thick) and the same rivets. Queen Mary is still afloat and can be seen in Long Beach, CA.

I believe any 45,000 ton ship colliding with an iceberg at 21 knots will be dented regardless of the kind of steel it is made of. Steel plates will leak when dented and rivets, whatever their quality, will pop. Remember the popular saying: "They don't make them like that any more". Since WW II and the Liberty ship vessels are made of welded steel plates. They sink just the same.

Today they don't use rivets building airplanes any more either. Metal is bonded these days, the way we used to glue the wooden parts of our model airplanes together when we were kids. Would anyone dare say that today's bonded jets are stronger than say a DC-3 ? There are still hundreds of these flying around. The survivors were mostly built at the end of WW II. The metal sheets were riveted together very much the way Amelia Earhart's Lockheed 10 aluminum was riveted. That was the state of the art of the day. They were strong airplanes. There are also some Lockheed 10s still flying around.

LTM (who flew both in DC-3s and the Electra)
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 21 Aug 2004 11:42:26 -0400
From:         John Harsh
Subject:      Brewster Buffalo Recovery

Probably off-topic for the forum, but I think we've mentioned Buffaloes before and this may be of interest.  This article describes the retrieval of a Brewster Buffalo from a Russian lake.  The last line indicates it will be displayed in as-found condition.

- JMH 0634C
<><><><><>

Posted on Wed, Aug. 18, 2004
Rare plane found in Russian lake arrives at Pensacola museum

BILL KACZOR

Associated Press

PENSACOLA, Fla. - The only Brewster Buffalo known to still exist has arrived at the National Museum of Naval Aviation after the American-made fighter was recovered from a lake in Russia where its pilot, a Finnish ace, was shot down in 1942. Former Marine Corps flight engineer Gary Villiard spent more than a decade searching for the airplane, recovering it from the lake, losing it to the Russian government, regaining it and then threading his way through a bureaucratic maze in the United States. "It was frustrating and angering, troubling, painful, depressing most of the time," Villiard said Wednesday after watching museum officials begin uncrating the plane at Pensacola Naval Air Station. "But when I drove through that gate, I just had to admit to you I was a changed man," Villiard said. "It was the first time in a long time that I felt good about having done it, and I think that feeling is now going to stay with me until the end of my days."

Museum officials in the early 1990s asked Villiard, who had a helicopter business in Baton Rouge, La., to help find a Buffalo to fill a gap in its collection. "The reason I wanted a Brewster is not because it was a great airplane or even a famous airplane," said retired Navy Capt. Robert Rasmussen, the museum's director. "It was neither, but it did provide a very significant step in technology." The F2A-1 Buffalo was the Navy's first all-metal monoplane fighter. It was built by Brewster Aeronautical Corp. in Long Island City, N.Y., in the late 1930s to compete with Grumman's F-4F Wildcat. The latter was redesigned to meet the challenge and was the Navy's only competent fighter at the beginning of World War II. The Buffalo proved less capable, and the Navy sold 44 to Finland after Russia invaded that country in 1939.

Villiard's search first took him to Malaysia, where a Royal Australian Air Force Buffalo had been bulldozed into the ground when a palm oil plantation was established at its crash site, but he was denied permission to dig it up. He then did a sonar scan of the Gulf of Finland, where one of the planes had crashed. He turned up 51 strong targets, but gave up upon learning more than 400 planes of all kinds had been shot down over the gulf. Planes that crashed on land had been salvaged, so in 1994 the search shifted lakes. Villiard finally found the elusive Buffalo in 48 feet of water on the bottom of Big Kali Lake in the Russian republic of Karelia. He hired a local dive team to recover it in 1998. Villiard said he had a permit for his search, but when Karelian authorities realized the significance of his find, they confiscated the plane and arrested his crew for possessing the fighter's machine-guns, charges that later were dropped. A flask, shot glass and boots found in the plane were returned to its pilot, Lauri Pekuri, who has since died. He shot down 18 enemy planes during Russo-Finnish War, including 10 in Brewsters. Villiard hired a respected Russian aviation company to help get the plane back and had it flown to Ireland, where it remained until he traded it to the Navy for three obsolete P-3 Orion anti-submarine planes. He plans to sell P-3 parts to recoup his costs. The plane was little damaged other than bullet holes well-preserved by the lake's icy waters. For that reason and because of its historic importance it will be exhibited as it was found, Rasmussen said.
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks John. Signs of progress in the world of aviation historic preservation.  The NMNA is to be congratulated. The Buffalo will certainly not be exhibited "as found".  It will be cleaned and  a variety of conservation techniques will be used to prevent or greatly delay further deterioration.  It may even be "restored" (returned to a known previous appearance through the minimal introduction of new material) but it will not be rebuilt to showroom condition.  Ever so slowly, the air museum world is beginning to understand that you cannot preserve something by replacing it and that it's okay for old things to look old.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 21 Aug 2004 11:44:57 -0400
From:         Reed Riddle
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

Finally catching up after my move...thanks again for the forum fix Ric!

> My question was, "When can one say that a mystery has been solved?"

A mystery is solved when a piece of data comes forth that shows one hypothesis to be correct, or when the overwhelming amount of data collected shows one hypothesis to be much more likely than any other. When the Titanic was found, the mystery of where she went, and how she behaved after sinking, was solved; the mystery of what caused the sinking remains, because not enough evidence is available to explain exactly why she sank.

In the case of our little mystery, it will be solved definitively when a body or a part of the plane is found, or any other item that can only be tied to the flight to Howland.  The TIGHAR hypothesis has the best chance of a "data collected" solution, as the other possibilities have much lower chances of evidence being easily discovered after all this time.

On another front...Ric, I think you're chasing geese in trying to damage the plane exterior in Tucson.  A fire hot enough to damage the exterior of the plane would have damaged much more of the engine, causing them to delay their flight the next day.  I seriously doubt that there could have been any damage to the back end of the plane without requiring more extensive repairs in the front end.

But, there is something in that scenario.  If the Electra was easy to overprime and light up (as it seems was possible), then perhaps an exhausted, desperate Amelia managed to repeat the Tucson experience while down on Gardner.  A fire that spread into the cabin would have licked fire out the cockpit and the cabin door, possibly getting hot enough in the back to do the damage seen.  At some point, the interior fuel tanks blow, hitting the 2-2-V-1 artifact and shattering it along one edge.  You need no damage in Tucson, no strange motions of the plane, nothing but a simple backfire sending the plane up in flames (which happened).  And, if it's above the door, it's probably under more force in the explosion, since one main avenue for the shock waves to exit the plane would be through said door.

This is all speculation, of course, but it can be modeled.  The bigger issue remains determining where that part goes on the plane...once you have that, you can start to say what might have happened to it with more confidence.

                                         Reed
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 21 Aug 2004 11:53:26 -0400
From:         Reed Riddle
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

Something just occurred to me.  Has anyone looked at the possibility that this came from a Japanese plane?  Or British, maybe?  Not sure what other countries might have operated aircraft in the region that would have "donated" parts to the island.

                                         Reed
************************************************************************
From Ric

It would have to be a Japanese plane or British plane that had been repaired or modified using "reserve stock" sheet manufactured by Alcoa and American AN455AD 3/3 rivets.

The only Japanese plane known to have ben in the region was a flying boat (probably a Kawanishi H8K) that bombed Canton in 1943.  It was not shot down. I know of no British planes that were in the region during the war.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:13:47 -0400
From:         Jon Watson
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

Reed Riddle wrote:

> But, there is something in that scenario.  If the Electra was easy to
> overprime and light up (as it seems was possible), then perhaps an
> exhausted, desperate Amelia managed to repeat the Tucson experience
> while down on Gardner.  A fire that spread into the cabin would have
> licked fire out the cockpit and the cabin door, possibly getting hot
> enough in the back to do the damage seen.  At some point, the interior
> fuel tanks blow, hitting the 2-2-V-1 artifact and shattering it along
> one edge.  You need no damage in Tucson, no strange motions of the
> plane, nothing but a simple backfire sending the plane up in flames
> (which happened).  And, if it's above the door, it's probably under
> more force in the explosion, since one main avenue for the shock waves
> to exit the plane would be through said door.

The presence of interior fabric lining and possibly insulation could have shielded the panel from direct explosive damage, pitting and debris, and (particularly if fire resistant) could have at least partially shielded it from heat damage. We may want to look more closely at this as a possibility.  We know she had to restart the starboard engine to keep the batteries charged, so there were potentially plenty of opportunities.
ltm
jon
2266
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:15:34 -0400
From:         Alan Caldwell
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

Are we making this subject overly complicated? In my way of thinking we must first specifically define the mystery then the solution when found will be obvious.

In our case the "mystery" is actually a bundle of mysteries. For example;

1. Did the plane land on Niku?
2. If so where is it now?
3. Where are the remains of AE and Fred?
4. As to each artifact is it connected to AE or the Electra?
5. If not then what is it?
6. When AE reported "We must be on you" where was the plane actually?
7. At 8:43 L where did they go?
8. If the plane did NOT land on Niku did it make land somewhere else and if so where?
9. If it did not make land where in the ocean did it go down?

And so on.

Now if we find an artifact on Niku and identify it as having come from AE's plane we are left with the possibilities:

1. The plane landed on Niku and the artifact was separated from the plane  on the island.
2. The plane landed on land somewhere else and the artifact came to Niku somehow.
        a. carried by a sea current
        b. brought by human hands
3. The plane went into the sea and the artifact washed up on Niku.

As you can see there are a myriad of mysteries. Only if we can answer the specific question is the mystery solved. For example if we can identify an artifact as coming from AE's Electra and can show it could not have been carried to Niku by currents and it was such no one would or could have brought it to Niku then we can safely say the Electra landed on Niku. That will be a difficult  chore.

Alan
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:19:18 -0400
From:         Alfred Hendrickson
Subject:      Re: Tinian trip

A check is, as they say, in the mail, to help send Karen Burns to Tinian. What is the fundraising goal?

Alfred Hendrickson #2583
************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks.  Kar was originally looking for help with the travel expenses which she estimated would be about $1,000.  I think she's probably underestimating it.  We're shooting for at least $1,500.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:26:19 -0400
From:         Alfred Hendrickson
Subject:      Old things

Ric wrote:

" . . . the air museum world is beginning to understand that . . . it's okay for old things to look old."

I like the sound of that. An old thing that looks it is honest. And honesty is, in my opinion, among the best policies.

Alfred Hendrickson #2583
************************************************************************
From Ric

But aviation historic preservation is complicated by the understandable desire to fly the airplanes or, at least, make them look like they could fly.  We get preservation confused with re-enacting.  Try calling a "warbird" pilot a re-enactor ... then run.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:28:05 -0400
From:         John Barrett
Subject:      heat damage

Just a thought to go along with the plane burning after the reef landing.... Have any of the dado's found exhibited any evidence of heat damage?

LTM,

John Barrett
************************************************************************
From Ric

No, and they're relatively delicate structures.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:33:22 -0400
From:         Dennis McGee
Subject:      Re: Tinian trip

Out of curiosity, how long will it take her to get there.  Once there, what kind of accommodations do they have.  I know it won't be a grass hut by the seashore, but I was wondering about the level of the island's infrastructure etc.

LTM, who REALLY likes AC

Dennis O. McGee #0149EC
************************************************************************
From Ric

I really don't know.  I've never been there.  But I can guarantee that, whatever it's like, Kar has been to much worse places.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 2004 13:41:07 -0400
From:         Mike Haddock
Subject:      Re; Tinian trip

Please keep us posted. If there is a shortfall, I can donate a little more if necessary.

LTM,
Mike Haddock, #2438
*************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks. Will do.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 23 Aug 2004 13:42:39 -0400
From:         Greg Moore
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

You know, there is another scenario which would fit this theory.....Now, here's AE, burned out, pucker factor about 9.5, basically lost, and then she sees, feels and hears one of the engines start to starve out.... OK, how does she try to keep the engine running?  The primer!!  there had to be fuel enough in the primer feedlines, even if the main tanks were, for all practical purposes, empty....

She pumps the primer into the windmilling engine (engines????, this is possible as well, that she lost both due to fuel starvation, but, as I have said earlier, theer would have been a quantity of fuel in the primer lines., Note, I don't believe the Electra had full feathering props, they were the old style with the two counterweights.  There would be no way to stop rotation in the engine.  and we have a fire.  I don't believe we hae any way of knowing if the onboard fire bottles (LUX) were functional at that point, there really isn't any mention of them.... So we have an engine fire in the carb which spreads into the accessory section, feeds on the oil which always winds up there in good 'ol round engines, and spreads thru whatever combustable material is in the area, past the wing root, and damages the fuselage skin....

There is no way of telling if this happened while airborne, or after an emergency landing, The airborne version would have been far more catastrophic, as all engine fires while airborne are, sioply because of the airflow thru the cowling in flight..  What happens next is what we are trying to solve, she either lands, or tries to ditch and screws up.

Just my .02 as a pilot, (yes, I do radio as well, but I'm just as happy in the left seat --hi--) who happens to love round engines, and knows full well what can happen if one gets too happy with that primer knob......

Greg "GW' Moore
TIGHAR #2645
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:21:11 -0400
From:         Dave Bush
Subject:      Another Plane for Preservation

I just read the book "Born to Fly" by Shane Osborn. It is the story of the US reconnaissance plane that was involved in a midair collision with a Chinese Fighter off the island of Hainan, China. Lt. Osborn's airplane was returned, in pieces, to the US. It is currently at the Lockheed facility for study to see if it can be rebuilt. I truly believe it should be kept as is and put in a museum to show future generations what it looked like and let people realize that one heck of a good pilot managed to bring it home. How can we get the gubmint to preserve this plane as it is?

LTM,
Dave Bush
Houston, Texas
************************************************************************
From Ric

Whether or not the airplane is worthy of preservation, you raise an interesting point.  The gubmint actually doesn't do much airplane preservation.  Where does the money come from to preserve government airplanes?  The P-3 you mention is, as I recall, a Navy plane.  Most of the budget for the Museum of Naval Aviation comes from private sector donations.  Ditto for the Smithsonian.  I'm not sure about the USAF Museum.  It is my understanding that, unlike the Navy whose museum answers to the Office of Naval History, the USAF Museum answers to Air Force Recruiting so their tax dollar budget might be higher.

To what extent should our national museums be funded by voluntary tax-deductible contributions versus involuntary appropriations of tax money?  The same question applies to the arts.  The traditional answer is that tax dollars provide a foundation and charitable contributions are expected to do the rest.  It seems to be a good system.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:29:00 -0400
From:         Dave Bush
Subject:      getting hammered

Herman De Wulf said:

>Remember the popular saying: "They don't make them like that any more".
>Since WW II and the Liberty ship vessels are made of welded steel
>plates. They sink just the same.

I remember studying the case of the Liberty ships and their sinking. When one exploded and sank in a safe harbor, protected by anti-submarine nets, they began to look at the metallurgy and found that the type of steel used in their construction became very brittle when exposed to the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. These ships could, under some circumstances, split due to the fracturing of the steel, thus allowing an in-rush of cold water to hit the boilers creating an explosion that mimicked a torpedo hit. When sunk in the middle of the Atlantic, there was no way to ascertain the true cause, or to doubt that it was due to torpedos. They surmised that in very cold winter weather, the simple act of dropping a hammer on the deck could cause the ship's steel to fracture catastrophically. Thus, they sent all the Liberty ships to the warmer waters of the South Pacific for the remainder of the war.

LTM,
Dave Bush
Houston, Texas
********************************************************************

I know what you mean.  When we were searching for l'Oiseau Blanc up in Newfoundland it would often get so cold that the campfire would freeze. We'd break off little chunks of flame and carry them in our pockets to stay warm.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:44:17 -0400
From:         John Harsh
Subject:      Re: Old Things

I can't help but think that at some point (1942, 1945?) there were more Buffaloes than society needed, and everyone was satisfied to let them be chopped and recycled.  What safeguards are in place so that in 60 plus years someone will not celebrate the recovery of the last remaining P-3 Orion?

***********************************************************************
From Ric

There are no safeguards.  What gets preserved depends upon the priorities of the society that has the opportunity to preserve.  How many P-3s do you want?  One example?  Three? One of each model?  (There are dozens.)  Whose is going to pay for the conservation and upkeep? Who is going to provide the hangar space?  What gets preserved always comes down to how much money someone is willing to spend.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:46:48 -0400
From:         Christian Duretete
Subject:      Re: solving mysteries

I don't remember the details of Betty's notebook... Could a fire, on the reef, while on the radio, fit in there somewhere? I seem to remember there was a point when our heroes were in a hurry to exit the plane -but that seemed to be at high water, not because of a fire?
************************************************************************
From Ric

Betty's notebook is on the TIGHAR website at
http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Documents/Notebook/notebook.html

There is no reference to a fire.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 25 Aug 2004 11:49:22 -0400
From:         Dave Porter
Subject:      Re: Old Things

The original post about the Brewster Buffalo recovered from the Russian Lake mentioned that the recoverer traded it to NMNA, Pensacola for some P-3 Orions or parts thereof, and you later noted that the recon bird involved in the midair collision with the Chinese fighter was an Orion.

I'm surprised that the forum has gone this long without someone noting that in civilian guise, the P-3 Orion was the Lockheed Electra II.

LTM, who knows that everything is eventually on-topic

Dave Porter, 2288

BTW, is there a deadline for donating to Kar's trip?  I can help out, but not for a couple of weeks.

************************************************************************
From Ric

The trip isn't until mid-November so there's plenty of time.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Wed, 25 Aug 2004 14:14:33 -0400
From:         Jerry Hamilton
Subject:      Re: Tinian trip

I really need one of those cool Devastator T-shirts. And I'll donate $25 so Kar can have a fun trip chasing ghosts. Check is in the mail.

blue skies, jerry

************************************************************************
From Ric

Thanks Jerry
======================================================================== 
Date:         Fri, 27 Aug 2004 10:53:44 -0400
From:         Dan Brown
Subject:      Un-dados?

To follow up the exchange regarding the ventilation intake atop the Electras: in "Electra Flying" (Craig Printing Co., Invercargill NZ) there are two photographs of the interiors of Electra 10As carrying passengers circa 1937, one photo from the rear of the aisle looking forward (p. 30), and the other from the front looking aft (p. 21). Each photo shows the series of trim panels that covered the ventilation system (ducts?) located slightly higher than head-level of the seated passengers along each side of the cabin. The dimensions seem to be about the same as the "dados". Interestingly, attached to the panels at regular intervals was a mesh fabric (described as "soft gray and blue ... for stowing hats and light items"). The photo looking aft shows the bottom edge of the small aft bulkhead door, there is no dado visible in this example (I have always been puzzled why dados there would have 15-inch fastener spacing). I am already aware of a couple of  problems with this hypothesis, but, for the sake of discussion, could it be that one or more of the "dados" are really Electra 10 ventilation system trim panels?

Dan Brown, #2408
************************************************************************
From Ric

There are two factors that make me doubt that our dados are trim panels associated with the ventilation system:

1.  Our 1989 dado (the one that is an intact assembly) has a right-angle flange that was apparently nailed or screwed into a wooden surface.

2. Documents and photos indicate that no ventilation system was installed in the cabin of NR16020.

The 15 inch span between the two holes that we had earlier thought were mounting holes now appears to be of no particular significance because the "mounting holes" are apparently to accommodate fasteners to secure the insulation to the face of the dado.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Sat, 28 Aug 2004 10:39:07 -0400
From:         Jackie Tharp
Subject:      Re: un-dados

I was reading some past forum highlights, from 2002, and one of Kenton Spadings posts gave the name of a guy in Florida who remembers working on the reskinning of Electra #1015 a few years ago. The thread was talking about Linda Finch's 10E.  Kenton said the man knew the aircraft very well, and had some specs, and paper work pertaining to the plane and reskinning in his basement.....  Kenton was waiting for a response from him that never came due to his having a heart attack and long recovery.

Perhaps this guy can identify the dado's and other aircraft parts you have?  I know Finches aircraft was NOT originally a 10E, but perhaps the original interior was very similar.   This man appeared to be exactly what we would need on those dado's.. HEY KENTON! Could this guy still be around?
Jackie Tharp #2440
************************************************************************
From Ric

Finch's airplane (c/n 1015) was gutted when she bought it.  TIGHAR researchers Kenton Spading and Veryl Fenlason took lots and lots of photos of the airplane before it fell into Finch's hands.  Looking at those photos now we can see that 1015 had the same blue coating on the interior aluminum surfaces that we see on the Idaho and Alaska wrecks, but any cabin furnishings like dados were long gone from the airplane.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:48:36 -0400
From:         John Watson
Subject:      Re: 2-2-V-1

The other day I was going through some photos of the interior of the Electra, and with the discussion of there possibly having been a navigator's hatch I noticed something odd in this picture. There is a roughly square panel in the ceiling, which appears to be glass or very shiny metal. It does appear to be slightly curved, but not as curved as the adjacent rib. If you look closely, you will see that the reflection in it is AE's necktie. Any idea what this is?

The photo is obviously an early version of the cabin, witness the way the tank fillers are set up, and the fact that the ribs are visible, although that insulation stuff obscures the stringers.

ltm
jon
*********************************************************************
From Ric

The square panel is part of the cabin ventilation system. There are three little rearward facing exhaust scoops on the top of the cabin. There is a panel under each scoop. The panel is a tray that collects any condensation which then drains through a tube to a little hole in the side of the fuselage.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:05:14 -0400
From:         Jennifer
Subject:      Re: Devastator T-shirts

Jerry said on August 25:

> "I really need one of those cool Devastator T-shirts. And I'll donate
> $25 so Kar can have a fun trip chasing ghosts. Check is in the mail."

My mailbox was full for a couple of days, so I guess I missed the description of the t-shirt.  Am I too late to get in on this one? Sounds interesting.  Very interesting...

LTM from a convicted lurker,

Jennifer
(who lives 18 miles from Atchison)
************************************************************************
From Ric

TIGHAR members have received the flyer showing the shirts but they are not yet available via the website.   No problem.  You can order one  by mail, phone or fax with a check or credit card.  They have the full color Devastator project logo on the front (U.S. pre-1942 star and ball insignia) and a line drawing profile view of the TBD Devastator on the back.  $20.  Sizes are M, L, Xl and XXL.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:15:57 -0400
From:         Paige Miller
Subject:      Re: Travel Channel Show on AE

I watched the Travel Channel's "In Search Of Amelia Earhart" last night. There was nothing else good on TV. Essentially, it describes Elgen Long's theory and dramatizes it quite a bit, showing what the ocean must have looked like as it got closer and closer to the nose of Amelia's aircraft at that fatal moment 20:13 into the flight when Long claims that Amelia ran out of fuel.

I wanted to see how many mistakes or whoppers I could find in the broadcast.

I did not know the part about the "radio experts" who have analyzed Amelia's transmissions -- actually the Itasca logs and Bellarts' signal strength information -- through a mainframe computer and came to the conclusion from this information that Noonan had began a "ladder search pattern" and that they were on the last leg that would have brought them directly to Howland had they not run out of gas. Wow, all that from a typed manuscript! Can you say "non-sequitur"?

One huge gaffe was the announcer claiming, prior to introducing Elgen Long, Amelia unexpectedly ran out of gas two hours before she was supposed to. Was that because of poor writing by the Travel Channel? Or was that because the writer buys Elgen Long's faulty logic -- start with that conclusion, and find facts to fit.

The failure of Bellarts to hear further signals from AE after 20:13 into the flight is attributed to running out of gas, as if that was the only possible reason.

I wonder if I would have caught on to the errors in logic had my mind not been sharpened by Occam's Razor and reading this forum. I wonder what the average viewer must have thought. There was at least one factual error as well:

Elgen Long claimed that Amelia reported 25 mph (or was that knots per hour? I don't remember now) headwind. This comes straight from the Chater report (which the show implies was found by Elgen Long) although I note that Amelia never said that it was a headwind, it could have been a crosswind or tailwind.

Anybody got any other mistakes on the broadcast?

Paige Miller
LTM (who brushes her teeth with Occam's toothbrush)
#2565
************************************************************************ 
From Ric

Somehow nobody ever mentions that the 20:13Z (08:43 local) entry in the Itasca radio log was not the last time that a call from Earhart was logged that day.  After calling and listening all day without success, just after sundown at 18:25 local time the operator logged:

WE HEAR HER ON 3105 KCS NOW VERY WEAK AND UNREADABLE/ FONE

This is one of several occasions when operators aboard Itasca who were familiar with Earhart's voice and style, having heard her inflight transmissions, heard voice transmissions that, although the words were unintelligible, were sufficiently identifiable that they logged the transmission as being from Earhart.  The same thing happened on Nauru. The radio operator on Baker Island even reported hearing Earhart calling Itasca using her call letters.
======================================================================== 
Date:         Tue, 31 Aug 2004 12:50:12 -0400
From:         Greg Moore
Subject:      Re: Travel Channel show on AE

I watched that program as well, for no other purpose than it was on, it was purportedly about AE and I figured I may as well hear some additional BS thrown into the mix......

I have NO idea how a "mainframe computer" could come up with the "ladder search" idea. One can approximate propagation, cone can even do computer simulations of the transmissions, and get valuable info.  What you can't do, however, is establish a  "ladder search" course beyond speculation.

In the first place, given the fuel situation, neither Noonan nor AE could afford to do such a search pattern, as the simple act of flying so many extra miles would be wasteful of the fuel she had left,

Secondly, since they had one position line, sticking to that line makes more sense than making a lot of turns, etc.  The sunline is a good place to start, because the A/C has to be somewhere on that line, and that, combined with DR, even if wrong, gives an approximation of where they were.  I believe the only choice left for them was to stay on the line of position, (advanced for time, of course) and fly in the direction they believed Howland to lie. Barring Howland, my second choice would have been to set course for other known island areas, which is in keeping with TIGHAR's hypothesis. I just can't see them endlessly flying back and forth, and the program never even discussed the "post crash" messages, which indicate that there was at least one engine capable of running......

I watched the program with a LOT of speculation, and then realized these guys were $$$$ driven instead of preservation driven, which explains a lot.  There was the "treasure hunters BS" in everything they said.   They even claimed to know the ":exact position" of the aircraft on the seabed.

It is interesting to see the negative followup on this, as the program was produced some time ago, and if these clowns had the info down pat, we would have been seeing news headlines before this point in time....

Incidentally, the "Bellarts simulation" was wrong, someone cobbled together a lousy set equipment wise --hi-- even the logs were wrong, and since I have a copy of all the logs (tnx Ric) I was laughing to no end, and also trying to explain to my Wife and Daughter what the heck was wrong with all these unequivical staements..  I do believe I managed to bore them quite a bit, but what the heck... One more interesting observation.. These guys showed the Lae takeoff film several times, and NOT ONCE did the "puffs of smoke"  get mentioned, nor the ramifications of what damage probably occured to the aircraft at that period.  There wsn't all that much discussion about the DF either...

At least it killed an hour, and there was some good footage, and I had a few laughs,

As an off topic request, pse go to my signatures at the bottom of this msg, and visit our USS America Museum Foundation web site, and sign the petition.  Time is running out for us to save our ship, we are trying to get some kind of rally here in Philly, to get Press attention, but take a look at the video of her material conditon vs other museum ships..


73 de Greg
TIGHAR 2645

USS AMERICA (CV/CVA-66) Museum Foundation
Please visit us on the web at http://www.ussamerica-museumfoundation.org