Hi Ric,
First, thanks so much for taking the time to take a look at the Date Line Theory and for your thorough comments. I'll try to address your comments above as best I can.
1. I understand the criticism about using the term "would have" - I've done my best to take the phrase out of my language on that page. In many cases, I replaced it with "could have" - which is what I'm really trying to say. What I'm suggesting is something that could have happened, not necessarily that it's definitely the way it did happen. I tried very hard in my explanation of the Date Line Theory to stick to that idea - this is one possibility for what happened among many possibilities.
2. This was a misunderstanding of language and so I've changed my wording here. I didn't mean to suggest knowing the way Noonan's charts (aka maps) were arranged in the plane, but rather the way the navigation tables and information are arranged in an almanac. I would not presume to know how Noonan had his tools arranged in the Electra. I should probably have stuck more closely to navigators' and aviators' specific uses of the terms "charts" and "tables." I interchanged them in this instance, and have now corrected that.
3. I feel that I did account for Noonan's expertise in my explanation. I point out that he did have experience crossing the Date Line, knew it was along their course and knew he needed to account for it. However, the timing of the flight was such that they crossed local midnight prior to the Date Line and changed local dates twice in the flight. As far as I can tell, Noonan had never dealt with that particular situation before. I also should clarify that my understanding is that Noonan was an excellent navigator and I have a deep respect for his abilities to celestially navigate. That is, in fact, near to the heart of the Date Line Theory - how could such an excellent navigator not find Howland Island? It makes me wonder if he made a simple mistake - in much the same vein that geniuses are inept at tying their own shoes. I find it hard to believe that such a skilled navigator could just "get lost" out there. Too many people underestimate Noonan's (and Earhart's) skills and experience. My theory suggests quite the contrary.
4. I do rely on Elgen Long's account that Howland was mapped as being ~6nm west of the actual Island. However, that fact is not essential to the core of the Date Line Theory. If they had the true coordinates of Howland Island, then the location they were heading for (if the Date Line Theory is correct) was 60nm west of Howland, rather than 66nm west of Howland. True or Mapped Howland coordinates do not change the effect of the Date Line. I chose to use the mapped Howland coordinates because I found Elgen Long's argument for it to be substantial.
5. Thanks for the note on the video caption. That caption is a quote from the source of the video which is labeled in the notes at the bottom of that page. I went ahead and edited the caption to reflect your comments. I took out the quotes for the first sentence and put it in my own words to avoid any errors in facts about the film clip.
6. I haven't seen substantial evidence that any of the post-loss radio signals were indeed from Earhart and Noonan. Therefore, I didn't include them as evidence in constructing the theory. I should note that while I am relatively convinced that Earhart crashed in the ocean and sank (mostly by the information as laid out by Elgen Long in his book), I'm not sold on any definitive re-construction of what happened. My main interest is in the effect of the International Date Line on the flight's navigation and I've shown that potential effect on my website. From there, many different things could have happened. In fact, the Date Line could have caused such an error, and they may have continued from that position southward, ending up at Gardner, as you suggest. This is one reason why I included both a straight-line and LOP approach to Howland Island in my diagrams. I don't wish to argue about the two different approaches - it seems there is evidence for both. I only wished to show that the Date Line could have been part of the chain of events in keeping them from reaching Howland Island. In my best estimation from reading the varied evidence, I came to the conclusion that crashing and sinking is the most plausible of outcomes from the Date Line error, so that is what I've put forward on the site.
As for your last critique, I would argue that I haven't taken the scant facts and twisted them to my theory. Quite the contrary. I read about the flight and the information we do have (thanks to you, Elgen, and others), and it made me wonder if the Date Line had an effect. So I started with the hypothesis - what if Noonan made an error when crossing the Date Line? What would have happened to their course and position with such an error? In following that hypothesis, it became apparent that such an error would put them ~60-66nm to the west of Howland (actual or as mapped). None of the substantiated evidence we have discounts that possibility, so I put it forth as a possibility. Building on that, I feel that the disparate radio calls (100 and 200 miles out) could potentially support the Date Line Theory, but (as I say on my website) I recognize that these radio calls don't don't make it so either and the discrepancy could be attributed to other explanations. As they say, correlation does not imply causation.
I hope that helps clarify the Date Line Theory in regards to your comments. Again, I do appreciate the feedback. Science and research are meaningless without peer review. I'd be curious to hear more commentary, especially on the celestial navigation calculations and how the Date Line theory works out for those in your forum experienced with using celestial navigation at sea.
clear skies,
Liz