TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Nathan Leaf on November 06, 2014, 02:54:24 PM
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- A lot of islanders were 'moving stuff around' - but where did they happen to find this piece of metal that just happens to have these particular fingerprints?
The Occam's razor answer per Elgen Long in 1992, i.e. that the patch fits the wing of a PBY (an aircraft which frequented Gardner during the war) just outboard of the starboard engine, is highly problematic in one very important respect:
No paint on the artifact.
Navy fliers were not piloting large, lumbering, low altitude float planes around the Pacific in gleaming aluminum finish. They were painted either blue, tricolor, or black. I don't even think the Navy flew PBYs post-war around the Pacific in aluminum finish, though I'd need to research this, as my knowledge of service paint schemes is limited to the pre-war and war periods.
And I have yet to see anyone defending Long's argument, all of whom are surprisingly vehement that the artifact is a perfect fit with a place on the wing just outboard of the starboard engine, produce a photograph with the artifact superimposed on a PBY in this location. Has anyone else seen one? There are dozens of surviving PBYs out there, why do they neglect to provide this simple piece of supporting evidence? or did I just miss it?
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You illustrate some very important points here, Nathan.
For one - the 'razor' is something we should always respect. It doesn't hurt me to be reminded of that as I do enjoy conjecture when looing at possibilities; I am reminded that there have to be bounds, and that the hard-headed science must be respected.
Which brings me to the second point you've led me to -
I too am amazed at how vehement some can be as to what something 'is' (which I and others are often accused of, I understand...) without putting it to the test.
While mysteries remain, we have at least done our best to fit 2-2-V-1 to a real example to see if it makes sense; skunk or perfume may be in the eye (or nose) of the beholder, but it was an important smell test to many of us.
What happens next will have to depend on hard-headed, baby-step science, not a hip shot or gut feel. I realize the risks - and again, despite all my bloviations, that the razor doth swing.
I don't think 2-2-V-1 came from that bird cited by Long. I understand the temptation - the bird was there; there lies this tempting piece of metal. But, we don't know of an accident with the PBY that would have left such a chunk there, and as you point out, it lacks the 'fingerprints' necessary to that navy bird. So far as I know, 2-2-V-1 lacks any trace of paint.
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And I have yet to see anyone defending Long's argument, all of whom are surprisingly vehement that the artifact is a perfect fit with a place on the wing just outboard of the starboard engine, produce a photograph with the artifact superimposed on a PBY in this location. Has anyone else seen one? There are dozens of surviving PBYs out there, why do they neglect to provide this simple piece of supporting evidence? or did I just miss it?
And there is the small fact that TIGHAR looked at the PBY at the National Museum of the USAF as part of its due dilligence to check out ALL possibilities for 2-2-V-1 being from a US military aircraft. If there had been a match, TIGHAR would have moved on by now as far as 2-2-V-1 is concerned.
I invite TIGHAR's legions of detractors to go there and look for themselves. Talk is cheap. TIGHAR has talked the talk and walked the walk on whether The Patch came from a PBY.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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I was thinking of that same thing yesterday, Monty. We've got TIGHAR's videos, papers, this forum, literally tens of thousands of man hours of hard work to support TIGHAR's theories.
Where is the video of the detractors and skeptics putting forth 1 ounce of effort to disprove the theories? They say it fits the other plane, o.k., show us it fits the other plane, because Ric & co. went through considerable effort to show us it fits the Electra.
Healthy skepticism is one thing (I'm a healthy skeptic) and none of us like to be proven a fool; but when TIGHAR is supporting what they theorize with mountains and mountains of research from every possible angle, and the skeptic ignores it without putting any effort into refuting it, to the outside observer it only strengthens TIGHAR's theories.
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I too am amazed at how vehement some can be as to what something 'is' (which I and others are often accused of, I understand...) without putting it to the test.
Well they are coming out of the woodwork on the comments thread in the National Geographic article recently posted about 2-2-V-1:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141104-amelia-earhart-forensic-photo-spectral-imaging-analysis/
"Their" commitment to winning the PR battle is relentless and impressive.
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The mind of a conspiracy theorist is a awesome thing to behold.
There's just one tiny problem that I can see with the "PBY wing match photo" posted here: http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg) - it shows the lines of rivet holes perpendicular to the long axis of The Putative Patch. The rivet holes on 2-2-V-1 are parallel to the long axis of The Patch. You can't tell anything about the rivet spacing from that photo, either.
Which would seem, to me, to demolish or at least put a serious crimp in the "It came from a PBY" argument.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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The mind of a conspiracy theorist is a awesome thing to behold.
The motto/mantra of conspiracy theorists seems to be: "Don't confuse me with the facts."
That's why they may steer away from re-runs of the old TV staple, Dragnet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4LPkmGO5Cc).
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There's just one tiny problem that I can see with the "PBY wing match photo" posted here: http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg) - it shows the lines of rivet holes perpendicular to the long axis of The Putative Patch. The rivet holes on 2-2-V-1 are parallel to the long axis of The Patch.
Wow!
Talk about falsifying data!
Elgen Long should be ashamed of himself, at a minimum, if he is responsible for that photo.
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I wonder if the apparent external difference in the rear window external "trim", if thats a good way to word it, could be connected to the modification mentioned in this excerpt from Elgin Long's book.
I need to re-read Long. Curious as to where that detail was obtained from and whether more might be learned about 'hatch' vs. 'patch' - interesting. Especially interesting in that Long's tone about this point is clearly confident and detailed - down to option to open the hatch for fresh air, etc.
Could 2-2-V-1 have been part of a 'hatch', not a 'patch'? If there was a 'hatch', is the damage we see on 2-2-V-1 consistent with a skin being ripped-off of a frame that is affixed to the skin, but not permenantly to the airframe itself? Bears review, still so much to learn about this piece of 'junk'.
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The mind of a conspiracy theorist is a awesome thing to behold.
There's just one tiny problem that I can see with the "PBY wing match photo" posted here: http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg) - it shows the lines of rivet holes perpendicular to the long axis of The Putative Patch. The rivet holes on 2-2-V-1 are parallel to the long axis of The Patch. You can't tell anything about the rivet spacing from that photo, either.
Which would seem, to me, to demolish or at least put a serious crimp in the "It came from a PBY" argument.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
No, the orientation is correct, Monty. Note where the much celebrated 'tab' is placed - at the "bottom" of the patch as we've envisioned it on the Electra as the stiffener orientation supports. I believe it is merely the oblique view - looking rather flatly onto the wing, that causes the illusion of a 90 degree shift in axis (short / long axes swapped).
That said, how was this visual scaled to the PBY structure? I studied a PBY carefully in Dayton, and my belief is that the actual row spacing is too wide for a fit to 2-2-V-1. Are we looking at an accurate mylar or similar of 2-2-V-1 laid onto this wing?
Another observation - where is the 'double rivet row' on this area of the PBY that we'd expect to see along the 5/32" / tab edge of 2-2-V-1, as it is placed in this photo? Does the 'aft row' (which would correspond to 'our' bottom row) match to the failure edge? Are those 5/32" rivets along that single row? Is there some feature that would explain the tab (as we have before us as a question as well)?
We have seen a reasonable, if not perfect, candidate for that on the Electra - there does happen to exist a double/staggered row in 'the right place'; I do not see it in this area of the PBY - but perhaps some of those questions could be explored.
Is there a more direct view of this overlay on the PBY, perhaps looking straight down? Someone had to go out there to lay on this overlay, unless it was 'shopped' somehow (that's not an accusation, it is merely wondering how done); if so, surely there are more pictures?
Now, that said, and as said before, I did not examine the upper surfaces of any airframe to speak of, save the B-17 'The Swoose', whose wings did give access to check the waffle-backed areas of the outer panels that were once suggested by Mark Pearce. That was actually an interesting candidate, but the spacing of the rows did not come close to what would have been dictated by the waffle plating underneath (see picture "SAM_2478.jpg" below, especially).
I remain grateful to Mark, by the way, for bringing that structural feature to my attention - it was an eye-opener as to one method Boeing used to make those birds so battle worthy.
But other than 'Swoose's' wings lying on mattresses, we were not provided with that level of access, so I would never claim we examined all the aluminum acreage present in Dayton - but we did take an impressive sampling away.
Interesting view, but only as a concept for now as I see it. Until someone could properly scale this it means nothing. All that is needed is an accurate overlay view and it could be proven, or disproven.
2-2-V-1 is also unpainted. Were the PBYs unpainted in this area? That's another attribute to consider.
More needs to be done by whomever is trying to make a point of fitting 2-2-V-1 to the PBY. Before I am attacked for shirking that 'responsibility' by those who would toss this on the kitchen wall, I'll have to say that I am fresh out of road time for now after that trip to Dayton, so while I am very open to any real analysis, I am not going to take the bait to go after that for the sake of another who wishes to make the point... ::) But I am all for it.
I am not super confident that a fit will be found, but by my pictures of the lower surface of the PBY's wing, it does appear to me that there are some marked differences atop the wing by comparison. You never really know until you really, really look.
Meanwhile, no doubt this will stir the souls and pens of those who tend to proclaim us as less than thorough and merely sensational in the quest to point out just how wrong we are to be looking where we look... :P
Enjoy the pix... and the birdshit is 'on me', or was. All tne more reason for the next guy to go climbing around on an old PBY, it would be a bit much for the ol' asthma right now.
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There's just one tiny problem that I can see with the "PBY wing match photo" posted here: http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg) - it shows the lines of rivet holes perpendicular to the long axis of The Putative Patch. The rivet holes on 2-2-V-1 are parallel to the long axis of The Patch.
Wow!
Talk about falsifying data!
Elgen Long should be ashamed of himself, at a minimum, if he is responsible for that photo.
Can't believe some of the comments over there. Long suggests that it can't be the patch, because there's no record a patch was ever put on the plane (seriously!). Others suggest that you can clearly see all the rivet lines on the Perdue picture, but they're talking about the seams on the panels, 3 feet apart. So they don't see any 'rivet lines' on the patch. Then others are just flat out lying about it (TIGHAR never saw this photo, TIGHAR hasn't given measurements, etc.).
I can now see why Ric goes to the lengths he does to state certain things as pedantically as he does, the line of critics is a mile long!
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The mind of a conspiracy theorist is a awesome thing to behold.
There's just one tiny problem that I can see with the "PBY wing match photo" posted here: http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg) - it shows the lines of rivet holes perpendicular to the long axis of The Putative Patch. The rivet holes on 2-2-V-1 are parallel to the long axis of The Patch. You can't tell anything about the rivet spacing from that photo, either.
Which would seem, to me, to demolish or at least put a serious crimp in the "It came from a PBY" argument.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
I studied a PBY carefully in Dayton, and my belief is that the actual row spacing is too wide for a fit to 2-2-V-1.
The PBY repair manual (http://miravim.org/avimlibrary/Manuals/Airframe%20Manuals/Other%20Airframes/Consolidated%2001-5M-3%20(PBY-5%20,%205A,%206A%20-%20Handbook%20of%20Structural%20Repair%20Manual).pdf) has some dimensions.
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There's just one tiny problem that I can see with the "PBY wing match photo" posted here: http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg) - it shows the lines of rivet holes perpendicular to the long axis of The Putative Patch. The rivet holes on 2-2-V-1 are parallel to the long axis of The Patch.
Wow!
Talk about falsifying data!
Elgen Long should be ashamed of himself, at a minimum, if he is responsible for that photo.
Can't believe some of the comments over there. Long suggests that it can't be the patch, because there's no record a patch was ever put on the plane (seriously!). Others suggest that you can clearly see all the rivet lines on the Perdue picture, but they're talking about the seams on the panels, 3 feet apart. So they don't see any 'rivet lines' on the patch. Then others are just flat out lying about it (TIGHAR never saw this photo, TIGHAR hasn't given measurements, etc.).
I can now see why Ric goes to the lengths he does to state certain things as pedantically as he does, the line of critics is a mile long!
Can't win with some people, Ron. The more one takes those pains, the more one gets criticized in some circles for playing word puff games, etc. The less one does it, the less is clearly understood by most readers, I think. Tough balance keeping interesting things in front of folks and keeping it real, good observation.
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The PBY repair manual (http://miravim.org/avimlibrary/Manuals/Airframe%20Manuals/Other%20Airframes/Consolidated%2001-5M-3%20(PBY-5%20,%205A,%206A%20-%20Handbook%20of%20Structural%20Repair%20Manual).pdf) has some dimensions.
That's a great resource, Greg. Section II, Paragraphs 2-22 to 2-27 dealing with wing skin damage and repair and Figure 2-7 discussing rivet spacing is very interesting.
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The PBY repair manual (http://miravim.org/avimlibrary/Manuals/Airframe%20Manuals/Other%20Airframes/Consolidated%2001-5M-3%20(PBY-5%20,%205A,%206A%20-%20Handbook%20of%20Structural%20Repair%20Manual).pdf) has some dimensions.
That's a great resource, Greg. Section II, Paragraphs 2-22 to 2-27 dealing with wing skin damage and repair and Figure 2-7 discussing rivet spacing is very interesting.
Yes, I thought the same thing. The repair methods in that manual are more interesting than the things that may help prove or disprove someone else’s suggestion for a different fit for the artifact. I tend to agree that the ones suggesting alternate locations for the artifact need to do a much better job of presenting their own evidence.
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I too am amazed at how vehement some can be as to what something 'is' (which I and others are often accused of, I understand...) without putting it to the test.
Well they are coming out of the woodwork on the comments thread in the National Geographic article recently posted about 2-2-V-1:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141104-amelia-earhart-forensic-photo-spectral-imaging-analysis/
"Their" commitment to winning the PR battle is relentless and impressive.
It is a nice article.
We shouldn't be upset with the comments. Although many deviate from it, healthy critical debate is a fine thing. But I'm afraid you are right - so much of this is about nothing more than wishing to dampen what is perceived as splash enjoyed by another. Maybe in some cases it is someone else wishing for more splash of their own (and slight apologies to 'splashed-n-sank').
The utterly hilarious part of that to me is that NO ONE is going to drive a stake through the heart of this mystery short of AIRPLANE ON THE DECK: if someone believes they have a better idea, then go sell the idea, instead of trying to de-sell the other guy's idea. When I see so much negative energy going into these things it suggests to me that we're actually seeing a lack of 'sellability' of someone else's idea, if you will. I'm sure that much of it is no more than the ordinary cosmic static that the internet generates - there are always armchair naysayers for everything from aspirin to zebra stripes. But I also don't doubt that at least some of it is 'competitively driven', even if only by a few who find alternate theories more to their liking.
All of which also tells me that there are no better ideas floating around, or those who are busy thus would be busy at their own workshop and their followers would be preoccupied with those pursuits.
In a way, that is pitiable - maybe the public can't get as excited about going out to look at a few square miles of ocean floor as theorized by a navigation guru, etc. as they can about the idea of Earhart washing up on Gardner, tantalizingly close to her destination, but with no cigar box - only maybe a long lost sextant box, but having left (possibly) other tidbits lying about.
Backing off and looking at the whole thing as best I can - biases and all, it is just odd how the emotions run wild in this - and yet I too have that same bug somehow. It's just too bad that we cannot all build more of a community-minded idea for the search... but I guess human nature gets in the way - berries don't get picked without some sense of competition, it seems.
Oh well, maybe Earhart herself wouldn't be surprised that humans are about as mired in the negative as they tended to be when she left Lae in 1937. I wonder if she'd ever have made that flight if she'd of taken her ques from the naysayers of her day? I'm sure there were plenty. She failed - and many of those who search will fail too - including possibly us, ultimately. But the glory is in the effort.
Wouldn't it be great if those who differ simply went on and applied that energy in a search instead of finding fault with others? Me included, I must try harder.
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The PBY repair manual (http://miravim.org/avimlibrary/Manuals/Airframe%20Manuals/Other%20Airframes/Consolidated%2001-5M-3%20(PBY-5%20,%205A,%206A%20-%20Handbook%20of%20Structural%20Repair%20Manual).pdf) has some dimensions.
That's a great resource, Greg. Section II, Paragraphs 2-22 to 2-27 dealing with wing skin damage and repair and Figure 2-7 discussing rivet spacing is very interesting.
Figure 2.5 shows some specific wing stringer spacings in the area just outboard of the engine - lateral stations 16 through 18 are clearly depicted. I'm not sure those stations are entirely representative of the whole wing in terms of stinger spacing, but this was the general area of focus in the Long photo, it seems. By this, the upper surface stringer spacings are more on the order of 7 to 9 inches, typically. The spacing on 2-2-V-1 is more on the order of 4" +/-, depending on which rows are measured and where. I do see one spacing that is closer to the 2-2-V-1 example - a bit over 4" - it is the aft-most spacing between stations 15 and 16. Overall, what I am seeing in the manual is more nearly what I recall seeing in Dayton on a 'live' PBY - it's a big airplane, and the stringers are mostly not so close together - more like the dimensional callouts that I'm seeing in the manual.
Now I am left puzzled by the Long photo and how it was scaled - something does not seem right. Can it be that we're simply not seeing the same area in the manual here as in the photo? Or, was there perhaps an error in scaling that layover that was shown on the actual wing? Who authored that depiction, can we get more information, perhaps? I'd really like to know how they sized that layover. I'd also still like to see a clear overhead shot if it can be had.
The manual is a great resource, lots of neat and useful information - good find, thanks for sharing that.
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The PBY repair manual (http://miravim.org/avimlibrary/Manuals/Airframe%20Manuals/Other%20Airframes/Consolidated%2001-5M-3%20(PBY-5%20,%205A,%206A%20-%20Handbook%20of%20Structural%20Repair%20Manual).pdf) has some dimensions.
That's a great resource, Greg. Section II, Paragraphs 2-22 to 2-27 dealing with wing skin damage and repair and Figure 2-7 discussing rivet spacing is very interesting.
Paragraph 2-22 also recommends the thickness of the skin be increased (when the original is .032 or less) just like the experts TIGHAR consulted with noted.
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The PBY repair manual (http://miravim.org/avimlibrary/Manuals/Airframe%20Manuals/Other%20Airframes/Consolidated%2001-5M-3%20(PBY-5%20,%205A,%206A%20-%20Handbook%20of%20Structural%20Repair%20Manual).pdf) has some dimensions.
That's a great resource, Greg. Section II, Paragraphs 2-22 to 2-27 dealing with wing skin damage and repair and Figure 2-7 discussing rivet spacing is very interesting.
Paragraph 2-22 also recommends the thickness of the skin be increased (when the original is .032 or less) just like the experts TIGHAR consulted with noted.
'Same or next thicker gage' is a fairly common recommendation.
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"PBY wing match photo" posted here: http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg"
It's curious to me why that photograph was taken the way it was. I mean, someone had to walk out on the wing and lay that approximation of 2-2-V-1 there, where they thought there was a match. Why not take the picture from there, just above it, with a ruler or some other object included for scale/dimensions. Very strange and certainly not conclusive, to me at least, especially seeing how carefully the work was done in Kansas.
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It's curious to me why that photograph was taken the way it was. I mean, someone had to walk out on the wing and lay that approximation of 2-2-V-1 there, where they thought there was a match. Why not take the picture from there, just above it, with a ruler or some other object included for scale/dimensions.
Exactly, Bill. As Jeff so gently pointed out, my assertion on the orientation was wrong, but, still, there is nothing that tells us HOW that photo was taken. Or any kind of scale. Or really ... anything, except it's a picture of something white on something that is largely gray.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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2-2-V-1 is also unpainted. Were the PBYs unpainted in this area? That's another attribute to consider.
Exactly, Jeff. 2-2-V-1 was tested for paint residue. None was found, on either surface. If 2-2-V-1 was from a wartime PBY loss, of which there were eight between 1940-1944, it would have been painted on both sides, or certainly at least on the "outside" surface.
So if 2-2-V-1 is from a PBY, as TIGHAR's detractors allege, why isn't it painted?
LTM, who is pretty sure he can handle the truth,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR no. 2189 ECSP
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Looking at the Long photo and trying to locate where they think the match is on figure 2.3 in the Repair Manual, I think their approximation of the patch is located over the inboard end of the internal fuel tank in that wing. The skin thickness specified in that drawing is .045 (in the middle of that cross-hatched section).
2-2-V-1 is .032.
Am I interpreting the drawing correctly?
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Some interesting paragraphs in the PBY manual were regarding the importance of using “Clad” in regards to corrosion resistance, or to paint the “unclad” metal. You would expect that to be a major concern for a PBY. Same concern for Pan Am’s sea plane maintenance facilities. We also know Lockheed painted their Alclad (interior).
With the concern to use the right metal in repairs: If either the Lockheed factory or Pan Am’s repair facility had leftover painted metal or small unpainted left overs that had no visible markings, would they want to mark it as “CLAD” or “ALCLAD” using their own stamp?
I keep coming back to the hypothesis that the aluminum suspected to be used as the patch is not the same as what was used in manufacture and that it went thru a different journey if it was the same.
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I doubt a shop would re-mark leftovers; the practice is more typically that the applied markings were applied with enough frequency so as to appear for the most part on any smaller cuts, within reason. 2-2-V-1 appears to be of enough size for the mill markings to appear a number of times.
2-2-V-1 is not marked like the factory metal in the Electra; our hypothesis aside, we don't know where the patch metal came from.
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I wonder if the apparent external difference in the rear window external "trim", if thats a good way to word it, could be connected to the modification mentioned in this excerpt from Elgin Long's book.
Long provides no source for his assertion other than:
"March 1937 photos show a window. May 1937 photos in Miami show an aluminum hatch both open and closed."
No they don't.
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I gave Elgen that template in 1992. If he has exactly matched it to a PBY he has never told me. If he has a detailed report that supports his claim he needs to produce it before he makes the assertion. That’s the standard we follow. To be credible, that’s the standard he must follow.
The attached photo was posted to a blog by his grandson. It supposedly shows the template and the ‘exact fit” of the template to the upper wing surface of a PBY. As poor as the photo is, I can see a big problem. The artifact has four parallel rows of 3/32nd inch rivets. One edge of the artifact (the edge with the “tab” sticking out) tore along a double staggered row of 5/32nd inch rivets. I see no double row of larger rivets on the PBY. The parallel lines of rivets are clearly all the same size.
To match the artifact to a PBY (or any airplane) takes more than finding five parallel rows of rivets roughly for inches apart. We found places like that on several different types. To have a match to the artifact requires:
• Four rows of 3/32nd inch rivets with a pitch (distance between rivets) of 1 inch.
• The distance between parallel rows must be nominally, but not consistently, 4 5/8ths inches.
• A double staggered row of 5/32 inch rivets with a pitch of 1.5 inches, except for one anomalous spot where there is a 1 5/8ths inch gap.
• The rivets must be AN 455 brazier heads
• The skin to which they are attached must be .032 24St Alcad
If Bill Mangus is correct that the skin thickness in that area was .045 that puts another nail in the coffin.
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I just checked the PBY Repair Manual (http://miravim.org/avimlibrary/Manuals/Airframe%20Manuals/Other%20Airframes/Consolidated%2001-5M-3%20(PBY-5%20,%205A,%206A%20-%20Handbook%20of%20Structural%20Repair%20Manual).pdf). See Figure 2-3 on page 17 "Wing Plating Diagram. There's no doubt about it. The section where Long says the artifact is a "perfect match" is .045. In fact, there is no .032 skin on the entire upper wing.
Elgen Long's claim can be categorically dismissed. The rivet pattern is wrong (no double staggered row) and the skin thickness is wrong. I'd wager that the rivet size is also wrong. I can't imagine an itty-bitty #3 rivet in a .045 skin.
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This from skeptic Mark Pilkington, who posted to the Nat Geo article ... this seems to be the main line of attack from the comment threads in all the recent web articles about 2-2-V-1:
"There are other photos such as the Darwin photo that provides adequate rivet line identification, but is apparently not being analysed by Tighar.
But the need to evidence stiffeners, or justify the 4 rows of 3/32" holes , or alternatively find what other aircraft it could be from, or why it is without wartime paint are all largely irrelevant given Tighars own work seems to show the Artefact is too high by @ 2"?
http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1490.msg32359.html#msg32359
The window frame is shown to be 18" high, the inner dimensions from rivet to rivet is more like 17" top to bottom, yet the Artefact is known to be 19" high as confirmed by the NTSB report.
The lower 5/32" rivet line bears no resemblance to the staggered 5/32" rivet line seen on the New England Electra on the lower longeron, and the Darwin photo clearly shows the patch finishes flush with that longeron and row of rivets,
ie the tab on the lower edge of the artefact is not protruding lower as is presented in the Tighar bulletin, and once you lift it up, the top edge height of the patch is clearly exceeded.
http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/73_StepbyStep/25_artifactexterior.jpg
Similarly, the Tighar bulletin and photograph at New England shows the forward edge of the Artefact hard up against station 293-5/8" position, yet it is agreed by Ric Gillespie in the forum, and on the youtube that is incorrect, and shifting the Artefact rearwards destroys the claim that former at 307" is lining up with the Artefact, but also then the rear edge and rivet line of the patch becomes compromised by the artefact width.
The 19" height against an 18" patch seems rather conclusive, without exploring PBY wing skins or the possibility that the sandwashing in the sea that the Artefact has clearly suffered may have stripped it of any paint in any case.
Then there is the minor issue of the "ALCLAD" stencil, known to have existed in 1943, and unknown and un-evidenced to have existed prior to that date."
Why don't these folks engage in the discussion here? Do they fear a factual discussion with the researchers who have invested so much time in the critical analysis of this and other pieces of evidence? (Only semi-rhetorical....)
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Interesting that they grab at a couple minor things and use that to try to disprove the entire thing, and ignore all the other evidence.
In the picture, Ric is holding the piece slightly too low. The bottom row of double rivets lines up with a stringer placed just above the bottom of the window sill, which Ric himself mentioned and brought up. Even when moved up an inch or whatever, it doesn't move outside the 'tape' in the picture, and as Ric stated, the object appears slightly bigger than it is anyways because he's not holding a piece of rusted scrap metal up to touch the side of a beautiful, brand new plane!
Then the tape isn't perfectly lined up square, either, and we also aren't looking at a plate that filled the hole of the window, but one that covered the entire window and overlapped. Nobody knows the exact inch the boundary at the top was, or even at the bottom, how close the rivets were to the edge, etc.
So they're trying to disprove the evidence because they think it's 1" too big than the hole in the plane? Of course it's bigger than the hole, it's a cover.
The assertion that front to back the middle stringer or impression on the plate doesn't line up with the stringer on the plane is just flat out untrue, I believe they misunderstood the point TIGHAR made about that measurement.
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Im sad to admit that certain circumstances have left me doing my impersonation of decapitated poultry the past few days and I hadnt had much time to sit down and read any of the news articles until yesterday and today.
Some of the comments are educated and well thought out, others are blatantly hostile (Mad that they didnt get to it first, maybe?) and some are just downright laughable. Lots of arm chair experts coming out of the woodwork to weigh in. Interesting enough is the people who are asking questions or starting discussions that are covered in this forum, in great detail. If they want to be so vocal about it, I second Nathan's question: Why dont they come here and have an intelligent discussion rather than spouting off nonsense and assumptions?
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Im sad to admit that certain circumstances have left me doing my impersonation of decapitated poultry the past few days and I hadnt had much time to sit down and read any of the news articles until yesterday and today.
Some of the comments are educated and well thought out, others are blatantly hostile (Mad that they didnt get to it first, maybe?) and some are just downright laughable. Lots of arm chair experts coming out of the woodwork to weigh in. Interesting enough is the people who are asking questions or starting discussions that are covered in this forum, in great detail. If they want to be so vocal about it, I second Nathan's question: Why dont they come here and have an intelligent discussion rather than spouting off nonsense and assumptions?
Excellent points, Krystal.
A good summary of critiques by the crashed-and-sank group appeared in the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-bangs/amelia-earhart-found-not-everyone-agrees_b_6124448.html)yesterday. Someone I know brought this to my attention as a good description of the flaws in TIGHAR's hypothesis. Much in the article misstates stated positions, and other parts are just misinformed. Some parts claim more than TIGHAR has claimed, to set up the 'straw man'. It might be a good exercise to analyze the article sentence by sentence, in a reasoned way, perhaps in a new thread if response is adequate.
Of course, any such analysis could begin by saying that Nikumaroro has not been 'proven' as the resting place of AE and that this has not been claimed.
Joe Cerniglia
TIGHAR #3078ER
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Im sad to admit that certain circumstances have left me doing my impersonation of decapitated poultry the past few days and I hadnt had much time to sit down and read any of the news articles until yesterday and today.
Some of the comments are educated and well thought out, others are blatantly hostile (Mad that they didnt get to it first, maybe?) and some are just downright laughable. Lots of arm chair experts coming out of the woodwork to weigh in. Interesting enough is the people who are asking questions or starting discussions that are covered in this forum, in great detail. If they want to be so vocal about it, I second Nathan's question: Why dont they come here and have an intelligent discussion rather than spouting off nonsense and assumptions?
Excellent points, Krystal.
A good summary of critiques by the crashed-and-sank group appeared in the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-bangs/amelia-earhart-found-not-everyone-agrees_b_6124448.html)yesterday. Someone I know brought this to my attention as a good description of the flaws in TIGHAR's hypothesis. Much in the article misstates stated positions, and other parts are just misinformed. Some parts claim more than TIGHAR has claimed, to set up the 'straw man'. It might be a good exercise to analyze the article sentence by sentence, in a reasoned way, perhaps in a new thread if response is adequate.
Of course, any such analysis could begin by saying that Nikumaroro has not been 'proven' as the resting place of AE and that this has not been claimed.
Joe Cerniglia
TIGHAR #3078ER
Well said, Joe.
I have been tempted to address some of those things but find it wearying to try to discuss things with people who are determined all too often to see it only one way.
Your closing sentence is an excellent start. It is tiring to see our 'claims' constantly attacked as 'false' or 'unfounded', when what we are continuing to do is 'explore'.
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I gave Elgen that template in 1992. If he has exactly matched it to a PBY he has never told me. If he has a detailed report that supports his claim he needs to produce it before he makes the assertion. That’s the standard we follow. To be credible, that’s the standard he must follow.
One of the things I like about TIGHAR is we openly and aboveboard share everything. Many (in fact the majority) of TIGHAR's detractors do not. The overwhelming attitude appears to be, "We're right because we know we're right, you're just going to have to trust us, and if you don't agree with us, well, you're just too stupid to understand why we're right."
TIGHAR has now made a reasoned. point-by-point rebuttal of Long's claim. Unfortunately, things like the truth and facts seldom slow TECTIC down.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
P.S. - This reminds me of that moment in the OJ Simpson trial: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit!" Elgen Long's glove doesn't fit. Over to you, TIGHAR!
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What we need is a really good picture of the 'patch' on the airplane that shows details, once and for all.
That has always been the case and remains the case. Until then it will always be a matter of how much confidence we have by the best studies we can apply. We can determine the alternate possibilities with some reason, which we've done. No paint (and I don't buy that the surf and sand would completely scour all traces but leave the font tracings, etc.) and other fingerprints tell us much about where it would and would not logically have come from.
Rivet patterns would be damning or upholding, if they truly matched anything we could find. Not matching, we're left looking the 'wild card', which is where we've been for a while.
That drives us to reviewing things like the Miami patch as a possibility - or probability, as one may choose to see it - and into the depths of trying to understand what happened to make that occur. That leads to all the exploratory conjecture that we get into as we try to make sense of this or that detail and how it might have fit.
So, there I go again, off into 'dreamland' as some see it - no, it's not the preferred stuff of the hands-on, right-now hardheaded A&P who deals in black and white / airworthy or not realm - which I know well and have lived by in a long career, but of one now trying to get into the mindset of the guy who was chosen by Earhart to accompany her on that domestic leg to do her bidding to get the ship fit to her terms. I suppose that does throw me into the Gary LaPook world of 'channeling Noonan', as I've seen it (sorry Gary, wherever you are - but here I do the same, it seems) - now I seem to have dabbled with channeling Bo McNeeley. What a lout I am, eh? The alternative is to shrug one's shoulders and say 'let the barn build itself'. Bah, I'd rather try to build, just in case we find a horse.
If it came from that wing panel on the PBY that is inboard of "panel splice" at wing station 11 (which appears to be the case) then we're dealing with .045" parent skin, per the manual. But, if the shoe fits, given that Ric openly shared a template of 2-2-V-1 with Elgen Long, then where are the details in return? Ric's raised a very fair point on that, and I know that Ric and Mr. Long have had a good relationship - it seems incongruous that we'd have this hint of 'here 'tis' with no real substantiation from the man himself. So, Mr. Long, if you did that, people here who care about the search have put a fair bit of effort in - so if you know something we don't, then please, by all means... but not this shadowy 'byte', please - surely was not you who'd do that?
As to the PBY, we know 2-2-V-1 is an .032" T (thickness) component; what was an .032" T panel doing placed where there was .045" T skin? If we have located the wrong station and the skin is not .045", I welcome the correction - but I just looked at what Bill Mangus pointed out and have come to the same conclusion as he. So if 2-2-V-1 is a patch for that area on a PBY, it should have been .045"; if it is an .030" skin as shown outboard, then one greater gage is expected - so again, if the assumption on thickness is in error - AND if the shoe truly fits, then by all means, please share the details - we hunger for truth and labor for it, this would help.
There is another problem with the PBY. The PBY manual (http://miravim.org/avimlibrary/Manuals/Airframe%20Manuals/Other%20Airframes/Consolidated%2001-5M-3%20(PBY-5%20,%205A,%206A%20-%20Handbook%20of%20Structural%20Repair%20Manual).pdf) also points (table 2-7) out that minimum fastener size in .032" T skins is 1/8" - a full size larger than the bulk of the rivet holes we see in 2-2-V-1; that same table denotes a pitch of 3/4" - which does not match the 1" pitch we see on 2-2-V-1 for the 3/32" rivets.
Conversely, minimum rivet sizes for .045" T skins on the PBY per that same table would be 5/32", at a pitch of 13/16", just in case our placement of that skin is correct. This would raise another challenge for the proponent(s) of a PBY fit.
But if 2-2-V-1 despite all these things truly matches the PBY fastener pattern (it does not because there is no staggered double row, for one...), then it is a complete bastard fit for some reason, but if it happens to match - again, please show the details.
TIGHAR is criticized for the yellow tape, etc. that was put there to help scale and align things, etc. - but it certainly was NOT to draw a false case. It is so hard to know just what to do when working in the abstract that others may see - and so far, 2-2-V-1 is nothing if not abstract. The crux of that criticism seems to be "it ain't standard Electra stuff so it ain't Earhart's stuff, an' all that tape stuff don't help". It is fairly clear that 2-2-V-1 is, whatever it may be, likely a bastard altogether - and THAT is THE POINT - and those who tried to show the abstract fitment labored hard to give us scale and more understanding of how the thing did align, as best can be reconstructed to the Electra parent frame. No, it isn't standard - and I wouldn't expect it to be, to cover a large window that the original designer never envisioned.
So, with 3/32" fasteners at 1" pitch, it does not appear to be a logical bastard child of a PBY, nor the B-17, nor anything I could find on a B-24. No, it is also not a clear fit to anything STOCK on an Electra - EXCEPT that it just happens to be the right 'envelope' size for that oddball window in Earhart's ship, happens to have fastener sizes and pitch that are logical to a bird of that weight and build in that era, and I saw nothing on any other type - including having now studied the C-87 as reasonably as I can, short of climbing all over one. The C-87 was, I thought, a very good idea but I found no smoldering cigar, let alone a smoking gun. Should another find more, hats off.
Yes, problems remain - of course there are still fair challenges to 2-2-V-1; but more light is on it now than before, and the alternatives are still not emerging so strongly. I would welcome more open challenge instead of article-comment snippets and back-channel emails. I have tired of trying to reason with such commenters offline and find them for the most part single-minded in denying any notion TIGHAR may have, including most probably where we might report the restrooms to be located at the AF Museum...
So if one would put up a PBY case as an alternate or a barnburner, then by all means - give us the details; if one won't do that, one simply isn't going to go far in this search with such limited thinking.
Bah. 'Tis a lovely overcast day here, nice a cool. I think I'll now go move a piano for fun.
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I'm headed down to the Military Aviation Museum - http://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org/index.html - in Virginia Beach tomorrow to take pictures and measurements of the top right wing of their PBY. I'll send pictures and measurements off to TIGHAR HQ on Monday.
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What we need is a really good picture of the 'patch' on the airplane that shows details, once and for all.
Somebody make a mylar template of the thing and slap it on the side of an airplane!
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I'm headed down to the Military Aviation Museum - http://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org/index.html - in Virginia Beach tomorrow to take pictures and measurements of the top right wing of their PBY. I'll send pictures and measurements off to TIGHAR HQ on Monday.
Thank you! If the rivet pitch is truly 3/4" or 13/16" on the wing that should go well towards disqualifying the PBY.
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Thumb's up, Bill. Another example of TIGHAR's Vast and Unpaid Research Department putting boots on the ground, while others just ... sit and type nonsense.
LTM, who has inserted a boot or two a time or two,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR no. 2189 ECSP
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Well said, Joe.
I have been tempted to address some of those things but find it wearying to try to discuss things with people who are determined all too often to see it only one way.
Your closing sentence is an excellent start. It is tiring to see our 'claims' constantly attacked as 'false' or 'unfounded', when what we are continuing to do is 'explore'.
I don't find it wearying but it is time-consuming, I well admit, Jeff. Still, there are so many points in the Huff Post article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-bangs/amelia-earhart-found-not-everyone-agrees_b_6124448.html) ripe for discussion, it seems a shame not to try. It's actually a very good summary of an opposing point of view. I can't say I could take it all on in a day, or even a week, but give me and some others here a month of batting out the ideas, and I'd bet we could come up with a thread that respectfully and successfully responded to these arguments piece by piece. My modest proposal is that this post be separated out to a new thread someplace that can address the article point by point for as long as it takes. I know we can swat it away with cries of 'not willing to listen', 'they can't be persuaded', and that may all be true. But articles such as this (and there are others) presume there is no logical rebuttal possible or reasonable, or that no one else is listening, and there is, and they are. There might even be a few grains of truth to savor and lessons we can learn from in the article. Care to give it a try by moving this post out of the airplane discussion?
Joe Cerniglia
TIGHAR #3078ER
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Articles that offer critics a platform are par for the course. After the first round of "Oooh. Ahhh." publicity, editors tell their writers, "Don't bring me more TIGHAR worship. We need something fresh. Find me somebody, anybody, who says Gillespie is wrong." It's easy to get sucked into debating the clowns they find. Don't worry about it. This is the Amelia Earhart Mystery we're talking about. We're not going to put controversy to bed even if/when we find the rest of the airplane. Articles like the Huffington Post piece don't lay a glove on us - they just keep the story alive.
We can prove that Elgen Long is wrong about the PBY six ways to Sunday and his bogus allegations will still get printed because editors need "balance." Ditto for Gary LaPook and Colin Cobb's desperate attempts to get somebody to pay attention to their Stratus project by taking potshots at TIGHAR.
Anyone here is, of course, free to fight with anyone they choose. My advice is to pay attention to what the critics say in case they come up anything that is actually valid but don't get down in the gutter with them. Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
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Articles that offer critics a platform are par for the course. After the first round of "Oooh. Ahhh." publicity, editors tell their writers, "Don't bring me more TIGHAR worship. We need something fresh. Find me somebody, anybody, who says Gillespie is wrong." It's easy to get sucked into debating the clowns they find. Don't worry about it. This is the Amelia Earhart Mystery we're talking about. We're not going to put controversy to bed even if/when we find the rest of the airplane. Articles like the Huffington Post piece don't lay a glove on us - they just keep the story alive.
We can prove that Elgen Long is wrong about the PBY six ways to Sunday and his bogus allegations will still get printed because editors need "balance." Ditto for Gary LaPook and Colin Cobb's desperate attempts to get somebody to pay attention to their Stratus project by taking potshots at TIGHAR.
Anyone here is, of course, free to fight with anyone they choose. My advice is to pay attention to what the critics say in case they come up anything that is actually valid but don't get down in the gutter with them. Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
Ric,
OK then; fair enough. It does seem rather unchivalrous a proposal when you put it that way. Whether TIGHAR addresses the critics in 'one place' or in several over months or years, it has addressed them many times before. The information that goes into a rebuttal is available to those who would seek it out, but I hasten to add for those who might seek that it's not all in one place in an article, at least not in the depth that's needed to understand the hypothesis as it's been elaborated. Once sought and found, the mystery isn't 'solved.' One still needs to interpret and arrive at an opinion, and misinformation is abundant along the way during that process. But it's a process that can't be forced, so I will back away from that attempt.
Joe Cerniglia
TIGHAR #3078ER
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Yes, problems remain - of course there are still fair challenges to 2-2-V-1; but more light is on it now than before, and the alternatives are still not emerging so strongly. I would welcome more open challenge instead of article-comment snippets and back-channel emails. I have tired of trying to reason with such commenters offline and find them for the most part single-minded in denying any notion TIGHAR may have, including most probably where we might report the restrooms to be located at the AF Museum...
I have quickly arrived at the same place.
This anti-Niku crowd, TECTIC as Mr. Fowler has aptly coined it, clearly has an agenda. I see the same thing over and over again ... two primary techniques: bait-and-switch, and straw man.
TECTIC: "TIGHAR is a sham, 2-2-V-1 was proven to be part of a PBY in 1992."
Reply: "Actually, 2-2-V-1 is not part of a PBY, and here's the conclusive evidence to show otherwise."
TECTIC: "The burden of proof is not on US! TIGHAR needs to prove it came from the Electra!"
Reply: "Agreed. That's what TIGHAR is trying to do."
TECTIC: "A-ha! See! TIGHAR has not produced any evidence that proves Earhart landed at Gardner."
Reply: "Correct. If TIGHAR had evidence that proved such, we would not be discussing this. They have a hypothesis. They seek and test evidence to support or refute that hypothesis."
TECTIC: "But they have not produced any evidence that proves Earhart landed at Gardner. TIGHAR is a sham."
It is comical. And they should really coordinate their talking points like the political parties do. It does their cause no good when their agents post 4 different figures for Ric's compensation last year in four different places on the internet in a week's time.
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Yeah, when they start talking money and the IRS it's getting kind of desperate... must be pretty heavy on Ric, don't sweat it Ric we see it for what it is.
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The depth of the personal hatred is baffling. What is it about the Earhart mystery that inspires such emotion? It's almost like a religious thing. I'm guilty of some terrible heresy. Behead the infidel! I don't take it personally. Hell, I've never had contact of any kind with most of these people. I guess I must symbolize something they deeply fear, envy, or resent.
Poor, poor pitiful me. :-\
What always bugs me are references to "Gillespie's organization." TIGHAR is my own (and my wife Pat's) creation but it is not ours. TIGHAR a squeaky-clean 501 c3 public charity with a governing board of directors, a strong world-wide membership, and a fantastic cadre of knowledgeable, talented, dedicated volunteers. TIGHAR is a unique concept - open-source aviation historical investigation. I have the great privilege of leading and speaking for this fine organization. If that also means taking the heat and the hatred for the great work we do it's a small price to pay.
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The negative passions are inexplicable.
I liked your points about chasing such commentary as likely a waste of time. To carry the discussion to the comment pages of these articles would likely amount to no more than the 'he said, she said' exchanges we see so commonly in the electronic press these days. If anyone cares about what we're doing or have to say, it can be read of here.
That said, I'm sure in the course of debate here that some points raised there will occur - as some already have (and thanks Bill Mangus for chasing down the PBY - always proud to add data points, wherever they take us).
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I guess I must symbolize something they deeply fear, envy, or resent.
I think that's pretty much it. Impersonal, electronic vitriol is sourced at the intersection of professional jealousy and self-loathing. It is much easier to lash out and tear others down than it is to dig in and work hard to lift one's self up.
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If they truly were trying to figure out where the evidence leads, they could simply bring up their alternate theories, or problems with TIGHAR's hypothesis here on the forum in a sensible way, and i'm sure TIGHAR and Ric would be sure to consider it and research it wherever possible. If instead of posting black and white pictures from a distance of a paper template laying on a wing and saying that proves it fits perfectly.... If they would provide some info of why they feel that's true, I'll bet Ric or Jeff or someone would be all too happy to track down a PBY and see once and for all... after all, that's kind of what TIGHAR does... over and over again, analyzing hypothesi (I'm sure that's plural for Hypothesis , for all you uninformed).
Looks like Mr. Mangus is going to settle that for us tommorow, though. Question is, will anybody but the Choir accept it?
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Ric,
Without the efforts of you and your dedicated team the world would genuinely be no closer to affording Amelia the requiem she deserves - revealing what truly happened to her.
Please keep up the good work.
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There's just one tiny problem that I can see with the "PBY wing match photo" posted here: http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/fqipchg.jpg) - it shows the lines of rivet holes perpendicular to the long axis of The Putative Patch. The rivet holes on 2-2-V-1 are parallel to the long axis of The Patch.
Wow!
Talk about falsifying data!
Elgen Long should be ashamed of himself, at a minimum, if he is responsible for that photo.
Marty, Elgen Long did take that photo way back in 1992. You should be ashamed of yourself for accusing him of falsifying data, with absolutely no evidence to back up such a serious claim. Shame on you!
Monty Fowler was man enough to realize his snap judgement about the photo was wrong and apologize for it here on the forum. You need to do the same.
Jeff P.
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You should be ashamed of yourself for accusing him of falsifying data, with absolutely no evidence to back up such a serious claim.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by simple incompetence. I don't think Elgen Long would ever intentionally falsify data and I'd like like to think that Elgen, for all our differences, would ever accuse me of doing that. Elgen has just never quite understood the scientific method and has always been quick to treat his interpretations as fact.
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To have a match to the artifact requires:
• Four rows of 3/32nd inch rivets with a pitch (distance between rivets) of 1 inch.
• The distance between parallel rows must be nominally, but not consistently, 4 5/8ths inches.
• A double staggered row of 5/32 inch rivets with a pitch of 1.5 inches, except for one anomalous spot where there is a 1 5/8ths inch gap.
Ric, What was the pitch of the lower double staggered row on the Electra studied in Wichita? What is the rivet size of the double staggered row on that plane? Can you post good pictures of the artifact with the tape by itself and the Wichita plane with the tape by itself?
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Monty Fowler was man enough to realize his snap judgement about the photo was wrong and apologize for it here on the forum.
Admitting mistakes and apologizing for undeserved slights are admirable qualities but they have nothing to do with manhood.
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Ric, What was the pitch of the lower double staggered row on the Electra studied in Wichita?
The pitch varies from 1 1/2" to as much as 1 7/8". Remember, this airplane was re-skinned by Wichita Air Services.
What is the rivet size of the double staggered row on that plane?
Same as all the other rivets on that part of the plane. They look like #4s (1/8th" shaft) and they're not brazier heads. Probably universal heads.
Can you post good pictures of the artifact with the tape by itself and the Wichita plane with the tape by itself?
I don't have a straight-on shot of the taped exterior or the taped artifact by itself, but these should do.
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Is it true that we don't have an engineering drawing of the window structure. I'm referring to the original installation, not the patch. The photos I've seen indicate that the frame is different from the other window frames. It looks more like the frames I've seen on B17's - with a large robust surrounding frame having an inner flange that the window is carried in, in a rubber molding. If we don't have a drawing of the original window, do we have any other examples of Lockheed window frames that it might have been modeled from?
The complete lack of engineering drawings of the window and subsequent covering makes it very hard to support a case for 2-2-V-1 as being associated, or not, with Amelia's aircraft. What happened to the drawings, and is there any way to pursue them further?
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Marty, Elgen Long did take that photo way back in 1992. You should be ashamed of yourself for accusing him of falsifying data, with absolutely no evidence to back up such a serious claim. Shame on you!
The evidence was in the picture--the rows of rivet lines showing crossing the piece from top to bottom.
There are no such lines in the artifact.
Claiming it was a "perfect fit" is due to the fact that the wing's rivets show through the semi-transparent overlay. OF COURSE the rivet lines appear to be a perfect fit in the picture--because the picture does NOT show the rivet lines on the artifact but the rivet lines under the transparency that represents the artifact.
When you know which way the lines run, it is clear that the picture shows there is NO FIT between the artifact and the wing in the picture.
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I guess I must symbolize something they deeply fear, envy, or resent.
You do indeed, Mr. Gillespie sir, you do indeed. You represent the truth, whatever it is and wherever it may lead. And to something like The Earhart Conspiracy Theory Industrial Complex, well ... to paraphrase Goebbels, "... the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of TECTIC (aka the State)."
And Ron? Sadly, no, TECTIC will accept nothing that is even the remotest threat to its treasured ideals. It won't matter if TIGHAR finds the Electra and raises a part with a know number to the surface, live and in full view of the entire world. They will go to their graves insisting that Gillespie faked it or engineered it or somehow managed to pull the wool over a lot of very smart eyes. Because their answer is the only possible one.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
There's also this from Goebbels, which applies to TECTIC: "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." TIGHAR doesn't do that. TIGHAR looks at all the facts, evidence, opinions, etc. TECTIC is the proverbial one-trick pony.
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Marty, Elgen Long did take that photo way back in 1992. You should be ashamed of yourself for accusing him of falsifying data, with absolutely no evidence to back up such a serious claim. Shame on you!
The evidence was in the picture--the rows of rivet lines showing crossing the piece from top to bottom.
There are no such lines in the artifact.
Claiming it was a "perfect fit" is due to the fact that the wing's rivets show through the semi-transparent overlay. OF COURSE the rivet lines appear to be a perfect fit in the picture--because the picture does NOT show the rivet lines on the artifact but the rivet lines under the transparency that represents the artifact.
When you know which way the lines run, it is clear that the picture shows there is NO FIT between the artifact and the wing in the picture.
My interpretation of how they did the overlay is the tab is to the right or aft of the wing so the angle of the rows is correct if the rivet rows run top to bottom. It is not clear because there is a suggestion of the tab being at the top as well. Its not a clear exhibit.
If I was going to try a better fit, I would have rotated the template so the tab is forward and also moved the whole overlay to the left or forward a distance of one row. At least it would have had something that looks like a double row where there should be a double row. It still would not fit because the thickness of the skin is wrong and there should be about 1 1/2" between the staggered double rows and there isn't. IMHO.
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Monty Fowler was man enough to realize his snap judgement about the photo was wrong and apologize for it here on the forum.
Admitting mistakes and apologizing for undeserved slights are admirable qualities but they have nothing to do with manhood.
But everything to do with gentleman-hood.
Since when is Marty accused of being a gentleman? ;D
I trust Ric's observation of Elgen Long's habits. I have no idea what in the world was being thought when that photo was made and released.
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Marty, Elgen Long did take that photo way back in 1992. You should be ashamed of yourself for accusing him of falsifying data, with absolutely no evidence to back up such a serious claim. Shame on you!
The evidence was in the picture--the rows of rivet lines showing crossing the piece from top to bottom.
There are no such lines in the artifact.
Claiming it was a "perfect fit" is due to the fact that the wing's rivets show through the semi-transparent overlay. OF COURSE the rivet lines appear to be a perfect fit in the picture--because the picture does NOT show the rivet lines on the artifact but the rivet lines under the transparency that represents the artifact.
When you know which way the lines run, it is clear that the picture shows there is NO FIT between the artifact and the wing in the picture.
My interpretation of how they did the overlay is the tab is to the right or aft of the wing so the angle of the rows is correct if the rivet rows run top to bottom. It is not clear because there is a suggestion of the tab being at the top as well. Its not a clear exhibit.
If I was going to try a better fit, I would have rotated the template so the tab is forward and also moved the whole overlay to the left or forward a distance of one row. At least it would have had something that looks like a double row where there should be a double row. It still would not fit because the thickness of the skin is wrong and there should be about 1 1/2" between the staggered double rows and there isn't. IMHO.
I agree, Greg, as I also tried to point out earlier. As the 'tab' is at the 'bottom' in the Electra orientation, so it is 'aft' on the PBY, as depicted. Hence the rivet rows are aligned.
Which is far from saying it is a 'match'...
What would arise to being disingenuous to me would be simply releasing the shot we see, and declaring it a 'match', with no further showing. As I asked earlier, since we're apparently being asked to believe that 2-2-V-1 represents a stock skin panel on the PBY, where is the detailed comparison, e.g. a direct, overhead shot, etc.? Without more information, this is a half-baked effort at best - perhaps even a joke?
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It still would not fit because the thickness of the skin is wrong and there should be about 1 1/2" between the staggered double rows and there isn't. IMHO.
Note that the space between the dbl row on the Wichita plane is not 1-1/2" either, however on page two of the The Window, the Patch and the Artifact (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/73_StepbyStep/73_StepbyStep_2.html) it is noted that there may have been an additional stiffener or stringer at the bottom. The larger diameter rivet row in the aritfact it this location, so close to the edge, still suggests to me that this patch had to do with a structural concern. Again, the timing of the patch was right after the hard landing in Miami
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Looking at the PBY's so called "perfect fit" shows how hard it is to match all of the features of the artifact. So maybe that helps in a way. If it was a joke by skeptics, it's a joke that backfired.
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Marty, Elgen Long did take that photo way back in 1992. You should be ashamed of yourself for accusing him of falsifying data, with absolutely no evidence to back up such a serious claim. Shame on you!
Monty Fowler was man enough to realize his snap judgement about the photo was wrong and apologize for it here on the forum. You need to do the same.
A devoted and sharp-eyed reader of the Forum says I need to apologize for saying that the rivet lines were visible THROUGH the template. By his calculation, someone has drawn the rivet lines perpendicular to the long axis of the template. He has inserted yellow arrows to show that the rivet lines do not show through around the edges of the template. It seems that someone must have drawn the lines by hand on the template in order to produce this picture of a "perfect fit."
(http://moleski.net//tmp/PBYTemplateLines.jpg)
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Honestly maybe it IS intended as a joke... "here's a picture of it 20 feet away, it obviously matches" . Or maybe it's a sarcastic comment on what they see as shortcomings on TIGHAR's pictures. Hard to say...
The bottom double row of rivets is a question mark on it fitting the electra, but as Ric has shown we already know that they had placed an extra stringer on the forward edge of the frame, because of the bulkhead there not allowing them to put rivets through it (can't get to the back of the rivet). It's possible as the paper points out that they also added a stringer to the bottom... they may have even added stringers to all 4 sides (it would be a clean way to do it).
It seems far more plausible that this is possibly from the Electra, which many people suspect crashed near here... then to imagine that it comes from a plane that has no record of crashing there, or losing part of a wing there.
If you're going to believe a PBY wrecked there, why would you ridicule someone who says an Electra MAY have wrecked there? We have an Electra missing but no PBY's missing in the general area that we know of. We have TIGHAR who's presented lots of evidence to suggest AE's Electra went down near there, but not 1 piece of evidence to suggest a PBY ever did. We have evidence that seems to support it could not have possibly came from a PBY (wrong thickness, unpainted) and the jury's still out on the pitch pattern. We clearly have an Electra with a strange piece of sheet metal strikingly similar to this one, that we know went down somewhere out here.
Maybe TIGHAR's wrong... but I don't understand how an honest observer won't even consider the possibility.
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Marty, with all due respect I don't think you're seeing that rotated the right way. On the artifact, there is a tab that points down as mounted on the Electra. In the picture of the wing, that tab is pointed aft... which would line the rivet lines up as they are shown in the picture of the template laying on the wings. Ric provided Mr. Long with that template, and likely had drawn the rivets on it himself...
With that said, it still obviously doesn't match, it just happens to line up... sort of... and the double row of rivets doesn't seem to exist on the plane (but does on the artifact)... and the thickness is wrong, and the paint is missing, and the pitch pattern appears to be wrong (according to technical documents identifying the pitch requirements on that plane). So it appears that yes, the rivet lines may be spaced the same distance but 4 other specifications exclude it from being from a PBY.
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This is one of those discussions best had in person, not possible...
I believe Mary now gets the orientation - if he didn't before (and I may have misread him then). What seems to be the case is that we may be looking at 'drawn' rivet lines, made to match those of the PBY...
I don't know. Bottom line -
a) What we see here is too ambiguous to serve as 'evidence' for any point of substance, and
b) We've stated that shortcoming and the need of more definitive data, should whomever put that 'up' as evidence truly desire to have it accepted as 'fact', and
c) Yes, you've stated it well, Ron - maybe it is a note of sarcasm as to how our analysis is viewed -
If so, touche', and more power to them - but the joke is on them; we've more than admitted that there's more to be done, that we recognize the remaining risks as to 2-2-V-1's provenance.
Further to that last thought, it is odd, but 2-2-V-1 seems to have fewer alternative sources as these arguments wear on: no one has yet strengthened the idea of a PBY, B-24, C-87 or B-17, etc. source in all these arguments, but done more to help us deplete the logical alternatives.
Which is not the same as proving a fit to NR16020, and admittedly we still have a wild card on our hands. The question narrows, however - how many viable candidates were there in that part of the world as donors that would fit the thickness and bracing pattern we see in this part?
The PBY had .045"T skins in the purported area - if sarcasm, fine, but 2-2-V-1 is still provides the substance for a very likely covering for that window, given the little time or resources a guy like Bo McNeeley likely had to work with.
Perhaps the PBY 'joke' has given its laughs, and it may deserve little more concern. We can enjoy the humor of that irony, it seems. On reflection, I take it as more tongue in cheek sarcasm than serious display, and can enjoy the irony of it. I'm much more interested in my own nutty pursuit of a crusty old piece of metal than worrying about what others may think of that, now that the piano has been safely moved... the piano was a bigger folly than 2-2-V-1, trust me.
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If you're going to believe a PBY wrecked there, why would you ridicule someone who says an Electra MAY have wrecked there? We have an Electra missing but no PBY's missing in the general area that we know of. We have TIGHAR who's presented lots of evidence to suggest AE's Electra went down near there, but not 1 piece of evidence to suggest a PBY ever did. We have evidence that seems to support it could not have possibly came from a PBY (wrong thickness, unpainted) and the jury's still out on the pitch pattern. We clearly have an Electra with a strange piece of sheet metal strikingly similar to this one, that we know went down somewhere out here.
Maybe TIGHAR's wrong... but I don't understand how an honest observer won't even consider the possibility.
One possible explanation for the patch coming of a PBY could be that it was a temporary patch fitted until a permanent repair could be made. This could explain the wrong thickness and the lack of paint. Also the fact that the patch was found alone, without any other wreckage of a PBY. Having been replaced by a proper patch, what is now known as 2-2-V-1 was simply discarded and picked up by the villagers for practical use...
Still doesn't explain the double row of rivets where none are shown on the PBY wing's surface though...
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That could be... but it still stands that we know of no PBY's in the area with a patch on them... and we know of no PBY's in the area that lost a patch...
but we do know of an Electra, in the area (at most within a couple hundred miles of that island, no matter what theory you ascribe to ), with a similar patch, that's wholly missing.
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But we do know that PBY's regularly visited Nikumaroro to resupply the LORAN station in 1944 - 1945, so unless we trace the maintenance history of each of those aircraft, we can not be 100% certain that the patch did not come off one of them...
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But we do know that PBY's regularly visited Nikumaroro to resupply the LORAN station in 1944 - 1945, so unless we trace the maintenance history of each of those aircraft, we can not be 100% certain that the patch did not come off one of them...
This is reminding me more and more about the possibility of the Bevington Object being a cement mixer. (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,217.msg12466.html#msg12466)
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I believe Mary now gets the orientation - if he didn't before (and I may have misread him then).
I don't know what you mean by "gets the orientation."
The object is rectangular.
It has a long axis and a short axis.
The rivet lines run parallel to the long axis.
In the "perfect match" photo, the (apparently) sketched-in rivet lines run parallel to the short axis.
(http://tighar.org/aw/mediawiki/images/9/92/2-2-V-1.jpg)
What seems to be the case is that we may be looking at 'drawn' rivet lines, made to match those of the PBY...
Yes, that seems to me to be the case. This photo is of the outside of the skin. I think they turned their outline so that they were looking at the rivet pattern from the inside, as in this plot of the size and location of the rivet holes in 2-2-V-1:
(http://tighar.org/aw/mediawiki/images/d/dc/2-2-V-1_interior_CAD.png)
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You seem to have it 90 degrees off, Marty. It appears to me that we are looking outboard along the long axis - the rows appear properly oriented.
As to PBY and temporary patch - how would you install 3/32" rivets in 1/8" existing holes? I don't buy that.
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Everyone,
I was successful in getting access to the top of the PBY at the Military Aviation Museum yesterday. The pictures and measurements are on their way to Ric. There was a surprise or two but, bottom line, Artifact 2-2-V-1 did not come from a PBY.
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You seem to have it 90 degrees off, Marty. It appears to me that we are looking outboard along the long axis - the rows appear properly oriented.
So you believe that there is that much foreshortening in the photo?
I suppose it could be an optical illusion.
Even in that case, the question remains of how the "perfect match" lines could have gotten onto the tracing. As the GIS drawing from the interior perspective shows, there is a series of larger rivets along one edge that unquestionably do not match the existing lines of the PBY wing. Did they just ignore that information?
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But we do know that PBY's regularly visited Nikumaroro to resupply the LORAN station in 1944 - 1945, so unless we trace the maintenance history of each of those aircraft, we can not be 100% certain that the patch did not come off one of them...
This is reminding me more and more about the possibility of the Bevington Object being a cement mixer. (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,217.msg12466.html#msg12466)
Surprised someone hasn't suggested the patch came from the bottom of Gallaghar's bass boat.
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But we do know that PBY's regularly visited Nikumaroro to resupply the LORAN station in 1944 - 1945, so unless we trace the maintenance history of each of those aircraft, we can not be 100% certain that the patch did not come off one of them...
You might want to re-think that. No PBY (or any other aircraft) is recorded to have been lost or even damaged at Nikumaroro from the time the first work party arrived in December 1938.
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You seem to have it 90 degrees off, Marty.
This is how I think the template is laid out on the picture of the PBY wing, with rivet lines running along the long axis.
(http://moleski.net/tmp/2-2-V-1_02.png)
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I was successful in getting access to the top of the PBY at the Military Aviation Museum yesterday. The pictures and measurements are on their way to Ric. There was a surprise or two but, bottom line, Artifact 2-2-V-1 did not come from a PBY.
We owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Mangus for taking the time and making the effort to go and do an actual inspection of a PBY. Bill called me immediately after climbing down from the wing of a PBY at the Military Aviation Museum on Virginia Beach, VA.
His findings are documented in photos that he is sending to me.
We already know that the skin thickness in the area of Elgen Long's "perfect fit" is .045 - not .032.
Bill found that the rivets in that area are all 5/32", just as you'd expect in a heavy .045 skin.
The parallel rows of rivets have a pitch (distance between rivets) of one inch as do the 3/32" rivet holes in 2-2-V-1.
The spacing between lines of rivets is slightly more than four inches, as it is on 2-2-V-1.
The 5/32" rivet holes along the bottom edge of 2-2-V-1 have a pitch that varies from 1 1/2" to as much as 1 7/8" - not one inch as on the PBY..
The 5/32" rivet holes in 2-2-V-1 imply a double staggered row of rivets. There is no double staggered row of rivets on the upper surface of the PBY wing.
In summary, Elgen found a place on the PBY where there are rivets with a one inch pitch in parallel rows a little over four inches apart but the area is the wrong skin thickness, the rivets are the wrong size, and pitch and pattern of the 5/32" rivets are wrong. It is not a perfect match to 2-2-V-1. It is not even a close match to 2-2-V-1. There is no evidence that 2-2-V-1 came from a PBY nor is there any basis for speculation that some PBY may have had a patch that looked like 2-2-V-1. You don't patch a .045 skin and 5/32 rivets with a much thinner skinner and much smaller rivets.
Elgen Long is a respected figure in the world of Earhart researchers and it's not surprising that some have taken his allegation seriously. We should answer it with a serious research paper that shows his allegation to be false.
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You seem to have it 90 degrees off, Marty.
This is how I think the template is laid out on the picture of the PBY wing, with rivet lines running along the long axis.
(http://moleski.net/tmp/2-2-V-1_02.png)
That would be inside out since that is the inside surface. I agree with what Jeff said. The tab is to the right.
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I do think the foreshortening in the picture is that pronounced - which was surprising at first, but soon resolved as I studied the thing. It is an oddly oblique view, I think.
As to the irreconsileable lines, yes, I think the obvious mismatches having to do with larger fasteners / double row, etc. were ignored. I remain puzzled at this thing and am not convinced that Mr. Long himself would have put it up as a serious challenger to 2-2-V-1's provenance, but I guess I could be wrong about that. I would hope not - it isn't a very serious effort if intended as such. It seems more like an interesting 'what if' along the way of studying possibilities - something I'm all for in the 'brainstorming' sense, but a what-if that just doesn't bear out too well.
Hats off to Bill Mangus - great of you to go to all that trouble, Bill! Nothing like 'being there' to get answers.
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I remain puzzled at this thing and am not convinced that Mr. Long himself would have put it up as a serious challenger to 2-2-V-1's provenance, but I guess I could be wrong about that.
I'm afraid you're wrong about that. As recently as last Friday, Elgen Long insisted to a writer for Smithsonian magazine that he had shown that TIGHAR's artifact is a perfect match to a PBY. Yesterday I reported Bill's findings to the Smithsonian writer. He was going to get a response from Elgen.
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Thanks for that follow-up, Ric (on the match/mis-match - comment #1 herein).
It is an amazing match, then - in SOME ways, but a total miss in some important ways -
One would have to replace the underlying structure to 'downsize' the rivets - you can't make 3/32" rivets work in 5/32" holes (the underlying stringers, etc. would have to be replaced). Even if that were done, why would one drop down 2 rivet sizes? Makes no sense - major compromise in strength. That doesn't even get into the same concern for dropping 2 gages in skin thickness.
Conversely, if 2-2-V-1 came from the Electra, we at least have the logic of having gone UP a skin gage - from .025 in that area to .032. The original rivets were 3/32", if I am recalling accurately; the 5/32" rivets along the double staggered row are a puzzle, but not so much IF some modification was made, or if there was a need to overcome egged-out holes from at least two previous occasions of drill-outs.
Bottom line on PBY - I can't fathom a drop in 2 gages of sheet and 2 shank sizes in rivets unless I was on the backside of hell with no other way out; even then, how to buck 3/32" rivets into those big holes and make them stick - not going to happen, would have to replace stringer sections. If you had all the stuff to do that, it is not too likely you'd be stuck with only 3/32" rivets, etc... gets to be a much bigger stretch that what we've surmised about a 2-2-V-1 fit to the Electra in my view.
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Comment #2 - Elgen Long's serious assertion / Smithsonian -
I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Long has made this assertion in a serious way, presuming he's talking about this same 'match' as depicted. It doesn't seem helpful to his credibility. I hope he will consider this all very carefully in his reply.
I admire his earnest efforts and sincerity - and agree or not, even the plausibility as I see it of much that he's worked hard to establish.
It would be best in my view if all serious searchers would consider the glass house effect of where they work... the rocks are a damn nuisance.
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There's also the matter of the paint, in addition to all the other PBY disqualifiers - the odds of a piece of aluminum from a wartime PBY not being painted on at least one side are beyond vanishingly small.
2-2-V-1, as TIGHAR knows from extensive testing, has no paint on either side. So any reasonable person would conclude that 2-2-V-1 was not from a PBY. But, as TIGHARs know, TECTIC is anything but reasonable.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Long has made this assertion in a serious way, presuming he's talking about this same 'match' as depicted. It doesn't seem helpful to his credibility. I hope he will consider this all very carefully in his reply.
In my view, the assertion is entirely consistent with his credibility, or rather, lack thereof. Elgen is a nice guy, a record-setting pilot, and a dedicated researcher, but his investigative methodology has always been upside down. He stands the scientific method on its head. He begins with received wisdom and then backs into the proof by cherry-picking data and treating his speculative interpretations as fact. In this case, he was sure that TIGHAR's artifact could not have come from NR16020 so when he found a superficial similarity on a PBY that was close enough to "prove" he was right.
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One thing about the thickness. As mentioned before, going up 1 size for a repair was common place, apparently, so would make sense on the Electra. Also, the panel just forward of the window was .032 itself (as is the patch). To imagine that any mechanic worth his salt would go DOWN two thicknesses in stock for an important section of the PBY (well.. they're all important!) is pretty hard to swallow. There's a reason the skin is that thickness there, you can't just compromise that (but yet take the time to properly drill 100 rivet holes in it?). This wouldn't have been done by a backyard mechanic, it was done by somebody who had the tooling, had the raw stock to make the piece with, and the ability to attach it to something with all those rivets. Why would they theoretically go down so far, drastically, in stock thickness but do everything else so competently.. especially when it was apparently common place to go UP 1 size? It's not two sizes to thin, it's now 3 sizes too thin if it were a patch to a PBY.
We have to invent a patch that theoretically could have been on a theoretical PBY that theoretically could have been in the area... and then ignore that it's the wrong thickness and 1 entire row of rivets doesn't line up, and they're all too small. We also have to imagine that a fully painted plane would somehow have a patch with no paint on it.
We know that an Electra, with a patch, was not only in the area, not only existed with photographic evidence of that patch, but also we know it was lost to the sea somewhere in the area. We even know what DAY the Electra was in the area... with the right size rivets, and the right thickness of sheet metal. 95% of the entire plane is made of unpainted aluminum, which the patch is as well, and the artifact is as well.
Keep Amelia out of it; if this were just a regular Electra there would be only a sliver of doubt it's the correct patch.
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There's also the matter of the paint, in addition to all the other PBY disqualifiers - the odds of a piece of aluminum from a wartime PBY not being painted on at least one side are beyond vanishingly small.
2-2-V-1, as TIGHAR knows from extensive testing, has no paint on either side. So any reasonable person would conclude that 2-2-V-1 was not from a PBY. But, as TIGHARs know, TECTIC is anything but reasonable.
Is there consensus among materials forensics experts on the possibility of paint being "washed" away by decades of exposure to saltwater? I ask because that is the main skeptic/TECTIC challenge to 2-2-V-1, i.e. they say that even if paint is undetectable now, it was likely a painted piece of aluminum when separated from its host.
Of all the submerged WWII aviation wrecks from the Pacific that I'm aware of, even rusted, coral-encrusted remnants of the aircraft's skin retain measureable paint residue after decades in the sea ... but this is my amateur understanding, not expert forensic knowledge and experience.
It is an important consideration, IMO ... if expert consensus is that any paint on the artifact when it became submerged would certainly be detectable by materials analysis today, the lack of such paint severely restricts the list of potential donor aircraft as Monty indicates above.
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Is there consensus among materials forensics experts on the possibility of paint being "washed" away by decades of exposure to saltwater?
Not that I know of, and not that any of the skeptics have cited. I can't say that it's not possible.
I ask because that is the main skeptic/TECTIC challenge to 2-2-V-1, i.e. they say that even if paint is undetectable now, it was likely a painted piece of aluminum when separated from its host.
That's the main challenge?? That's the best they can come up with?? The lack of paint on 2-2-V-1 is interesting and supportive of the hypothesis that it came from the Miami Patch but, as evidence that the hypothesis is correct, it pales in comparison to the many other factors we've cataloged.
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I ask because that is the main skeptic/TECTIC challenge to 2-2-V-1, i.e. they say that even if paint is undetectable now, it was likely a painted piece of aluminum when separated from its host.
That's the main challenge?? That's the best they can come up with?? The lack of paint on 2-2-V-1 is interesting and supportive of the hypothesis that it came from the Miami Patch but, as evidence that the hypothesis is correct, it pales in comparison to the many other factors we've cataloged.
Sorry, didn't complete my thought in that one ... fixed below:
I ask because that is the main skeptic/TECTIC challenge to 2-2-V-1 having a very limited number of possible donor aircraft, i.e. they say that even if paint is undetectable now, it was likely a painted piece of aluminum when separated from its host.
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One thing about the thickness. As mentioned before, going up 1 size for a repair was common place, apparently, so would make sense on the Electra. Also, the panel just forward of the window was .032 itself (as is the patch). To imagine that any mechanic worth his salt would go DOWN two thicknesses in stock for an important section of the PBY (well.. they're all important!) is pretty hard to swallow. There's a reason the skin is that thickness there, you can't just compromise that (but yet take the time to properly drill 100 rivet holes in it?). This wouldn't have been done by a backyard mechanic, it was done by somebody who had the tooling, had the raw stock to make the piece with, and the ability to attach it to something with all those rivets. Why would they theoretically go down so far, drastically, in stock thickness but do everything else so competently.. especially when it was apparently common place to go UP 1 size? It's not two sizes to thin, it's now 3 sizes too thin if it were a patch to a PBY.
Just to keep the record straight, I think the PBY manual suggests 'up a gage' for skins 'under .045"', so I'm content to say it is 2 gages too thin (.032", .041" and .045" are commonly available stock gages I'm familiar with) - but your point is well made.
We have to invent a patch that theoretically could have been on a theoretical PBY that theoretically could have been in the area... and then ignore that it's the wrong thickness and 1 entire row of rivets doesn't line up, and they're all too small. We also have to imagine that a fully painted plane would somehow have a patch with no paint on it.
We know that an Electra, with a patch, was not only in the area, not only existed with photographic evidence of that patch, but also we know it was lost to the sea somewhere in the area. We even know what DAY the Electra was in the area... with the right size rivets, and the right thickness of sheet metal. 95% of the entire plane is made of unpainted aluminum, which the patch is as well, and the artifact is as well.
Keep Amelia out of it; if this were just a regular Electra there would be only a sliver of doubt it's the correct patch.
I'm glad you put it that way because I was thinking inversely for a moment that 2-2-V-1 is still theoretical in the technical sense; but we've also worked awfully hard to show a reasonable way to tie 2-2-V-1 and a known patch - and that is a big difference.
To repeat, I realize the risk that 2-2-V-1 could somehow yet prove to have come from a different source, but so far that risk appears to grow a bit smaller everytime a suggested alternative is investigated.
How did TIGHAR respond to the 'PBY suggestion'? A devoted member tore a chunk out of a weekend and went out to climb onto a PBY in a museum to look. For those who imply that we can't stand the heat, I'd say that was fairly tough-minded - and dedicated. I love that - it's what does make this place worthwhile. Had Bill come back and said "the book is wrong - the shoe fits the PBY" we would have been disappointed that 2-2-V-1 finally failed the test, but grateful that a deliberate process eventually yielded results.
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Thanks, Jeff.
And fair is fair. We know a LOT more about 2-2-V-1 than was know back when Elgen Long did his analysis and took his photograph.
I emailed Ric the most important pictures and I'm crafting a trip report right now.
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Bill, you always have my admiration.
What you've done and what I've tried to describe is what I came to realize was sometimes thought of by certain detractors as 'TIGHAR making the cat chase the laser'; eye of the beholder, I've also come to realize. If one hasn't the patience for that kind of dedicated work, or even to encourage it to see what it can bring - fine, don't 'chase the laser'. I've found that I am among the curious who cannot leave a potential Earhart stone unturned, no matter how much another may say 'cannot be'; therefore I guess I'm a 'laser chaser' too, after all.
In good company, it seems. ;)
Good work, and thanks!
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What I find odd is that none of the TIGHAR critics out there seem to apply their critical thinking to other critics. Why is it that no one challenged Elgen Long's analysis, and instead simply swallowed whole his suggestion that 2-2-V-1 came from a PBY, as in "Elgen proved it came from a PBY in 1992." Not until now did anyone get themselves up on a PBY and actually look, and now that we have, it is readily apparent that Elgen did not put any thought into his solution beyond the rivet lines, ignoring the other aspects of the artifact that clearly show it does not fit a PBY - wrong thickness, wrong rivets, no paint, etc. I have to wonder about the how and why of the photo provided, and its extremely odd perspective. I suspect it was taken to enhance the visual of the rivet lines, but in the process obscures the other issues. Intentional or just happenstance?
If TIGHAR provided that kind of analysis, the critics would have ripped us to shreds. They don't seem to apply their standards consistently.
In a way, being held to a higher standard has been good for TIGHAR, pushing us to produce results at a higher level. More often than not, it is TIGHAR that proves ourselves wrong, not the critics, and it happens through putting boots on the ground and doing the basic research.
Kudos to Bill.
Andrew
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That's three different images of the entire patch from similar but slightly different angles ... Miami Herald, Miami Library, and the scan of the Purdue Darwin photo. From all 3 photos it is now clear to me that what Tim Collins thought might be a 'pucker' or 'bulge' in the patch from the Purdue Darwin scan as he stated in reply #613 of this thread is indeed a reflection instead, as Ric posited in Reply #629.
It appears the scan of the Purdue Darwin photo reduced its quality significantly enough as to render the reflectivity of the entire fuselage nearly imperceptible ... compare it to the wings and the elevator which are clearly shiny and reflective, you can see the reflection of the ground crew member refueling the plane.
Instead, the fuselage looks "dusty". But it is not, and we see the reflections of the horizon, airport structures and/or vehicles and/or shrubbery in the shiny patch which are not as "clear" on the rest of the fuselage but clearly continue (as they do in both Miami photos ... "fuzzy", but there).
Of course, if you keep staring at a blowup of the scan for long enough, you can see anything you want, including the 18th Congressional District of Kansas. ;)
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Thanks to the discovery of a new collection of photos in the University of Miami Library (research sponsored by a dedicated TIGHAR member and Forum contributor) we have a new photo of the Electra with the shiny new patch installed, taken in Miami sometime between Saturday, May 29 (the date of the last photo that shows the window still present) and sundown on May 31. Can anyone identify the purpose of the striped framework on the ground?
Note the the distinct appearance of shadowing at the bottom of the patch virtually identical to the earlier suggested bulge that was so summarily dismissed.
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I don't see shadowing, Tim - I see a very shiny, new piece of aluminum reflecting something darker that's on the ground.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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Note the the distinct appearance of shadowing at the bottom of the patch virtually identical to the earlier suggested bulge that was so summarily dismissed.
I don't think it was 'summarily dismissed' Tim. Ric posted a photo in Reply #618 of this thread that shows a good view along the starboard side of the Electra in the hangar at Darwin, and there is no bulge in the patch discernible in that photo. Additionally, the 'shadowing' you see in both Miami photos continues on either side of the patch along the fuselage, suggesting dark reflections as Monty stated that are simply enhanced by the patch due to its higher reflectivity.
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Thanks to the discovery of a new collection of photos in the University of Miami Library (research sponsored by a dedicated TIGHAR member and Forum contributor) we have a new photo of the Electra with the shiny new patch installed, taken in Miami sometime between Saturday, May 29 (the date of the last photo that shows the window still present) and sundown on May 31. Can anyone identify the purpose of the striped framework on the ground?
Note the the distinct appearance of shadowing at the bottom of the patch virtually identical to the earlier suggested bulge that was so summarily dismissed.
Eye of the beholder - your judgment to hold as you will, but nothing was 'so summarily dismissed' here that I recall -
I merely recall much more being made about these odd shadowings and no doubt skin irregularities than they likely deserve: I see nothing more than the normal, odd contour variations that would show up as faint shadowing, etc. I would agree that 2-2-V-1 bears some evidence of slight 'pucker' effect, etc.
As I recall, Tim, your thought was that if stiffeners were present, that shouldn't be the case. I merely disagree. Also, as iterated here just now, I also disagree that we're looking at anything of any more significance than what I'd expect to see on a hand-fit skin patch of the nature I believe this to be on the Electra.
ADDED -
I've attached a picture of Earhart's own Lockheed Vega 5 model as seen from overhead, with oblique light creating shadowing where there are skin 'undulations'. This craft was built of plywood, so you are looking at fairly rigid ply skin with 'puckering' effect very much in evidence along the aft portion of the wing cord, pretty much along the full span. These are graphically evident in this photo - but in fact would likely be barely noticeable to the eye as irregularities without the oblique lighting effect to highlight them in shadow.
I believe much the same process is at work on the L10 in the pictures we've been looking at regarding 'puckers', etc. - and my own belief is that the actual condition is perhaps even less pronounced on the L10 than we see on the Vega, here attached. I do not see either case as 'abnormal' or as occurring due to a 'lack of stiffeners'; in fact, adjacent stiffeners may actually tend to accentuate the condition slightly.
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Nice article by Kansas City Star - "Has the key to Amelia Earhart’s disappearance in the Pacific been found in Kansas?" (http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article3503046.html#storylink=cpy)
Of some interest, Gary LaPook (http://www.stratusproject.com/gary-lapook/), a former TIGHAR forum poster and critic (now associated with 'Stratus' (http://www.stratusproject.com/)) is quoted therein making a critical comment about 2-2-V-1 thus -
Another critic, Gary LaPook, a pilot and lawyer specializing in aircraft crash cases, said Gillespie is ignoring that the patch’s variety of aluminum did not begin to be manufactured until World War II.
“I’m a lawyer, and who has the burden of proof here?” LaPook said. “He wants us to accept this piece of evidence, but he needs to authenticate it.”
Fair enough -
I felt I "knew" the answer off the cuff, so it seemed like low-hanging fruit - but realized this meant someone needed to document this, my "knowing" wasn't enough. On a lark, I dug for about 10 minutes to find it on the web (no dust mite search needed, praise be, or it would still languish, I promise you). Old Aero bulletins (http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgCCAB.nsf/MainFrame?OpenFrameset) are cool but yielded nothing definitive, but the web soon coughed up good stuff about ALCLAD's origins, the earliest mention I found being in 1927, and on rather good authority -
"Technical Notes - National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics - No. 259 - "A L C L A D" - A New Corrosion Resistant Aluminum Product" - by E. H. Dix, Jr., Metallurgist, Research Bureau Aluminum Company of America - Washington August, 1927" (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930081004.pdf) -
So, to answer Gary's point, "A L C L A D" material has been with us since that year - and possibly since somewhat before the time that Lindbergh won the Orteig prize (May 20-21, 1927), if we can trust this Wiki information -
A Wiki report has the first aircraft built of the stuff as the all-metal navy airship ZMC-2, built in 1927 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alclad) at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile.
Who knows, maybe Lindberg actually flew some of the stuff across the Atlantic on that lovely tooled nose cowl of the Spirit of St. Louis. History is cool stuff, gotta love this chase.
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Given TIGHAR's own experience with how the media gets things miscombobulated I think Gary deserves the benefit of the doubt here.
Some examples from the KC Star article...
"One theory is that Earhart spent World War II in a China prison camp."
China? Japan maybe. Or Saipan. But China? That's a new one.
"Another theory holds that she resumed her life under an assumed name in Long Island, N.Y."
I think Irene Bolam lived in Princeton, NJ.
My guess is Gary's remarks were meant to reflect the dating of the "ALCLAD" font rather than Alclad's origin. Although I disagree with him I always appreciated what he added to the forum and I do miss his knowledge and wit.
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I'm in agreement with James' - the newpaper appears likely to have garbled Gary's words, something TIGHAR has some experience with. As I understand it, Gary's contention was that the "ALCLAD" stamp wasn't used yet when the window was covered and wanted proof that it was used before.
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"One theory is that Earhart spent World War II in a China prison camp."
China? Japan maybe. Or Saipan. But China? That's a new one.
China ... yes ... and not a "new" theory. Recall the reason for so many of this Forum's postings ending with LTM. (It's the very first FAQ (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Forum/FAQs/ltm.htm) TIGHAR provides for its many visitors to the website.) The prison camp mentioned in that hard-to-scotch-theory was Weihsien Internment Camp, run by the Japanese, in ..... China.
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“I’m a lawyer, and who has the burden of proof here?” LaPook said. “He wants us to accept this piece of evidence, but he needs to authenticate it.”
Fair enough -
[/quote]
Jeff, your excellent post again highlights the vagaries of aircraft aluminum labeling in the early 20th century. It adds yet another variable: how the product was referred to internally vs how it was labeled, and how that may have changed over time. It also highlights what Gary and his sympathizers don't get (or refuse to get) -- TIGHAR (or any reputable researcher using best practices) is always searching for corroboration. And more corroboration. And more after that.
It's just plain weird that Gary and his brethren insist that when TIGHAR identifies evidence that points to the origins of 2-2-V-1, it means that TIGHAR is willfully dismissing the emergence of contrary evidence. That is flatly, demonstrably, not true.
And to further compound their error, they don't believe their own, potentially contrary evidence should be subject to the same scientific review as any other evidence. Their claims of infallibility based on personal observation and inference are absurd on their face.
LaPook has no objective evidence to support his emphatic claims about ALCLAD labeling. None. Similarly, Long has no objective evidence to support his own emphatic contention that 2-2-V-1 came from a PBY. None.
And with Gary, it gets especially weird because of his breathless demand that we "have the burden to prove it..." Hell, that's exactly what we're trying to do! ??? But last time I checked, nobody at TIGHAR has made that claim. I implore the critics--measure your own evidence as you would have TIGHAR measure theirs...
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Given TIGHAR's own experience with how the media gets things miscombobulated I think Gary deserves the benefit of the doubt here.
Some examples from the KC Star article...
"One theory is that Earhart spent World War II in a China prison camp."
China? Japan maybe. Or Saipan. But China? That's a new one.
"Another theory holds that she resumed her life under an assumed name in Long Island, N.Y."
I think Irene Bolam lived in Princeton, NJ.
My guess is Gary's remarks were meant to reflect the dating of the "ALCLAD" font rather than Alclad's origin. Although I disagree with him I always appreciated what he added to the forum and I do miss his knowledge and wit.
First of all, I'm not trying to put words in Gary's mouth, or even to give him a hard time - but the article says what it says, and that's what I have to deal with if I choose to address it.
That said, his comment rang a bell from the past - and I found an old message from Gary about this very thing. Perhaps it can shed a bit of light, and since he apparently intended it as helpful information to what we were doing with 2-2-V-1 (either way - supportive of Earhart provenance or not, it feeds research), I'll share it. Perhaps you are be right, you be the judge:
Here is a link to the entire report.
http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1942/naca-tn-842.pdf (http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1942/naca-tn-842.pdf)
and the original report.
http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1939/naca-tn-736.pdf (http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1939/naca-tn-736.pdf)
gl
Note that these links, provided by Gary, are to much later reports than the one I just found. Gary elaborated in an accompanying message -
If you look at those reports you will see that the word "alcad" was used in both reports so this pushes back to 1939 the use of that word.
gl
Thanks! Now if we could just 'push it back' to say, 1937? "That Word" ("alclad") seems important to Gary in his missive; it is in fact a definitive word, attaining 'household word' generic usage in the industry, in fact. Yes - it has been identified as "ALC" and "CLAD" and "ALCLAD" that we know of, and perhaps by other means - and in more font styles than I care to think about (saw many in Dayton that I haven't seen elsewhere).
Now, I fully realize the difference between a 'household word' in the industry, and what winds up in print on metal. Somehow I took (and still do) Gary's point in that discussion as having to do with 'when clad material evolved' - and as I look back, yes - use of 'that word'; provenance of the fonts, etc. was another matter (there were other exchanges).
So, for the moment having taken the article at face value (I realize the peril) then -
- 'This material (clad aluminum) has been with us since before Earhart's time' - established;
If instead, we apply the assumption that Gary intended something along the lines of what he sent me back in late April 2014 (above two messages), then -
- The 'use of the word 'alclad' extends not only to 1939, as Gary suggested (and demonstrated), but in fact to 1927 - as evidenced by the later find posted up-string by my own hand.
That leaves "fonts", or the use of "A L C L A D" in lieu of "A L C" - which seems your point.
Which takes us back to the land of "see the pictures of pre-war and wartime fonts / ALC vs. ALCLAD pictures" - which has been pitched too hard as "fact", frankly, as I see it.
I would not disagree that it remains 'open-ended' as a potential up or down issue with regard to dating the metal (but can never prove an Earhart tie, BTW). The question is relevancy, then - and at the moment it is secondary to some other considerations, despite the 'press' here and there: there is other evidence regarding Amelia's window patch that is of more promise for the moment - evidence that could yet prove 2-2-V-1 is tied to the Electra.
If one wishes to focus on 'disproving', then by all means - one should go do the dust-mite laden boots on the ground effort I've come to believe it will take to pinpoint when Alcoa (or others, perhaps even) changed fonts on their rolling printers: it does not emerge so far on the net. Sorry, but the nice picture web - with all the pictures gleaned from the web here and there, and despite being sweetly persuasive to the onlooker, just is not definitive enough to disprove; and again, this point can never prove an Earhart tie.
I will unabashedly focus on the things that have potential to 'prove' - including continuing the search, as best I can.
So I hope this answers in full, as best I know how to do, Gary's assertion in the Kansas City Star: 'ALCLAD' was a staple of the industry by 1937, having been around since at least Lindbergh's scurrying across the Atlantic; the TERM 'ALCLAD' has been with us not just since 1939, but since 1927.
Beyond that, the 'fonts / ALC vs. ALCLAD' markings are another matter - and hardly the only one with bearing here.
But, you be the judge.
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As to the use of the world ALCLAD, I refer interested parties to the patent (https://www.google.com/patents/US1949112?dq=Alclad&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7P9SVKmbBoO3yASvh4Bw&ved=0CB8Q6AE) cited in my brief paper on rivet corrosion "The Case of the Vanishing Rivets."
Note that the patent description includes the sentence "The method in question has been widely employed for the manufacture of light metal sheets, and products obtained in this manner have become known under the names of Alclad or Alplat." I call your attention to the fact that Herr Schreiber applied for his patent in 1931.
I have been unable to find any other reference to the term "Alplat" but it is clearly a synonym for ALCLAD, perhaps in use in Europe.
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Given TIGHAR's own experience with how the media gets things miscombobulated I think Gary deserves the benefit of the doubt here.
Some examples from the KC Star article...
"One theory is that Earhart spent World War II in a China prison camp."
China? Japan maybe. Or Saipan. But China? That's a new one.
"Another theory holds that she resumed her life under an assumed name in Long Island, N.Y."
I think Irene Bolam lived in Princeton, NJ.
My guess is Gary's remarks were meant to reflect the dating of the "ALCLAD" font rather than Alclad's origin. Although I disagree with him I always appreciated what he added to the forum and I do miss his knowledge and wit.
First of all, I'm not trying to put words in Gary's mouth, or even to give him a hard time - but the article says what it says, and that's what I have to deal with if I choose to address it.
That said, his comment rang a bell from the past - and I found an old message from Gary about this very thing. Perhaps it can shed a bit of light, and since he apparently intended it as helpful information to what we were doing with 2-2-V-1 (either way - supportive of Earhart provenance or not, it feeds research), I'll share it. Perhaps you are be right, you be the judge:
Here is a link to the entire report.
http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1942/naca-tn-842.pdf (http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1942/naca-tn-842.pdf)
and the original report.
http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1939/naca-tn-736.pdf (http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1939/naca-tn-736.pdf)
gl
Note that these links, provided by Gary, are to much later reports than the one I just found. Gary elaborated in an accompanying message -
If you look at those reports you will see that the word "alcad" was used in both reports so this pushes back to 1939 the use of that word.
gl
Thanks! Now if we could just 'push it back' to say, 1937? "That Word" ("alclad") seems important to Gary in his missive; it is in fact a definitive word, attaining 'household word' generic usage in the industry, in fact. Yes - it has been identified as "ALC" and "CLAD" and "ALCLAD" that we know of, and perhaps by other means - and in more font styles than I care to think about (saw many in Dayton that I haven't seen elsewhere).
Now, I fully realize the difference between a 'household word' in the industry, and what winds up in print on metal. Somehow I took (and still do) Gary's point in that discussion as having to do with 'when clad material evolved' - and as I look back, yes - use of 'that word'; provenance of the fonts, etc. was another matter (there were other exchanges).
So, for the moment having taken the article at face value (I realize the peril) then -
- 'This material (clad aluminum) has been with us since before Earhart's time' - established;
If instead, we apply the assumption that Gary intended something along the lines of what he sent me back in late April 2014 (above two messages), then -
- The 'use of the word 'alclad' extends not only to 1939, as Gary suggested (and demonstrated), but in fact to 1927 - as evidenced by the later find posted up-string by my own hand.
That leaves "fonts", or the use of "A L C L A D" in lieu of "A L C" - which seems your point.
Which takes us back to the land of "see the pictures of pre-war and wartime fonts / ALC vs. ALCLAD pictures" - which has been pitched too hard as "fact", frankly, as I see it.
I would not disagree that it remains 'open-ended' as a potential up or down issue with regard to dating the metal (but can never prove an Earhart tie, BTW). The question is relevancy, then - and at the moment it is secondary to some other considerations, despite the 'press' here and there: there is other evidence regarding Amelia's window patch that is of more promise for the moment - evidence that could yet prove 2-2-V-1 is tied to the Electra.
If one wishes to focus on 'disproving', then by all means - one should go do the dust-mite laden boots on the ground effort I've come to believe it will take to pinpoint when Alcoa (or others, perhaps even) changed fonts on their rolling printers: it does not emerge so far on the net. Sorry, but the nice picture web - with all the pictures gleaned from the web here and there, and despite being sweetly persuasive to the onlooker, just is not definitive enough to disprove; and again, this point can never prove an Earhart tie.
I will unabashedly focus on the things that have potential to 'prove' - including continuing the search, as best I can.
So I hope this answers in full, as best I know how to do, Gary's assertion in the Kansas City Star: 'ALCLAD' was a staple of the industry by 1937, having been around since at least Lindbergh's scurrying across the Atlantic; the TERM 'ALCLAD' has been with us not just since 1939, but since 1927.
Beyond that, the 'fonts / ALC vs. ALCLAD' markings are another matter - and hardly the only one with bearing here.
But, you be the judge.
Huh? ::)
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As to the use of the world ALCLAD, I refer interested parties to the patent (https://www.google.com/patents/US1949112?dq=Alclad&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7P9SVKmbBoO3yASvh4Bw&ved=0CB8Q6AE) cited in my brief paper on rivet corrosion "The Case of the Vanishing Rivets."
Now, now, let's not go inserting irrefutable facts into the argument. That's not the way The Earhart Conspiracy Theory Industrial Complex operates. Why try to divert TECTIC's trajectory with things it can't explain away?
All kidding aside - I will go to my grave unable to understand the astonishing level of ill will, invective and outright viciousness that is regularly hurled at TIGHAR by TECTIC, in all its many forms. Some people just can't handle the truth, I guess.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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Given TIGHAR's own experience with how the media gets things miscombobulated I think Gary deserves the benefit of the doubt here.
...My guess is Gary's remarks were meant to reflect the dating of the "ALCLAD" font rather than Alclad's origin. Although I disagree with him I always appreciated what he added to the forum and I do miss his knowledge and wit.
First of all, I'm not trying to put words in Gary's mouth, or even to give him a hard time - but the article says what it says, and that's what I have to deal with if I choose to address it.
That said, his comment rang a bell from the past - ...
But, you be the judge.
Huh? ::)
Huh? ::)
What did I miss, James?
Granted, it is not easy to address the ambiguities of another...
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You didn't miss anyting Jeffrey, I'll bet James was just commenting on how your dissection was so 'deep in the weeds' that it's hard to keep it all straight! I think I went a little crosseyed trying to understand it.
It's so fascinating how something so minor (literally, a small letter stamped on a piece of metal) can be such a major puzzle piece... and can generate so much heated discussion on both sides of an issue, and it goes on for years without being completely resolved.
Was that stuff rolled on at the factory, or did some guy have a big rubber stamp that he slapped on each piece several times? I wonder if he knew how important his bottom-of-the-totem-pole job would end up being 80 years later?
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One avenue of investigation that might provide us with some more clues, that I have not yet seen raised here, is to see what other repair work has been done in Miami in the period leading up to, and shortly after, the installation of the patch.
Logically, the patch was made from stock material available at that location, so obviously, repairs made around the same time period to other aircraft would have used the same stock.
I understand there are no formal records relating to the installation of the patch, but surely there must exist some records of general maintenance and repair work done at that airfield?
It might be worthwhile trying to find records of other airframes repaired there, photographs etc., to see if we can find similarly labelled pieces of ALCLAD.
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Ron - weeds - LOL!!!
Well, if my head's not in the weeds on this half the time, hmmm... :P
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Bessel - some of the archives and records in Florida have been checked, including the PanAm archives held by the University of Miami and one private collection. Nothing substantive about Amelia Earhart or her stay in Miami was found beyond newspaper clippings; disappointingly, it was noted anecdotally in the PanAm archives that a great deal of material was purged in the 1950s.
The new Miami photo was also found in the University of Miami archives, after someone sent TIGHAR a query about it. Is there more stuff there? I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is - this new Miami photo may be the clincher for 2-2-V-1, and NOBODY really knew about it for the past 70-plus years.
It's all about, a) Knowing where to look, and b) Finding someone who has the time to look. The internet is a marvelous thing, but ... there's really no substitute for boots on the ground, and TIGHAR's boots are constantly stretched wayyyyy to thin to cover every possibility. If you fancy a trip to Miami, I'd be happy to join you, seeing as how it's snowing outside my window as we speak :(
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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Monty, count me in! It's positively ugly outside right now. ;D
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...you guys have me thinking about 'early retirement' - not bad weather here, just looking at vested time... Miami sounds nice, cool crab houses for evening eats.
Seriously, the web is fascinating - and far shorter on a lot of details I am finding. Of course everything we see on the web means someone put 'boots on the ground' to find and put it there, one way or another. The latest round of photos wouldn't have come to the web without precisely that. Here's hoping some new detail emerges...
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I'll bet James was just commenting on how your dissection was so 'deep in the weeds' that it's hard to keep it all straight! I think I went a little crosseyed trying to understand it.
Thanks Ron. I'm glad it wasn't just me. I can usually follow Jeff's self-acknowledged "bloviation" but this time I kept getting lost about halfway through. Those damn weeds... :)
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I'll bet James was just commenting on how your dissection was so 'deep in the weeds' that it's hard to keep it all straight! I think I went a little crosseyed trying to understand it.
Thanks Ron. I'm glad it wasn't just me. I can usually follow Jeff's self-acknowledged "bloviation" but this time I kept getting lost about halfway through. Those damn weeds... :)
LOL!!! Point well made, and taken!!!
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Jeff, take it more as an acknowledgement of our shortcomings and not yours :) Carry on!
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Oh, how I DO carry on, for sure! My pleasure, of course!
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One avenue of investigation that might provide us with some more clues, that I have not yet seen raised here, is to see what other repair work has been done in Miami in the period leading up to, and shortly after, the installation of the patch.
Logically, the patch was made from stock material available at that location, so obviously, repairs made around the same time period to other aircraft would have used the same stock.
I understand there are no formal records relating to the installation of the patch, but surely there must exist some records of general maintenance and repair work done at that airfield?
It might be worthwhile trying to find records of other airframes repaired there, photographs etc., to see if we can find similarly labelled pieces of ALCLAD.
I think what Bessel is talking about here is not AE's aircraft, but other aircraft repaired in Miami around that time. Saying maybe the same stock used for the patch was also used on other aircraft; maybe the workmanship is similar. If any such documentation or actual planes survive, then they could shed more light, indirectly, on the patch. Ideally, they could at least prove conclusively what kind of Alclad with what kind of font was available at that time and place.
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One avenue of investigation that might provide us with some more clues, that I have not yet seen raised here, is to see what other repair work has been done in Miami in the period leading up to, and shortly after, the installation of the patch.
Logically, the patch was made from stock material available at that location, so obviously, repairs made around the same time period to other aircraft would have used the same stock.
I understand there are no formal records relating to the installation of the patch, but surely there must exist some records of general maintenance and repair work done at that airfield?
It might be worthwhile trying to find records of other airframes repaired there, photographs etc., to see if we can find similarly labelled pieces of ALCLAD.
I think what Bessel is talking about here is not AE's aircraft, but other aircraft repaired in Miami around that time. Saying maybe the same stock used for the patch was also used on other aircraft; maybe the workmanship is similar. If any such documentation or actual planes survive, then they could shed more light, indirectly, on the patch. Ideally, they could at least prove conclusively what kind of Alclad with what kind of font was available at that time and place.
Exactly!
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It would seem like a very long shot, but it could prove invaluable if aluminum (with the same font) used to repair another aircraft at around the same place and time matched this piece. I don't know where you'd even begin to look, though.
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The 'font' (along with 'ALC' vs. 'ALCLAD' markings) will remain controversial until -
a) 2-2-V-1 is proven to be of Earhart provenance by some other means, e.g. finding of a truly clear photo that gets us beyond any ambiguity (which could also disprove provenance, of course), or
b) the 'font matter' is truly defined.
What you suggest would be one way of finding out. I favor it, but at the moment don't know of a workable way to do it. Would we peruse the library there for more pictures of airplanes of the day with open work where we might see such markings? I doubt we'd find much of that - why would those obscure craft (by comparison Earhart was a big story) appear in the press so much?
Then there remains some possibility that Earhart brought the metal used for the 'patch' with her from the west coast, after all.
I can't address this font issue without thinking of how it must pique our critics - but once more I'll say 'put up true proof' of when the fonts changed and we'll go from there. I'm all for it, but simply don't know how to truly define it yet. I have to add that for now I see more promising pathways to proving (or disproving as it may come to be) 2-2-V-1's provenance, so stand by - we'll exhaust that as we can in due course.
Or don't stand by - go do the 'dust mite' boots on ground research to find out all that can be found about Alcoa's application of printed fonts. I simply don't know where to go next - but looking for early historic examples is probably a good start. I don't think we can define it from web information alone, as alluring as all the 'pre-war / war-time' pictures put up by the critics are in terms of 'byte'.
Maybe there are historic examples in Miami, after all. It's a good idea.
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How would one find out what aircraft were working out of Miami, or could have been repaired in Miami, at the time? Tracking them down might require a lot of legwork, but it would be worth it if you could find a matching font that could be dated to 1937. Once again, it would seem like a long shot, but what are the odds of finding 2-2-V-1 when and where it was found, considering what it likely was?
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Is there someone in the Miami area who could check at the Miami Museum of Flight for some 1937-vintage aircraft that might have old repairs? Also there are lots of other aircraft services listedlisted in the Miami phone directory]Miami Museum of Flight has some antique aircraft, some of which might be worth looking at for 1937 repair work.
Also any of the aircraft services [url=http://www.informationpages.com/West-Miami,FL/Aircraft-Antique-Restoration)]listed in the Miami phone directory (http://Miami Museum of Flight has some antique aircraft, some of which might be worth looking at for 1937 repair work.
Also any of the aircraft services [url=http://www.informationpages.com/West-Miami,FL/Aircraft-Antique-Restoration)), one of which might have leads to offer.
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Awful lot of legwork for only the barest chance of any reward. I still feel that the whole font question is secondary to all the other characteristics of 2-2-V-1 and the information that they will yield to us, as we learn new questions to ask it. The Great Font Debate has made it abundantly clear - to me - that the material labeling practices at that time were so varied and inconsistent as to be virtually meaningless as a way to qualify, or disqualify, 2-2-V-1 as a piece from our favorite Electra.
This new University of Miami photo demonstrates yet again that there are reams of untapped material about Earhart and Noonan still out there. It almost always takes boots on the ground to find it. Talk is cheap. Answers are expensive. I am doing what I can, where I can, to fund those answers. I heartily encourage all other forum participants to do the same.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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The fonts have no power to 'prove' Earhart provenance; they do have the potential power to 'disprove', without a doubt.
What has to be done to 'disprove' - again - is to go beyond the suggestive photos (yes, they are highly suggestive, and tempting) and pinpoint when this changed on metal markings. I'm not afraid of 'disproving', should that become the case - but I'm more for spending my energy and time on things that might 'prove' 2-2-V-1's tie to the Electra.
We know that the term 'ALCLAD' has been used in the industry since 1927 - we do not know how many variants of the term / abbreviation were truly used, or when they were introduced. The only thing the web photos so far tell us is that predominantly, it is obvious that wartime goods carried the 'more modern' (I see it that way) print, whereas prewar stuff more obviously carried 'more antiquated' print, if you will. The photos - as tempting as they are, do not draw a true line.
I notice that TIGHAR has drawn criticisms of false science of late - most peculiar, coming from some who would hold that the photo record of the font issue 'proves' us wrong...
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Jeff, Monty,
I have been unable to locate the original thread that I downloaded this picture from (on 5-3-14) so I'll just repost it.
The picture is of an Electra during fabrication. The bulkhead between the cockpit and the cabin has what looks to be material ID markings as does the 4th frame. I can almost read the markings but I think some enhancement is needed. Can this photo provide any relevant information or evidence of ALCLAD labeling practice in use on an Electra at the time of manufacture?
LTM who finds this whole thing riveting.
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The only thing that finding the matching font on ACLAD known to date from 1937 (or earlier) would prove is that 2-2-V-1 couldn't be EXCLUDED from being a piece of the Electra. In that sense it might be worth someone's time and effort to look for it. (I, for one, sometimes have more time than money, and I would think others in the Miami area might be in the same boat.)
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Yes, and if someone can, great! I simply believe it will take 'boots on the ground' to do it as I have looked a great deal on the net for defining information to no avail, other than the 'suggestive photos', which are common enough.
As for me for now I am more interested in gaining more detail about what the actual 'patch' really looked like up close, if it can be learned from this latest round of photos just found in Miami. I believe that is the more direct path to being able to determine 2-2-V-1's relevance with more certainty.
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Jeff, Monty,
I have been unable to locate the original thread that I downloaded this picture from (on 5-3-14) so I'll just repost it.
The picture is of an Electra during fabrication. The bulkhead between the cockpit and the cabin has what looks to be material ID markings as does the 4th frame. I can almost read the markings but I think some enhancement is needed. Can this photo provide any relevant information or evidence of ALCLAD labeling practice in use on an Electra at the time of manufacture?
LTM who finds this whole thing riveting.
Thanks for reposting that, Steve.
As best I can tell (the resolution fades as I enlarge it) the markings are the familiar 'ALC' serifed font on the slanted bulkhead.
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Oh yes, definitely a "boots on the ground" thing. I would think the only way you could match the fonts for sure would be to go see them and photograph them (if, of course, they exist) from up close. I have no expertise in aircraft construction, but someone like me could certainly look for and photograph lettering on aluminum. Unfortunately, I'm too far away to handle this one.
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I received the attached photo of the Electra at Darwin (in hangar) from David Billings (East New Britain hypothesis). David felt it was of interest as to what might be oil canning in the skin, and that some qualified observers belive that this proves an attending 'absence of stiffeners'. This would be, of course, disqualifying of 2-2-V-1's possible provenance to the Electra - that artifact has evidence of stiffeners having been attached.
David was eager for me to see and consider the import of these images and I appreciate the opportunity to critique the critique. We may have seen this shot before, but it was not clear to me that we've seen the same one. I do recall that there is a post here somewhere of the hangared bird in Darwin. This may be a slightly different angle of view than the other, if so - I'm not sure (should have found it but eyes are tired).
As to what is shown, the idea among those critiquing 2-2-V-1 is that if bracing were present on the Electra's window covering, as some of us believe was the case, the deformity we see should not be there. I can respect that, but do not agree with that as an absolute 'must be'; I can easily visualize lots of reasons that a lightly braced structure might behave this way. I hope that we who disagree can respect each other, but won't shrink from my own views.
The asserted 'deformity' appears as a somewhat 'flattened' area, as I'll call it, near the upper edge of the covering. It can be seen as the line of light that is clearly distorted near the top of the covering. This distortion suggests a somewhat broad, flattened area where a more continuous curve might be expected. What is suggested to me visually is that a somewhat flattened area does show up - maybe even as slightly concave - but I am reserved as to its real degree and significance. This 'anomalous' area roughly follows the edge of the window opening underneath, at its upper limit, and is visible as it transits across the sheet toward the middle 'waterline' area, somewhat. You look - a picture is worth a thousand words (not that I can't find them... ::)).
To explain my own view a bit further -
Many may recall that I have offered the idea here before that the panel may have been lightly braced. As such, it is quite as possible to me that a distortion such as we see suggested by this picture could result with light bracing. A blunt force might do that, in my opinion - light, improvised bracing could easily deform with the outer sheet well enough to give such a smooth transition. I've seen that in very similar respects before. Or, we could still be looking at some of the residual 'puckering' effect I've spoken of as a possibility. It is hard to say - we were not there and do not have first-hand, certain knowledge. I believe it is also hard to say how much 'deformity' is there - although I do believe it is real (and a good visual catch).
So much for my thoughts. I hope by sharing this information on the forum I've essentially helped the critics subject their own conclusions to more scrutiny, as we all must submit to. So, in that spirit I hope, have a look at this photo - one version showing the window covering enlarged with some attending notes.
It occurs to me that while light doesn't 'lie', it might exaggerate - but I leave that judgment to those who know photo-imagery better than I. That others differ with my view of that does not bother me, so long as it is in honest disagreement. I think we'd all do well to avoid the now all-to-common condemnation of other's ideas that we see. Wishful thinking, I guess - but I have grown to have hopes for a more positive Earhart search community nonetheless: the negatives flying around do not help any of us look more favorable in the public eye.
Anyway, I hope this picture is worthwhile for review. I found it interesting, but contrary to the views of some others, simply don't see it as conclusive as to the absence of bracing on the window covering on the Electra. Just my view - I hope you all will consider it carefully.
ADDED -
I'm having trouble loading the full image / or the second of two images: the close-up isn't copying. For now, examine the obvious 'patch' area and you should see the light distortions I've tried to describe. I'll load the balance ASAP.
UPDATED: see attached Word doc for details. Conversion didn't work - will try another method tomorrow, sorry.
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David felt it was of interest as to what might be oil canning in the skin.
I see a darker area on the patch and also see a dark area just aft of the patch and on other parts of the plane.(I think it is good that we have the whole plane and not just an enlargement). There are multiple manmade or skylight light sources in that picture so I don't think we are seeing a typical shadow like the direct sunlight might make.
I think the newer aluminum of the patch is still reflecting other objects more than the older aluminum is.
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Could it be possible that the stiffeners were added after the Darwin picture was taken?
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This is a pretty fascinating picture. A few comments that come to mind.
1. It appears to me that there is a definite deformity to the patch. Basically a shallow 'dent' where the piece is depressed slightly (appears to be an inch or so) more than the rest of the patch, the famous oil-canning people talk about.
What does that mean? Nothing, in my opinion. You have a piece of sheet metal fashioned to cover up a window.
Lets think about the coaming around the window that we've looked at in the 'selfie' picture. Is it perfectly formed? Are there no creases or dents in the coaming? Hell no, it's got all kinds of deformities because it was created by a mechanic with a hammer! Just as the window coaming wasn't perfect, likely the skin created to cover it back up wasn't perfect either. So my suggestion would be that the 'dent' or oil canned area could have been present from the very beginning. There could be a stringer under it that was also 'dented' or not perfectly straight. Perfectly straight, in this instance, by the way, is slightly curved to match the surface of the plane.
If you really wanted to be a jerk, you could simply present as evidence "Yeah, you can see the dent on the artifact!" (see attachment) Of course you can't necessarily, because you can't infer from the picture exactly what the original 'dent' looked like or where exactly it started or ended; and you can't infer from the artifact what dents are original, created later, or were bent out of the artifact that were originally there! It's metal; it can bend.
2. One thing I've noticed is that people obsess on finding 1 piece of evidence or information that disproves the entire thing, or proves the entire thing. I feel that this is a fallacy. You can't find a single picture that seems to suggest that there was a dent, and then leap to that must mean there was no stringer, and since the artifact has stringers, it can't be the patch. Why? ... because we have 15 other reasons that can't really be explained away, that we feel is strong evidence that it IS the patch. Sure if you found a picture of the rivets and they didn't match, that would disprove it, but one picture that you infer excludes the artifact is not enough to disprove the other 15 things that we have inferred validate it. We're only catching 'shades' of evidence, we haven't seen any black and white evidence yet.
I'll say this: the strongest evidence, so far, that this is the patch panel, is that it was found on the island that so much other evidence suggests is where the plane went down! It's very hard to find a single piece of evidence that proves something like this conclusively, but it's easily proven (in my mind) by all the interdependent evidence.
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I'm going to go ahead and go wayyyy into speculation; completely unscientific here, guys.
look at the picture of the plane in the hanger. The patch appears to have a crease, that starts on the right side of the patch and travels to the left, about halfway down. It travels at about a 20 degree slant from about 60% up the patch on the right edge, to about 40% up the patch, near the center... kind of fading out at about the center of the patch. See it? It appears to be the bottom of the oil-canned 'dent'.
Now look at the patch. The same crease appears to be on it. On the right you can see it starting at about the second row of rivets, and it travels down to the left near the center vertical piece of tape, disappearing near the center. What remains of the oil canned dent is to the left of Ric's right hand.
Again, completely unscientific. Could have happened at any time. Could be a trick of light... but damn if it doesn't look the same to me...
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Could it be possible that the stiffeners were added after the Darwin picture was taken?
I doubt that.
Of course I also am of the opinion that this picture does not exclude the likelihood of light stiffeners being present, as I've said.
That said I respect the alternate view - but would note that the photo deserves serious study before it can be said that it proves 'no stiffeners are present'. No doubt our critics will disagree with me - that's OK. But I don't know what all is being reflected in that shot, and whether we're seeing a true distortion in the light on the surface of the metal, or whether light is being reflected oddly there for another reason. Recall that there was lots of discussion about what we saw in the Miami photo reflection as well - some said 'clouds', others (like me) believe we're seeing rivets, among other things - including the crowd, etc.
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I'm going to go ahead and go wayyyy into speculation; completely unscientific here, guys.
look at the picture of the plane in the hanger. The patch appears to have a crease, that starts on the right side of the patch and travels to the left, about halfway down. It travels at about a 20 degree slant from about 60% up the patch on the right edge, to about 40% up the patch, near the center... kind of fading out at about the center of the patch. See it? It appears to be the bottom of the oil-canned 'dent'.
Now look at the patch. The same crease appears to be on it. On the right you can see it starting at about the second row of rivets, and it travels down to the left near the center vertical piece of tape, disappearing near the center. What remains of the oil canned dent is to the left of Ric's right hand.
Again, completely unscientific. Could have happened at any time. Could be a trick of light... but damn if it doesn't look the same to me...
Good catch, I see what you mean. That could be an exciting match -
Or a coincidence. I remain skeptical of the import of this 'oil canning' - both as to how prominent it may really be, whether it 'could not exist' with bracing present (I believe it could) - or whether this is some effect of the light.
The main corroboration I see that this is true metal distortion is in the tell-tale evidence present in the Darwin ramp photo. I've attached that here.
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Here are two more pictures. I've been unable to load what David Billings gave me, but he sent these as well.
Bottom line, I am not a photogrammetry expert by any means. I think the light / sources of light, etc. would have to be carefully analyzed here to be able to ever say "there are no stiffeners", but again, respect why some believe that is true. Enjoy.
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Once it's pointed-out, it's pretty easy to see. I make it out to be a fairly shallow dish-shaped depression in nearly the entire top half of the patch. It's a little harder to see in the ramp picture, but it appears to be there.
Given the depression is in an inward direction, I'm wondering if that "pressure" caused the impression of a vertical stiffener found on 2-2-V-1 this past August? There don't seem to be any similar impressions of the horizontal stiffeners, so I'm also thinking the 'oil-canning' might have caused the vertical stiffener attachment point at the top of the patch to 'pop' at some point in the journey.
An alternative is that visible depression may have been the reason the vertical stiffener was added, either there in Darwin or some where earlier in the trip.
Nice picture, good contrast and reasonable resolution. I wonder if a first generation print or even the negative may still exist somewhere.
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Here are two more pictures. I've been unable to load what David Billings gave me, but he sent these as well.
Bottom line, I am not a photogrammetry expert by any means. I think the light / sources of light, etc. would have to be carefully analyzed here to be able to ever say "there are no stiffeners", but again, respect why some believe that is true. Enjoy.
Seems to be a lot of distortion for whatever reason in the photos ,.....note how the top and sides of the regular window take on an irregular shape.
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One thing for sure - this patch was not a perfect fit. Some of the rivets on the stiffeners would have had more stress than others. On the reef, stress corrosion would have weakened the heads of the most stressed rivets first. The heads would have detached transferring the stress to adjoining rivets which would then fail in time. This is unlike normal aircraft structure where the parts fit properly and the stresses are distributed evenly.
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One thing for sure - this patch was not a perfect fit. Some of the rivets on the stiffeners would have had more stress than others. On the reef, stress corrosion would have weakened the heads of the most stressed rivets first. The heads would have detached transferring the stress to adjoining rivets which would then fail in time. This is unlike normal aircraft structure where the parts fit properly and the stresses are distributed evenly.
That's a good point, James, and coupled with the newly-speculated reason that the rivets simply dissolved over time due to a corrosive reaction with the ALCLAD and salt water, makes a lot of sense.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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I can 'get it' a bit better about what the critics seem to think if I remember the Sta 307 vertical member, I think. That, more than the longitudenal stiffeners that many of us believe were there, might resist the degree of oil canning suggested by this photo. Not a bad point.
That said, I still wonder if the light is being 'true' to metal deformation, or if there are other reasons we're seeing what seems like a 'dish' in the metal from about mid-waterline up. I've highlighted a few notions in the attached, having to do with -
1) A comparison to two other visible areas that also display similar light-line disruptions; one of those (the forward example) appears to have more distortion to me, and is on a known 'OK' section of fuselage above the cabin tanks (Lockheed-installed cabin window covering) - which has me continuing to wonder about 'tricks of the light' somehow - and
2) Reflections? Are we seeing some faint outlines of wing / nacelle or something similar in the hangar area around the Electra? Look at what appears to be the wing trailing edge reflected along the upper tip of the RH tail fin.
3) A completely different area - a shiny skinned door on the Electra; how much 'distortion' is really present, and how much is perhaps over-stated by the lighting?
4) The ubiquitous Vega from overhead - with ply skins showing lots of 'puckers'; these are mild deformations, but the more odd the light angle (oblique, here) the more pronounced - until they look drastic. In fact, these are quite normal to the structure. Stressed wood skins behave in a similar way to stressed metal skins. I think the point of our critics might be that stiffening members do tend to contain skin irregularities - fair enough in my view; that said, stiffeners also can deform gently with the skin - especially where a large area, blunt depression might occur; with wood, it would either break, or tend to return to shape - but metal can well be set to the new shape.
Obviously, I personally believe there may well be a number of explanations for this interesting feature other than 'oil canning because no stiffeners are present'.
I continue to hold that the newest Miami pictures may be the best set of clues yet - anxious to see them studied: one great picture could spare us all these many words...
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One of the theories about the window being installed is that it was for the navigator and needed to be optically correct. This may mean it had to have flat glazing. If this was the case the top edge of the window frame may be straight. Because the rest of the fuselage is slightly curved, then when they installed the patch it may look flat or deformed at the top compared to the rest of the fuselage.
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Hadn't thought of that, Greg, and I don't know if the window had to be optically correct or not. Good point though - an example of the oddities that the patch installer may have had to contend with.
I was fascinated by the clear 'bend' near the upper edge of the window covering in this shot made in Miami - it suggests some slight adjustment in contour along a waterline to deal with some fitment issue or other -
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I think one thing we need to keep in mind is that the light exaggerates any deformities that are there. If you've ever done body work on a car, or had one with a tiny dent in it, you can see this. Just the slightest variance from straight, especially on a glossy sheen really refracts the reflection.
I have no problem with there being an 'oil canned' skin, AND stiffeners present. The vertical one, if there, wasn't riveted and stretching or bending or shrinking the skin would make that metal not lay flat against that stiffener. 1/2" of play would cause a visible 'dent'.
The picture of the plane door is the proof of that. Which is it? Amelia was flying around with a door bent up like an accordion, or was the light just making it look worse? Hard to fathom she'd fly something with the door that bent up, there's no way it was truly "that bad" or it would have been repaired.
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Good points, Ron. I still tend to think that fitting this cover might have been a bit of a bitch, given the size of the area to cover and contours - and likely Earhart's desire that it be as unnoticeable as possible. No matter how it was braced, I suspect there was some deformity in it that fly-specking would turn up. I also still suspect it was 'lightly braced', mainly because I suspect stiffeners may have had to be formed by simple bending of available sheet, and that some degree of contour conformity was worked-in as the skin went on.
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I'm sort of a backyard mechanic... so I know how I would have made the patch, but I would imagine the people that made THIS repair were much more talented than me.
Here's how I see what happened.
1. they take the coaming off by drilling out the rivets. They throw it in the trash, or maybe use it to cut a piece the same size to make the patch.
2. They decide it's pretty big and it's going to bend, so they rivet 5 thin pieces of stiffeners to it, sort of evenly spaced but not really taking into consideration where those 5 stiffeners will line up on the plane.
3. They test fit it on the plane and figure out what they need to do to get it to wrap a little bit around the curvature of the plane. Up at the top they likely beat a curve into it so it would lay flat onto the surface of the plane and not leak water. In doing all this they bend and dent the piece of metal a little bit, leaving it how we see it in the pictures on the plane (a dent in the top right quadrant, a bit of a bowled, sagged effect near about the 4th row of rivets... nothing perfectly flat, kind of warped)
4. After riveting it on the plane, they notice that it's still 'oil canning' because if you press in on the center of it it bends in an inch or so... so they decide to put a stiffener inside where the original vertical piece was. They go inside the plane and cut some sort of angle iron or whatever and somehow attach it to the top where the original vertical stiffener was and then at the bottom... they may have attempted to curve or cut a relief in this piece to make it match the gentle curve of the plane. It likely touched the skin or was close to it, but that would change if the plane went airborne as the pressure and wind moved the panel in and out as the air moved over it.
5. Thinking that it was well enough for their patch job, they rolled the plane out and these pictures were taken, dent already there, bracing already there, patch already installed, etc.
I think it had a minor dent in the upper right quadrant that was there from when it was installed and beat/bent/warped into place, and there also may have been a stiffener vertically in the center of the window (where the original one was on the skin of the plane above it) kind of haphazardly almost wedged into the window frame opening or whatever remained of it on the inside of the plane.
That's how I personally would do it. If the argument is I'm not a plane mechanic and they would have done a hell of a lot better job, that's an argument I think is feasible :)
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BTW: More speculation
The horizontal stiffeners were riveted on. We know this because of the rivet holes.. there are no 'markings' where that left an imprint on the piece because in theory they were held tight against it.
The vertical one wasn't riveted (if it existed). We have an imprint in the skin because that stiffener wasn't held flush with the skin; as the wind beat it around a little bit (oil canning) it repeatedly forged an indentation from the slapping action of the skin against the stiffener. If they would have riveted it we likely wouldn't be able to tell (other than the holes) like on the horizontal ones.
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I gave Elgen that template in 1992. If he has exactly matched it to a PBY he has never told me. If he has a detailed report that supports his claim he needs to produce it before he makes the assertion. That’s the standard we follow. To be credible, that’s the standard he must follow.
The attached photo was posted to a blog by his grandson. It supposedly shows the template and the ‘exact fit” of the template to the upper wing surface of a PBY. As poor as the photo is, I can see a big problem. The artifact has four parallel rows of 3/32nd inch rivets. One edge of the artifact (the edge with the “tab” sticking out) tore along a double staggered row of 5/32nd inch rivets. I see no double row of larger rivets on the PBY. The parallel lines of rivets are clearly all the same size.
To match the artifact to a PBY (or any airplane) takes more than finding five parallel rows of rivets roughly for inches apart. We found places like that on several different types. To have a match to the artifact requires:
• Four rows of 3/32nd inch rivets with a pitch (distance between rivets) of 1 inch.
• The distance between parallel rows must be nominally, but not consistently, 4 5/8ths inches.
• A double staggered row of 5/32 inch rivets with a pitch of 1.5 inches, except for one anomalous spot where there is a 1 5/8ths inch gap.
• The rivets must be AN 455 brazier heads
• The skin to which they are attached must be .032 24St Alcad
If Bill Mangus is correct that the skin thickness in that area was .045 that puts another nail in the coffin.
Ric,
Could you clarify the 4-5/8 in. nominal spacing between rivet rows in 2-2-V-1, as you stated it in the above quote? Your 1992 "TIGHAR Tracks" article "Through the Flak" http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/1992Vol_8/Flak.pdf (http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/1992Vol_8/Flak.pdf)
has a rather detailed drawing of the rivet pattern in 2-2-V-1. The largest spacing between rivet lines shown on that drawing is 4-1/2 in. Also, measuring as best I could from the photos you posted several months ago of the temporarily flattened 2-2-V-1, with measuring tape laid across 2-2-V-1 in the photos, I got rivet spacing between rivet lines of about 4-1/16 in. to 4-1/4 in. I don't see where a measurement as large as 4-5/8 in. (4.625 in.) would have come from. Perhaps 4-5/8 in. in your post quoted above was a typo?
Jeff P.
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Good analysis Jeff. Remember though, there's bright sunshine in the lower right of the photo being reflected up and to the left. Notice the upward shadow of the outboard tab of the right horizontal stabilizer on the outboard side of the right vertical stabilizer. That's sunlight being reflected up from the floor.
That same light is causing the lower, almost continuous bright line even with the top of the factory installed window back along the top edge of the patch, then disappearing behind the horizontal stabilizer. Going forward of the factory installed window, the line breaks up for some reason. I cannot figure the exact angles of reflection, but it seems to me the trailing edge of the starboard wing blocks the direct sunlight upward reflection from the hanger floor about halfway into the factory window. These broken lines and the one spot well forward, in isolation, one skin panel behind the cockpit window, may be overhead lights somewhere above the right wing.
The higher, broken line of reflections on both sides of the top of the fuselage are probably from overhead lights. They are too far around/over the curve of the fuselage to be reflected light from the floor. Notice the four bright spots on the outboard side of the right engine nacelle; they're probably overhead lights also. These reflections seem to me to be too small to be from skylights. Because the nacelle is curved, the camera sees only a spot of light there. The broken lines on top are on a somewhat flatter surface and we see a longer area of light reflected back up to the camera. The two bright spots on the fuselage around the tip of the right vertical stabilizer are curious. Perhaps it is a point source reflection from something on the hanger floor off to the right; a tool, a piece of equipment, etc.
The RDF antenna, the forward antenna mast and the tip of the portside propeller are all in direct sunlight. Note the especially bright reflection of the RDF antenna. The top of the fuselage isn’t brightly lit, so I’m thinking the light on the antennas and prop is coming through a postulated row of windows above the hanger door. The drooping elevator is brightly lit; the sun may be very nearly straight-on into it. The top side of the right wing is partially lit by reflection from the floor, I think, especially the trailing edge, as the wing surface curves downward. Given that the trailing edge shadow of the starboard wing is well forward, I thing the sun angle is pretty low. It's June, mid-winter, in Darwin. I'm guessing it's morning, before any clouds built-up later in the day. The overhead lights haven't been turned-off yet.
These different sources and reflections create a pretty confusing pattern, for sure. This is my take on it.
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TIGHAR's answer to Elgen Long's assertion that a section on the upper wing surface of a PBY is a perfect match to 2-2-V-1 is now up on the TIGHAR website at http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/74_Is_22V1_From_PBY/74_Is22V1PBY.html
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Excellent bulletin, Ric. 'Kinda' rules Long's PBY theory out... to say the least.
Great work, Bill Mangus!
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Reflections -
2-2-V-1 remains awfully interesting, despite the criticisms. I look forward to more research to come - see the 2-2-V-1 string. The risks are well understood, but I thank those who criticize out of concern anyway.
Some of the 2-2-V-1 criticisms are interesting; those which drive a deeper review of photographic evidence and the theory about how it may have fit (if it did fit) onto the Electra are valuable. So far none of the criticisms 'prove' a lack of provenance to 2-2-V-1 to the Electra as I see them; other's judgment may vary, of course.
For me, as long as 2-2-V-1 remains of even possible provenance to Earhart, it is a precious relic to be carefully considered. My interest may well be another's folly - fine. I merely think it would be foolish to cast a potential Earhart relic aside due to the perceived odds, and prefer to exhaust all hopes. How many shots might we get at finding the lost flight?
I'm glad the 'PBY matter' was chased to earth - and as it turns out, it might be judged less than a fair claim: it now seems to be an obvious misfit.
This was rather quickly found out by one good TIGHAR member's bothering to go and do on a weekend what the original photographer / hypothesis author might have done for us in the beginning, had he merely shared a direct shot of his overlay with the barest of technical review and comment. Now, having been given as purported 'can't be Electra because it is of a PBY' fact, the whole thing 'smells' kind of funny. I get the feeling it may not have started that way, but grew from an 'idea' into someone's tragic notion of 'proof'. In the spirit of diplomacy, I'll refrain from further expansion on the odor and simply note that the original 'investigation' seems to have been less than thorough enough, and leave the smell check to others. One man's crow is another's pidgeon.
Perhaps many can learn something more of the process by all this.
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Taking Jeff's lead on "Reflections..."
I see 2-2-V-1 as something of a tangible metaphor for the identity and work of TIGHAR. In that sense, it ultimately doesn't matter if 2-2-V-1 does in fact prove to be fabric from Earhart's Electra. What differentiates TiGHAR from the, uh, critics, is a rigorous dedication to the understanding and application of the Scientific Method. Therein lays the importance of 2-2-V-1.
By definition the Scientific Method is an incremental, self-testing and correcting process that starts with an hypothesis but precipitates verifiable conclusions over time. Consider this: TIGHAR's investigation into 2-2-V-1 spans nearly 25 years across numerous fits and starts--reconsiderations born of testing that eliminated possible conclusions. That journey in itself differentiates TIGHAR from the critics.
At some risk, I suggest that the importance of 2-2-V-1 to TIGHAR and its mission transcends the question of its provenance. Whatever the ultimate conclusion, at the end of the day, 2-2-V-1 is just another piece of evidence in a much larger investigation--that through the dedication of TIGHAR leadership and members got properly tested.
The loudest and most passionate TIGHAR critics don't understand that nor will they ever. Ironically, that actually cripples their ability to provide valid, useful critique.
Okay. Enough staring at the belly button. Back to our regularly scheduled forum posting.
Cheers all.
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Here are two more pictures. I've been unable to load what David Billings gave me, but he sent these as well.
Bottom line, I am not a photogrammetry expert by any means. I think the light / sources of light, etc. would have to be carefully analyzed here to be able to ever say "there are no stiffeners", but again, respect why some believe that is true. Enjoy.
Seems to be a lot of distortion for whatever reason in the photos ,.....note how the top and sides of the regular window take on an irregular shape.
Good observation, Jerry.
Again, I am not a photo analyst by any stretch, but the lighting effects seen in this photo suggest some subtle but complex visual distortions that would have to be weeded through very carefully before making reasonable claims of structural distortion.
Like so many pictures in this effort, I'm not even sure enough resolution is present to get there.
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Like so many pictures in this effort, I'm not even sure enough resolution is present to get there.
Exactly. And what we all need to remember, when we play amateur photo sleuth, is that every time we run a photo through ANY computer program, it does things to the image. With an awful lot of the Earhart and Noonan photos, by the time it's put out there on the web for all to see, God alone knows how many times it has been scanned, by what kind of equipment, at what resolution, etc., for anyone to get a TRUE representation of what the image is.
Which is why I leave the definitive calls to people like Jeff Glickman. It's a fun intellectual exercise to blow up a segment of a particular photo and mark it all up and whatnot, to "prove" or "disprove" a particular point.
But unless all the parameters are factored into the final conclusion, all you really have is a bunch of electronic dots on your computer screen.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR no. 2189 ECSP
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Which is why now, with my opinions flying around, that of others - pro and con flying around, and by far most of us rank amateurs, I will simply wait. The opinions, counter-opinions and spaghetti flinging have now run ad nauseam as far as my tastes are concerned.
2-2-V-1 remains an interesting piece of metal to me, whatever it turns out to be and no matter what others may think. Now I wait to see how it acquits itself with perhaps more yet to be seen and the coaxing out of details by more able people.
What we really still need is that one magic photo that reveals what is truly there on NR16020 before leaving Miami, beyond all squinty eyes and guesses.
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What we really still need is that one magic photo that reveals what is truly there on NR16020 before leaving Miami, beyond all squinty eyes and guesses.
Any good picture after it departed Miami will do as well.
Maybe local news sources from the stops made after leaving Miami still have undiscovered photographs.
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Good point, Greg. Start near home and work out I guess.
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Any good picture after it departed Miami will do as well.
Emphasis on good. There are a LOT of photos of the Electra as it traversed the globe ... and a LOT of them have been put up on the web. To do that, though, they had to be scanned and digitized in some manner. Which introduces all kind of variables, and degrades the quality of the image a little more with every step.
So I agree with Jeff. Unless there are international TIGHARs with the $$$$$ to travel and dig through their respective newspapers, libraries, national archives, etc., we can afford to concentrate some of our meager resources in the US, first. Then, maybe, mount a concerted international effort.
LTM, who says the check is in the mail,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR no. 2189 ECSP
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For you who have been poring over the pictures of the Electra in the hanger at Darwin, here, for your review, is a copy of the picture with a little higher resolution.
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That's really a nice copy, Woody - thanks.
Something does 'bend' the light there, it looks to me. The pattern follows what would be a natural path of irregular contour, as I see it - the big question being 'how irregular'. Just thoughts.
If you are able to get some of the other photos floating around here to that level of resolution it would be fun to look them over.
Thanks!
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Thanks Woody. This is the best resolution of this picture I've seen.
Something does 'bend' the light there, it looks to me.
I agree, and the apparent texture of the patch is definitely different from the surrounding skins. There may be some new information here. I'll pass this along to Jeff Glickman for his comments.
If you are able to get some of the other photos floating around here to that level of resolution it would be fun to look them over.
Nobody can improve the resolution of a photo. You can only find a better copy.
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Something does 'bend' the light there, it looks to me. The pattern follows what would be a natural path of irregular contour, as I see it - the big question being 'how irregular'.
Something also 'bends' the light on the panel just fore of the window, in fact the light appears to bend across a couple of 'irregular contours' on that panel. Thoughts? It seems odd that two panels on the same fuselage axis would have irregular contours, separated by a panel and window that appear to be perfectly congruous to the rest of the fuselage.
My thought ... the 'bending' of light on the panel fore of the window and on the patch could simply be a function of the reflective distortions from the starboard wing and/or starboard engine/prop and/or starboard vertical stabilizer. With multiple sources of hangar lighting coming from all directions to bounce off highly reflective aluminum, I think it's highly speculative to suggest either possibility ... detailed photogrammetric analysis might shed some light. No pun.
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Good observations, Nathan - and I enjoy looking this stuff over.
Ric's points are good. I can look all day long but cannot see this the way someone with experience and training in forensics review can see it. And of course we cannot drive resolution into a photo that isn't there - point being if we can get a better resolution of an original, or better digital copy, so much the better. That's what Ric and Jeff Glickman and others are trying to get for us in Miami soon.
The point too about the skin texture being different at the patch than other areas seems true to me too. While I would 'expect' a constant contour, I personally would not expect the patch to be perfectly matched to the rest of the mother structure, despite the installer's best efforts. My suspicion is that we could be looking at more minor 'deformation' than some have suggested - that the light may be exaggerating a relatively small irregularity in contour.
Round and round she goes - a lot of fun to try to sort out. Maybe better eyes can tell us more, and maybe we'll find better photos yet.
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Just a couple of observations about the copies of the Darwin hanger photo.
The first posting of this photo (in this string) was from Jeff Neville by way of Dave Billings http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1595.msg35024.html#msg35024 . The more recent posting was by Woody Herndon http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1595.msg35166.html#msg35166 . When I transfer both of these images into PhotoShop and then scale them closely to equal size, any hint of higher resolution goes away. There does appear to be a very slight difference in the how the original gray scale may have been interpolated by the digital software and imaging chip used to render it, which can be seen by comparing individual groups of pixels through much higher enlargment.
I believe both images are from the same original source, likely a copy photograph of the original found in a photo album, much like the Bevington photo. Perhaps Woody and and Mr. Billings could tell us where they found their source image and that might lead to a better quality original. As with the Bevington photo, a well executed copy photo can coax a lot of information from a print, though obviously the original negative would be far better.
Mr. Billing's image is cropped tighter (image area is enlarged more) than Woody's image which shows more of the original photo. Woody's image shows what appears to me to be a "photo corner" as used in photo albums, but even this image has been cropped as evidenced by the hard edges seen at the top and right sides. A hint of the "photo corner" can be seen in the Billings image. Further, it looks to me that there is a also a paper frame around the original photo, evidenced by the curved edge that overlays the photo corner. The light gray line just below the upper edge seen at the bottom of this black framing is likely a decorative embossed line. As a youth looking through my parent's photo albums I seem to remember some of them had cut-out overlays which, when lifted, allowed the user to place photos in pre-marked areas that were centered to the paper framing. And of course the photos were held in place by photo corners.
Finally, I'm not clear with some of the other descriptions offered, so this may be repetitive and I am only throwing it at the wall to see if it sticks. It appears to me that the highlight that spans the top right corner of the patch and the nearby bulkhead is very similar to the highlight spanning the upper right corner of the remaining starboard window and its closest bulkhead. Both areas show a curved highlight with a bubbled expansion of the highlight toward the center of the curve. This infers, to me, a similar surface structure. I have no idea what that might imply as to how the patch was installed or if it further strengthens or weakens the argument for oil canning and the possibility we are seeing an actual depression.
Cheers,
d alan
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I have one question and apologize in advance if it has been allready discussed. If it was, I just missed it. I´ve recently learned ( with a little surprise ), that Mr. Bo McKneely only died in 1998. Tighar discovered the 2-2-V-1 artifact in 1991 or so..., however it has been in Tighar posession for 7 years when McKneely died. Did he ever seen it, been asked, expressed any opinion on that? Was there any contact between Tighar and him?
I realize, that by that time 2-2-V-1 was not suspected to be the window patch, but still..
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I spoke with Bo McKneeley by phone in August 1990 when we were trying to figure out whether the PBY navigator's bookcase we found on the island in 1989 could have been aboard Earhart's Electra. See Bookcase Update (http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/1990Vol_6/bookcase.pdf). We didn't find 2-2-V-1 until the next year.
Bo was almost blind, very hard of hearing, and not terribly lucid. He had no specific memories to offer about how the airplane was set up for the second world flight attempt. He did say that "that Noonan fella" didn't think much of the special modifications done to the airplane at Harry Manning's request. "Noonan said he didn't need all that stuff." I got the impression that Bo was less than fond of Fred Noonan. Fred was a late-comer to the world flight and Bo had, no doubt, been heavily involved in setting up the "navigator's station" speced out by Manning.
I only spoke with Bo that one time. Later there was certainly no point in querying him about 2-2-V-1. Until we developed the patch hypothesis all we could have asked was whether he thought this piece of metal could have come from the Electra. If he had been able to see clearly I suppose there's a chance he would have recognized the rivet pattern.
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I'm guessing that Bo didn't leave any diary, journal or photographs with his family. He would sure be the person who would have known!
Is anything known of his career/life after AE and FN disappeared? You would think that, especially later in life, he would have told stories to family, friends, co-workers (especially any younger ones) and perhaps employers, journalists, etc. Doubtful veracity, perhaps, but maybe another line of inquiry.
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I don't remember where we found McKneeley. I want to say Arkansas. I think he was living with his daughter or maybe his daughter-in-law. Anyway, I remember that it was a woman who arranged the phone call. I know that's not much help. I may have written notes somewhere.
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My genealogist friend tracked him down in about 30 seconds (she's GOOD!)
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/24/us/ruckins-mckneely-jr-dies-earhart-s-mechanic-was-89.html
She's looking for more information on the family.
Might be a place to start!
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Excellent! And there's new information about Bo's activities in Miami in the obit.
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I spoke with Bo McKneeley by phone in August 1990 when we were trying to figure out whether the PBY navigator's bookcase we found on the island in 1989 could have been aboard Earhart's Electra. See Bookcase Update (http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/1990Vol_6/bookcase.pdf). We didn't find 2-2-V-1 until the next year.
Bo was almost blind, very hard of hearing, and not terribly lucid. He had no specific memories to offer about how the airplane was set up for the second world flight attempt. He did say that "that Noonan fella" didn't think much of the special modifications done to the airplane at Harry Manning's request. "Noonan said he didn't need all that stuff." I got the impression that Bo was less than fond of Fred Noonan. Fred was a late-comer to the world flight and Bo had, no doubt, been heavily involved in setting up the "navigator's station" speced out by Manning.
I only spoke with Bo that one time. Later there was certainly no point in querying him about 2-2-V-1. Until we developed the patch hypothesis all we could have asked was whether he thought this piece of metal could have come from the Electra. If he had been able to see clearly I suppose there's a chance he would have recognized the rivet pattern.
Fascinating... It´s however a big pity, that the patch theory was not developed a few years earlier, or McKneely did not survive a few years longer. I think he could definitely help to solve the 2-2-V-1 mystery.
For myself, after thorough reading of everything available regarding this artifact, I´m well over 90% convinced, that 2-2-V-1 is actually the patch from AE aircraft. I would even clasify it as the good candidate for AAIA ( Almost Any Idiot Artifact ). But it will be not easy to make the last step and remove the word Almost.
A small photo, or a few words from the diary of Bo McKneely could be a big help... so I still think, that it could be worth to try to approach his relatives ( if any ) and look in Bo´s left estates. Chances are not great, but miracles do happen sometimes...
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The mismatch of McKneely's time with us and the emergence of the current 2-2-V-1 hypothesis is nearly tragic, I'd agree, and more poignant in that we are now invoking him as to his possible involvement.
That said, it really doesn't sound as if he was in good shape to provide a truly critical look at the artifact, the years having robbed him of much of his sight and perhaps clear recall. We might have simply only gotten another big 'maybe' in an anecdotal way at the time.
2-2-V-1 remains an enigma to me personally despite all of my hopes and the hard-won positives gained to-date. That TIGHAR continues to press forward with the examination of more photos is a credit both to the steadfast spirit that keeps the search focused on Niku, and to the hard-headed scientific approach of keeping all of our creative hypothesizing honest: questions still remain and must be answered. One golden photo out there somewhere may yet do that better than all other paths of evidence.
Should 2-2-V-1 prove to be the patch beyond doubt, then we'll realize that we once had a living link that slipped away before the connection could be made, and that will become part of this very human story. Should that day come, it will be bittersweet to think we might have reunited the man with the hardware of his last effort for Earhart in his time. Problem is, none of us seem to know how to make all good things to happen at once - ideas just don't emerge that way often enough.
Maybe this is a testament to this process we work: it takes ideas based on what little can be understood, then a refined hypothesis - which must be tested, at risk. It is not an exercise for the impatient or gutless to suffer well. It probably helps to have a taste for bittersweet irony.
updated to provide the correct spelling of Bo McKneely's name
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It is not an exercise for the impatient or gutless to suffer well.
Luckily, I showed up near the end and didn't have to wait through Ric and Co's tireless efforts to do all the hard work :)
I believe we'll have our answer in the near future.
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… is there evidence that warbirds were manufactured or patched with un painted aluminium during WW2?
I'm sure I've seen somewhere that it was a practice in the later stages of the war.
…. "Squadron Signal Air Force Colors Vol. 1 1926-1942" by Dana Bell is a great resource showing the evolution of Army Air Force paint schemes in the pre-war/early war period. The Navy was experimenting during this period as well, of course….
It was not until 4 months after Pearl Harbor in March 1942 that the Joint Aircraft Committee had issued its standardized color schemes for the Army, Navy and RAF (including RAAF and RCAF) ... all aircraft in theater not conforming to these schemes were stripped and repainted by the end of June, 1942, with all aircraft rolling off the assembly lines painted in these schemes at the factory until January 1944. The one lone exception I am aware of was in the Aleutians, where the enemy air strength was so weak as to not pose more than a nuisance, and operational losses were the primary driver of aircraft attrition, so with air superiority and a greater concern for reducing the weight of aircraft to improve performance (particularly on treacherous takeoff and landing roll-outs in consistently poor flying conditions), many American aircraft in the Aleutians were unpainted. There was also the occasional C-47 General's transport that was unpainted, thought more attractive by the ground crews who maintained them and more "ballsy" by the Generals who flew around in them.
In December 1943, the War Department announced the removal of paint from aircraft to save weight, which primarily affected army aircraft rolling off the assembly lines beginning in 1944 . By mid-1944, you see photos of B-17 squadrons where half of the planes are painted and half are in "naked" aluminum finish, and the prevalence of unpainted aluminum aircraft becomes very noticeable ... especially P-51s, P-38s and B-29s. Of course the Navy painted all of their aircraft through the end of the war, and even with the War Department announcement, many local army units preferred to continue with painted aircraft to the end of the war.
[emphasis added]
Ric –
I read your article, “Is TIGHAR Artifact 2-2-V-1 from a PBY?” and noticed the following statement: “All PBYs were painted on both the exterior and interior surfaces.” As far as I could tell, your article did not mention any sources for this statement. Nathan and Chris seem to have raised at least some doubt about later war birds not being painted at the direction of the War Department. The source that Nathan cited only goes up to 1942, whereas he suggests that post-1943 birds did not have any paint.
Could you please describe how you arrived at your conclusion that all PBYs were painted both interior and exterior and provide sources.
Is it possible that exposure to seawater and/or the elements for 50 years could have removed any traces of paint from 2-2-V-1?
Nathan –The book you cited only deals with Army Air Force planes and only until 1942, could you please provide a source(s) about Navy planes always having been painted. If you could cite the 1943 War Department announcement that would be much appreciated as well.
I don’t mean to imply any claims one way or the other about the presence or absence of paint, just trying to understand it better. Thank you.
Diego
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Could you please describe how you arrived at your conclusion that all PBYs were painted both interior and exterior and provide sources.
It's a logically unsupportable statement because I have not examined all PBYs. It's an assumption drawn from a fairly large sampling of photographs (over the years, probably a thousand or more). I've never seen a photo of an unpainted PBY. Have you?
Is it possible that exposure to seawater and/or the elements for 50 years could have removed any traces of paint from 2-2-V-1?
I don't know. How would you test that hypothesis?
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Nathan and Chris seem to have raised at least some doubt about later war birds not being painted at the direction of the War Department. The source that Nathan cited only goes up to 1942, whereas he suggests that post-1943 birds did not have any paint.
I did not raise some doubt ... I can say unequivocally that the exterior surfaces of most warbirds were no longer painted in camouflage at the factory beginning from January 1944 ... many army aircraft were being stripped of paint at their local bases in mid-1943. Nowhere did I suggest that post-1943 birds did not have any paint ... in fact many did, including all Navy tactical and strategic aircraft, as well as many Army aircraft that either retained their earlier paint schemes or chose to adopt new paint schemes as a matter of local preference. The photographic evidence is 100% supportive of this ... you will find:
a) Post-1943 photos of Army bombers and fighters from the same squadrons on missions in Europe, some painted and some unpainted.
b) No photos of Navy tactical or strategic aircraft without paint at any time during the wartime period in active theaters of combat. The Navy painted all such aircraft, period. Many Navy transport aircraft, mainly R4D (naval designation for C-47 Skytrain), were unpainted particularly as the war progressed and air superiority was achieved in both theaters.
Nathan –The book you cited only deals with Army Air Force planes and only until 1942, could you please provide a source(s) about Navy planes always having been painted. If you could cite the 1943 War Department announcement that would be much appreciated as well.
Certainly:
Navy Air Colors: United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Aircraft Camouflage and Markings, Vol. 1, 1911-1945. Doll, Jackson, Riley, Greer.
U.S. Naval Aviation. Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, Goodspeed.
Aircraft Camouflage and Markings, 1907-1954. Robertson.
I do not have the time or inclination to dig through my materials to find original source documents on the USAF Materiel Department, Joint Aircraft Committee, or War Department's orders on paint schemes during the war ... I am knowledgeable of this through years of research. But a quick google search yielded these, hope they help you:
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/the-u-s-army-air-forces-strips-its-planes-of-paint/
The below link is interesting, a copy of the original CBI Roundup, the U.S. Army's newspaper to those serving in the China-Burma-India theater, from December 23, 1943. Scroll to headline "UNPAINTED SHIPS FLOWN OVERSEAS":
http://home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-5/roundup/roundup122343.html
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Is it possible that exposure to seawater and/or the elements for 50 years could have removed any traces of paint from 2-2-V-1?
I don't know. How would you test that hypothesis?
We had 2-2-V-1 analyzed by a variety of methods for any paint/paint residue. I have to believe the lab boys would have found some if there were some, because paint can be an incredibly tenacious substance.
And no, there is no way to reasonably test the hypothesis that whatever paint 2-2-V-1 might have had on it had all been worn off by the elements. There are far to many unknown variables to the life history of 2-2-V-1 to even attempt to construct a reasonable experimental protocol to test that. In my opinion.
LTM, who is content with no paint as opposed to dry paint,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP
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I apologize in advance for the new guy question. This is all new info to me and I've been reading through as much as I can over the last couple of weeks, trying to answer my own questions and exercise some restraint. If this is covered elsewhere please let me know.
This patch, assuming it was "the" patch from the Electra, how did it get on the island? From everything I've read there was a brief window of just a few days that the plane was above water. How/why/when was this riveted patch taken off the plane and transported to land? That seems like a lot of work for someone in a survival situation.
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Happy to answer your question as soon as you provide your real name. Forum rules.
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Hello,
I have been reading through the forums for quite some time. I do have a couple of questions and comments. Please forgive me if these have been previously addressed. I have attempted to use the forum's search feature; however, the great amount of information here may have caused me to miss any of this.
1.) In many of the post-patch photos of Earhart's Model 10 Electra, I have noticed an anomaly on the patch that appears as a shaded line following a left-to-right upward slope. It is sometimes difficult to see, but it is undoubtedly present in quite a few photos taken from multiple angles. Given the resolution and black and white nature of the images, I suppose that it would be difficult to determine whether this is a physical bend in the metal patch itself or some sort of reflection. However, the fact that the slope appears in multiple images from multiple angles (indoor and outdoor), it causes me to conclude that this was a physical indention in the patch itself. It is also found in an image of the patch found on the island.
Consider the following images. The image on the left are originals and the images on the right are inverted with "curves" adjusted to pick up the slope:
(http://i57.tinypic.com/n21szk.png) (http://i59.tinypic.com/11txssz.jpg)
(http://i60.tinypic.com/2ly0v15.jpg) (http://i57.tinypic.com/qpfqxv.jpg)
(http://i62.tinypic.com/11kguhh.jpg) (http://i57.tinypic.com/29kot9x.jpg)
(http://i57.tinypic.com/14t4j09.jpg) (http://i58.tinypic.com/5wz6si.jpg)
Has anyone looked into the slope on the patch and what causes it?
2.) When I was an undergraduate engineering student, I interned for NASA at NASA Langley Research Center. While there, I was able to see some of the amazing technology used by NASA for use with the wind tunnel models at Langley. During a visit to the "model shop" at Langley, I noticed their use of 3D printers for wind tunnel tests. Those 3D printers were used by NASA several years before they became well-known in the outside world. Items can be printed in different types of materials depending on the use.
Has TIGHAR considered recreating the patch via a 3D printer? I imagine that there could be some viable uses for the printed patch. For one, it could prevent further damage to the patch. A 3D printed copy can also allow a printed "patch" -- created with the exact dimensions -- to be placed next to a Model 10 Electra (which would prevent it from scratching the plane).
*EDIT - In order to better see the upward slope on the patch, I am adding links to larger versions of each image above:
Image 1: http://i62.tinypic.com/2cr61l5.jpg
Image 2: http://i58.tinypic.com/x6nbtc.jpg
Image 3: http://i60.tinypic.com/15rnjue.jpg
Image 4: http://i62.tinypic.com/2days6c.jpg
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I'm curious if the installer of the original aluminum patch would have used a precise, smooth sheet or one that seems to have a possible bend. Could it have been recent scrap...or newly manufactured by ALCOA as Ric postulated before? Maybe the bend (if it exists at all in the photos), was stressed induced after being riveted onto the electra.
3d printing would definitely be the way to go, no question. Or even just a simple cast for now to archive its present shape. If found this June, how about 3d printing a few of Earhart's recovered electra and distributing it around the world for museums? Possible some day.
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What is the status of the Glickman report on the item?
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What is the status of the Glickman report on the item?
As an offhand guess, I would say that the status is "not finished." ::)
I'm pretty sure we will be among the first to know when there is something ready for prime time.
"Are we there yet, Daddy?" is kind of a self-answering question, for those who have eyes to see. ;)
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What is the status of the Glickman report on the item?
We still need to get a good copy of the Darwin Refueling photo at Purdue. That means Jeff and I have to coordinate our schedules for a trip to Indiana and TIGHAR has to have the funding to pay for it. Right now the priority has to be completing the funding for the Niku VIII expedition.
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I finally finished reviewing Mr. Neville's "Fit Report, 2-2-V-1" after several readings this week.
Jeff, I compliment you on what is, in my view, yeoman's work on this fascinating piece of aviation history ... I commend you on your methodology and explanatory thoroughness.
Taking any one of the three fitment problems you address individually, one can surmise a possible explanation. But layering all 3 fitment problems lends about as much certainty to the artifact's lack of provenance to the Miami patch as an archaeological effort can hope to obtain given the circumstances, and I concur with the opinion of your findings.
Excellent work, sir, and thank you for your efforts.
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Two new research bulletins related to 2-2-V-1 posted on the TIGHAR website:
http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/75_Findings2-2-V-1/75_Report_of_Findings_2-2-V-1.html (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/75_Findings2-2-V-1/75_Report_of_Findings_2-2-V-1.html)
http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/76_Neville_Report/76_2-2-V-1_Fit_Report_Neville.html (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/76_Neville_Report/76_2-2-V-1_Fit_Report_Neville.html)
Both reports have been posted for a while (perhaps 2 weeks?), but I had not seen any mention of them on the forum (other than Nathan Leaf's post above) or any announcement of them on the website.
Jeff P.
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Yes, I wanted to get the reports up on the website and reference them in an update on 2-2-V-1 but I simply haven't had time to write the update. I'm preparing for a major fundraising event in Washington on Thursday and that has to take priority. Whether 2-2-V-1 stands or falls as a probable piece of NR16020 will not change the need for us to get back to the island.
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"Whether 2-2-V-1 stands or falls as a probable piece of NR16020 will not change the need for us to get back to the island..."
That, as they say, is a fact.
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I finally finished reviewing Mr. Neville's "Fit Report, 2-2-V-1" after several readings this week.
Jeff, I compliment you on what is, in my view, yeoman's work on this fascinating piece of aviation history ... I commend you on your methodology and explanatory thoroughness.
Taking any one of the three fitment problems you address individually, one can surmise a possible explanation. But layering all 3 fitment problems lends about as much certainty to the artifact's lack of provenance to the Miami patch as an archaeological effort can hope to obtain given the circumstances, and I concur with the opinion of your findings.
Excellent work, sir, and thank you for your efforts.
Thank you, Nathan.
It of course only expresses my own opinion based on the observations I've tried to share therein. The result was not a happy one for me in terms of what I'd have preferred, but it was more important to pursue and speak to the issue as best I could once I realized the concern.
My thanks goes out to Ric and the 'Dayton Commission' for receiving that report, and to Ric and Pat for publishing the report here. I look forward to TIGHAR's own final report as Ric has mentioned, and applaud that this and the metallurgical report were posted here for review.
I agree that what Ric has just said is very true - the status of a given artifact cannot diminish the importance of Niku as a search venue if we otherwise have confidence in the theory of Earhart's loss there.
For me personally, the search for Earhart has become a bit like global energy policy - we need every good lead and prospect we can get if we hope to succeed. Niku's sea mount slopes and surrounding sea floor remain far from completely scoured, IMO. Maybe the anomaly will be the 'charm' and there won't be further need - or maybe not, but no one can know until it is examined.
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I agree that what Ric has just said is very true - the status of a given artifact cannot diminish the importance of Niku as a search venue if we otherwise have confidence in the theory of Earhart's loss there.
For me personally, the search for Earhart has become a bit like global energy policy - we need every good lead and prospect we can get if we hope to succeed. Niku's sea mount slopes and surrounding sea floor remain far from completely scoured, IMO. Maybe the anomaly will be the 'charm' and there won't be further need - or maybe not, but no one can know until it is examined.
Well said, and I could not agree more. Onwards and upwards...!
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I just read the laboratory analysis of the patch. Being an optimist...... all the lab report proves, unfortunately, is that the patch isn't from the original or same run of aluminum used to build the Electra. It in no way disproves that the patch could have been made from a later manufactured run with the different chemical makeup, right? I can't think right off the top of my head how to begin a search for planes repaired at the same facility that the patch was installed at to maybe obtain a sample.
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I just read the laboratory analysis of the patch. Being an optimist...... all the lab report proves, unfortunately, is that the patch isn't from the original or same run of aluminum used to build the Electra. It in no way disproves that the patch could have been made from a later manufactured run with the different chemical makeup, right?
Right.
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Hi Y'all, this is this long-lurker's first forum post. An e-mail from Marty sent me here.
1) Since the patch would have had to conform to a slight compound-curve, the measurement around the circumference of that curve would be slightly greater than a measurement taken straight across that distance flat. It's not much of a difference, but the apparent discrepancy in the "too big" theory isn't by much of a difference either. Is that difference in circumferential measurement sufficient to explain why 2-2-V-1 may seem too large to fit?
2) if 2-2-V-1 was pushed violently outward, enough to deform rivet holes, could that have caused stretching in the aluminum sheet such as to expand it to its current measurements?
3) If 2-2-V-1 has been exposed to low-temperature fire, such as for cooking, would the deformation caused by that heating, especially as in repeated heating and cooling from cooking many meals, be sufficient to cause permanent expansion, such that it would now measure larger than when first removed from the aircraft?
4) If 2-2-V-1 shows signs of having been "pried" loose at one edge, as I recall reading, is it possible that the recovered pocket knife might have been the tool? Could microscopic analysis, such as a forensic lab can do in matching rifling marks on a bullet, possibly match microscopic marks on these artifacts to one another?
Diane
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1) Since the patch would have had to conform to a slight compound-curve, the measurement around the circumference of that curve would be slightly greater than a measurement taken straight across that distance flat. It's not much of a difference, but the apparent discrepancy in the "too big" theory isn't by much of a difference either. Is that difference in circumferential measurement sufficient to explain why 2-2-V-1 may seem too large to fit?
2) if 2-2-V-1 was pushed violently outward, enough to deform rivet holes, could that have caused stretching in the aluminum sheet such as to expand it to its current measurements?
3) If 2-2-V-1 has been exposed to low-temperature fire, such as for cooking, would the deformation caused by that heating, especially as in repeated heating and cooling from cooking many meals, be sufficient to cause permanent expansion, such that it would now measure larger than when first removed from the aircraft?
All of that seems to be within the realm of possibility. To me, the most fundamental issue is that the analysis that finds the artifact to be too big to be the patch is based upon the assumption that distances between rivet lines on the airplane in Kansas are identical to distances between rivet lines on NR16020. The assumption is unsubstantiated by any data. Earhart’s Electra was delivered in July 1936 and was the 55th Model 10 built. The airplane in Kansas was delivered in April 1937 and was the 91st Electra built – nine months and thirty-six airplanes after Earhart’s. The Lockheed plant is known to have had at least two jigs that were used for framing up Model 10 airframes. The photo below dates from circa December 1934. It shows Model 10 airframes being framed up and skinned in two jigs. More jigs may have been added as Electra production ramped up. Ten aircraft were delivered in 1934, thirty-five in 1935, twenty-eight in 1936, forty-four in 1937. In the pre-laser world of the 1930s it seems possible that there were small variations between jigs. It would be interesting to check the distances between rivet lines on several existing Model 10s.
4) If 2-2-V-1 shows signs of having been "pried" loose at one edge, as I recall reading, is it possible that the recovered pocket knife might have been the tool? Could microscopic analysis, such as a forensic lab can do in matching rifling marks on a bullet, possibly match microscopic marks on these artifacts to one another?
It's an interesting thought but to do that we would have to have the knife blades. We don't. We found everything but the blades. The knife was beaten and broken apart with a blunt object in order to remove the blades, presumably to be used for some other purpose (make a spear?).
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That's a super observation, Ric, about more than one factory assembly jig!
I wonder if someone at each of the locations where a Model 10 exists would make a careful measurement of that spacing for TIGHAR and then we could tally the results. It should be quick to confirm or disprove the "different jigs - different spacing" theory; we could know that in days. The idea makes a lot of sense to me, and I'll be impatient waiting to see the data.
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I wonder if someone at each of the locations where a Model 10 exists would make a careful measurement of that spacing for TIGHAR and then we could tally the results.
I wish it was that easy. Virtually all Model 10s in museums and collections have undergone extensive "restoration." Some surviving Electras (such as c/n 1130 at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, c/n 1015 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, not to mention c/n 1091 in Kansas) have been completely re-skinned. Any data we recovered from these aircraft would be suspect. The only Electra serving in guaranteed original (albeit wrecked) condition is c/n 1021, the Gillam wreck in the Misty Fjords Wilderness Area in Alaska. A TIGHAR team visited the wreck in 2004 - in immensely challenging task.
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...and I presume it goes without saying that you have already determined that the Lockheed folks don't have the jigs stored in a back room somewhere, awaiting consumer demand for more model 10s. Woulda been nice.
Does TIGHAR have a metallurgical opinion about the part having been stretched by heat and/or what appears to be fluid impact? Is there a way to non-destructively determine if stretching occurred? Would that stretching account for the apparent size discrepancy?
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Does TIGHAR have a metallurgical opinion about the part having been stretched by heat and/or what appears to be fluid impact? Is there a way to non-destructively determine if stretching occurred? Would that stretching account for the apparent size discrepancy?
I've discussed with metallurgists at Lehigh Testing Labs whether stretching due to force or heat might have altered the dimensions of the artifact. Their opinion is that any such distortion would be very small - far smaller than the inch and a half alleged by the critic's report.
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Does TIGHAR have a metallurgical opinion about the part having been stretched by heat and/or what appears to be fluid impact? Is there a way to non-destructively determine if stretching occurred? Would that stretching account for the apparent size discrepancy?
I've discussed with metallurgists at Lehigh Testing Labs whether stretching due to force or heat might have altered the dimensions of the artifact. Their opinion is that any such distortion would be very small - far smaller than the inch and a half alleged by the critic's report.
Can you clarfiy, please? Which critic's report is that, Ric?
I don't recall an inch and a half 'distortion' being alleged by anyone.
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Their opinion is that any such distortion would be very small - far smaller than the inch and a half alleged by the critic's report.
To clarify, the critic's report alleges that the artifact is too wide to be the patch. The report does not allege any distortion. My point was merely to affirm that, in the metallurgists' opinion, if there was distortion it would not be sufficient to account for the discrepancy described in the report. Quoting directly from the critic's report:
"Conclusion as to the STA 307 ‘vertical brace’ feature:
The STA 307 brace feature cannot align with that corresponding station on the airplane unless the forward edge of the artifact is placed approximately 1 1⁄2” too far forward. This is a disqualifying fit issue for the STA 307 ‘vertical brace’ feature on 2-2-V-1.
Conclusion as to width and fit of the artifact:
At its extreme width, the artifact could fit as the covering with a reasonable degree of excessive edge distance as to the left and right vertical rivet rows. However, this must be discounted because there is a lack of finished edges which should be evident at this full-width article at least at the forward (RH) edge (see RH blue box, Figure 15). Instead we see a fracture zone.
This is disqualifying in the author’s opinion: given the fracture boundaries and considering its full width – which might otherwise coincide handily with the actual covering width, the artifact is physically too wide to be Earhart’s Navigation Window Covering. Any edges surviving at the extremes should be finished edges."
Forum members are urged to read the entire 25 report which can be found on the TIGHAR website at http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/76_Neville_Report/2-2-V-1_Fit_Report_Neville.pdf
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OK, so there is an odd-shaped tear at the top of 2-2-V-1, and if that tear is aligned with where the circumferential fuselage former would be at STA 307, then the patch sticks too far forward by about an inch and a half? Do I have that right, or have I missed something glaring in my newbie-ness?
1) The so-called patch is an external ("scab") patch, which we believe was torn away in an outward direction from the airframe. Thus it was forced away from contact with structure at STA 307, not forced into it. Is there a reason to believe the damage at the top of 2-2-V-1 is necessarily caused by or even related to the former at 307?
2) If 2-2-V-1 were not necessarily aligned with the former, and could be positioned 1 1/2 inches farther aft, does it then otherwise fit in all dimensions?
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I'm still reaching for understanding here.
The vertical stiffener seems to have left quite a visible trace of its position, but I don't see any such residual markings from the horizontal stiffeners.
1) What do we know about the relationship of the stiffeners to one another? Did the vertical run underneath the horizontals? Why do we think that? Do any of the rivet holes penetrate the vertical?
2) What do we know about the mark left by the vertical? Is it paint, or maybe adhesive? Is it possibly due to dis-similar metal corrosion where the vertical might have been a thin steel stiffener? If the horizontals were aluminum they likely would not leave such a trace.
3) The factory structure at STA 307 was cut away at the time of the installation of the special window. Do we have any reason to believe that the vertical brace on the window patch would necessarily be positioned at that station? Surely no one would expect that little vertical stiffener to replace the load-bearing capabilities of the factory-installed circumferential former, so why would it need to be located exactly at STA 307 when it's just stiffening a window patch and not carrying structural loads?
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Very good questions about the vertical stiffener. In any logical (to me anyway) repair to cover the window it seem like they would attach the vertical stiffener with rivets and it would make sense to line it up with Station 307. But since there are no fasteners, it leads me to believe that what made the impact marks was not considered a structural stiffener. I envision some sort of interior feature, possibly made from wood, like a desk or a navigators case... something solid that's part of the aircraft but not part of the airframe.
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Diane,
You raise good questions.
I am glad that Ric encouraged readers to thoroughly review my report. I was a TIGHAR Researcher at the time I wrote that, not a 'critic' per se, by the way. I began that effort in an attempt to answer off-site criticism stating that 2-2-V-1 was too large (vertically and by implication, horizontally) to fit properly as the patch. I was encouraged to do so by an administrator on this site. I hope all will find the report educational, whether one agrees with my own views therein or not.
As to the '307' feature: what was important about that find on the artifact was the possibility that it might align with the normal placement location for any re-established ring former section behind the 'patch' when installed in Miami, or subsequently; were that what the feature related to, it would surely reinforce the idea of 2-2-V-1 being 'the patch'.
What became disappointing to me (YMMV, of course) was that to get that noticeable feature on 2-2-V-1 to align with that station on the Electra - the most logical place for a vertical member to appear (why would one install a replacement vertical stiffener out of alignment with the existing remnants of the 307 ring former?), the artifact had to be slid forward to contact the aft edge of the next skin forward, in the 293 5/8 STA area. That arrangement, in my view (as stated in the report) is in conflict both with logical placement of the 307 'feature' and what 'should be' the forward edge of the 'patch'. In making that judgment, I am going by two things as to the forward limits of the 'patch':
1 - The patch logically assumes a similar outer-perimeter footprint to that of the coaming, which is easily defined by looking at the 'Nilla Putnam / Earhart' photo in Miami in which the forward area of the open window coaming is easily viewed, and
2 - An offset of the 'patch' away from (not abutting) the skin edge near STA 293 5/8 IS discernable in several photographs - a point of controversy, apparently, to TIGHAR whereby I am not officially qualified as a photogrammetrist and thereby cannot make more than an amateur statement in that regard.
I simply maintain that the offset (separation of the forward edge of the 'patch' and aft edge of skin near STA 293 5/8) is discernable to the lay eye in numerous photos, and note that TIGHAR herself has at one point or another in the discussion also believed the patch to approximate, logically, the footprint of the coaming. Further, TIGHAR has not so far established dimensions of the patch as being that large (able to pick-up 307 AND reach the aft edge of that forward skin near STA 293 5/8) - which would be one way TIGHAR might counter my report, if a credentialed photogrammetrist of TIGHAR's approval were able to do so.
Another oddity of the '307 feature' is the lack of fastener holes there - why bother re-installing that missing segment of the 307 ring former only to allow it to simply lie in contact without benefit of stiffening / strengthening fasteners?
You raise good questions:
What caused that mark?
Why does it appear on what would be the outer surface of 'the patch', and not inner - where the faying contact surface of the 307 member would logically reside?
None of the horizontal rivet holes in 2-2-V-1 coincided with the vertical '307' feature that I could discern - but as always, more scrutiny is invited. Also, 1937 is not reknowned as an era of structural bonding without benefit of mechanical fasteners, so the notion of adhesive in any structural sense is probably not a likely reality. This feature remains an unanswered enigma on 2-2-V-1 in my view, and could have come about in as simple a way as the artifact itself merely lying across some dissimilar metal object of that 'footprint' for some time by some odd or deliberate way - not necessarily as-installed in any airframe.
Just to be clear, I bore no particular spirit of 'criticisim' at the time of that report on this matter, nor do I now as to 2-2-V-1; it was always merely an artifact to be explored - and not vital to the Earhart case at Niku UNLESS it could be unequivocally proven to BE OF her Electra. To the extent I may be a 'critic' of TIGHAR would be based in other matters - NOT in the objective review of patch / 2-2-V-1 metrics per se. I consider my report to be one person's view, nothing more, and offer only that it has been 'peer reviewed' by two other qualified engineering persons (Messrs. Billings and Mark Pilkington, both well experienced in physical metrics and data interpretation as engineers / quality analysts). The report was also subjected to review by 'the Dayton Commission' here at TIGHAR, including Mr. Aris Scarla of the FAA, and additionally, Mr. Jeff Glickman who has been a significant contributor to TIGHAR in photogrammetry, and Mr. Joe Cerniglia, a frequent commenter and contributor of research here. All had some degree of questioning - all answered by me, but none offered disqualifying comments to me as to my work in that report.
As Ric has encouraged, I suggest readers take it in for themselves: I am not trying to disprove an Earhart presence at Niku - I have merely offered my most objective review of 2-2-V-1 as a supposed artifact of Earhart's airplane, specifically as to a conjectured fit over the lavatory window (an idea I actually initiated and do not regret, all possibilities deserving some review as I see it).
I hope this answers at least some of your good questions and clarifies my position in this matter, to whatever extent that may be important. I think it is important because while I may be a critic in some regards, this work must stand objectively clear if it is to have meaning. That was always the intent. I also will welcome a well qualified and quantified response to my report from TIGHAR should she find the specific means to counter my views and personal conclusions therein. Both TIGHAR and myself lack physical access to the actual Earhart Electra and her Miami-installed patch, so we are both forced to work from the historic record, such as it is. Fortunately for us both, I believe photographic evidence is sufficient, if not as ample as we'd hoped for.
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I'm still reaching for understanding here.
Welcome to the club.
The vertical stiffener seems to have left quite a visible trace of its position, but I don't see any such residual markings from the horizontal stiffeners.
Yeah there are but they're different from the indication of the vertical stiffener. I have darkened the attached image so that the markings along the interior where the horizontal stiffeners once were show up better. The markings seem to be spots where there is more oxidation as if the aluminum under the horizontal stiffeners was not as well protected as the surrounding metal.
1) What do we know about the relationship of the stiffeners to one another? Did the vertical run underneath the horizontals?
Apparently not.
Why do we think that? Do any of the rivet holes penetrate the vertical?
The strange thing is that there is no apparent evidence of the vertical stiffener on the interior of the sheet other than the tear at the top where the vertical stiffener may have been anchored to the circumferential at Sta. 307.
2) What do we know about the mark left by the vertical? Is it paint, or maybe adhesive? Is it possibly due to dis-similar metal corrosion where the vertical might have been a thin steel stiffener? If the horizontals were aluminum they likely would not leave such a trace.
The mark left by the vertical stiffener is perhaps best described as a dent in the exterior surface that was caused by an impact on the interior.
3) The factory structure at STA 307 was cut away at the time of the installation of the special window. Do we have any reason to believe that the vertical brace on the window patch would necessarily be positioned at that station?
Only that the remaining part of the circumferential would be something the stiffener could be anchored to.
Surely no one would expect that little vertical stiffener to replace the load-bearing capabilities of the factory-installed circumferential former, so why would it need to be located exactly at STA 307 when it's just stiffening a window patch and not carrying structural loads?
Your guess is as good as mine. I wonder if the vertical stiffener was added later to counter the "oil canning" we see in the Darwin refueling photo.
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If I recall correctly, the early construction photos of Amelia with the plane show no window here, just the navigator's window. You mentioned it being added later. Does anyone know when or why this extra window was added to her plane? I'm sorry I can't remember anything about it.
From "Windows Come and Go" (http://tighar.org/wiki/NR16020#Windows_come_and_go):
"As delivered in July 1936, the airplane had only two windows in the cabin. These were the aftmost standard airline windows and were directly opposite each other. Then in January of 1937 a window was installed in the cabin door on the port side and a larger-than-standard window was installed on the starboard side. This last window is the one that was later skinned over in Miami."[5] (http://tighar.org/wiki/NR16020#cite_note-5)
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@ Jeff
Thank you for those clarifications.
Jeff, I sense that you are aware that your data rains on an otherwise exciting parade. I view your report on 2-2-V-1 as the product a serious researcher seeking replicable facts. The facts are the facts, and the consequences of those facts fall where they may.
As a newbie, even though I have been a lurker I am free of any prior politics regarding 2-2-V-1, and I certainly don't think you are in any sort of opposing camp just because you discovered data that doesn't fit. TIGHAR has an object that seems in very many ways to fit the patch installed at Miami, and you have measurement data that says it seems too big to fit. That makes you a researcher not a critic.
You wrote: "Another oddity of the '307 feature' is the lack of fastener holes there - why bother re-installing that missing segment of the 307 ring former only to allow it to simply lie in contact without benefit of stiffening / strengthening fasteners? "
And that is my point. Some structural engineer (we hope!) at some point determined that the Electra could be safely flown with a navigator's window sized piece cut out of its fuselage on the right side. That included cutting and removing a fair-sized piece of the circumferential ring former at STA 307. The airplane proceeded to successfully fly in that condition.
When the transparent window was replaced in Miami there would have been no need to repair the previously cut former. To properly repair the former would have required the scrap that was removed when the opening was cut, or a similar section from a salvaged or factory new part. None of those were likely to have been quickly available to whoever created the patch in Miami. Other than speculation that a repaired former might have underlain the vertical feature on the patch, I haven't seen any indication that the former was repaired.
While it was logical to initially think the prior location of the fuselage former would be where a vertical reinforcement would be located on the patch by the person fabricating it, there is really no structural reason to have located it there. He was only reinforcing a window, not repairing structure.
How do the artifact's measurements work if the forward edge is aligned as photos show the patch to have been? If it's moved that far aft, without reference to the vertical or the tear, does it then fit?
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@ Ric,
Thank you for the response.
Among other things, you wrote: "The markings seem to be spots where there is more oxidation as if the aluminum under the horizontal stiffeners was not as well protected as the surrounding metal."
Maybe every time it got wet in sea water the parts under the strips were the last to dry out, maximizing corrosion opportunities.
"... the tear at the top where the vertical stiffener may have been anchored to the circumferential at Sta. 307."
And may not have been. As I said in my response to Jeff above, I don't see a compelling reason to think the guy who fabricated this thing in Miami would have needed anything to do with the previously cut fuselage former except to avoid it. He's just covering a window hole, not repairing a previously engineered modification.
The" engineered" part is an assumption on my part. Do we have the drawings etc. from the original modification of installing the navigator's window? Was Lockheed the source, or at least in on it? Is there any reason to think that engineering relied, improbably, on the new window assembly actually carrying structural loads? I'm assuming not, and thus the "patch" wouldn't need to either.
"... The strange thing is that there is no apparent evidence of the vertical stiffener on the interior of the sheet ..."
Hoo, boy! I am just now catching on to this. So what we have taken as being a vertical stiffener was on the OUTSIDE of 2-2-V-1. Are you saying that what makes it visible is a linear dent where the metal has been pushed out around it, from the inside toward it?
I'm no photo interpreter, but I don't see any pic of the shiny patch over the window location where I see a stiffener on the outside. That's a puzzle. Ain't this fun!?
Back to the question I asked Jeff above: if 2-2-V-1 is positioned with its farthest forward edge in the location shown in period photos, and without any reference to where the vertical mark or the tear lie in relation to the fuselage ring former at STA 307, does the artifact fit the hole?
Thanks,
Diane
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"... the tear at the top where the vertical stiffener may have been anchored to the circumferential at Sta. 307."
And may not have been. As I said in my response to Jeff above, I don't see a compelling reason to think the guy who fabricated this thing in Miami would have needed anything to do with the previously cut fuselage former except to avoid it. He's just covering a window hole, not repairing a previously engineered modification.
You're assuming the vertical member was part of the original patch installation. It's also possible that it was added later in response to the "oil-canning" evident in the Darwin re-fueling photo.
The attached air-to-air photo was taken from a Royal Netherlands East Indies Airlines DC-2 as the Electra approached Bandoeng, Java on June 21, 1937. The patch appears duller than it did three weeks earlier in Miami but is otherwise unchanged.
A week later, shortly before noon on June 28, Earhart and Noonan arrived in Port Darwin, Australia. The aircraft was fueled later that afternoon for the next morning’s flight to Lae, New Guinea. A photograph taken during the fueling (attached below) shows irregularities in the patch that suggest "oil-canning" (flexing of the sheet). “False color” imaging of the Darwin refueling photo by forensic imaging specialist Jeff Glickman suggests the presence of an underlying vertical structure in the vicinity of Fuselage Station 307.
The" engineered" part is an assumption on my part. Do we have the drawings etc. from the original modification of installing the navigator's window? Was Lockheed the source, or at least in on it? Is there any reason to think that engineering relied, improbably, on the new window assembly actually carrying structural loads? I'm assuming not, and thus the "patch" wouldn't need to either.
The window was installed sometime in late 1936/early 1937. The aircraft was based at Burbank’s Union Air Terminal which was home to Lockheed Aircraft and also Paul Mantz Air Service. Hollywood stunt pilot Paul Mantz was Earhart’s technical advisor. Who it was that installed the window is not known but there are no drawings or engineering orders for the window in the surviving Bureau of Air Commerce records for the aircraft. By contrast, the engineering orders for Lockheed’s repair of NR16020 following the Hawaii crash in March are in the Bureau of Air Commerce file for the aircraft. The lack of paperwork on the windows, the absence of any public discussion of them, and the questionable structural wisdom of their installation suggest that they were something that Earhart/Manning/Mantz did without involving Lockheed engineers or government inspectors.
Hoo, boy! I am just now catching on to this. So what we have taken as being a vertical stiffener was on the OUTSIDE of 2-2-V-1. Are you saying that what makes it visible is a linear dent where the metal has been pushed out around it, from the inside toward it?
I don't think so. I think it's more likely that the impressions on the interior surface of the sheet are just a lot harder to see. If there was stiffener it was on the inside of the aircraft.
Back to the question I asked Jeff above: if 2-2-V-1 is positioned with its farthest forward edge in the location shown in period photos, and without any reference to where the vertical mark or the tear lie in relation to the fuselage ring former at STA 307, does the artifact fit the hole?
That's where Jeff and I disagree.
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Here is the false color image that reveals what may be a vertical stiffener.
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Welcome Diane,
Here are some images of the skeleton and the skin layer thicknesses installed on the Electra.....
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Ric said: "...If there was stiffener it was on the inside of the aircraft."
Whew, I'm glad I misunderstood that.
OK, so if trace evidence of a vertical stiffener is on 2-2-V-1's inside surface, the stiffener had to have gone either under or over the horizontal stiffeners. But it's not riveted in place. It would be curious to see if microscopic examination of the rivet holes could reveal if the horizontals lay flat across the piece or if the horizontals left stress-signs in the rivet holes of being riveted down over the vertical piece. It's hard to tell from the photos, but maybe a close look would give it away. I think if we understand the nuances of 2-2-V-1's attachments we may better understand the artifact.
Ric, did I understand your answer above to mean that you do believe 2-2-V-1 is not oversize if the front of it is aligned with the location shown in period photographs?
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Ric said: "You're assuming the vertical member was part of the original patch installation. It's also possible that it was added later in response to the "oil-canning" evident in the Darwin re-fueling photo."
If it underlies the horizontal reinforcement strips it has to have been assembled before or when they were. That's why I hope it's possible to have a lab microscopically determine what lay over what. If a vertical was instead laid over the horizontals from inside the fuselage it could very well be a late addition.
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Diane , Here are some interior views;
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The patch and the coaming are evident only in old photographs. I have not seen an opinion from a Photogrammetry expert that the patch matched the coaming or that there was a gap between patch edge and other skin edges and if so how big. Still it was interesting to study the modern photos with measuring tape in them and how the varying dimensions relate to rivet rows at Sta. 320 and Sta. 293 5/8 on the Wichita Plane.
The artifact is curved overall and has dents in several places, so measurements have varied depending on the method used and how much deformity was allowed for. I have seen three different methods of taking measurements of the artifact.
Method 1- The un-flattened artifact. No deformity taken out and the artifact has its narrowest width. The un-flattened artifact was compared to the Wichita plane by holding it directly next to it. (for those who see huge dents in the patch based in old photographs this may be a reasonable method)
Method 2- The overall curvature taken out of Artifact 2-2-V-1 by pressing it down and taking a measurement with a steel tape. The width appeared to be 24 ¼” wide with this method. See attachment.
Method 3- A sticky tape was put on Artifact 2-2-V-1 while still in its deformed un-flattened and dented shape. How much the tape follows dents and deformities in the artifact is not clear to me. Jeff Neville’s report notes the readings of this tape suggests the artifact was 24-5/8 wide.
A sticky tape was also placed on the newly re skinned Wichita plane and the distance between rivet rows at the bottom suggests a 25 7/16” width between vertical rivet rows at Sta. 320 and Sta. 293 5/8. This may be different on Earhart’s plane based on reskinning or 2 different jigs used. However it should be noted that in all 3 measurement methods, the artifact appears to fit between the vertical rivet rows on the Wichita Plane with room to spare, if needed
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@ Jerry
Thanks, those interior views of the Lockheed help me understand.
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Why is the new stiffener at Sta. 307 assumed to be in the same position as the original vertical member that was cut out? If you just want to put in a stiffener to prevent oil-canning wouldn't the easiest thing be to put it next to the uncut parts of the original, side-by-side either just fore or just aft of 307 and screw or rivet them together (screws or rivets oriented in a fore and aft direction)?
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That's a great explanation, Steve. Makes a lot of sense and is exactly the kind of fix that could be done quickly, a field expedient fix.
@Jeff N.
Jeff, does this explanation change how your measurements effect the fit of 2-2-V-1 into the window opening?
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@ Jeff
Thank you for those clarifications.
Jeff, I sense that you are aware that your data rains on an otherwise exciting parade. I view your report on 2-2-V-1 as the product a serious researcher seeking replicable facts. The facts are the facts, and the consequences of those facts fall where they may.
As a newbie, even though I have been a lurker I am free of any prior politics regarding 2-2-V-1, and I certainly don't think you are in any sort of opposing camp just because you discovered data that doesn't fit. TIGHAR has an object that seems in very many ways to fit the patch installed at Miami, and you have measurement data that says it seems too big to fit. That makes you a researcher not a critic.
Thanks for that distincition and credit, Diane. I actually was not enthusiastic about my findings; I was an early and earnest proponent of the idea of this artifact possibly fitting as the lavatory window cover.
You wrote: "Another oddity of the '307 feature' is the lack of fastener holes there - why bother re-installing that missing segment of the 307 ring former only to allow it to simply lie in contact without benefit of stiffening / strengthening fasteners? "
And that is my point. Some structural engineer (we hope!) at some point determined that the Electra could be safely flown with a navigator's window sized piece cut out of its fuselage on the right side. That included cutting and removing a fair-sized piece of the circumferential ring former at STA 307. The airplane proceeded to successfully fly in that condition.
When the transparent window was replaced in Miami there would have been no need to repair the previously cut former. To properly repair the former would have required the scrap that was removed when the opening was cut, or a similar section from a salvaged or factory new part. None of those were likely to have been quickly available to whoever created the patch in Miami. Other than speculation that a repaired former might have underlain the vertical feature on the patch, I haven't seen any indication that the former was repaired.
While it was logical to initially think the prior location of the fuselage former would be where a vertical reinforcement would be located on the patch by the person fabricating it, there is really no structural reason to have located it there. He was only reinforcing a window, not repairing structure.
I initially believed something close to what you have proposed - that we may have been looking at a simple cover that had no need of particular 'beef' to reinforce anything. The photos we have suggested that to me; then to explain the horizontal holes, I was one (possibly among others) who very early conjectured that light bracing might have been added as an expedient means to a) stiffen the panel against ordinary oil canning (not as primary structure but to simply stiffen an otherwise unsupported web), and / or b) to help maintain some representation of the compound curvature in that area - which is slight, but desireable to duplicate as best one can; when working with an un-formed flat piece of metal, light bracing can assist in that effort if one has limited means.
TIGHAR later conjectured that the covering might really relate to a more urgent structural need, e.g. after a scare from a hard landing, etc., and significant 'oil canning' (dent) has been suggested by at least a couple of photos of the 'patch'. This led to thoughts of stiffeners added after the skin-over in Miami perhaps. I don't fully agree with those ideas - not saying impossible, but not likely; I don't see the evidence of a hard landing others have reported at times and doubt that this simple scab patch was any more than a covering fit over the window opening as best a mechanic could do under somewhat hurried and limited circumstances for working the metal. But that of course is merely my own conjecture, arrived at by what I've been able to study, in my own way. YMMV.
As to establishment / re-establishment of the vertical member: I would avoid 'would', we cannot known; but while it is possible that a vertical addition could have been made separate from the existing STA 307 remnant, why would one do so? As a sheet metal mechanic in a former life and now engineering employee of 20 years since mostly leaving a very active sheet-metail working life, I don't see the logic. Which also calls into question my own former logic about impromptu horizontal light bracing, I suppose - fairly enough.
In short, the more I've studied the thing, the fewer reasons I see for the installer to have departed from the original bracing patterns UNLESS one simply wished to quickly scab a skin over that open window with as little fuss as possible. Could a vertical stiffener have played into that? Of course - but it implies more metal forming than the original thinking I had as to where and how this was done - which is bounded, of course, by my ignorance of the actual historic particulars...
How do the artifact's measurements work if the forward edge is aligned as photos show the patch to have been? If it's moved that far aft, without reference to the vertical or the tear, does it then fit?
It does not fit in that case - IMHO, which is part of my point. YMMV, of course.
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Why is the new stiffener at Sta. 307 assumed to be in the same position as the original vertical member that was cut out? If you just want to put in a stiffener to prevent oil-canning wouldn't the easiest thing be to put it next to the uncut parts of the original, side-by-side either just fore or just aft of 307 and screw or rivet them together (screws or rivets oriented in a fore and aft direction)?
Steve, I had similar questions and did a sketch regarding this in this post (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1490.msg35572.html#msg35572).
Another question is we don't know what the structure was like for previously added window or if added horizontal framing around that window restricted where a vertical stiffener could be installed, if it was a stiffener. For example if the remaining cut vertical member was fastened to the new horizontal window frame, the fasteners or a possible gusset plate for that connection could interfere with replacing the vertical member in the original location. Why it wasn't riveted is another question and may indicate that it was not a structural member.
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That's a great explanation, Steve. Makes a lot of sense and is exactly the kind of fix that could be done quickly, a field expedient fix.
@Jeff N.
Jeff, does this explanation change how your measurements effect the fit of 2-2-V-1 into the window opening?
No.
I don't find it to be an 'explanation', but honest conjecture about a 'might be', which - no offense intended and with great respect for another's idea, is not a likely possibility to me as a sheet metal mechanic with engineering experience as well.
Were I to add ad hoc vertical bracing such as I had earlier conjectured as an explanation for the horizonal stiffening of the panel, I see even less reasoning to not pick up the remaining ring structure at STA 307 than I would to abandon the existing longitudenal bracing in this area.
Why? Two primary reasons:
More criticality as to shaping - the curvature is greater in the vertical than horizonal (we're looking at the side of a slightly bellied 'barrel', whose 'ends' are at the fore and aft (right and left) of the fuselage section involved; continuity to the existing ring former would in that sense be more critical, in my view.
Relative ease of attachment to existing structure: it is simply easier to base the top and bottom ends of a vertical replacment here at the existing STA 307 structure than to let it 'fly' with nothing else to tack it to but skin (above and below the window opening);
in the case of fore and aft stiffeners, we are simply coming near ring structures beyond the fore and aft ends of the opening and may attach at virtually any location that is convenient, within reason.
These are merely my views - YMMV, of course. But no, it doesn't change my view of the fit issue.
One danger we face in 'brainstorming' ideas to explain how 2-2-V-1 'might' fit is that we can get way down a path of conjecture that lacks real clues. What have we seen - other than 2-2-V-1 itself, that supports the idea of off-setting members such as the conjectured vertical bracing (away from STA 307) and conjectured horizontal bracing (along the parallel rivet lines on 2-2-V-1)? This is one area I suggest we have at times strayed too far in, IMO; I found a personal need to stay more critically grounded in my conjecture and technical review as the study wore on. To each his own, of course - but that is what I came to, as inconvenient to me as it proved to be. I don't find it to be a loss, however, but a more robust way to research such things, IMO.
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No.
I don't find it to be an 'explanation', but honest conjecture about a 'might be', which - no offense intended and with great respect for another's idea, is not a likely possibility to me as a sheet metal mechanic with engineering experience as well.
Jeff, that's just what it was - a conjecture. I had not seen the forum thread referenced by Greg Daspit above so was unaware of previous speculation on this point. It seemed an obvious question to me, but I have no experience with aircraft mechanics or sheet metal work. In fact, the only mechanical experience I have is of the "shade tree" variety. :)
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What have we seen - other than 2-2-V-1 itself, that supports the idea of off-setting members such as the conjectured vertical bracing (away from STA 307) and conjectured horizontal bracing (along the parallel rivet lines on 2-2-V-1)?
Indications of the possible presence of a vertical member in the false color imaging in the Darwin refueling photo.
That photo also shows apparent oil-canning distortion to the patch that corresponds to deformations in the artifact. Coincidences perhaps, but coincidences that add to a rather large pile of coincidences that support the hypothesis that 2-2-V-1 is the patch.
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All,
I keep coming back to the one nuance on the patch that may answer the question was it or was it not the window patch; and that is the strange rivet pattern at the bottom of the part in question (circled below).
You will note the rivet pattern of the two rivets to the left in the circled area and the extended distance to the third rivet to the right.
Now look at the rivet spacing going on to the right of the patch. It appears that the rivet spacing from left to right is fairly consistent until you get to the “in circle right hole” and thereafter the spacing seams to be consistent with the holes prior to the “in circle right hole”.
At last years meeting at Ric’s place I asked Jeff Glickman to take a look at this while he was looking at various pictures of the bird to see if he could detect this anomaly, I never heard nor read anything regarding the forgoing. Have we found any thing in this regard?
Ted Campbell
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I keep coming back to the one nuance on the patch that may answer the question was it or was it not the window patch; and that is the strange rivet pattern at the bottom of the part in question (circled below).
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At last years meeting at Ric’s place I asked Jeff Glickman to take a look at this while he was looking at various pictures of the bird to see if he could detect this anomaly, I never heard nor read anything regarding the forgoing. Have we found any thing in this regard?
The "tab" and the unexplained irregularity in the rivet pitch is one of the most puzzling features of 2-2-V-1 but none of the photos of the aircraft are of sufficient resolution to discern individual rivets.
One possible explanation is that there was some structure on the inside of the aircraft that they had to go around when riveting the staggered double row along the bottom of the patch. If so, the same structure should logically have been in the way when riveting the window coaming. Unfortunately the only photo we have that shows the window in sufficient detail stops short of showing the area in question.
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Some more newbie ramblings:
How much do we know about the stop in Miami in late May? Am I correct that it was the Pan Am facility there that did work on her radios? If so, do we believe the Pan Am shop is where the patch on the window was made? Why do we think that?
I'm thinking Ric is likely right that the initial big window modification may have been made behind closed hanger doors in California before the trip, without the benefit of engineering studies. That sort of thing seems to fit the pattern of other corner-cutting that has been unearthed. It's hard, though, to imagine the feds never taking an interest in such a visually obvious modification to the aircraft
But more importantly for our quest, any maintenance done on the trip by a US flag-carrier airline such as Pan Am, would certainly have been carefully documented. Hubby and I have a little Part 135 charter flight operation, and the feds watch our every move.
I don't have a feel for how closely the FAA's predecessor in 1937 (Department of Commerce?) would have kept an eye on activities which today would be kept under a microscope, but the joking legends of the paperwork equaling the gross weight of an airplane go way way back in aviation lore. I can only imagine that Pan Am would have had some pretty close fed oversight on their shop activities, particularly when this wasn't just some routine big flying boat, this was arguably the most famous person in the world at that time, and she was standing right there asking for services.
Whether it was Pan Am or even if it was some other shop, any mechanic would have been aware that publicity would follow Amelia everywhere, and anything he did to her airplane was likely to be examined by press and feds and better have exacting proper documentation.
I'm thinking the patch was signed off as a non-structural window covering, but my point is I'm betting it was signed off. There would have been an entry in the Lockheed's logbooks, and more importantly there would have been internal shop records. There is, or at least was, a paper trail. Has research been done or is research happening in that direction?
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How much do we know about the stop in Miami in late May?
Quite a bit but not nearly enough.
Am I correct that it was the Pan Am facility there that did work on her radios?
Pan Am technicians came from the Pan Am seaplane facility at Dinner Key (about half an hour away from Miami Municipal where the Electra was hangared) to work on Earhart's radio and autopilot.
If so, do we believe the Pan Am shop is where the patch on the window was made? Why do we think that?
There was no Pan Am shop at Miami Municipal. The Electra was hangared with the FBO, "Karl Voelter Inc. Sales – Service – School." My guess is that the patch was fabricated and installed in the Voelter shop by Earhart's own mechanic, "Bo" McKneeley.
I'm thinking Ric is likely right that the initial big window modification may have been made behind closed hanger doors in California before the trip, without the benefit of engineering studies. That sort of thing seems to fit the pattern of other corner-cutting that has been unearthed. It's hard, though, to imagine the feds never taking an interest in such a visually obvious modification to the aircraft
During the time that Earhart's close friend Gene Vidal was Director of the Bureau of Air Commerce a blind eye was turned on many of Earhart's shenanigans. For example, she successfully dodged taking the required Radio Navigation portion of the Instrument Rating test.
But more importantly for our quest, any maintenance done on the trip by a US flag-carrier airline such as Pan Am, would certainly have been carefully documented.
I agree. That's why I don't think Pan Am did the metal bending.
Whether it was Pan Am or even if it was some other shop, any mechanic would have been aware that publicity would follow Amelia everywhere, and anything he did to her airplane was likely to be examined by press and feds and better have exacting proper documentation.
The patch didn't appear on the airplane until, at the earliest, Sunday May 30. Monday the 31st was Memorial Day. Earhart was on her way to Puerto Rico at sunup on Tuesday, June 1. How many feds work holiday weekends?? Nobody in the press seems to have even noticed the change in the airplane. Incredibly, the whole thing went unnoticed until we started asking questions about 2-2-V-1.
There is, or at least was, a paper trail. Has research been done or is research happening in that direction?
We've looked. Nada.
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What's the status of the Glickman report on the photos as pertains to 22v1? Did I miss it somehow?
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This is Diane's current speculation about the genesis of 2-2-V-1, assuming it is in fact the window patch.
OK, let me be Bo, her mechanic, for a minute.
To the Karl Volter people I'm just some stranger surrounded by a bunch of VIPs, and they aren't going to let me root around blindly in their shop. So they have assigned some guy from their maintenance department to hang out with me and assist.
This mechanic is able to provide a clean new sheet of .032 Alclad, and most curiously, some thicker reinforcing strips with pre-drilled 3/32 holes at precise one-inch spacing.
As Bo, I could have made such things on the bench, and with the precision enabled by a drill-press and table made them quite accurately, but more likely they were pre-made, probably in a factory, and were laying around in Volter's inventory from some other job. It's entirely possible they were not even aircraft parts.
I, Bo, have the airplane right here with me, from which to take precisely accurate measurements. At the workbench I cut the patch's shape out of the sheet of raw Alclad. I lay a narrow strip of aluminum as a vertical reinforcement, and trap it under the four rows of horizontal reinforcements. The rivet spacing is precise because I'm able to drill the Alclad sheet through the pre-drilled holes in the strips. I rivet the strips down, and then use brute force to bend the piece into an approximation of the fuselage shape.
Now the guy and I go rivet the pre-assembled window patch into place on the airframe. There is no need, and we make no attempt, to align the vertical reinforcement with the ring former. One of us holds the patch in place from the outside, and the other guy drills through an existing rivet hole in the airframe into and through the patch, and we hold it in place with a Cleco, and then do the same with all the other rivet holes. We get it into position with the Clecos, and then rivet and buck the patch into permanent place, and go fill out the paperwork. Total billable time about two hours.
And this simple flat piece of .032 aluminum sheet passes through Nikumaroro to end up in TIGHAR's collection, with all these people fascinated about it. I'm one of them.
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Found this very interesting~~~
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19821103&id=cLkmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aAIGAAAAIBAJ&pg=6516,670165&hl=en
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What's the status of the Glickman report on the photos as pertains to 22v1? Did I miss it somehow?
Glickman's findings will be included in a lengthy update on 2-2-V-1 that I am writing for the next issue of TIGHAR's journal TIGHAR Tracks. When I finish the piece I'll run it by Jeff for any corrections. This TIGHAR Tracks will also include:
• new findings regarding "the anomaly."
• Guthrie Ford's post-loss message language study;
• a response to Dr. Richard Wright's paper "The Nikumaroro bones identification controversy: First-hand examination versus evaluation by proxy — Amelia Earhart found or still missing?”;
• the first installment of TIGHAR's new book project: The Earhart Electra - Drawing Board to Disappearance;
• an update on the search for The White Bird.
We'll also be announcing some major changes to the TIGHAR website and a new membership campaign. I'm hoping to get the writing finished this month. When published, the journal will be mailed to all TIGHAR members in good standing.
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Googling Voelter also brings up this reference at http://www.historical-museum.org/collect/guide/vwz.htm
This definitely would sound as something interesting to have a look at - as an avid aviator he might well have been fully aware of the importance of Amelia Earhart, which would make it logical that he would collect at least some information about the stay of the Electra in his facilities..
626
Voelter, Karl B., collector.
Aviation scrapbooks, 1927-1982.
2 v.
Materials are arranged generally in chronological order. The smaller scrapbook begins with a preface by Voelter, and covers 1927-1936. The larger one contains some earlier papers but mainly covers 1936-1972. Some later clippings, including his obituaries, are in a separate folder.
Clippings, correspondence, club and meeting programs, telegrams, photographic prints, awards, pins, brochures and other memorabilia trace Karl Voelter's wide ranging interests in the field of aviation, especially within the Miami area.
Karl B. Voelter was active and respected in Miami aviation circles for over 50 years. 1929: came to Miami as Chief Timer for the first meeting of the All-American Air Races; worked for Curtiss-Wright. 1930: appointed Southern Manager for Curtiss-Wright, to be based in Miami. After 18 successful months is transferred to Pittsburgh. 1932: left Curtiss-Wright, returned to Miami to open his own flying school. Married Mary Louise Bright. Involved in a variety of aviation-related businesses. Mid-30s to 1962: joined Marines; attached to original Miami Naval Air Base. Served overseas during war; retires with 23 years' service as a combat and command pilot. Joined CAA: retired in 1962 to the Miami / Coral Gables area. Active in Ox5 and other aviation organizations. 1982 November 1: dies in Miami.
M24A
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Googling Voelter also brings up this reference at http://www.historical-museum.org/collect/guide/vwz.htm
This definitely would sound as something interesting to have a look at ...
Been there. Done that. Glickman and I looked at that scrapbook when we were in Miami chasing the Albasi photo. There's nothing in the scrapbook relating to Earhart.
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The Pan Am archives at the University of Miami were also thoroughly vetted by a TIGHAR researcher - that was what turned up the heretofore unknown Albasi photos - but nothing substantive about Earhart or Noonan was found. Cryptic notations in the archive folders indicated that there had been a wholesale purging of records sometime in the 1940s or 50s, so all we have to work with is what remains. Ric and Jeff went through the relevant archive folders again while looking for more on the Albasi photos, if I remember correctly.
Of course, anyone in the Miami area is free to plow through the volumes of material for themselves, should they so desire.
LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CE
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Ok, ....Here is something you don't see everyday.
Amelia wearing shoes that look like they each have two heels on them, ...and personnel building a PBY in 1943 using aluminum stamped ALC 24 ST and ALCLAD 24 ST ......new and old mixed??? Different factory items???
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Amelia wearing shoes that look like they each have two heels on them,
A bit weird but of no particular significance to the investigation.
...and personnel building a PBY in 1943 using aluminum stamped ALC 24 ST and ALCLAD 24 ST ......new and old mixed??? Different factory items???
Interesting, and a classic example of how little we really know about how, why, and when ALCOA labeled its product. But it's not a PBY. The tag on the photo says it's a PB2Y. That's the Navy designation for the Consolidated Model 32 known to the USAAF as the B-24. This seems to be a National Archives photo. Where did you find it?
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Amelia wearing shoes that look like they each have two heels on them,
A bit weird but of no particular significance to the investigation.
...and personnel building a PBY in 1943 using aluminum stamped ALC 24 ST and ALCLAD 24 ST ......new and old mixed??? Different factory items???
Interesting, and a classic example of how little we really know about how, why, and when ALCOA labeled its product. But it's not a PBY. The tag on the photo says it's a PB2Y. That's the Navy designation for the Consolidated Model 32 known to the USAAF as the B-24. This seems to be a National Archives photo. Where did you find it?
I thought they photos were imaging the Coronado.....see below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_PB2Y_Coronado
The images are from the National Archives and Records Administration......credit due them.
Here is another, ( full view)
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I thought they photos were imaging the Coronado.....see below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_PB2Y_Coronado
You're right. My bad. The Navy version of the Model 32 was the PB4Y.
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What attracted my attention in the image, along with the stamping difference, ...is,what was discussed before, that being interest concerning the ink application pattern. It appears the Alc 24 st labeling is a bit wavy,the lettering widening and narrowing as it proceeds across the sheet .....does that mean it is older stock ? I don't know,as you say, more study is needed.