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[Ric Gillespie]

But we do know that PBY's regularly visited Nikumaroro to resupply the LORAN station in 1944 - 1945, so unless we trace the maintenance history of each of those aircraft, we can not be 100% certain that the patch did not come off one of them...

You might want to re-think that. No PBY (or any other aircraft) is recorded to have been lost or even damaged at Nikumaroro from the time the first work party arrived in December 1938.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

You seem to have it 90 degrees off, Marty. 

This is how I think the template is laid out on the picture of the PBY wing, with rivet lines running along the long axis.

[Ric Gillespie]

I was successful in getting access to the top of the PBY at the Military Aviation Museum yesterday.  The pictures and measurements are on their way to Ric.  There was a surprise or two but, bottom line, Artifact 2-2-V-1 did not come from a PBY.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Mangus for taking the time and making the effort to go and do an actual inspection of a PBY.  Bill called me immediately after climbing down from the wing of a PBY at the Military Aviation Museum on Virginia Beach, VA.
His findings are documented in photos that he is sending to me.
We already know that the skin thickness in the area of Elgen Long's "perfect fit" is .045 - not .032.
Bill found that the rivets in that area are all 5/32", just as you'd expect in a heavy .045 skin.
The parallel rows of rivets have a pitch (distance between rivets) of one inch as do the 3/32" rivet holes in 2-2-V-1.
The spacing between lines of rivets is slightly more than four inches, as it is on 2-2-V-1.
The 5/32" rivet holes along the bottom edge of 2-2-V-1 have a pitch that varies from 1 1/2" to as much as 1 7/8" - not one inch as on the PBY..
The 5/32" rivet holes in 2-2-V-1 imply a double staggered row of rivets.  There is no double staggered row of rivets on the upper surface of the PBY wing.

In summary, Elgen found a place on the PBY where there are rivets with a one inch pitch in parallel rows a little over four inches apart but the area is the wrong skin thickness, the rivets are the wrong size, and pitch and pattern of the 5/32" rivets are wrong.  It is not a perfect match to 2-2-V-1.  It is not even a close match to 2-2-V-1.  There is no evidence that 2-2-V-1 came from a PBY nor is there any basis for speculation that some PBY may have had a patch that looked like 2-2-V-1.  You don't patch a .045 skin and 5/32 rivets with a much thinner skinner and much smaller rivets.

Elgen Long is a respected figure in the world of Earhart researchers and it's not surprising that some have taken his allegation seriously.  We should answer it with a serious research paper that shows his allegation to be false.

[Greg Daspit]

You seem to have it 90 degrees off, Marty. 

This is how I think the template is laid out on the picture of the PBY wing, with rivet lines running along the long axis.

That would be inside out since that is the inside surface. I agree with what Jeff said. The tab is to the right.

[JNev]

I do think the foreshortening in the picture is that pronounced - which was surprising at first, but soon resolved as I studied the thing.  It is an oddly oblique view, I think.

As to the irreconsileable lines, yes, I think the obvious mismatches having to do with larger fasteners / double row, etc. were ignored.  I remain puzzled at this thing and am not convinced that Mr. Long himself would have put it up as a serious challenger to 2-2-V-1's provenance, but I guess I could be wrong about that.  I would hope not - it isn't a very serious effort if intended as such.  It seems more like an interesting 'what if' along the way of studying possibilities - something I'm all for in the 'brainstorming' sense, but a what-if that just doesn't bear out too well.

Hats off to Bill Mangus - great of you to go to all that trouble, Bill!  Nothing like 'being there' to get answers.

[Ric Gillespie]

I remain puzzled at this thing and am not convinced that Mr. Long himself would have put it up as a serious challenger to 2-2-V-1's provenance, but I guess I could be wrong about that.

I'm afraid you're wrong about that.  As recently as last Friday, Elgen Long insisted to a writer for Smithsonian magazine that he had shown that TIGHAR's artifact is a perfect match to a PBY.  Yesterday I reported Bill's findings to the Smithsonian writer.  He was going to get a response from Elgen.

[JNev]

Thanks for that follow-up, Ric (on the match/mis-match - comment #1 herein).

It is an amazing match, then - in SOME ways, but a total miss in some important ways -

One would have to replace the underlying structure to 'downsize' the rivets - you can't make 3/32" rivets work in 5/32" holes (the underlying stringers, etc. would have to be replaced).  Even if that were done, why would one drop down 2 rivet sizes?  Makes no sense - major compromise in strength.  That doesn't even get into the same concern for dropping 2 gages in skin thickness. 

Conversely, if 2-2-V-1 came from the Electra, we at least have the logic of having gone UP a skin gage - from .025 in that area to .032.  The original rivets were 3/32", if I am recalling accurately; the 5/32" rivets along the double staggered row are a puzzle, but not so much IF some modification was made, or if there was a need to overcome egged-out holes from at least two previous occasions of drill-outs.

Bottom line on PBY - I can't fathom a drop in 2 gages of sheet and 2 shank sizes in rivets unless I was on the backside of hell with no other way out; even then, how to buck 3/32" rivets into those big holes and make them stick - not going to happen, would have to replace stringer sections.  If you had all the stuff to do that, it is not too likely you'd be stuck with only 3/32" rivets, etc... gets to be a much bigger stretch that what we've surmised about a 2-2-V-1 fit to the Electra in my view.

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Comment #2 - Elgen Long's serious assertion / Smithsonian -

I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Long has made this assertion in a serious way, presuming he's talking about this same 'match' as depicted.  It doesn't seem helpful to his credibility.  I hope he will consider this all very carefully in his reply.

I admire his earnest efforts and sincerity - and agree or not, even the plausibility as I see it of much that he's worked hard to establish.

It would be best in my view if all serious searchers would consider the glass house effect of where they work... the rocks are a damn nuisance.

[Monty Fowler]

There's also the matter of the paint, in addition to all the other PBY disqualifiers - the odds of a piece of aluminum from a wartime PBY not being painted on at least one side are beyond vanishingly small.

2-2-V-1, as TIGHAR knows from extensive testing, has no paint on either side. So any reasonable person would conclude that 2-2-V-1 was not from a PBY. But, as TIGHARs know, TECTIC is anything but reasonable.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP

[Ric Gillespie]

I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Long has made this assertion in a serious way, presuming he's talking about this same 'match' as depicted.  It doesn't seem helpful to his credibility.  I hope he will consider this all very carefully in his reply.

In my view, the assertion is entirely consistent with his credibility, or rather, lack thereof.  Elgen is a nice guy, a record-setting pilot, and a dedicated researcher, but his investigative methodology has always been upside down.  He stands the scientific method on its head.  He begins with received wisdom and then backs into the proof by cherry-picking data and treating his speculative interpretations as fact. In this case, he was sure that TIGHAR's artifact could not have come from NR16020 so when he found a superficial similarity on a PBY that was close enough to "prove" he was right. 

[Ron Lyons]

One thing about the thickness.  As mentioned before, going up 1 size for a repair was common place, apparently, so would make sense on the Electra.  Also, the panel just forward of the window was .032 itself (as is the patch).   To imagine that any mechanic worth his salt would go DOWN two thicknesses in stock for an important section of the PBY (well.. they're all important!) is pretty hard to swallow.  There's a reason the skin is that thickness there, you can't just compromise that (but yet take the time to properly drill 100 rivet holes in it?).  This wouldn't have been done by a backyard mechanic, it was done by somebody who had the tooling, had the raw stock to make the piece with, and the ability to attach it to something with all those rivets.  Why would they theoretically go down so far, drastically, in stock thickness but do everything else so competently.. especially when it was apparently common place to go UP 1 size? It's not two sizes to thin, it's now 3 sizes too thin if it were a patch to a PBY. 

We have to invent a patch that theoretically could have been on a theoretical PBY that theoretically could have been in the area... and then ignore that it's the wrong thickness and 1 entire row of rivets doesn't line up, and they're all too small.  We also have to imagine that a fully painted plane would somehow have a patch with no paint on it. 

We know that an Electra, with a patch, was not only in the area, not only existed with photographic evidence of that patch, but also we know it was lost to the sea somewhere in the area.  We even know what DAY the Electra was in the area... with the right size rivets, and the right thickness of sheet metal.  95% of the entire plane is made of unpainted aluminum, which the patch is as well, and the artifact is as well. 

Keep Amelia out of it; if this were just a regular Electra there would be only a sliver of doubt it's the correct patch. 

[Nathan Leaf]

There's also the matter of the paint, in addition to all the other PBY disqualifiers - the odds of a piece of aluminum from a wartime PBY not being painted on at least one side are beyond vanishingly small.

2-2-V-1, as TIGHAR knows from extensive testing, has no paint on either side. So any reasonable person would conclude that 2-2-V-1 was not from a PBY. But, as TIGHARs know, TECTIC is anything but reasonable.

Is there consensus among materials forensics experts on the possibility of paint being "washed" away by decades of exposure to saltwater?  I ask because that is the main skeptic/TECTIC challenge to 2-2-V-1, i.e. they say that even if paint is undetectable now, it was likely a painted piece of aluminum when separated from its host.

Of all the submerged WWII aviation wrecks from the Pacific that I'm aware of, even rusted, coral-encrusted remnants of the aircraft's skin retain measureable paint residue after decades in the sea ... but this is my amateur understanding, not expert forensic knowledge and experience.

It is an important consideration, IMO ... if expert consensus is that any paint on the artifact when it became submerged would certainly be detectable by materials analysis today, the lack of such paint severely restricts the list of potential donor aircraft as Monty indicates above. 

[Ric Gillespie]

Is there consensus among materials forensics experts on the possibility of paint being "washed" away by decades of exposure to saltwater?

Not that I know of, and not that any of the skeptics have cited.  I can't say that it's not possible.

  I ask because that is the main skeptic/TECTIC challenge to 2-2-V-1, i.e. they say that even if paint is undetectable now, it was likely a painted piece of aluminum when separated from its host.

That's the main challenge??  That's the best they can come up with?? The lack of paint on 2-2-V-1 is interesting and supportive of the hypothesis that it came from the Miami Patch but, as evidence that the hypothesis is correct, it pales in comparison to the many other factors we've cataloged.

[Nathan Leaf]

  I ask because that is the main skeptic/TECTIC challenge to 2-2-V-1, i.e. they say that even if paint is undetectable now, it was likely a painted piece of aluminum when separated from its host.

That's the main challenge??  That's the best they can come up with?? The lack of paint on 2-2-V-1 is interesting and supportive of the hypothesis that it came from the Miami Patch but, as evidence that the hypothesis is correct, it pales in comparison to the many other factors we've cataloged.

Sorry, didn't complete my thought in that one ... fixed below:

I ask because that is the main skeptic/TECTIC challenge to 2-2-V-1 having a very limited number of possible donor aircraft, i.e. they say that even if paint is undetectable now, it was likely a painted piece of aluminum when separated from its host.

[JNev]

One thing about the thickness.  As mentioned before, going up 1 size for a repair was common place, apparently, so would make sense on the Electra.  Also, the panel just forward of the window was .032 itself (as is the patch).   To imagine that any mechanic worth his salt would go DOWN two thicknesses in stock for an important section of the PBY (well.. they're all important!) is pretty hard to swallow.  There's a reason the skin is that thickness there, you can't just compromise that (but yet take the time to properly drill 100 rivet holes in it?).  This wouldn't have been done by a backyard mechanic, it was done by somebody who had the tooling, had the raw stock to make the piece with, and the ability to attach it to something with all those rivets.  Why would they theoretically go down so far, drastically, in stock thickness but do everything else so competently.. especially when it was apparently common place to go UP 1 size? It's not two sizes to thin, it's now 3 sizes too thin if it were a patch to a PBY. 

Just to keep the record straight, I think the PBY manual suggests 'up a gage' for skins 'under .045"', so I'm content to say it is 2 gages too thin (.032", .041" and .045" are commonly available stock gages I'm familiar with) - but your point is well made.

We have to invent a patch that theoretically could have been on a theoretical PBY that theoretically could have been in the area... and then ignore that it's the wrong thickness and 1 entire row of rivets doesn't line up, and they're all too small.  We also have to imagine that a fully painted plane would somehow have a patch with no paint on it. 

We know that an Electra, with a patch, was not only in the area, not only existed with photographic evidence of that patch, but also we know it was lost to the sea somewhere in the area.  We even know what DAY the Electra was in the area... with the right size rivets, and the right thickness of sheet metal.  95% of the entire plane is made of unpainted aluminum, which the patch is as well, and the artifact is as well. 

Keep Amelia out of it; if this were just a regular Electra there would be only a sliver of doubt it's the correct patch.

I'm glad you put it that way because I was thinking inversely for a moment that 2-2-V-1 is still theoretical in the technical sense; but we've also worked awfully hard to show a reasonable way to tie 2-2-V-1 and a known patch - and that is a big difference.

To repeat, I realize the risk that 2-2-V-1 could somehow yet prove to have come from a different source, but so far that risk appears to grow a bit smaller everytime a suggested alternative is investigated.

How did TIGHAR respond to the 'PBY suggestion'?  A devoted member tore a chunk out of a weekend and went out to climb onto a PBY in a museum to look.  For those who imply that we can't stand the heat, I'd say that was fairly tough-minded - and dedicated.  I love that - it's what does make this place worthwhile.  Had Bill come back and said "the book is wrong - the shoe fits the PBY" we would have been disappointed that 2-2-V-1 finally failed the test, but grateful that a deliberate process eventually yielded results.

[Bill Mangus]

Thanks, Jeff.

And fair is fair.  We know a LOT more about 2-2-V-1 than was know back when Elgen Long did his analysis and took his photograph.

I emailed Ric the most important pictures and I'm crafting a trip report right now.