Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 10:33:45 From: Mike Piner Subject: Sinners In looking through the Purdue University collection for Zipper pulls, a few photos of the electra caught my eye.#1117 had a nose cone (spinner) on the propeller. This is "old number" photo xi.a. 2.c. I began to look for number in that sequence, thinking that would lead me to the time frame, and sure enough it puts it early in the life of Amelias plane because all of the "old number" sequence of the flight was "xi.b...." sequence. There was some other photos 568, 569, 570 and 571, 579, which were all in the same "old number" sequence. Photos at Purdue U has an even earlier sequence. I am thinking that the "spinner" pictures are after the Luke Field accident and before the Flight. That picture # 1117 makes me think that that is when New more powerfu engines were installed. These look like a group of special people arround the plane. LTM ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 17:23:39 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Spinners >New more powerful engines were installed What engines are you referring to, Mike? Alan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 17:24:38 From: Mike Piner Subject: Re: SPinners Subject "Sinners" This post was not a sermon, altho I could give one. The subject is Spinners not Sinners. some people call the propeller nose cones. LTM who knew some sinners ************************************* Sorry, my bad. Typing faster than my brain works. Pat ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 18:13:06 From: Mike Piner Subject: Re: Spinners Alan I Misspoke. I was thinking about the orig engines being somewhat different from the engines on the flight, now I can't remember where I read to get that idea. I know someone has alledged that new engines were secretly installed during the flight, but that was not what I was wanting to say at all. I was surprised to see engines with a spinner on the props. Mike ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 13:03:09 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Spinners Thanks, Mike. The "A" model had 450s and the Es had 550s which could produce 600HP for take off. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 13:03:26 From: Dennis O. McGee Subject: Re: Spinners Alan Caldwell said: >>New more powerful engines were installed > >What engines are you referring to, Mike? Oh Alan, you know the ones. The ones that allowed her to extend her range and spy on the Japanese. :-) LTM, who never used extenders Dennis O. McGee #0149EC ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 18:30:19 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Spinners Dennis, Oh how foolish of me for not thinking of that. Possibly J47s slung under the wings outboard of the 1340s. (That's not a jab at Mike but it is for the Japanese capture folks -- in jest of course.) Alan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 21:16:20 From: Mike Piner Subject: Re: Spinners The time frame for Pic # 1117 & 569, are the same, I am thinking sometime after rebuild. Pic 569 &570 were maybe at Calif. airport; ref. mts in the background. Does anyone know abt this time frame? LTM ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 13:57:11 From: Pat Thrasher Subject: Re: Spinners Things have been slow, so I am posting this. Read on at your peril..... +++++++++++++++++++++++++ From Daryll Bolinger If I may, ...bowing before the TIGHAR throne and gesturing with a humble sweep of the hand..., I would like to respond to Alan, Mike and Dennis's statements. Dennis wrote: >Alan Caldwell said: > >>New more powerful engines were installed >> >>What engines are you referring to, Mike? > >Oh Alan, you know the ones. The ones that allowed her to extend her >range and spy on the Japanese. :-) AND Alan responded: >Dennis, Oh how foolish of me for not thinking of that. Possibly J47s >slung under the wings outboard of the 1340s. (That's not a jab at >Mike but it is for the Japanese capture folks -- in jest of course.) I find in the many things that are said about Earhart's flight, humor is often used to attack the theories that have the most evidence and logic to back up the ultimate disposition of AE & FN. Just to help me review for moment. Is it TIGHAR's theory that they departed Lae with no "plan B" ? Is it also TIGHAR's supposition that the range of the Electra to splashdown was independent of winds and Noonan could not accurately determine the Electra's endurance in real time and accurately apply that to the geography ? Both of those things above would have to true for the Niku disposition; Summarizing; In an "all or nothing" dash to Howland there was no turning back at the PNR, "point of no return", wherever that was. The amount of time and gas spent in searching for Howland was a matter of someone's internal clock. During the ticking of their internal clock a "plan B" was formulated. "I KNOW", someone shouted over the drone of the engines, "FRED, SINCE WE"RE AT YOUR ADVANCED LOP THROUGH HOWLAND AND WE CAN'T SEE THE ISLAND AND LOOKING AT YOUR NAV TABLES, THE SUN'S ORIENTATION AT THIS DATE AND TIME IS 157 / 337 DEGREES. WHY DON'T I FLY A MAGNETIC HEADING OF 157 DEGREES TOWARD THIS OTHER LITTLE BLACK DOT DOWN THERE CALLED GARDNER ISLAND, I'M NOT TOO CONCERNED ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF THE WIND ON THE COURSE LINE DURING THE NEXT FEW HOURS." For Mike, if you believe that credible history can also be composed of hearsay comments passed between individuals then there is support for the other engines you mentioned. Firman Grey and Carl Leipelt of Lockheed acknowledged to Art Kennedy that they and a crew took two R-1340's to Indonesia (read Bandoeng) and installed them on Amelia's plane there. Carl said he was aboard for a trial fuel consumption run of more than a 1000 miles. A second confirmation of that occurrence seems to come from Bill Cole, an employee of Pratt & Whitney who was also part of that crew, a friend of Bill's related what he had said. I'm sure there will be demands for documentation of those events but not all history is written down to answer all mysteries. To me it would be a wise move to have two replacement engines located in that part the world in case there were major engine problems necessitating an engine change. The engines probably weren't more powerful but just replacement engines that she was already using. Were the engines changed and a test flight of 1000 miles? We know that they were in Bandoeng for six days and had to have the Cambridge fuel analyzer changed. We know that Amelia got to Surabaya and returned to Bandoeng which is about 625 nm round trip. If Lockheed did send a maintenance crew there with two engines did they think to also send a test pilot to fly the test flights while Amelia and Fred visited the temples? Not all of history is written down for public consumption. Daryll ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:29:15 From: Mike Piner Subject: Re: Spinners For Daryll Bolinger Thanks for the Bowing, and the Gesturing..., and for all those "facts", And quite acurately, the "but not all history is written down to answer all mysteries." Maybe they only started out with the maximum fuel capacity which had a calculated safey amount, for the distance to be traveled, and with a lot of expertise in long distance navigation, in Fred Noonan, A Big Risk for them! THINK. what do you do in a desparate situation as that? They kept on flying as heard on the radio "we are on a line 157/337, north and south". This is all we know. Engine change or not. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:43:11 From: Mike Piner Subject: Re: Spinners THE tighar HYPOTHYSIS is what it says it is, hypothysis. We have collected what Niku has offered to us in artifacts, and have read them as best as field experts can, On our forum we have a lot of talk, that is what a forum is. We manufacture no "evidence on the forum. Thank you Daryll for your post, and please offer any documation you can; we also recognize any Jest, and or tongue in cheek remarks. LTM Mike ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:36:10 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Spinners Daryll, I have no clue whether the Electra had engine changes or not but I don't see the significance of replacing R-1340s with R-1340s. Of course, I was making a little dig at the Japanese capture theory. Nothing new there. As to your comment about .............."Just to help me review for moment. Is it TIGHAR's theory that they departed Lae with no "plan B" ? Is it also TIGHAR's supposition that the range of the Electra to splashdown was independent of winds and Noonan could not accurately determine the Electra's endurance in real time and accurately apply that to the geography ?" .............I'm confused as to your point and I don't see the connection to the TIGHAR Niku theory. You say, "Both of those things above would have to true for the Niku disposition;" Why is that? They may or not have had a plan B and if they did they may or not have changed it as the situation changed. I don't know what information, if any, Noonan had of the Phoenix Islands so I can't suggest he made a conscious effort to pick one over the other. Personally, I would suggest he either lucked on to land or if he finally located himself picked the nearest place to go. Rambling further on a Sunday with nothing else to do.............. As you well know there is a difference between range and endurance. The range WAS dependent on winds but endurance knows nothing about winds. Wind doesn't blow on airplanes in an air mass. Only on the ground. Noonan knew the fuel flow schedule and how much he started with so he pretty well had to know what the Electra's endurance was. He could see how much fuel he was using so that could be constantly up dated. Noonan did not know what the winds enroute were as there were few if any reporting stations between Lae and Howland. No one knew the enroute wheather and still don't. The Australian weather service looked at the archives for 1937 for me and told me there was no weather information beyond 50 miles east of Lae and in 1937 upper air winds were not available for obvious reasons. There is no information existing to tell us whether Noonan had celestial navigation capabilities throughout his route. I have no idea whether he had visual conditions either above or below his airplane at any given time so I can't guess what he could determine or not determine. As to the mythical plan B I couldn't hazard a guess as to what it could have been. The only landing strip was Howland. There was none other for a plan B. It was land at Howland, ditch or crash land on a reef some place. We could say the Phoenix islands were closest and the Gilbert's next closest except no one knows where the Electra was. Noonan didn't know where the Electra was. We can speculate they were close to Howland because of the loud radio transmission. The winds shifted counter clockwise slightly and dropped off as our heroes approached Howland according to known reports at the time. If Noonan had visual capability for celestial and/or drift sightings he would have known that and acted accordingly. If he missed the weather change it would have put the Electra south of course. whether it was short or long I can't figure. There are too many unknowns. Randy's Monte Carlo analysis says short. The easing of the head winds say long but longer than where? Shorter than where? I can't find ANY factors that might put the plane north except possibly the passing of the Myrtlebank if that's the ship they passed. The ship was a little north of course but we have no idea where the ship and plane crossed paths if at all. A case can be made for a sighting on either ship or neither. If our heroes saw a ship it might have been any ship near their flight path. But that event was way early in the flight. Alan. going back to watching golf. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:59:22 From: Tom King Subject: Re: Spinners Daryll Bolinger writes: >Not all of history is written down for public consumption. Very true, and if we make enough assumptions about unwritten history, we could probably justify looking for our heroes on one of the moons of Jupiter. LTM (who shaves her armpits with Occam's Razor) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:33:10 From: Bill Leary Subject: Re: Spinners >From Daryll Bolinger > >I'm sure there will be demands for documentation of those events >but not all history is written down to answer all mysteries. Yes. These weren't a couple of washers someone dropped in their pocket. These were valuable items, and while it's possible there's no documentation at all, it's awfully unlikely. There would have been inventory control, shipping, cost accounting, and all that rot. And what about the removed engines? Were they just left sitting in a hanger or near the engine hoist? Maybe they're there still. More likely there would have been something about shipping back, or disposal, or whatever. And there's the labor charges someone had to pay. No, there might not be documentation that specifically says "Replaced both engines on NR 16020," but there should be something that points in that direction, or at least supports the possiblity. And by the by, isn't it actually important if the engines were replaced? I was under the impression that part of why we'd have liked to find an engine was to check the serial numbers. If, say, the casing for an R-1340 turned up on Niku, it'd be pretty embarrassing to find that the serial numbers don't match whatever we've got. - Bill #2229 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:34:17 From: Dennis O. McGee Subject: Re: Spinners To Daryll: Dude! -- lighten up. Smell the roses. Hear the music. Feel the love. Get funky. Kick back. Chill. Mellow out. Hug your kids. Kiss the wife. Pet the dog. Watch golf. Play frisbee. Mow the lawn. Got it? :-) LTM, whose bell-bottoms and tie-dyes are in the dryer Dennis O. McGee #0149EC ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:27:15 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Spinners As I said earlier, I don't know if the engines were replaced or not but with all the little things Earhart wrote about on her trip I'm surprised she didn't mention new engines. I wonder how that little thing slipped her mind? Alan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:31:33 From: Ross Devitt Subject: Coconuts I don't know how many coconuts you opened on Niku expeditions trying to see how difficult it is using no tools. Last week I just happened to be sitting on an island that I had all to myself, with a coconut tree, a flat rock and a watch. I climbed the tree (ok, it was a smallish tree) and twisted off 4 greenish nuts. Sat down and wondered how I would approach this task if I was on an island and had no idea how to get inside the thing. First nut, I bashed all over to loosen the husk. Turned out that the end where it attaches to the tree started splitting, so I started stripping the husk from that end, giving the occasional bash as I went. Once the nut was divested of the outer skin, I had the coir to contend with. A bit of messing around and I found I could strip that most easily from the stalk end too, after some more gentle bashing. It took about 20 minutes to get to the nut and open it by poking a stick through the biggest 'eye'. The next nut took a little over ten minutes and each nut after than was about the same or less as I got more used to the technique. These nuts have been in a drought for many years, so there was not a lot of water in the nut, but it was there and because the Niku nuts had been cultivated (mine were wild and immature) there would have been more water in the nuts there, even after a drought. As you are aware, I suffer serious fatigue problems as well as having had both wrists, ankles, a hand and a foot broken and the list goes on. I mention that because, as out flighty friends may not have been in the best of health after a few days, I am not in peak condition either. My 'bashing' of the nuts was rather gentle, and I did not try to hurry the peeling of the husk. I just quietly stripped it away a little at a time as I enjoyed the scenery and solitude. Something else comes to mind. Should someone be husking cocos, there is a huge amount of husk left over from each nut. Dried, it could be used for all sorts of thing. Anyway, I assume with all the visits to Niku, someone sat for an hour and husked nuts - but just in case they didn't, this proves it was feasible to get water, even if it took a couple of hours a day to get a quart. Makes one wonder if the Benedictine bottle held water for drinking, or coconut water for drinking. I had done some experiments on cocos on my old trees at my previous house, but they were nuts lying on the ground. These were, as I say, wild, stunted cocos on an island that has had several (about 7) years of straight drought. Also, on that test I used whatever came to hand. This time it was just a flat rock. the reason for the flat rock, when a pointed one may have streamlined the procedure, was that I didn;t want to take off my skin rather than the husk. Cheers, Th' WOMBAT ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:17:57 From: Tom King Subject: Re: coconuts Thanks, Wombat; that's good experimental data, and it's nice to know that you're still out there climbing trees and busting nuts. On Niku, the cultivated trees that were there had been planted some forty years before, by Arundel in the '90s. They'd have been pretty tall. Presumably they'd dropped nuts that had taken hold and grown some shorter, younger trees, but apparently there weren't many; the groves are described as small. They were at the northwesterly end of the island, as was the Norwich City cache, and of course this is where we think our castaways landed. So the cocos, like the cache, might have been a reason for hanging out there for a time. But eventually they, also like the cache, would run out, and if you didn't know that the only coconut groves were on the northwest end of the island, looking for coconuts might have been one good reason to explore the rest of the island. Theoretically, they could also have tapped relatively low trees for toddy, but only if they knew how, and it's not the kind of thing that's intuitively obvious. Still, they might have seen it done at some stop along the way. Toddy would be another thing to fill a Benedictine bottle. Coconut husks ARE good for all kinds of things, but the most obvious to a castaway would probably be as fuel for a fire. Dried husks burn very well. LTM (who favors a gentle bash) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:26:55 From: Tom Doran Subject: Re: Coconuts It's been almost 50 years, but I had some experience with coconuts when in junior high. We moved to Key West and I had collected several dozen coconuts within the first week or so we were in town. The amount of milk and meat in a coconut mainly varied by age. When a coconut has ripened, fallen and turned gray or black there tends to be little liquid inside them. When they are totally green and still on the tree there tends to be little meat inside them. When very young the green ones have more of a mucous-like slime inside. Milk from a green nut would give you a stomach ache. Milk from the old ones tends to have a laxative effect. Neither effect would be desirable for AE & FN. Those effects would hasten dehydration. Neither type of milk is very tasty. It has something of an alkaline flavor. The husks of green nuts were much more difficult to peel off. The better nut was a compromise. It was mostly green and yellow and had recently fallen. At the time (early sixties) the traditional variety of coconut trees in the Keys was dying off from some disease. The city, county or someone was replacing them with another species of coconut which had fewer nuts. They were smaller and had less meat or milk. This was said to be a good thing because in a storm those nuts become cannon balls. The city fathers were less enamored of the nuts than a twelve year old boy. Tom Doran, #2796 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:55:21 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Coconuts It is quite fortunate I was not on the flight from Lae to wherever. I do not climb coconut trees or any other tree. After the first rung of a step ladder acrophobia sets in. I even had to lower the heels on my boots. (Thirty-five thousand feet in a plane never bothered me) I've watched films of folks climbing coconut trees and some use a little rope between their ankles it appears. Most just shinny up like monkeys. If the coconuts weren't on the ground I would have never made it. To me survival is a black and white TV in Motel 6. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:56:22 From: Daryll Bolinger Subject: Re: Spinners Alan you wrote ; >As you well know there is a difference between range and endurance. Maybe I don't Alan. Since you can't park an airplane on a cloud, it seems to me that range is directly proportional to endurance. If a coil of wire or rope was labeled "endurance" and then pulled taut, couldn't it then be labeled "range"? >Wind doesn't blow on airplanes in an air mass. I couldn't agree more. The airframe can't feel the wind and wind is only important when translated to a point on the surface of the earth with respect to the airplane. The point I was trying to make was that a well thought out "plan B" was just as important as a "flight plan". Pan Am invented "flight control" and I'm not talking about rudders and elevators. Pan Am's "flight control" had to do with controlling the progress of a flight plan. >Noonan did not know what the winds enroute were .... I disagree, he measured them hourly. SOP for Pan Am was to take celestial fixes hourly during the night. During the day LOPs / sun lines / speed lines gave the same wind information. I think we have agreed that celestial had an accuracy of 10 to 15 miles. Those plots not only gave a position over the earth's surface but gave him the winds aloft as well. The winds aloft did not affect endurance but where the airplane was over a spot on the earth. The PNR "point of no return" for Lae was dependant on wind and not miles from Lae. The PNR would float depending on the wind. For Lae it was around one of the longitudes near Nauru. After passing the Lae PNR, the PNR changed to land masses for their survival at fuel exhaustion. "Flight control" dictated the amount of time / endurance they could afford while looking for Howland and still maintain land masses for a return point. You don't want to give any credibility to "back to the Gilbert's" by Eugene Vidal for obvious reasons. You suggest that the Phoenix Islands might be closer than the Gilbert's without any consideration for the wind which was the controlling factor. The Marshall's entered into the equation, not because of a spy mission but because as you stated,..."Noonan didn't know where the Electra was". For Bill Leary: Bill wrote: >These were valuable items, and while it's possible there's no >documentation at all, it's awfully unlikely. There would have been >inventory control, shipping, cost accounting, and all that rot. And >what about the removed engines? Were they just left sitting in a >hanger or near the engine hoist? Maybe they're there still. All very true. What would wise business managers do? Ship the new OR old engines back to the source of manufacture or attempt to sell them to Electra operators in the region and save the shipping costs? Just like shipping coal to New Castle or oil to Saudi Arabia, it's a waste of time and money. I think some will remember the Billings chap who tried to promote the search for the Earhart wreck on New Britain. From what I remember of the story the only connection to the wreck and Earhart was a metal tag wired on the engine mount and the recorded notation on an Aussie Army map of airframe serial numbers which were Amelia's airframe numbers. The disposition of the new OR old engines that we were talking about could have been on that lost New Britain wreck in the jungle. Daryll ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:32:44 From: Tom King Subject: Re: Coconuts Alan Caldwell writes: >I've watched films of folks climbing coconut trees and some use a >little rope between their ankles it appears. Most just shinny up like >monkeys. We've typically had two or three members of each expedition with more agility than brains who'd shinny up the trees and get nuts, as would many members of the ship's crew. There's certainly a lot of variability in amounts and quality of water and meat in the nuts, but even the worst would be a lot better than dying of thirst. LTM (who doesn't shinny) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:16:13 From: Alan Caldwell Subject: Re: Spinners Daryll writes: >The point I was trying to make was that a well thought out "plan B" >was just as important as a "flight plan". Exactly right, Daryll. But an alternate plan depended on knowing their position. They didn't. At least through 8:44 L. I have to believe they DID locate themselves later on but where they were at that time no one knows. Let's sit down at Lae and devise an alternate plan. We have to start with a scenario wherein they can't find Howland even though they know their position. The first thing is to construct a fuel graph. (at least that's how our B-47 crew operated) That was my job. Starting with 1151 gallons the Electra will use start fuel 1151 Start/ taxi.................................................................... ...................15 gallons 1136 Runup and takeoff................................................................. ..........15 gallons 1121 Climb to 7,000' at 120 MPH IAS 300 fpm aprx 23 minutes @ 71 gph...27 gallons 1094 Next three hours @ 60 gph ...........................................................180 gallons 914 Next three hours @ 51 gph............................................................153 gallons 761 Next three hours @ 43 gph............................................................129 gallons 632 Remainder of flight @ 43 gph...................................................... 452 gallons 180 That would leave a little over four hours. different figures of course yields different results but not significantly far afield. Although I have computed less fuel remaining in the past this corresponds to the fuel usage of the Daily Express within one gallon. Someone will no doubt remind me they could reduce power and get a better fuel flow. This is true but it also gives them a slower airplane. Continuing with the planning of an alternate, four hours from Howland would allow them to go to the Gilberts and crash or go to the Phoenix Islands and crash, DEPENDING on where they actually are at the "go to plan B" decision time. Now what? If Noonan knew about Niku's reef would he not go there as opposed to an island with no landable area? I would but I don't know if he knew about Niku or whether there was a place to safely land in the Gilbert's. No one knows the answer to that or at least no one has pointed out an acceptable landing area in the Gilbert's. Also remember they need extra fuel to check the landing area and later run engines for their radio. They can't do this to dry tanks. Daryll, you are correct the wind was blowing toward the Gilbert's but that doesn't help since they didn't know where they were. Also keep in mind going back to the Gilbert's puts the sun behind them and thus unusable for navigation. To the Phoenix group the wind was merely a cross wind and the sun was usable for course navigation. To me that's a no brainer. Now there is some commentary Noonan figured his fuel a bit simpler -- 2.5 gallons per mile which would have been 1022 gallons with a reserve of 129 gallons or maybe three and a half hours flight time. I would figure distance here but I don't have a starting point. I will later. TIGHAR has a theory they were south and short so that would help Niku and not eliminate the Gilbert's. Again, it's impossible to figure without knowing where they were. Going north was out of the question as there was no land that direction. Going west would have been in the blind and with the Gilbert's strung out as they are, pretty risky. Going southerly had land in front of them and if they could ever get a position they had a pretty fair chance as they could get course info from sun shots. Any way that's how I see it. As to Noonan's knowledge of the winds we have not the slightest clue he ever got celestial or an accurate position so you can't say he knew the winds. >You don't want to give any credibility to "back to the Gilbert's" >by Eugene Vidal for obvious reasons. I don't know what you think the obvious reason was but MY reason is that I give virtually no credibility to oral testimony, there was no place to land in the Gilbert's, there was no navigation capability and the islands were spaced too far apart. >You suggest that the Phoenix Islands might be closer than the >Gilbert's without any consideration for the wind which was the >controlling factor. No, the wind was NOT the controlling factor. Where they WERE was the controlling factor. ONLY if they were equi-distant from the Phoenix and Gilbert islands did wind become a factor. In that case I would still pick the Phoenix Islands for the afore mentioned reasons. >The Marshall's entered into the equation, not because of a spy >mission but because as you stated,..."Noonan didn't know where the >Electra was". The Marshall's don't enter into the equation at all as there is no reason and no information putting the Electra so far north of course they could make Mili. Just Assuming the Electra was close to Howland, Niku would have been 405 statute miles away, Tabiteuea would have been 710 statute miles away and Mili Atoll would have been 872 statute miles away. For the Marshall's to enter into your equation you have to say Noonan was nearly 500 miles north of course. I don't think so. This looks like a very simple decision to me. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:16:27 From: Mike Piner Subject: Re: Spinners We are listening intently for evidence that engines were exchanged. Listening..., Listening..., Listening...Listen..., List..., Lis..., Silence.... LTM ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:36:16 From: Jack Clark Subject: Celestial sightings Alan, in a recent reply to Daryll you stated that there is no information that Fred was able to obtain celestial sightings and no weather info available. This is not strictly true. On May 9th 2002 a letter I had sent to Ric was posted on the Forum ( i was not a member at the time ). This noted the weather info for Ocean Island which I had obtained from the British Met Office Archives in England. This gave the weather for that area on 2/July 1937 at 2000 hrs Local (Zone Time GMT + 11 ) as Clear Sky . The weather during the day had been Clear Sky with 1/10th Cumulus moving from the East. ( No cloud hight given ). Surface wind at 2000 hrs local was NE Force 4 Beaufort Scale ( 11.2 to 15.6 kts.) There was no cloud shown until the 0800 Local reading on the 3rd July, this was 7/10 Cirrus/Alto Stratus which had gone by the 2000 hrs observation . I calculated the distance Lae to the vicinity of Ocean island as 1378 nm on a great circle route. I allowed a ground speed of 115 kts. which I think puts the aircraft in the area around 2300 hrs Local 1200 GMT. Jack Clark # 2564 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:37:38 From: Terry Thorgaard Subject: Another aircraft mystery solved "Human remains belong to one of the passengers on board a DC-4 airliner that slammed into the side of Mount Sanford 60 years ago last spring." Mt. Sanford is in Alaska. My father would tell me the story about this missing plane when I was growing up in Alaska. http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/aviation/story/495608.html