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[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Just been going through the Luke field inventory and, it's pretty straightforward and I can picture most of it ok. The only thing on it that has me perplexed is...

Roll containing:  11 Tubes sealed and marked as follows...

3 bureau of plant industry,
8 office of cooperative extension service, department of agriculture, Washington, DC.

Can someone enlighten me as to what on Earth they are and, what they looked like ?
 

[Ric Gillespie]

Earhart was doing an experiment whereby she (or rather Noonan) would use tubes attached to a pole mounted just outside the cabin door to take samples of the air hoping to catch pollen or insects at altitude.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Earhart was doing an experiment whereby she (or rather Noonan) would use tubes attached to a pole mounted just outside the cabin door to take samples of the air hoping to catch pollen or insects at altitude.

Ok Ric, thanks for that. That would explain the department of agriculture + bureau of plant bit. So would be something that would help to identify the wreckage if found?
I'll see what I can find re: the experiment

[richie conroy]

just like a comment earlier i read on facebook, someone asking if Tighar would get them some sand sample's as they have loads of samples from round the world except Nikumorro random or what 

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

What a coincidence! While researching the '11 tubes' atmospheric experiments that AE and FN were conducting for Dr. Fred C. Meier of the Department of Agriculture on their round the world flight, what do I find? He also vanished in a trans Pacific aircraft disappearance...

At 6:08 AM on July 29th, 1938 Hawaii Clipper, NC 14714 call sign KHAZB lifted from the waves heading for the Philippines, leaving Guam behind for the last time. Along the way Hawaii Clipper would send out half hour weather and position reports to KMGB at Guam, KZDY at Panay in the central Philippines, and to KXBQ in Manila.
 ■At 12:00, Hawaii Clipper transmitted in the clear her on the hour report: "KHAZB, Flying in rough air, 9,100 feet. Temperature 13 degrees centigrade. Wind 19 knots per hour from 247 degrees. Position latitude 12 degrees 40 minutes east. Dead reckoning. Ground speed make good 112 knots. Desired track 282 degrees. Rain. During past hour cloud conditions have varied. 10/10ths of the sky covered by cumulus clouds whose tips were 9,200 feet. 5/10ths of hour on instruments. Last direction finder bearing from Manila 101 degrees true."
 ■At 12:11 KZDY at Panay acknowledged Hawaii Clipper's report and requested permission to transmit the noon weather sequence. Hawaii Clipper signaled, "Stand by for one minute before sending as I am having trouble with rain static."
 ■At 12:12 KZDY Panay requested for the second time permission to transmit the weather sequence, and receved no reply. Hawaii Clipper had vanished. The official time of her disappearence was listed as 12:11
 ■By 13:30 the Pacific bases were put on emergency standby, and by 00:01 the U.S. Navy had fifteen vessels, six long-range bombers, and two small amphibians combing the sea between Guam and the Philippines.
 
With half hour position reports and RDF bearings which had been taken by the three monitoring stations the U.S. Navy searched for over a week and found nothing. No wreckage, no bodies, no debris, nothing.
 
Immediately after receiving word from Manila the U.S. Army transport ship Meigs, which had been sailing just 70 miles from Hawaii Clippers noon position began her search. During the 29th hour of her search Meigs spotted an oil slick just 28 miles from Hawaii Clipper's last known position. The oil slick was a 1,500 foot circle of oil rolling with the sea and Meigs launched a boat to take oil samples, which later proved not to have come from Hawaii Clipper.
 
No bodies, no wreckage, no debris. Hawaii Clipper had vanished.

http://www.dieselpunks.org/profiles/blogs/s-a-m-13-the-hawaii-clipper-mystery

[Irvine John Donald]

Should have looked on Gardner.  Seriously though, we have to remember that flying today is much safer than the 30's.  In this case it was likely something mechanical and catastrophic for the clipper not to have been able to land on the water and wait for rescue, or it did and was just never found.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Very strange Irv. I was just doing some research into what these 11 tubes looked like and discovered that the chap AE and FN were doing the experiments for vanished in another missing airplane incident over the Pacific a year later, 1938 (another project?). Oh well, back to the research although it might now turn out to be a bit more difficult.

[Irvine John Donald]

Perhaps that's the aircraft in the ROV video?   

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Perhaps that's the aircraft in the ROV video?   

Too many engines and not enough wheels Irv 

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Aluminium cylinders...Brackets fitted to door at Miami...
The reason I put this thread on the forum was that I am compiling a list and photographs/diagrams of objects that were unique to this particular flight which might at some stage provide a useful means of identifying any airplane wreckage. Objects that no other airplane would have on board in this particular location and time. So far I have included the auxillary fuel tanks with accompanying rods, levers and valves. Am trying to add the 'aluminium cylinders' to list if I can find pictures/diagrams.

That entry ended that particular batch of skywrit recordings. Unexplained it could imply something intimate and embarrassing. Actually what it referred to was remote and scientific. The creature to be caught was a micro-organism of the upper air. Fred C. Meier of the Department of Agriculture equipped me with a "sky hook" similar to that carried by colonel Lindbergh in his 1933 Greenland flight. this is a device to obtain in flight samples of air content which are then preserved in sealed aluminum cylinders for microscopic outside of the plane the cylinder is turned so that the slide within it is exposed to the moving air and gathers upon it whatever minute beasties may inhabit the particular stretch of atmosphere just then being flown through.
 
We devised a mechanical refinement for our sky hook. Noonan was too busy to hold it extended through either the cockpit window or the door of the fuselage, had either arrangement been practical. So, at Miami, we had brackets fitted to the side of the ship just behind the fuselage door. when this door was open a couple of inches, which was easily done, the device was clamped in these brackets, and the cylinder manually opened. Then for a period of thirty minutes of so nature took its course. subsequently the cylinder was closed, sealed and the place and time of it exposure recorded.
 
By the time Africa was reached we had a dozen or more such recordings. in the directions given me, Mr. Meier wrote: "This phrase of research was originally opened by Louis Pasteur in classical experiments recorded in 1860 which have since been followed by medical men and botanists of many countries. The results of our new upper air studies bring to light fundamental principles lead to many practical applications, perhaps the most important of which are improved measures of control of diseases of plants and animals." To get the hang of how to handle them we "exposed" a couple of alumimum cylinders before starting. I happened hat Fred coughed upon a slide of one of these. "That's ruined," he said, starting to throw it away. "The collection of germs on that slide would look like a menagerie under a microscope."
 
But I insisted on adding that cylinder to our collection. l thought it would give the laboratory workers something unique to ponder when they came upon its contents among the more innocent bacteria of the equatorial upper airs. Heaven knows what cosmic conclusions Fed's contribution might help them reach! . . . such absurd procedure must be debited to a pilot's perverted sense of humor.

http://www.janesoceania.com/oceania_amelia_earhart2/index.htm

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

These could be the brackets referred to in the previous post. I can't see them on any other pictures of Lockheed Electra Model-10.
Not 100% certain yet, have to wait to see if it passes the 'Gary' test, just kidding Gary

[Irvine John Donald]

Would anyone open the fuselage doors a couple of inches to replace a cylinder in the brackets OUTSIDE the aircraft without wearing a parachute?  Wouldn't this lend credibility to whether they carried parachutes for the entire flight?

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Would anyone open the fuselage doors a couple of inches to replace a cylinder in the brackets OUTSIDE the aircraft without wearing a parachute?  Wouldn't this lend credibility to whether they carried parachutes for the entire flight?

Good point Irv. I would have preferred to have at least been wearing a line if not the chute.

[Ric Gillespie]

There were short folding "stops" on the inside of the door that held the door open just enough to place or remove the pole for catching "bugs."  I think you would have to work at falling out the door in-flight.

[Irvine John Donald]

Not to diminish the parachutes notion, but cracking the door a couple of inches against the slipstream should not have been a big deal.  In fact, doors on airplanes often 'volunteer' to an opening of about that much, but resist further opening with some pressure - all a product of natural slipstream.  Whether FN would have put a chute on for that exercise would more likely depend on his level of paranoia about getting jarred out of the airplane than real danger, IMO, BUT I wasn't there - and maybe he insisted on that for all I know.  For instance, I don't know how difficult it was to 'clamp' the fixture into those brackets through the crack in the door - hopefully easy and quick, but 'hope' is not a plan.

LTM -

Thanks Jeff. I appreciate a pilot's input on this. If the picture that Jeff H posted in fact shows the brackets, and it's likely, then I would hope its a one handed job to replace the tube. But you still have to get your arm out that door.  ANY safety gear would be smart but "smart" wasn't always used in the planning or execution of this trip.
Thanks to Ric for the post on the door props.   I was hoping this would be a good piece of corroborative evidence on the carrying of parachutes but I see now there were other options.