1. We have both stated our positions regarding the probability that Earhart and Noonan would have been detected by Lambrecht and the other 5 aviators in his search formation if they had been on the island.
Search formation? Tell me how you know they used any kind of formation in searching the island (without using the words "would have"). There were three airplanes, each with a pilot and an observer. Lambrecht's observer was Seaman First Class J.L. Marks. He had flown just once before on this cruise, with Lambrecht on the morning flight the day before. The other observers on the McKean/Gardner/Carondelet Reef flight were Radioman 3rd Class Williamson who rode in the rear cockpit of Fox's airplane, and Lt. C. F. Chillingworth, the ship's Ass't 1st Lt. and Damage Control Officer, who rode behind Bill Short. More often than not during the Earhart search, the observers seem to have been whoever could cadge a ride - one of the three "AVCADs" (Aviation Cadets) or one of the ship's officers.
Your position is that there was a 80 to 90% chance that they would have been missed by the searchers and my interpretation of the cumulative POD table is that the probability of their being missed was only 10% if they were in the treeline and only a 5% chance if they were standing out in the open, on the beach or on the reef flat. I posted the tables so the reader can do his own calculation and come to his own conclusion, it ain't rocket science.
You just don't get it about this "would have" business. Now you're putting the words in
MY mouth. What I wrote was:
"According to present- day Civil Air Patrol Probability of Detection (POD) tables, the chance of Colorado’s planes locating the aircraft in the course of a single inspection of each island was on the order of 10 to 20 percent. In other words, if the Earhart plane was on one of the islands of the Phoenix Group, there is an 80 to 90 percent chance that Colorado’s search missed it."
I made a statement about the probability indicated by the modern day POD tables. You and I disagree about how to interpret those tables. That's fine, but I did not say there was a 80 to 90% chance that they
would have been missed by the searchers. My "position" is that Lambrecht didn't see anybody.
In my prior post, for simplification, I assumed the strip of land making up Gardner Island between the lagoon and the sea was half a nautical mile wide (3038 feet), but this was an overstatement.
Wait a minute, you mean you've gone on and on about all this and you're only NOW familiarizing yourself with the actual dimensions and characteristics of the island? Have you even looked at the DVD? Let me make it easier for you (and any forum subsribers who are not yet TIGHAR members).
The
Aerial Tour of Nikumaroro is now up on YouTube. Just click the link.
2. Regarding the radios in the planes, even if the planes did not have VHF or HF voice capability but only CW to communicate with the Colorado there was nothing to stop them from sending morse code messages from plane to plane, the radios work both ways.
I don't know that each of the planes was equipped with a radio. Do you? I do know that, according to the
Colorado deck log, throughout the entire voyage only one of the aircraft, Fox's airplane 4-0-6, carried a radioman.
3. You asked "where did I state that?"
Well, you wrote the following in your November 4th post:
"So if Earhart and Noonan were in the vicinity of Camp Zero (about a quarter of a mile north of the shipwreck and inland under the buka trees for shade) when the planes came over, why weren't they seen?"
That's right, but you claimed,
"You state that at that time Earhart was at "camp Zero" a quarter mile north of the ship and inside the treeline for shade, so very close to the beach."
You keep putting words in my mouth. Don't you see the difference between "if Earhart and Noonan were in the vicinity of Camp Zero" and "at that time Earhart was at "camp Zero"?
4. Since your statement as to where you think camp zero was located is pure speculation then I have the right to also speculate. I think that if they were on the island that they made their camp on the beach near he NC so as to be near where they expected any searchers would look first and to have the benefit of any little breezes that might come along instead of going through all the tough scaevola brush to be in a windless and oppressively hot location under the trees. They built a shelter out of either vegetation or with materials salvaged from the plane or a combination of both.
We all have the right to speculate. My speculation about where they camped is based upon having spent rather a lot of time on that particular beach and in the buka forest (although not the buka forest on that particular part of the island). What is your speculation based on?
5. You speculate that Lambrecht (and the other two planes) only did a cursory "circle and zoom" and then flew away but using your own estimate of the time they were over Gardner, 18 to 28 minutes, it is simple math to show that each of the three planes had enough time to make three to five complete circuits of the island, a total of 9 to 15 passes over each spot on the island for the flight of three planes. They were motivated to find Earhart (everyone wants to be a hero) so it is much more likely that they did a very thorough job in conducting this search than your speculation that they were off on a lark.
I think everyone can make up their own mind about what the pilots and other personnel aboard
Colorado thought about their mission.
Short's letter is revealing. "This whole business is certainly a royal pain in the neck..."
The headline of the ship's newspaper "
The Colorado Lookout" was Plane Search Halts Cruise.
6. Looking just at the Lambrecht search, as interpreted through the use of the modern tables in the National Search and Rescue Manual and the CAP manual which show that there is a very high probability that they would have been spotted if they had been on the island, my conclusion is that it is highly probable that they were NOT on the island at the time the search was made.
As I recall you also concluded that it was highly probable that Noonan could successfully navigate to Howland Island, and that it was impossible for AE and FN to fly down the LOP to Gardner, and that it was nearly certain that the plane, if washed over the reef edge, would float indefinitely. I'll say this - your way of reaching conclusions is a lot more economical than our way.