http://www.phnx-international.com/news/Underwater_Search_for_Amelia_Earharts_Plane.pdf
Everyone has their own point of view. This made for brief but interesting reading.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER
Yep, and after reading that glowing piece, mine is "53 hours" in "8 days" - and the vendor ought to be ashamed of themselves for that.
All told that was a $2.2M effort and I realize there were many other substantial costs, incluiding taxi and platform fares, but that got us 53 hours of look-see at a square mile of sub-sea terrain at around $41,509 per UAV hour because the thing didn't perform as expected. A flat square mile would be around 27,878,400 square feet, and this was rough terrain, so much more - but that would also come to around 526,007 square feet scanned per hour, or 8767 square feet per minute. In rought terrain, that suggests perhaps something less than optimal scanning of the area, at least compared to what TIGHAR had expected.
Maybe what the U.S.N. is funneling out of our pockets and into that effort in the Indian Ocean will further refine the thing, but 'Bluefin' still seems a little blue in the face as the race heats up. Tough environment, I know - and I guess we take what the world has to offer in technology for reaching hard to reach areas.
If the airliner is even down there... and I really have to wonder, is this really the best resource the U.S.N. could muster? Don't get me started... now where's that foil hat...