I think your points are good, Jay, and Ric's regarding the 'Manning Factor' and the general 'half-assedness' of the whole affair. That big window, absent some clearly-told purpose (which it clearly lacks since history has us scratching our heads), is a gaping hole on the side of the airplane and carbunckle on the rump of the first round-the-world effort so far as I can tell.
What's wrong with this logic? 1) I have no clue as to why these window mods were made to the ship
2) They are proof of the half-assed nature of Earhart's world flight.
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Nothing, in my view -
1) The purpose for the window mod (big one at least) remains obscure and no one has produced a truly good reason for it; they got on famously without it - until they couldn't find Howland... AH-HAH!!! That's IT! THAT was the window in which Howland was to have appeared, dammit - no WONDER they never saw Howland...
Anyway, that is a segueue into...
2) Arriving with a plane load of 'help' in Hawaii with dry prop hubs, Earhart at the wheel and losing the bird on take-off (differential throttle handling to augment directional control in lieu of manly rudder handling was implied by Mantz but nobody convicting of Earhart), thence a change in direction with Putnam assuming some vocal roles to convey key information, i.e. non-sense about radio coordination, etc., off-route on first African stop, radio mishandling from get-go - less than steller preparation is evident = Keystone Cops exercise.
Half assed it may have seemed, but the world flight was nearing complete success, and only failed during the final legs because of a sequence of unlikely events and bad luck.
Yeah, they
almost made it... and almost really sucks when it comes to finding Howland.
Is it really so
unlikely or
bad luck to have mismatched radio capabilities so badly, or to have (NOT) prepared for radio usage so poorly? Or are those failures waiting to happen when one prepares 'halfassedly'?
Or one could say that Howland just didn't seem to want Amelia - her Luke Field event staved it off first, now this
unlikely bad luck... or maybe it really is safe to say that the Pacific doesn't tolerate 'half-assedness' with charity.
No slight is meant toward poor dead Amelia and Fred - I'm a fan; but the thing does speak clearly for itself to a reasonable hind-sighter - 'half-assed' in more ways than I care to think about. That's a good way to get lost...