Gary,
The reference I was commenting on in this thread was the speculation
(reply #47) that Fred would have taken the controls if Amelia had wanted to land on the reef so he could ditch the Electra 'Wheels-Up' in the Lagoon, as well as the postulation that
Fred's Piloting Experience was comparable to Amelia's. I do not think that would have occurred.
Your statement about Amelia not following his commanded headings is another matter and our discussion of Fred's Navigation
does not pertain to the question posted in this thread about "Forum pilot's opinions on best place to put the Electra on Gardner Island".I do not believe she would have refused to follow Fred's 'Headings' but if that were the case, then I could see his attempting to take flight control. I don't even want to think about how he would have accomplished that.
As far as Your Hypotheses for Fred's Navigation actions,
if he had followed that method, they would more likely have ended up at Howland than Gardner. From the Radio Logs it appears that they started with wanting a 'Vector' from the Itasca and did not even try their Loop (the
only reported successful reception) until 1930 GMT. If
any of those Post-Loss Radio Receptions were genuine, than the Electra could
not have splashed down (Ocean or Lagoon).
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Gregory,
The only statement I could find on TIGHAR Website about Tide Level at expected arrival time was this:
http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Overview/AEhypothesis.htmlYou are correct that the Radio Log tides deal with low tides which seem to occur about 0600-1100 GMT and 1800-2300 GMT (starting on second day and getting a little later each day).
Speculating from the TIGHAR Hypothesis might place an arrival at Gardner around 2100-2300 GMT which might be just a little past slack low tide and still shown that particular smooth portion of reef to be dry (others have stated that sea levels were 6" lower in 1937 compared to today.)
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Monte,
I apologize for contributing so much to the drift of your thread, this will be my last post in this thread.
As far as the
Japanese Attacks on Howland Island on December 8, 1941; since it was considered an airfield, I'm sure that was planned well ahead of time. As I recall it was first a
fleet of Bombers.
I would expect that their Navigation would be superior to the four year previous flight from Lae, considering that they would have had less distance to deal with, for one thing... Their Submarine (which also attacked later) could have been in the area to provide a Radio Signal to guide the Bombers to the area as well.