Gary,
Thanks for the point out to the background data. It led me to this thread where it is now clearer to me what the overall debate is about. I will admit to less expertise than is exhibited here but I will pose a caution to the debate. In my time as an aviator (1983-2005) the USAF progressed from basic DR flying to basic spinning mass INS (lots of drift), to ring laser INS, to INS with Kalman filtered GPS, to embedded GPS/INS. Most of that transformation occurred in a very short time (~1989-2001). Your references are mostly post 1940 and much was learned during the war years as military aviation dramatically advanced the navigational knowledge. I had seen a few of your references but not many but I had seen a Weems reference that may have been the same or earlier to your reference at:
[ftp]https://b98f4441-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/fredienoonan/resources/weems/weems-396-397.JPG?attachauth=ANoY7crN2oMcDFIs-Z1vBV0CMypbchRttj179c35KuFvER37EVL_ag0bhV17scWgn7aL1gGu0beZvRT5Z3taLFhD28Esyz8GAJ0g4HWdQfeOR4H8-cYIDlwL-sve0CVdTjrbtp1OgPx3zLyzlxaScn1NZtsbhswRSEPXFNGrubV2dYisRMQjg76-pJM6NaZSnC5nrljip2k2AcazIYu07NLZrZ91vQQStXjuCuyF7b17Qji2PAFZ2TCic8VQIUIhv0AKlFwnYGb2&attredirects=0/[ftp]
directing you to page 397 which closely describes the decision making process I described, Noting this is dated 1938 with the latest info at the time I would expect FN to be at or behind this level of technique, not using much that is found in your other references that date to 1940+.
But as a "driver" I will step back from the debate and wait to see what comes of future research. Admitting I learned how to use a Wiz Wheel in pilot training and promptly lost it thereafter. But the historian in me cautions all not to post-strapulate (a word I made up) 1940s procedures to 1937, much less current procedures.
Either way, as I have stated, we have no way of knowing what the atmospheric conditions were for finding an island at that time and what thought process went through their minds as they decided what to do. So I put myself in the mind of the rudimentary navigation of the time (which obviously isn't hard for me to do) and my knowledge of the islands in close proximity and I stick by the decision I would have made. Don't fly around in an expanding box, circle, donut, racetrack, or any other fuel burning operation looking for one tiny island. Rather head for a long line of them and hope you find one.
I found the reference to the gentleman who tested his navigation techniques and compared them to his GPS interesting. It is one thing to assess your navigation knowing where you are (thank you GPS) and flying only a short distance over water, it is quite another to have flown those great distances in 1937 and needing to decide what to do with no land in sight, with who knows how many hours of fuel remaining, when you get where you expect to be and see nothing. I will admit, they could have done just about anything that none of us can predict. So we pick one we think most likely and stick to it. Funny thing is, in the end, they could have wound up in the same place regardless of which choice they took depending on how much fuel they really had left. As others have stated a good miss to the south followed by an expanding search pattern could also have led to a landfall somewhere SSE of Howland. Maybe Mackean, maybe in the water.
By the way, when I flew F-4s the Weapons System Officers (WSOs) made sure we did not call them navigators. And you could depend on the F-4 INS to find the U.S. 4 out of 5 times if you started out flying over it. My hat's still off to FN for even getting on that airplane that AM.
JB