TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Gary LaPook on November 04, 2011, 10:52:39 PM
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Why would she be deep in the bush at the other end of the island, as Ric claims, so that she couldn't get to the beach quick enough to wave to the planes. Wouldn't she be more apt to be camped on the beach near the ship wreck? Ric thinks she landed near that ship, what would compel them to walk to the other end of the island, did they hear loud music playing from that direction?
This is deja vu of the running-down-the-LOP discussion. Show me where I have ever claimed that Earhart was at the Seven Site at the time of the Colorado search.
As shown in the post-loss radio signals catalog (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Brandenburg/signalcatalog5.html), the last credible message was heard at 20:18 local time on Gardner on July 7 - less than two days before the Colorado's airplanes appeared overhead. Radio messages could only be sent from the Electra so it's apparent that Earhart and Noonan stayed in the immediate vicinity of the airplane until at least that time. The first campsite had to be somewhere close to the airplane. We call this theoretical campsite Camp Zero. Even if the plane was washed over the reef edge and sank shortly after that, I would not expect them to abandon that area until after the Colorado's planes had come and gone (for the reasons you list). Once that happened, they had to know that they were faced with the likelihood that they would need to survive on the island for a long time. With immediate rescue no longer a realistic expectation, the logical thing to do would be to explore the island for an area that provided the best chance for survival. The area near the plane left much to be desired in that respect. It's in the lee of the easterly trade winds so there are no cooling breezes. (I've been there. It's miserable.) There is also no access to the lagoon for fish and clams.
We know that the Seven Site was the castaway's LAST campsite. We don't know how many other campsites there were but by the time she got to the Seven Site she was down to only a few durable items essential for survival and had figured out how to catch fish and birds and collect and purify rain water. In other words, the castaway who died at the Seven Site was an experienced castaway.
So if Earhart and Noonan were in the vicinity of Camp Zero (about a quarter of a mile north of the shipwreck and inland under the buka trees for shade) when the planes came over, why weren't they seen? Earlier this week we sent every TIGHAR member a DVD of the 2001 Aerial Tour of Nikumaroro (http://tighar.org/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=36&product_id=97) which includes an excellent illustration of how hard it is to see people on the ground from the air at Nikumaroro. Take a look at the DVD and tell me that Earhart and Noonan "would have" been seen even if they were out on the beach waving their arms off.
Camp Zero might have featured items salvaged from the plane that were left behind when they moved on. We plan to conduct a search for Camp Zero when we return to the island.
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Ric, on page 225 of your book you state that there was only a 10 to 20% chance of Lambrecht's search of spotting anyone on the ground. How is this calculated?
gl
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Ric, on page 225 of your book you state that there was only a 10 to 20% chance of Lambrecht's search of spotting anyone on the ground. How is this calculated?
In Finding Amelia (http://tighar.org/Publications/Books/findingamelia.htm), Chapter 22 "Banquo's Ghost" (page 225), I wrote:
"In 1937, the techniques and standards of aerial searching were in their infancy. According to present- day Civil Air Patrol Probability of Detection (POD) tables, the chance of Colorado’s planes locating the aircraft in the course of a single inspection of each island was on the order of 10 to 20 percent. In other words, if the Earhart plane was on one of the islands of the Phoenix Group, there is an 80 to 90 percent chance that Colorado’s search missed it."
Like everything else in the book, the source is cited. The statement is footnoted to:
"Civil Air Patrol, Mission Aircraft Reference Text, Chapter 9: “Search
Planning and Coverage,” section 9.2.1: “Probability of Detection Table,”
Civil Air Patrol."
The current on-line version is called Mission Aircrew Reference Text (http://www.ndcap.us/dept/es/ref_aircrew.pdf)
The on-line manual is organized a bit differently than the cited text but the same information is there. It's pretty interesting to compare the current guidelines for organizing and conducting an aerial search to how the aerial search for Earhart was done.
I'd suggest starting with Section 9.2.2 Probability Areas. You'll see that the first thing you have to do is establish the LKP (Last Known Position). There's a list of primary factors used to establish the LKP:
• The aircraft disappearance point on radar. (Yeah, right.)
• The bearing or fix provided by other ground stations. (The Pan Am and Coast Guard DF bearings on post-loss signals.)
• Dead reckoning position based on the time of LKP. (Dead reckoning down the LOP.)
• Reports of sightings-either ground or air. (None.)
• Emergency locator transmitter (ELT) reports.
There are instances where the above information is not available to assist the planner. To establish a probable position in these instances, the planner must rely on less specific secondary sources of information including:
• Flight plan. (Known.)
• Weather information along the intended route or track. (Sketchy at best.)
• Proximity of airfields along route. (No airfields, but the post-loss signals indicated that the plane landed some place so "Proximity of islands along route.")
• Aircraft performance. (Known.)
• Pilot's previous flying record. (Known.)
• Radar coverage along the intended track. (Dream on.)
• Nature of terrain along the intended track. (Known. Open ocean and coral atolls.)
• Position and ground reports. (Scant and ambiguous.)
Section 9.2.3 covers Search Altitudes and Airspeeds. There are recommendations based upon the type of terrain:
- Open Flat
- Moderate Tree Cover and/or Hilly
- Heavy Tree Cover and/or Very Hilly
The manual gives this example:
"A red and white Cessna 172 has been reported missing and presumed down in eastern Arkansas, in open flat terrain. At the time of the search, flight visibility is forecast to be greater than 10 miles. The incident commander determines, based on available aircraft and crews, that the single probability of detection for this first search must be at least 50%."
Note that this is the estimated probability of seeing an airplane, not people, in flat, open terrain.
As shown in table 9-2 on page 156 of the manual, a big factor in the probability of finding what you're looking for is "track spacing." In other words, when you fly back and forth over your search area (aka "mowing the lawn"), how close together are your respective passes? Or, if you have multiple aircraft flying line-abreast, how far apart are they? The Lexington (http://Lexington) used a plan that put aircraft line-abreast with a spacing of 2 miles between planes. We don't know what the Colorado planes did but there is no indication that they had any kind of plan. The CAP figures assume a search for an airplane. A ten to twenty percent chance of seeing people on the ground at Gardner in a single pass around the island is probably generous.
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Something that struck me after watching the TIGHAR DVD from the helicopter was the lack of birds - or maybe they just didn't show up because of the speed of that lil' guy? I remember the Colorado planes decided to fly at 400 feet because of the risk of collision with clouds of seabirds - which virtually eliminated any chance of seeing anyone on the ground.
LTM,
Monty Fowler,
TIGHAR No. 2189 CER
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Something that struck me after watching the TIGHAR DVD from the helicopter was the lack of birds - or maybe they just didn't show up because of the speed of that lil' guy?
Our speed was similar to the Colorado Corsairs' - about 90 mph. We didn't have any close encounters with birds.
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Ric, on page 225 of your book you state that there was only a 10 to 20% chance of Lambrecht's search of spotting anyone on the ground. How is this calculated?
In Finding Amelia (http://tighar.org/Publications/Books/findingamelia.htm), Chapter 22 "Banquo's Ghost" (page 225), I wrote:
"In 1937, the techniques and standards of aerial searching were in their infancy. According to present- day Civil Air Patrol Probability of Detection (POD) tables, the chance of Colorado’s planes locating the aircraft in the course of a single inspection of each island was on the order of 10 to 20 percent. In other words, if the Earhart plane was on one of the islands of the Phoenix Group, there is an 80 to 90 percent chance that Colorado’s search missed it."
Like everything else in the book, the source is cited. The statement is footnoted to:
"Civil Air Patrol, Mission Aircraft Reference Text, Chapter 9: “Search
Planning and Coverage,” section 9.2.1: “Probability of Detection Table,”
Civil Air Patrol."
The current on-line version is called Mission Aircrew Reference Text (http://www.ndcap.us/dept/es/ref_aircrew.pdf)
The on-line manual is organized a bit differently than the cited text but the same information is there. It's pretty interesting to compare the current guidelines for organizing and conducting an aerial search to how the aerial search for Earhart was done.
I'd suggest starting with Section 9.2.2 Probability Areas. You'll see that the first thing you have to do is establish the LKP (Last Known Position). There's a list of primary factors used to establish the LKP:
• The aircraft disappearance point on radar. (Yeah, right.)
• The bearing or fix provided by other ground stations. (The Pan Am and Coast Guard DF bearings on post-loss signals.)
• Dead reckoning position based on the time of LKP. (Dead reckoning down the LOP.)
• Reports of sightings-either ground or air. (None.)
• Emergency locator transmitter (ELT) reports.
There are instances where the above information is not available to assist the planner. To establish a probable position in these instances, the planner must rely on less specific secondary sources of information including:
• Flight plan. (Known.)
• Weather information along the intended route or track. (Sketchy at best.)
• Proximity of airfields along route. (No airfields, but the post-loss signals indicated that the plane landed some place so "Proximity of islands along route.")
• Aircraft performance. (Known.)
• Pilot's previous flying record. (Known.)
• Radar coverage along the intended track. (Dream on.)
• Nature of terrain along the intended track. (Known. Open ocean and coral atolls.)
• Position and ground reports. (Scant and ambiguous.)
Section 9.2.3 covers Search Altitudes and Airspeeds. There are recommendations based upon the type of terrain:
- Open Flat
- Moderate Tree Cover and/or Hilly
- Heavy Tree Cover and/or Very Hilly
The manual gives this example:
"A red and white Cessna 172 has been reported missing and presumed down in eastern Arkansas, in open flat terrain. At the time of the search, flight visibility is forecast to be greater than 10 miles. The incident commander determines, based on available aircraft and crews, that the single probability of detection for this first search must be at least 50%."
Note that this is the estimated probability of seeing an airplane, not people, in flat, open terrain.
As shown in table 9-2 on page 156 of the manual, a big factor in the probability of finding what you're looking for is "track spacing." In other words, when you fly back and forth over your search area (aka "mowing the lawn"), how close together are your respective passes? Or, if you have multiple aircraft flying line-abreast, how far apart are they? The Lexington (http://Lexington) used a plan that put aircraft line-abreast with a spacing of 2 miles between planes. We don't know what the Colorado planes did but there is no indication that they had any kind of plan. The CAP figures assume a search for an airplane. A ten to twenty percent chance of seeing people on the ground at Gardner in a single pass around the island is probably generous.
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The reason I asked, Ric, is that I just re-read your book and I was curious how you came up with your estimate of 10 to 20% probability of detection of Earhart by the Lambrecht flight. I looked at my National Search and Rescue Manual (see attached) Inland Probability Of Detection (POD) table and come up with a much higher probability that the Lambrecht flight would have spotted Earhart and Noonan if they had been on Gardner. I wondered if you were using a different POD table and now that I see what you have posted as the table that you used, I see that your table and mine are the same POD tables. Your POD table is on page 156 (172 of the PDF) of the Civil Air Patrol Mission Aircrew Reference Text:
http://www.ndcap.us/dept/es/ref_aircrew.pdf
Mine is on page 8-2 of the SAR manual.
After reviewing your reference, I still don't understand how you came up with such a low probability of detection. Looking at your table or the one in my attached Search And Rescue Manual, the probability of detection had to be at least 30% even if Earhart and Noonan were hiding in the tall vegetation and at least 75% if they were standing on the beach or standing in the water on the reef flat.
We can go through the computation looking first at the worst case example of "heavy tree cover." Since Lambrecht was flying at about 400 feet we use the 500 foot table. We also know that the visibility was at least 4 nautical miles since Lambrecht's report said it was 30 nautical miles so we use the visibility 4 mi. column. We also know that the track spacing could not have been greater than one-half mile because the island is too narrow for a greater spacing, see attached diagram of .5 nm spacing.
Using all of these entry values and entering the POD tables (either yours or mine) we find the probability of detection is 30% for the worst case, not the 10 to 20% that you stated. Using the same information and looking at the table for "open, flat terrain," such as the beach and the reef flat, we see that the probability of spotting Earhart and Noonan standing on the beach or on the reef is 75%, again much higher than the value that you stated.
But this is not the end of the computation, your must then go on to the Cumulative POD table on page 157 (173 of the PDF) of your manual, page 8-2 of my manual. Every additional pass over the same area increases the probability of detection. For Earhart, hiding among the trees, the cumulative probability of detection increases to 45% after a second pass; 50% after a third pass; 60% after a fourth pass; 65% after a fifth pass; 75% after a sixth pass; 80% after a seventh pass and 90% after 8 passes.
Looking at the case of Earhart standing on the beach, the probability increases to 95% after only 2 passes. Each pass around the island by each of the three planes in Lambrecht's flight counts as an additional search. Page 157 (173 of the PDF) of the manual that you used states:
"If you, or another aircraft and crew, fly the same pattern a second time, the POD increases significantly."
Because the land is only one half mile wide, the three planes in the Lambrecht flight would have flown either in trail or in line abreast close enough to each other so that they each covered the same half mile wide strip of land so each circle the island by the flight constituted three searches. (See attached diagram of .2nm spacing.) Lambrecht reported that he circled other islands three times but for his search of Gardner Lambrecht reported "repeated circling and zooming" which must mean more than three and certainly not less than three circles of the island. Since there were three planes observing the same one half-mile wide strip of land, three circles of the island by the flight of three planes is actually 9 searches for the purposes of the cumulative POD table. So if Earhart was standing on the beach, which is most likely, then the POD was at least 95% and even if she was trying to hide from the planes in the tall trees the POD was at least 90%.
You state that the POD table is for searches for a crashed aircraft, implying that the table does not apply to a search for individuals but that is because you looked at the example given in your manual, a search for a small plane, but, in fact, the tables are equally applicable to searches for personnel. This is clear since on the the same page as the POD table, the SAR manual states:
"C. Lost-person SAR is the second most common inland search mission."
Nor is there a different POD table given for searches for personnel nor is there some correction factor given to change the probability for searches for personnel from that given in the POD table so it is clear that the POD table is applicable to finding Earhart on Gardner.
You point out that the Lexington's planes used a track spacing of 2 miles but what those planes did in searching open water has no relevance to how the search was conducted over Gardner Island. This is clear since the POD table you used is actually the Inland Probability Of Detection table and is not applicable to ocean searches. A completely separate and different procedure and extensive set of tables are used for planning searches of open water. You may not have realized this since you were looking at the Civil Air Patrol Text and the CAP is involved in searches only over land so maritime searches are not covered in your manual. Open ocean searches are extensively covered in my SAR manual and I can post the tables that apply to the Lexington's search if you like.
Ric, can you explain to us how you arrived at your 10 to 20% figure?
gl
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The reason I asked, Ric, is that I just re-read your book and I was curious how you came up with your estimate of 10 to 20% probability of detection of Earhart by the Lambrecht flight.
Applying the POD tables to the Earhart search is an admittedly fuzzy exercise. The tables are generalized statistical compilations intended to help plan a SAR operation using modern techniques and trained personnel. The results of numerous past searches are complied and probabilities are derived, but the probability of success for any single search is always either one or zero, yes or no. The searches upon which the tables are based were conducted using established techniques and trained personnel. Whatever probabilities may be derived from tables, the expected results from a search carried out using unknown techniques and personal with no training in search operations can reasonably be expected to be significantly lower.
Looking at your table or the one in my attached Search And Rescue Manual, the probability of detection had to be at least 30% even if Earhart and Noonan were hiding in the tall vegetation and at least 75% if they were standing on the beach or standing in the water on the reef flat.
I can think of no better illustration of how different the reality of Nikumaroro is from the POD guidelines. Look at the video and tell me that there is a 30% chance of seeing a person "hiding in the tall vegetation." A 75% chance of being seen if they are standing in the open? In 1989, by prior arrangement, a Royal New Zealand Air Force Lockheed P-3 Orion visited Nikumaroro while we were there. They buzzed the island and our expedition ship at about 500 feet. There were about a dozen of us standing out in the open, wearing brightly colored clothing, waving like mad. They never saw us.
Because the land is only one half mile wide, the three planes in the Lambrecht flight would have flown either in trail or in line abreast close enough to each other so that they each covered the same half mile wide strip of land so each circle the island by the flight constituted three searches.
You're doing it again. "Would have" is a guess masquerading as a fact. We have no idea how the planes conducted their search of the island.
Lambrecht reported that he circled other islands three times...
He did? He said he made "one circle" around McKean, "a circle of the island" at Hull, "several circles" of Sydney, no mention of circling Phoenix, no mention of circling Enderbury, "two or three turns" around Birnie (the smallest of the group), no mention of circling Canton (the largest of the group).
...but for his search of Gardner Lambrecht reported "repeated circling and zooming" which must mean more than three and certainly not less than three circles of the island.
You're taking it out of context. Lambrecht is not talking about repeatedly circling the island. Lambrecht wrote:
"Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there."
The "circling and zooming" was done over the "signs of recent habitation" to "elicit an answering wave" from "possible inhabitants." (A "zoom" is a dive and sharp pull-up. It's purpose, in this case, was probably to make a lot of noise.)
You state that the POD table is for searches for a crashed aircraft, implying that the table does not apply to a search for individuals but that is because you looked at the example given in your manual, a search for a small plane, but, in fact, the tables are equally applicable to searches for personnel. This is clear since on the the same page as the POD table, the SAR manual states:
"C. Lost-person SAR is the second most common inland search mission."
Nor is there a different POD table given for searches for personnel nor is there some correction factor given to change the probability for searches for personnel from that given in the POD table so it is clear that the POD table is applicable to finding Earhart on Gardner.
Another great illustration of how generalized the POD tables are. As a rule, people are quite a bit smaller than airplanes, and some airplanes are quite a bit larger than other airplanes - and yet the POD tables make no distinction in the probability of detection. Are the chances of spotting a person really the same as the chances of spotting a B-52?
You point out that the Lexington's planes used a track spacing of 2 miles but what those planes did in searching open water has no relevance to how the search was conducted over Gardner Island.
That's what I said.
This is clear since the POD table you used is actually the Inland Probability Of Detection table and is not applicable to ocean searches.
No. The POD tables didn't exist in 1937. The reason that what Lexington's planes did is not relevant to what Colorado's planes did is because were no standard search procedures and both ships were making it up as they went along. Lexington drew up its plan on the way out from San Diego. There's no indication that Colorado had a plan at all beyond "fly out and take a look."
Ten to twenty percentage probability for Colorado's planes seeing AE and FN if they were there is an estimate. I think it's generous.
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Gary
I know you've flown a myriad of aircraft, but have you ever been involved in any actual Search and Rescue Flying, or search mission management?
The discrepancy between your use of the POD charts and Ric's has to do with understanding Search Visibility. This is not the same as aviation visibility which might be defined as "the ability to see and identify prominent objects by day and night as determined by atmospheric conditions."
In your example, you have assumed Search Visibility to be 4 mi. That may be the distance you think you might be able to see prominent objects such as an airport, or perhaps an Electra on the beach, but certainly not a single human being out in the open, never mind in the bush.
Search visibility is defined as "the distance at which an object on the ground can be seen and recognized from a particular height". Google "CAP Mission Pilot Course slides" and you can find it on page 8 of the Mission Aircrew Course- Chapter 9: Search Planning and Coverage (Feb 2005).
So, lets see what the Search Visibility might be for a human being on the edge of the beach at Niku? Let's assume that we're flying at 500ft, how far away can we still see and recognize a human on the beach, or in the bush. I can assure you it would be significantly less than 1 mile, not 4 miles as you have assumed in your POD example. At .25 of a mile SV, the POD would be 2.5%, at .125 of a mile, the POD would be 1.25%.
So in theory, with track spacing of .5 miles, flying at 500 ft AGL and IF you were able to see and recognize a person in the bush at a lateral distance of 1/8th of a mile (660 ft), you'd have a 1.25% POD for a single pass.
However, the aerial tour video (have you seen it?) demonstrates that it is extremely hard to see a person on the beach at Niku from an altitude of a mere 200 ft, even when you know they are there and they're wearing a white shirt.
We might conclude therefore that the Search visibility for a human in the bush is significantly less than 1/8th of a mile (660 ft), therefore the POD will also be significantly less than 1.25% POD.
For the moment let's use 1/16th of a mile (330 ft) as the search visibility to calculate the POD. If the POD with a .5 mile track spacing, 500 ft AGL, and a 1 Mile Search Visibility is 10%, the POD with a Search Visibility of 330 ft at 500 ft AGL might be 1/16th of the POD at 1 Mile SV, or a POD of 0.625 %, (6.25/10ths of 1% just to be sure everyone understands).
At that POD, (interpolating the Cumulative POD chart at the low end) it would take two passes to get to 0.8% POD, three passes would give 0.9%, four passes 0.95% POD etc. You can see that it would take many passes at 0.625% just to get to a POD of 10%, never mind a POD of 20%. And, the POD goes down the lower the altitude, so at 400 ft AGL the POD would be less than 0.625% for each pass.
So you can see that the POD charts are not really created for finding missing persons, they were created for finding missing aircraft (or the smoking holes they create when colliding with a planet), an object that is considerably larger than a single human, and visible from much farther away, hence the minimum Search Visibility of 1 Mile on the chart.
Overestimating POD is one of the most common mistakes searchers make, and search managers routinely take POD estimates from the field and cut them in half. In the woods of Colo, we would never assign a POD from a single pass of one aircraft at more than 5%, it would simply be unrealistic.
The Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC) will typically abandon a search once the POD gets above 80%, so it is important not to overestimate the POD lest you leave your target abandoned in the search area. Sound familiar?
Ric's 10% -20% POD is generous assuming that the aircraft is no longer visible, and we're looking for humans in the bush.
As an aside, for those of us who like to get lost, the single most effective tool that you can have to increase your chances of being found by searchers is a high quality signal mirror with sighting device (OK, OK, a GPS signalling device would probably be better). Mirror flashes can be seen from great distances, like 15 to 20 miles (farther than smoke signals), effectively increasing the Search Visibility exponentially. Simply sweeping the horizon with a signal mirror will get some attention, assuming someone is out there. People have been found by flashing airliners at altitude. Cheap at any military surplus, keep one with your flight / camping gear and learn how to use it before you really need it.
Andrew
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Gary
I know you've flown a myriad of aircraft, but have you ever been involved in any actual Search and Rescue Flying, or search mission management?
The discrepancy between your use of the POD charts and Ric's has to do with understanding Search Visibility. This is not the same as aviation visibility which might be defined as "the ability to see and identify prominent objects by day and night as determined by atmospheric conditions."
In your example, you have assumed Search Visibility to be 4 mi. That may be the distance you think you might be able to see prominent objects such as an airport, or perhaps an Electra on the beach, but certainly not a single human being out in the open, never mind in the bush.
Search visibility is defined as "the distance at which an object on the ground can be seen and recognized from a particular height". Google "CAP Mission Pilot Course slides" and you can find it on page 8 of the Mission Aircrew Course- Chapter 9: Search Planning and Coverage (Feb 2005).
So, lets see what the Search Visibility might be for a human being on the edge of the beach at Niku? Let's assume that we're flying at 500ft, how far away can we still see and recognize a human on the beach, or in the bush. I can assure you it would be significantly less than 1 mile, not 4 miles as you have assumed in your POD example. At .25 of a mile SV, the POD would be 2.5%, at .125 of a mile, the POD would be 1.25%.
So in theory, with track spacing of .5 miles, flying at 500 ft AGL and IF you were able to see and recognize a person in the bush at a lateral distance of 1/8th of a mile (660 ft), you'd have a 1.25% POD for a single pass.
However, the aerial tour video (have you seen it?) demonstrates that it is extremely hard to see a person on the beach at Niku from an altitude of a mere 200 ft, even when you know they are there and they're wearing a white shirt.
We might conclude therefore that the Search visibility for a human in the bush is significantly less than 1/8th of a mile (660 ft), therefore the POD will also be significantly less than 1.25% POD.
For the moment let's use 1/16th of a mile (330 ft) as the search visibility to calculate the POD. If the POD with a .5 mile track spacing, 500 ft AGL, and a 1 Mile Search Visibility is 10%, the POD with a Search Visibility of 330 ft at 500 ft AGL might be 1/16th of the POD at 1 Mile SV, or a POD of 0.625 %, (6.25/10ths of 1% just to be sure everyone understands).
At that POD, (interpolating the Cumulative POD chart at the low end) it would take two passes to get to 0.8% POD, three passes would give 0.9%, four passes 0.95% POD etc. You can see that it would take many passes at 0.625% just to get to a POD of 10%, never mind a POD of 20%. And, the POD goes down the lower the altitude, so at 400 ft AGL the POD would be less than 0.625% for each pass.
So you can see that the POD charts are not really created for finding missing persons, they were created for finding missing aircraft (or the smoking holes they create when colliding with a planet), an object that is considerably larger than a single human, and visible from much farther away, hence the minimum Search Visibility of 1 Mile on the chart.
Overestimating POD is one of the most common mistakes searchers make, and search managers routinely take POD estimates from the field and cut them in half. In the woods of Colo, we would never assign a POD from a single pass of one aircraft at more than 5%, it would simply be unrealistic.
The Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC) will typically abandon a search once the POD gets above 80%, so it is important not to overestimate the POD lest you leave your target abandoned in the search area. Sound familiar?
Ric's 10% -20% POD is generous assuming that the aircraft is no longer visible, and we're looking for humans in the bush.
As an aside, for those of us who like to get lost, the single most effective tool that you can have to increase your chances of being found by searchers is a high quality signal mirror with sighting device (OK, OK, a GPS signalling device would probably be better). Mirror flashes can be seen from great distances, like 15 to 20 miles (farther than smoke signals), effectively increasing the Search Visibility exponentially. Simply sweeping the horizon with a signal mirror will get some attention, assuming someone is out there. People have been found by flashing airliners at altitude. Cheap at any military surplus, keep one with your flight / camping gear and learn how to use it before you really need it.
Andrew
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Go back and read that page again. You have apparently confused "search visibility" with "scanning range." You correctly quoted the definition of "search visibility" as "the distance at which an object on the ground can be seen and recognized from a particular height". This "an object" is not the same as the subject of the search such as a person. If you can identify an object, such as a house, at four miles then the "search visibility" is four miles even if you are searching for a person. Search visibility is not the distance you expect to be able to spot the subject of the search, I was not assuming that a person can be seen at four miles. Scanning range is "the distance that a scanner is expected to have a good chance at spotting the search objective."
The distance that you can spot a person is less than a mile but that is not an entry value for using the POD table, which is the search visibility. According to the SAR manual, a person in an orange flight suit is visible at .5 miles so a person not in an orange suit would be visible at something less, say half of that, at a quarter mile, twice your assumption. This is the scanning range. You can prove this to yourself. Go outside and look down the sidewalk and I'll bet you can see people walking a quarter mile (two city blocks) down the sidewalk. The POD tables show a minimum track spacing of .5 miles meaning the observer observes one quarter mile on each side of the flight track so should be able to spot a person with half mile track spacing. If this were not possible then the POD tables would have to show much closer track spacing. The POD table shows that the minimum track spacing that is needed is a half mile and no need to space them closer than that.
Then you make an unwarranted attempt to calculate a much lower POD than the table is designed for and that it does not allow. Based on your manipulation, the POD per pass gets so low that there would never be an airborne search for a person because there are not enough planes on earth to achieve any useful cumulative POD. And the track spacing that you would require are not achievable in flight.
gl
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The reason I asked, Ric, is that I just re-read your book and I was curious how you came up with your estimate of 10 to 20% probability of detection of Earhart by the Lambrecht flight.
Applying the POD tables to the Earhart search is an admittedly fuzzy exercise. The tables are generalized statistical compilations intended to help plan a SAR operation using modern techniques and trained personnel. The results of numerous past searches are complied and probabilities are derived, but the probability of success for any single search is always either one or zero, yes or no. The searches upon which the tables are based were conducted using established techniques and trained personnel. Whatever probabilities may be derived from tables, the expected results from a search carried out using unknown techniques and personal with no training in search operations can reasonably be expected to be significantly lower.
Looking at your table or the one in my attached Search And Rescue Manual, the probability of detection had to be at least 30% even if Earhart and Noonan were hiding in the tall vegetation and at least 75% if they were standing on the beach or standing in the water on the reef flat.
I can think of no better illustration of how different the reality of Nikumaroro is from the POD guidelines. Look at the video and tell me that there is a 30% chance of seeing a person "hiding in the tall vegetation." A 75% chance of being seen if they are standing in the open? In 1989, by prior arrangement, a Royal New Zealand Air Force Lockheed P-3 Orion visited Nikumaroro while we were there. They buzzed the island and our expedition ship at about 500 feet. There were about a dozen of us standing out in the open, wearing brightly colored clothing, waving like mad. They never saw us.
Because the land is only one half mile wide, the three planes in the Lambrecht flight would have flown either in trail or in line abreast close enough to each other so that they each covered the same half mile wide strip of land so each circle the island by the flight constituted three searches.
You're doing it again. "Would have" is a guess masquerading as a fact. We have no idea how the planes conducted their search of the island.
Lambrecht reported that he circled other islands three times...
He did? He said he made "one circle" around McKean, "a circle of the island" at Hull, "several circles" of Sydney, no mention of circling Phoenix, no mention of circling Enderbury, "two or three turns" around Birnie (the smallest of the group), no mention of circling Canton (the largest of the group).
...but for his search of Gardner Lambrecht reported "repeated circling and zooming" which must mean more than three and certainly not less than three circles of the island.
You're taking it out of context. Lambrecht is not talking about repeatedly circling the island. Lambrecht wrote:
"Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there."
The "circling and zooming" was done over the "signs of recent habitation" to "elicit an answering wave" from "possible inhabitants." (A "zoom" is a dive and sharp pull-up. It's purpose, in this case, was probably to make a lot of noise.)
You state that the POD table is for searches for a crashed aircraft, implying that the table does not apply to a search for individuals but that is because you looked at the example given in your manual, a search for a small plane, but, in fact, the tables are equally applicable to searches for personnel. This is clear since on the the same page as the POD table, the SAR manual states:
"C. Lost-person SAR is the second most common inland search mission."
Nor is there a different POD table given for searches for personnel nor is there some correction factor given to change the probability for searches for personnel from that given in the POD table so it is clear that the POD table is applicable to finding Earhart on Gardner.
Another great illustration of how generalized the POD tables are. As a rule, people are quite a bit smaller than airplanes, and some airplanes are quite a bit larger than other airplanes - and yet the POD tables make no distinction in the probability of detection. Are the chances of spotting a person really the same as the chances of spotting a B-52?
You point out that the Lexington's planes used a track spacing of 2 miles but what those planes did in searching open water has no relevance to how the search was conducted over Gardner Island.
That's what I said.
This is clear since the POD table you used is actually the Inland Probability Of Detection table and is not applicable to ocean searches.
No. The POD tables didn't exist in 1937. The reason that what Lexington's planes did is not relevant to what Colorado's planes did is because were no standard search procedures and both ships were making it up as they went along. Lexington drew up its plan on the way out from San Diego. There's no indication that Colorado had a plan at all beyond "fly out and take a look."
Ten to twenty percentage probability for Colorado's planes seeing AE and FN if they were there is an estimate. I think it's generous.
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I think this is quite humorous Ric since you were the one who cited to the POD table as authority for your 10-20% estimate for spotting Earhart. Then when I go through the actual computation and prove that the authority that you based your claim on actually predicts a much higher probability of detection than you like, your come back and say that the POD is not valid.
So now you now start throwing around claims based on your anecdotal observation (something that you always criticize) that you claim are more accurate than the statistical tables made by search and rescue professionals after they examined reams of data. So either you are right and the professionals in the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, the Navy, the Army and the Coast Guard are wrong or vice versa. My money is on the professionals, not on you, Ric. After all, those guys do not have a dog in this fight.
But let's say you were right that the POD for a single pass was 10-20%. Looking at the cumulative POD table it rises to 65% after 6 passes, two laps around the island by three planes for the wooded area and it must be much higher for the clear area on the beach.
And why do you assume that the pilots were not trained in how to conduct a search, after all that is what those float planes were on the Colorado for, to conduct searches, not to fly the admiral to the golf course.
Re-read Lambrecht's report about the way he conducted the searches on the other islands, you mis-characterized what he said. You don't know what kind of search he made at Gardner but it is unlikely that he ordered the other planes to stay well offshore so that he could get all the glory of finding Earhart so it is more reasonable to believe that all three planes took part in the search of this island (readers can decide for themselves which makes more sense) so many passes were made raising the cumulative probability of detection to a much higher level that you claim.
gl
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I can't believe you're still trying to defend this trench.
I think this is quite humorous Ric since you were the one who cited to the POD table as authority for your 10-20% estimate for spotting Earhart. Then when I go through the actual computation and prove that the authority that you based your claim on actually predicts a much higher probability of detection than you like, your come back and say that the POD is not valid.
I thought I 'splained that my 10 to 20% was not derived directly from the POD but was an estimate based on the fact that the 1937 search was not conducted with the techniques and training used to compute the probabilities in the POD.
So now you now start throwing around claims based on your anecdotal observation (something that you always criticize) that you claim are more accurate than the statistical tables made by search and rescue professionals after they examined reams of data. So either you are right and the professionals in the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, the Navy, the Army and the Coast Guard are wrong or vice versa. My money is on the professionals, not on you, Ric. After all, those guys do not have a dog in this fight.
I am not throwing around claims based on my anecdotal observation. I have provided every TIGHAR member (including you) with a video re-enactment of the actual conditions under which the 1937 aerial search was conducted. To assert that generalized statistical tables are more reliable than real life observation of a specific situation is, frankly, ludicrous. I think those Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, the Navy, the Army and the Coast Guard professionals would agree.
Real life always trumps statistics.
And why do you assume that the pilots were not trained in how to conduct a search, after all that is what those float planes were on the Colorado for, to conduct searches, not to fly the admiral to the golf course.
I didn't realize that you didn't know this. In the days before radar, the mission of float planes on cruisers and battleships was to scout for and identify enemy ships and then act as forward observers to adjust the fall of shot from the big guns. You're a former artilleryman. I don't know how they did it at Ft. Sill but at the Benning School for Boys (aka Infantry Officer School at Ft. Benning) SAR was not part of the curriculum for FOs.
Re-read Lambrecht's report about the way he conducted the searches on the other islands, you mis-characterized what he said. You don't know what kind of search he made at Gardner but it is unlikely that he ordered the other planes to stay well offshore so that he could get all the glory of finding Earhart so it is more reasonable to believe that all three planes took part in the search of this island (readers can decide for themselves which makes more sense) so many passes were made raising the cumulative probability of detection to a much higher level that you claim.
I don't think I mischaracterized anything Lambrecht said and I certainly didn't imply that he ordered the other planes to stay well off shore. As we have both said, we don't have any solid information about how the overflight of Gardner was conducted. There are a few clues.
- We can make a ballpark estimate of how long they spent there - 18 to 28 minutes. See the FAQ How long did the three aircraft from the battleship Colorado spend over Gardner island on July 9, 1937? (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Forum/FAQs/gardneroverflight.html)
- We can compare Lambrecht's observations (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Lambrecht's_Report.html) with those of another pilot on the same flight, Lt.(jg) William Short (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Letters/Short.pdf).
Lambrecht makes no estimate of the island's length.
Short says it's "about 2 1/2 miles long by a mile wide." His estimate of the width is right on but he's way off on the length. Gardner is actually 3 3/4 nautical miles long.
Lambrecht says "Most of this island is covered with tropical vegetation with, here and there, a grove of coconut palms."
Short is more specific. "Almost completely covered with short bushy trees including two small groves of coconut palms." In 1937 the island was almost completely covered with Buka trees 60 to 90 feet tall. If Short thought they were "short bushy trees," a person on the ground would appear much smaller than he expected. In 1937 there were five small groves of cocos.
Both Lambrecht and Short commented on Norwich City. Lambrecht estimates the ship at 4,000 tons. Short's guess is 5,000 tons. Norwich City's gross tonnage was 5,587. Net tonnage was 3,513. Both estimates were in the ballpark, but evaluating ships was what these guys were trained to do.
Curiously, Short does not mention the "signs of recent habitation" or the "repeated circling and zooming." Either he didn't consider it worth mentioning or he was off looking at some other part of the island. The planes could not communicate with each other except by hand signals.
From what little information we have it would appear that the pilots were pretty good at what they were trained to do - evaluate ships - but not so good at estimating sizes and distances relating to terrain (hardly surprising). There is also some indication that they didn't fly organized sweeps but split up and did their own thing.
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I can't believe you're still trying to defend this trench.
I think this is quite humorous Ric since you were the one who cited to the POD table as authority for your 10-20% estimate for spotting Earhart. Then when I go through the actual computation and prove that the authority that you based your claim on actually predicts a much higher probability of detection than you like, your come back and say that the POD is not valid.
I thought I 'splained that my 10 to 20% was not derived directly from the POD but was an estimate based on the fact that the 1937 search was not conducted with the techniques and training used to compute the probabilities in the POD.
So now you now start throwing around claims based on your anecdotal observation (something that you always criticize) that you claim are more accurate than the statistical tables made by search and rescue professionals after they examined reams of data. So either you are right and the professionals in the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, the Navy, the Army and the Coast Guard are wrong or vice versa. My money is on the professionals, not on you, Ric. After all, those guys do not have a dog in this fight.
I am not throwing around claims based on my anecdotal observation. I have provided every TIGHAR member (including you) with a video re-enactment of the actual conditions under which the 1937 aerial search was conducted. To assert that generalized statistical tables are more reliable than real life observation of a specific situation is, frankly, ludicrous. I think those Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, the Navy, the Army and the Coast Guard professionals would agree.
Real life always trumps statistics.
And why do you assume that the pilots were not trained in how to conduct a search, after all that is what those float planes were on the Colorado for, to conduct searches, not to fly the admiral to the golf course.
I didn't realize that you didn't know this. In the days before radar, the mission of float planes on cruisers and battleships was to scout for and identify enemy ships and then act as forward observers to adjust the fall of shot from the big guns. You're a former artilleryman. I don't know how they did it at Ft. Sill but at the Benning School for Boys (aka Infantry Officer School at Ft. Benning) SAR was not part of the curriculum for FOs.
Re-read Lambrecht's report about the way he conducted the searches on the other islands, you mis-characterized what he said. You don't know what kind of search he made at Gardner but it is unlikely that he ordered the other planes to stay well offshore so that he could get all the glory of finding Earhart so it is more reasonable to believe that all three planes took part in the search of this island (readers can decide for themselves which makes more sense) so many passes were made raising the cumulative probability of detection to a much higher level that you claim.
I don't think I mischaracterized anything Lambrecht said and I certainly didn't imply that he ordered the other planes to stay well off shore. As we have both said, we don't have any solid information about how the overflight of Gardner was conducted. There are a few clues.
- We can make a ballpark estimate of how long they spent there - 18 to 28 minutes. See the FAQ How long did the three aircraft from the battleship Colorado spend over Gardner island on July 9, 1937? (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Forum/FAQs/gardneroverflight.html)
- We can compare Lambrecht's observations (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Lambrecht's_Report.html) with those of another pilot on the same flight, Lt.(jg) William Short (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Letters/Short.pdf).
Lambrecht makes no estimate of the island's length.
Short says it's "about 2 1/2 miles long by a mile wide." His estimate of the width is right on but he's way off on the length. Gardner is actually 3 3/4 nautical miles long.
Lambrecht says "Most of this island is covered with tropical vegetation with, here and there, a grove of coconut palms."
Short is more specific. "Almost completely covered with short bushy trees including two small groves of coconut palms." In 1937 the island was almost completely covered with Buka trees 60 to 90 feet tall. If Short thought they were "short bushy trees," a person on the ground would appear much smaller than he expected. In 1937 there were five small groves of cocos.
Both Lambrecht and Short commented on Norwich City. Lambrecht estimates the ship at 4,000 tons. Short's guess is 5,000 tons. Norwich City's gross tonnage was 5,587. Net tonnage was 3,513. Both estimates were in the ballpark, but evaluating ships was what these guys were trained to do.
Curiously, Short does not mention the "signs of recent habitation" or the "repeated circling and zooming." Either he didn't consider it worth mentioning or he was off looking at some other part of the island. The planes could not communicate with each other except by hand signals.
From what little information we have it would appear that the pilots were pretty good at what they were trained to do - evaluate ships - but not so good at estimating sizes and distances relating to terrain (hardly surprising). There is also some indication that they didn't fly organized sweeps but split up and did their own thing.
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What you wrote in your book was:
"According to present- day Civil Air Patrol Probability of Detection (POD) tables, the chance of Colorado’s planes locating the aircraft in the course of a single inspection of each island was on the order of 10 to 20 percent. In other words, if the Earhart plane was on one of the islands of the Phoenix Group, there is an 80 to 90 percent chance that Colorado’s search missed it."
There was no indication in your book that your estimate did not come directly from the POD table. Only after I went through the calculation in the POD table did you change to now claim that your estimate was not directly derived from the POD table. So for those who only read your book and who do not participate in this forum you have left them with the impression that the 10 to 20% figure was gospel, with the blessing of the Civil Air Patrol. They haven't heard of your current distancing from that 10 to 20% claim, so it turns out your book statement is quite misleading.
Having acted as a forward observer for an 8 inch howitzer battery, I am well familiar with spotting the fall of shot. You are correct that the primary duty of the scout planes was to look for enemy ships and to adjust fire but they must have had some training in searching for small objects since the Colorado planes flew three miles line abreast when searching the ocean for Earhart. If they were searching for a large ship, longer than 300 feet, with the prevailing 30 mile visibility reported by Lambrecht the plane spacing would have been 41 NM and 27 NM if searching for a ship 90-150 feet long. According to the current SAR manual 3 NM spacing is appropriate when searching for something the size of a large life raft so was also appropriate for a search for the assumed to be floating Electra. The Colorado pilots must have gotten that information from someplace such as search training.
You state that the planes could only communicate by hand signals but the second sentence in Lambrecht's report says that the radios worked fine.
I appears that your main point is that the vegetation on Gardner was much denser than that used in calculating the "heavy tree cover" column of the POD table so that the POD table overestimates the POD of finding someone among the trees on Gardner. O.K. for the sake of argument, I give you that point. However, you can not make the same argument for the "open, flat terrain" column of the POD table, open is open is open and is applicable to Earhart standing on the beach or on the reef flat. The POD predicts a 75% probability for one pass over open terrain increasing to 95% after only two passes. You state that at that time Earhart was at "camp Zero" a quarter mile north of the ship and inside the treeline for shade, so very close to the beach. Given the time the planes were over the island, Earhart had sufficient time to go out on the beach or reef flat and be found by the planes. You state that a P-3 flew over you standing on the beach and he didn't see you but you must admit that this is certainly an anecdote. If he didn't spot you after one pass so what, the table only predicted a 75% probability so one out of four times the plane would not be expected to spot you but this one anecdote doesn't disprove the accuracy of the POD table in predicting the probability in other searches such as the one conducted by the Lambrecht flight.
You also state that the planes flew over Gardner for only 18 to 28 minutes and that they flew at 90 knots which means that the planes flew between 27 and 42 NM while over the island. The circumference of Gardner is 8.5 NM so each plane could have completed 3 to 5 complete circles of the island making a total of 9 to 15 passes counting all the planes. No matter how they arranged the search of Gardner, each area got the equivalent of 9 to 15 passes unless all the airplanes did not take part in the search and there is no evidence that that was the case. If they used some other search method, such as each plane covering its own one-third of the island, then each third of the island got the equivalent of 9 to 15 passes but, in this case, from just one plane. Since the strip of land is only one-half NM wide, if the three planes flew line abreast then they were spaced only 1/6th of a mile apart and the furthest any observer had to scan to each side was 1/12th of a nautical mile, only 506 feet, plenty close enough to spot someone on the ground unless the view was completely blocked by vegetation (your point) but no vegetation blocked the view out on the beach or reef.
So, based on the small amount of land to be searched and the time and miles covered in searching it the cumulative POD table predicts a high confidence level that they would have been found if they were on the island. I note your dispute about this if they were obscured by the trees but there is no way for you to dispute the applicability of the cumulative POD estimate for the beach area.
gl
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What you wrote in your book was:
"According to present- day Civil Air Patrol Probability of Detection (POD) tables, the chance of Colorado’s planes locating the aircraft in the course of a single inspection of each island was on the order of 10 to 20 percent. In other words, if the Earhart plane was on one of the islands of the Phoenix Group, there is an 80 to 90 percent chance that Colorado’s search missed it."
There was no indication that your estimate did not come directly from the POD table. Only after I went through the calculation in the POD table did you change to now claim that your estimate was not directly derived from the POD table.
Are we now going to debate the definition of "derived?" I used the POD tables exactly the way Andrew McKenna - an experienced CAP search pilot - says they are used in actual practice. I stand by what I wrote.
...they must have had some training in searching for small objects since the Colorado planes flew three miles line abreast when searching the ocean for Earhart. If they were searching for a large ship, longer than 300 feet, with the prevailing 30 mile visibility reported by Lambrecht the plane spacing would have been 41 NM and 27 NM if searching for a ship 90-150 feet long. According to the current SAR manual 3 NM spacing is appropriate when searching for something the size of a large life raft so was also appropriate for a search for the assumed to be floating Electra. The Colorado pilots must have gotten that information from someplace such as search training.
Do you suppose that this mythical 1937 search training was different for carrier pilots than for cruiser and battleship pilots? If not, then why did Lexington's planes use 2 NM spacing? (This was Lambrecht's first cruise as a battleship floatplane pilot. His previous billet was aboard Lexington.) The discrepancy between the spacing used by Colorado and Lexington to search for exactly same thing in the same environment would seem to be a pretty good indication that there was no accepted standard. Isn't is more likely that everyone was making it up as they went along?
You state that the planes could only communicate by hand signals but the second sentence in Lambrecht's report says that the radios worked fine.
They worked fine for what they were for - communicating with the ship using Morse code. VHF plane-to-plane voice didn't come along until later.
You state that at that time Earhart was at "camp Zero" a quarter mile north of the ship and inside the treeline for shade, so very close to the beach.
Where did I state that? I don't know where she was when Colorado's planes came over. Do you? We speculate that there was a "camp zero" a quarter mile north of the ship and inside the treeline for shade but I don't think you understand where the tree line is. Between the beach and the tree line of "Buka" forest is 100 meters or more of dense, almost impenetrable "scaevola" bush. If AE and FN had a "camp zero" in the Buka forest they must have made a path around and/or through the scaevola. I once cut a straight 50 meter path through scaevola by myself using a good sharp, well balanced bushknife. It took me two full work days. I think it's more likely that AE and FN found a way around the denser patches of scaevola and ended up with a winding path from the beach back to the forest.
But since you bring it up, let's address the question: Where were our heros when Colorado's planes came over? - as long as we accept that any conclusion we draw is speculation.
Colorado's planes launched at 18:30Z and it should have taken them about an hour and a three quarters to fly to McKean, take a look around there, and fly to Gardner.
Let's say it's 20:15Z on Friday morning July 9 - that's 09:15 Gardner time using -11. And, just for the sake of argument, let's say that AE and FN (if he's still alive) have a camp back in the Buka forest. The sun has been up for two and half hours so it's already warm - low to mid 90°s F on a typical July day based on our experience. The last credible message was sent on Wednesday evening so the plane is gone. High tide was two hours ago and there's a pretty good surf running, so ambient noise is high. It will be at least another hour before the water level on the reef is low enough to look for fish trapped in tidal pools so there's no motivation to go to the reef for food.
What are our castaways most likely doing? Are they asleep? Nursing their injuries? Out near the beach watching the horizon? Back in the forest or over on the lagoon shore searching for water or food?
I think it's reasonable to eliminate one of those possibilities. If they are out near the beach watching the horizon they should see the planes coming, get out in the open, and do everything they can to make themselves seen. Seems like they should have been seen, but that didn't happen, so they probably weren't out on the beach waving - either because they weren't on the island at all or because they were someplace else on the island.
Given the time the planes were over the island, Earhart had sufficient time to go out on the beach or reef flat and be found by the planes.
At least you didn't say "would have" so you apparently know this to be a fact. How do you know? Let's stack the deck in your favor and put her at the camp in the Buka forest. The race-to-the-beach clock starts ticking when she realizes there are airplanes over the island. If you're back in the trees you don't see anything overhead. Been there, done that. And in my experience you don't hear an aircraft on Niku unless it's directly overhead - too much ambient noise from wind and surf. So how much time she had to get to where she could be seen depends upon at what point a plane passed over where she was. How fast she could get out to the beach depends upon how winding the presumed trail was and how fast she could move. If she had an injury that effected her mobility it might easily take several minutes. How long did the planes stay over one spot? How long did Lambrecht circle and zoom? You can construct a scenario in which she should have been spotted and you can just as easily construct a scenario that has her getting to the beach just in time to watch the planes fly away.
So, based on the small amount of land to be searched and the time and miles covered in searching it the cumulative POD table predicts a high confidence level that they would have been found if they were on the island. I note your dispute about this if they were obscured by the trees but there is no way for you to dispute the applicability of the cumulative POD estimate for the beach area.
So what are you saying? What conclusion do you draw from the fact that Lambrecht didn't report seeing anyone?
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*scratches head* Can we at least all agree on the bottom-line fact that Amelia and Fred were not seen by the Colorado's planes?
LTM,
Monty Fowler
TIGHAR No 2189 CER
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Can we at least all agree on the bottom-line fact that Amelia and Fred were not seen by the Colorado's planes?
There are only two conclusions that can be drawn from what we know about what they saw:
- They saw "signs of recent habitation" on an island that hadn't been inhabited since 1892
- They didn't see any people
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What you wrote in your book was:
"According to present- day Civil Air Patrol Probability of Detection (POD) tables, the chance of Colorado’s planes locating the aircraft in the course of a single inspection of each island was on the order of 10 to 20 percent. In other words, if the Earhart plane was on one of the islands of the Phoenix Group, there is an 80 to 90 percent chance that Colorado’s search missed it."
There was no indication that your estimate did not come directly from the POD table. Only after I went through the calculation in the POD table did you change to now claim that your estimate was not directly derived from the POD table.
Are we now going to debate the definition of "derived?" I used the POD tables exactly the way Andrew McKenna - an experienced CAP search pilot - says they are used in actual practice. [1] I stand by what I wrote.
...they must have had some training in searching for small objects since the Colorado planes flew three miles line abreast when searching the ocean for Earhart. If they were searching for a large ship, longer than 300 feet, with the prevailing 30 mile visibility reported by Lambrecht the plane spacing would have been 41 NM and 27 NM if searching for a ship 90-150 feet long. According to the current SAR manual 3 NM spacing is appropriate when searching for something the size of a large life raft so was also appropriate for a search for the assumed to be floating Electra. The Colorado pilots must have gotten that information from someplace such as search training.
Do you suppose that this mythical 1937 search training was different for carrier pilots than for cruiser and battleship pilots? If not, then why did Lexington's planes use 2 NM spacing? (This was Lambrecht's first cruise as a battleship floatplane pilot. His previous billet was aboard Lexington.) The discrepancy between the spacing used by Colorado and Lexington to search for exactly same thing in the same environment would seem to be a pretty good indication that there was no accepted standard. Isn't is more likely that everyone was making it up as they went along?
You state that the planes could only communicate by hand signals but the second sentence in Lambrecht's report says that the radios worked fine.
They worked fine for what they were for - communicating with the ship using Morse code. [2]VHF plane-to-plane voice didn't come along until later.
You state that at that time Earhart was at "camp Zero" a quarter mile north of the ship and inside the treeline for shade, so very close to the beach.
[3]Where did I state that? I don't know where she was when Colorado's planes came over. Do you? We speculate that there was a "camp zero" a quarter mile north of the ship and inside the treeline for shade but I don't think you understand where the tree line is. Between the beach and the tree line of "Buka" forest is 100 meters or more of dense, almost impenetrable "scaevola" bush. If AE and FN had a "camp zero" in the Buka forest they must have made a path around and/or through the scaevola. I once cut a straight 50 meter path through scaevola by myself using a good sharp, well balanced bushknife. It took me two full work days. I think it's more likely that AE and FN found a way around the denser patches of scaevola and ended up with a winding path from the beach back to the forest.
But since you bring it up, let's address the question: Where were our heros when Colorado's planes came over? - as long as we accept that any conclusion we draw is speculation.
Colorado's planes launched at 18:30Z and it should have taken them about an hour and a three quarters to fly to McKean, take a look around there, and fly to Gardner.
Let's say it's 20:15Z on Friday morning July 9 - that's 09:15 Gardner time using -11. And, just for the sake of argument, let's say that AE and FN (if he's still alive) have a camp back in the Buka forest. The sun has been up for two and half hours so it's already warm - low to mid 90°s F on a typical July day based on our experience. The last credible message was sent on Wednesday evening so the plane is gone. High tide was two hours ago and there's a pretty good surf running, so ambient noise is high. It will be at least another hour before the water level on the reef is low enough to look for fish trapped in tidal pools so there's no motivation to go to the reef for food.
What are our castaways most likely doing? Are they asleep? Nursing their injuries? Out near the beach watching the horizon? Back in the forest or over on the lagoon shore searching for water or food?
I think it's reasonable to eliminate one of those possibilities. If they are out near the beach watching the horizon they should see the planes coming, get out in the open, and do everything they can to make themselves seen. Seems like they should have been seen, but that didn't happen, so they probably weren't out on the beach waving - either because they weren't on the island at all or because they were someplace else on the island.
Given the time the planes were over the island, Earhart had sufficient time to go out on the beach or reef flat and be found by the planes.
At least you didn't say "would have" so you apparently know this to be a fact. How do you know? Let's stack the deck in your favor and put her at the camp in the Buka forest. The race-to-the-beach clock starts ticking when she realizes there are airplanes over the island. [4]If you're back in the trees you don't see anything overhead. Been there, done that. And in my experience you don't hear an aircraft on Niku unless it's directly overhead - too much ambient noise from wind and surf. So how much time she had to get to where she could be seen depends upon at what point a plane passed over where she was. How fast she could get out to the beach depends upon how winding the presumed trail was and how fast she could move. If she had an injury that effected her mobility it might easily take several minutes. How long did the planes stay over one spot? [5]How long did Lambrecht circle and zoom? You can construct a scenario in which she should have been spotted and you can just as easily construct a scenario that has her getting to the beach just in time to watch the planes fly away.
So, based on the small amount of land to be searched and the time and miles covered in searching it the cumulative POD table predicts a high confidence level that they would have been found if they were on the island. I note your dispute about this if they were obscured by the trees but there is no way for you to dispute the applicability of the cumulative POD estimate for the beach area.
[6]So what are you saying? What conclusion do you draw from the fact that Lambrecht didn't report seeing anyone?
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1. We have both stated our positions regarding the probability that Earhart and Noonan would have been detected by Lambrecht and the other 5 aviators in his search formation if they had been on the island. Your position is that there was a 80 to 90% chance that they would have been missed by the searchers and my interpretation of the cumulative POD table is that the probability of their being missed was only 10% if they were in the treeline and only a 5% chance if they were standing out in the open, on the beach or on the reef flat. I posted the tables so the reader can do his own calculation and come to his own conclusion, it ain't rocket science. But I want to add a little additional information to aid the evaluation.
Table 4-4 of the National Search and Rescue Manual addresses searching open ocean. It states that when searching for a person in the ocean wearing only a life preserver, that the track spacing should be 0.4 NM. Of course, searching the ocean is different than searching land, it is much more difficult to spot a head bobbing among the waves than it is to spot a person on dry land. Since the searchers look to each side of the flight path a distance of half the spacing, then when searching for a person in the water, the searchers look 0.2 NM each side. Table 4-4 shows that there is a high probability of spotting just a head bobbing at this distance, 0.2 NM, (1215 feet). Figure 5-19 of the SAR manual shows this probability to be 80% for one pass, increasing to 95% after two passes and almost 100% after only three passes. Obviously, if you can spot just a head floating among waves at 1215 feet then you have a much higher probability of spotting an entire person on dry land at the same distance.
In my prior post, for simplification, I assumed the strip of land making up Gardner Island between the lagoon and the sea was half a nautical mile wide (3038 feet), but this was an overstatement. In fact, 39% of this donut is less than 700 feet wide and a further 45% is less than 1200 feet wide. Only the northern end of the island is a half nautical mile wide. This means that the search planes flying down the center of the strip of land would only have to search 350 feet either side of the plane (a little bit longer than a football field) for 39% of the circuit and 600 feet for 45% of the circuit. Only on the northern tip, constituting the remaining 16% of the island, would they have to search a quarter mile either side, 1519 feet. You can see then that for fully 84% of the circuit the the distance they would have to look was significantly less than the distance that would allow spotting a bobbing head out on the ocean so should have had a very high probability of spotting an entire person on dry land. Only on the northern tip would the search distance be slightly greater, 1519 feet versus 1215 feet, than you would expect to spot a bobbing head among the waves so you would expect to be able to spot an entire person at this distance.
2. Regarding the radios in the planes, even if the planes did not have VHF or HF voice capability but only CW to communicate with the Colorado there was nothing to stop them from sending morse code messages from plane to plane, the radios work both ways.
3. You asked "where did I state that?"
Well, you wrote the following in your November 4th post:
"So if Earhart and Noonan were in the vicinity of Camp Zero (about a quarter of a mile north of the shipwreck and inland under the buka trees for shade) when the planes came over, why weren't they seen?"
4. Since your statement as to where you think camp zero was located is pure speculation then I have the right to also speculate. I think that if they were on the island that they made their camp on the beach near the NC so as to be near where they expected any searchers would look first and to have the benefit of any little breezes that might come along instead of going through all the tough scaevola brush to be in a windless and oppressively hot location under the trees. They built a shelter out of either vegetation or with materials salvaged from the plane or a combination of both.
5. You speculate that Lambrecht (and the other two planes) only did a cursory "circle and zoom" and then flew away but using your own estimate of the time they were over Gardner, 18 to 28 minutes, it is simple math to show that each of the three planes had enough time to make three to five complete circuits of the island, a total of 9 to 15 passes over each spot on the island for the flight of three planes. They were motivated to find Earhart (everyone wants to be a hero) so it is much more likely that they did a very thorough job in conducting this search than your speculation that they were off on a lark.
6. Looking just at the Lambrecht search, as interpreted through the use of the modern tables in the National Search and Rescue Manual and the CAP manual which show that there is a very high probability that they would have been spotted if they had been on the island, my conclusion is that it is highly probable that they were NOT on the island at the time the search was made.
gl
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I can't believe you're still trying to defend this trench.
The gentleman is nothing if not entrenched... ;D
It is not hard to imagine how easily people could have been missed if on the island - that's a lot of land to cover and the techniques and equipment weren't exactly ideal. The evident confusion as to the scale of vegetation from the air by at least one observer suggests it might have been hard to appreciate how difficult spotting a tiny figure might have been, should one have emerged in the right open spot at the right moment.
The report of 'signs of recent habitation', whatever exactly these 'markers' were, and the apparent absence at that time of just whom that might have been will probably haunt most of us for some time. It is not at all a given that a lone survivor, or two, would have been spotted without the aid of some more obvious artifact - like a fair-sized cabin-class twin monoplane - being clearly present. I would like to think it was still visible in the surfline or something, but it's all too possible that the plane was already well-awash in heavy surf or even nearly gone from sight by that date.
LTM -
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The issue of vegetation does not apply to people standing in the clear, on the beach or on the reef flat, and the cumulative probability of detection in that case is 95% after only two passes. I never said it was a certainty that they would have been spotted only that it was highly probable, a much higher probability than Ric estimated. Like I said, I have posted the POD tables and everyone is invited to do their own calculations and come to their own conclusions. And keep in mind, the agencies that developed the POD tables, the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force, don't have a dog in this fight. They developed these tables for the critical purpose of conducting thorough searches to save lives so there is every reason to accept that these are the most accurate estimates of the probability of detection. You want to "imagine" that it would have been very difficult to spot Earhart but the POD tables were not developed by "imagination" they are based on hard data analyzed by serious grown-ups.
It is very easy to spot objects submerged under water from an airplane, ever fly over the Bahamas? Ten foot deep water looks just like dry land from the air. That is the reason airplanes were used to spot even deeply submerged U-Boats in WW2. Unless the plane had floated away or had sunk very deep over the edge of the reef (so deep, in fact, that it could never have been washed back onto the reef flat) it is also likely that the Lambrecht fight would have spotted the Electra even if it was underwater.
gl
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1. We have both stated our positions regarding the probability that Earhart and Noonan would have been detected by Lambrecht and the other 5 aviators in his search formation if they had been on the island.
Search formation? Tell me how you know they used any kind of formation in searching the island (without using the words "would have"). There were three airplanes, each with a pilot and an observer. Lambrecht's observer was Seaman First Class J.L. Marks. He had flown just once before on this cruise, with Lambrecht on the morning flight the day before. The other observers on the McKean/Gardner/Carondelet Reef flight were Radioman 3rd Class Williamson who rode in the rear cockpit of Fox's airplane, and Lt. C. F. Chillingworth, the ship's Ass't 1st Lt. and Damage Control Officer, who rode behind Bill Short. More often than not during the Earhart search, the observers seem to have been whoever could cadge a ride - one of the three "AVCADs" (Aviation Cadets) or one of the ship's officers.
Your position is that there was a 80 to 90% chance that they would have been missed by the searchers and my interpretation of the cumulative POD table is that the probability of their being missed was only 10% if they were in the treeline and only a 5% chance if they were standing out in the open, on the beach or on the reef flat. I posted the tables so the reader can do his own calculation and come to his own conclusion, it ain't rocket science.
You just don't get it about this "would have" business. Now you're putting the words in MY mouth. What I wrote was:
"According to present- day Civil Air Patrol Probability of Detection (POD) tables, the chance of Colorado’s planes locating the aircraft in the course of a single inspection of each island was on the order of 10 to 20 percent. In other words, if the Earhart plane was on one of the islands of the Phoenix Group, there is an 80 to 90 percent chance that Colorado’s search missed it."
I made a statement about the probability indicated by the modern day POD tables. You and I disagree about how to interpret those tables. That's fine, but I did not say there was a 80 to 90% chance that they would have been missed by the searchers. My "position" is that Lambrecht didn't see anybody.
In my prior post, for simplification, I assumed the strip of land making up Gardner Island between the lagoon and the sea was half a nautical mile wide (3038 feet), but this was an overstatement.
Wait a minute, you mean you've gone on and on about all this and you're only NOW familiarizing yourself with the actual dimensions and characteristics of the island? Have you even looked at the DVD? Let me make it easier for you (and any forum subsribers who are not yet TIGHAR members).
The Aerial Tour of Nikumaroro (http://www.youtube.com/user/TIGHARchannel?feature=mhee) is now up on YouTube. Just click the link.
2. Regarding the radios in the planes, even if the planes did not have VHF or HF voice capability but only CW to communicate with the Colorado there was nothing to stop them from sending morse code messages from plane to plane, the radios work both ways.
I don't know that each of the planes was equipped with a radio. Do you? I do know that, according to the Colorado deck log (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Logs/ColoradoLog.pdf), throughout the entire voyage only one of the aircraft, Fox's airplane 4-0-6, carried a radioman.
3. You asked "where did I state that?"
Well, you wrote the following in your November 4th post:
"So if Earhart and Noonan were in the vicinity of Camp Zero (about a quarter of a mile north of the shipwreck and inland under the buka trees for shade) when the planes came over, why weren't they seen?"
That's right, but you claimed,
"You state that at that time Earhart was at "camp Zero" a quarter mile north of the ship and inside the treeline for shade, so very close to the beach."
You keep putting words in my mouth. Don't you see the difference between "if Earhart and Noonan were in the vicinity of Camp Zero" and "at that time Earhart was at "camp Zero"?
4. Since your statement as to where you think camp zero was located is pure speculation then I have the right to also speculate. I think that if they were on the island that they made their camp on the beach near he NC so as to be near where they expected any searchers would look first and to have the benefit of any little breezes that might come along instead of going through all the tough scaevola brush to be in a windless and oppressively hot location under the trees. They built a shelter out of either vegetation or with materials salvaged from the plane or a combination of both.
We all have the right to speculate. My speculation about where they camped is based upon having spent rather a lot of time on that particular beach and in the buka forest (although not the buka forest on that particular part of the island). What is your speculation based on?
5. You speculate that Lambrecht (and the other two planes) only did a cursory "circle and zoom" and then flew away but using your own estimate of the time they were over Gardner, 18 to 28 minutes, it is simple math to show that each of the three planes had enough time to make three to five complete circuits of the island, a total of 9 to 15 passes over each spot on the island for the flight of three planes. They were motivated to find Earhart (everyone wants to be a hero) so it is much more likely that they did a very thorough job in conducting this search than your speculation that they were off on a lark.
I think everyone can make up their own mind about what the pilots and other personnel aboard Colorado thought about their mission. Short's letter (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Letters/Short.pdf) is revealing. "This whole business is certainly a royal pain in the neck..."
The headline of the ship's newspaper "The Colorado Lookout (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/ColoradoLookout/Lookout.html)" was Plane Search Halts Cruise.
6. Looking just at the Lambrecht search, as interpreted through the use of the modern tables in the National Search and Rescue Manual and the CAP manual which show that there is a very high probability that they would have been spotted if they had been on the island, my conclusion is that it is highly probable that they were NOT on the island at the time the search was made.
As I recall you also concluded that it was highly probable that Noonan could successfully navigate to Howland Island, and that it was impossible for AE and FN to fly down the LOP to Gardner, and that it was nearly certain that the plane, if washed over the reef edge, would float indefinitely. I'll say this - your way of reaching conclusions is a lot more economical than our way.
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The issue of vegetation does not apply to people standing in the clear, on the beach or on the reef flat, and the cumulative probability of detection in that case is 95% after only two passes.
gl
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It was interesting watching the helicopter tour of the island. I note that from 10:02 to 10:19 it wasn't difficult at all to see the three people in the open wading out to the skiff even though only their heads and shoulders were above the surface of the water. And then again at 11:57 you can still see the three waders on the east side of the lagoon from a position offshore from the western shore of the island, a distance of 3,000 feet, a half NM.
gl
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it wasn't difficult at all to see the three people in the open wading out to the skiff even though only their heads and shoulders were above the surface of the water.
Thanks for demonstrating how difficult it is to tell what you're looking at from the air at Nikumaroro. Wading out to the skiff at the Seven Site the water is never over knee deep.
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it wasn't difficult at all to see the three people in the open wading out to the skiff even though only their heads and shoulders were above the surface of the water.
Thanks for demonstrating how difficult it is to tell what you're looking at from the air at Nikumaroro. Wading out to the skiff at the Seven Site the water is never over knee deep.
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O.K. it was still easy to see them.
gl
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Something that struck me after watching the TIGHAR DVD from the helicopter was the lack of birds - or maybe they just didn't show up because of the speed of that lil' guy? I remember the Colorado planes decided to fly at 400 feet because of the risk of collision with clouds of seabirds - which virtually eliminated any chance of seeing anyone on the ground.
LTM,
Monty Fowler,
TIGHAR No. 2189 CER
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Yah, what happened to the birds?
gl
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Yah, what happened to the birds?
They're there, roosting in the trees. We stayed high enough to not stir them up. The pattern of typical bird activity at Niku is pretty interesting. There are small birds - fairy terns and noddys - that stay down low. Not a factor to aircraft. The big birds are boobys and frigates. The boobys fly out to sea early in the morning and catch fish by diving into the water. They come home around 10 or 11 o'clock with their gullets full of fish. The frigates are waiting for them, circling around, riding the thermals over the buka forest at about 300 feet. They dive on the boobys, scaring them into puking up their fish which the frigates grab on the fly. Mid-airs are not uncommon. I've had to dispatch several boobys found on the ground with broken wings.
Usually by noontime everybody is back to their roost. The aerial tour was flown early in the afternoon.
Lambrecht (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Lambrecht's_Report.html) wrote:
"As in the case of the subsequent search of the rest of the Phoenix Islands one circle at fifty feet around M’Kean aroused the birds to such an extent that further inspection had to be made from an altitude of at least 400 feet."
Taken literally, he's saying that they made their first pass over all of the islands at 50 feet but then had to climb to at least 400 feet because they had aroused the birds - but I'm not sure that's what he means.
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It was interesting watching the helicopter tour of the island. I note that from 10:02 to 10:19 it wasn't difficult at all to see the three people in the open wading out to the skiff even though only their heads and shoulders were above the surface of the water. And then again at 11:57 you can still see the three waders on the east side of the lagoon from a position offshore from the western shore of the island, a distance of 3,000 feet, a half NM.
gl
At 10:02 - 19, the helicopter is right on top of them, and if Ric didn't point them out and if the skiff wasn't there, my guess is that many folks would not have realized that those dots were people.
At 11:57, it is pretty easy to see those people because the camera image is highly zoomed in on them. Much harder to see with the naked eye, in fact before the zoom at 11:55, you can't even pick out the skiff, a 21 ft red object in the lagoon, out in the open.
Which takes me back to the discussion of Search Visibility. What is the search visibility in this case when we cannot pick out and recognize the skiff from 3000 ft? Certainly not 4 miles. This just points out that the search visibility has to be relative to the object you are looking for, not just any object you can see and recognize as you have suggested. Taken to the extreme, you would not take the distance you can see an object such as the Empire State Building, or the Graf Zeppelin and use that as your search visibility for looking for a person. It just doesn't make sense, and in the end leads to an unrealistic POD as you yourself have elegantly demonstrated by suggesting that the POD for one pass over heavily forested areas is 30%, and 90% after 8 passes.
Anyone who has seen the aerial tour should think about this. There are 4 persons visible in the video, and they are fairly easy to find because they are pointed out by the narrator, and in one case they are in a group next to a red boat. How easy would it have been to pick out those persons, white shirt and all, if they weren't pointed out to you? And, think about this, there were 11 TIGHARs on Niku that day (3 divers were on the Naia), 4 of whom just happened to be at the edge of the trees that can be seen, but can any of you pick out the other 6 who were back in the trees, even when we know where they are? And that is from 200 ft off the deck.
Now imagine you are flying 200 ft higher than the helicopter and there are only two persons, maybe just one, down in the trees. What is the probability of seeing them? Certainly not 30%. If the AE was back in the bush when the search planes happened to show up, there would be virtually no way to be spotted in the short time the aircraft were overhead.
Andrew
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It was interesting watching the helicopter tour of the island. I note that from 10:02 to 10:19 it wasn't difficult at all to see the three people in the open wading out to the skiff even though only their heads and shoulders were above the surface of the water. And then again at 11:57 you can still see the three waders on the east side of the lagoon from a position offshore from the western shore of the island, a distance of 3,000 feet, a half NM.
gl
Which takes me back to the discussion of Search Visibility. What is the search visibility in this case when we cannot pick out and recognize the skiff from 3000 ft? Certainly not 4 miles. This just points out that the search visibility has to be relative to the object you are looking for, not just any object you can see and recognize as you have suggested. Taken to the extreme, you would not take the distance you can see an object such as the Empire State Building, or the Graf Zeppelin and use that as your search visibility for looking for a person. It just doesn't make sense, and in the end leads to an unrealistic POD as you yourself have elegantly demonstrated by suggesting that the POD for one pass over heavily forested areas is 30%, and 90% after 8 passes.
Andrew
Andrew, I think I can convince you that your understanding of the Probability Of Detection tables is incorrect. You think that "Search Visibility" means the distance that the object you are searching for can be detected. If this were the case then there must be another table in the CAP Manual listing the distances that various objects can be detected with a title such as "Search Visibilities of Various Objects" but there is no such table. Without such a table then each searcher must make his own guess as to the distance that various objects could be spotted to use as the "search visibility" value for entering the POD table. Obviously this can't be correct because ten different pilots could come up with ten different search visibilities for the same object such as a small aircraft or a person. And something else, surely there must be large objects that can be spotted further away than 4 mi, such as a crashed B-52, so why doesn't the POD table cover these cases and have columns extending to greater distances as you would expect if your idea of search visibility were the correct one.
But this is not the only proof I have that you are mistaken. I am attaching page 150 of CAP manual which contains the definitions of the terms. "Meteorological Visibility" is the distance that large objects such as mountains can be seen while "Search Visibility" is the distance that small objects such as cars can be seen. It states that "search visibility is always less than meteorological visibility" comparing the same types of visibilities with no mention of different types of search objects. Look at the definition of "Scanning Range" which is the distance that a searcher "is expected to have a good chance of spotting the search objective" so scanning range is what you have mistaken for search visibility. To make this even more clear, the definition continues, "Scanning range can be less than but never greater than the search visibility" so these are obviously two different things.
Additional proof is supplied by looking at the attached pages 155 to 158 of the CAP manual that works through an example of how to use the POD tables. The given facts are a Cessna 172 lost in flat terrain and "flight visibility is forecast to be more than 10 miles." Based on this information the example uses the 4 mi search visibility column in the POD table because the flight visibility was equal to or greater than 4 mi. I have marked the appropriate values in the POD table with red. You will argue that the reason that the 4 mi column was used is that a Cessna 172 can be spotted at 4 mi but, if so, where did that information come from? But we can show that this is not the case because a second example is also given, this time searching for a Cessna 182. A Cessna 172 and a Cessna 182 are virtually indistinguishable from the air, they both have 36 foot wingspans and the 172 is 27 feet long and the 182 is 28 1/2 feet long so they should both be detectable at the same distance, the same scanning range. The facts given include "current visibility in the area is 3 miles." I have marked the values used in this example in blue on the POD tables and it is clear that the "3 mi" column was used and was based on the current visibility being 3 miles. Again note that there was no mention of "search visibility" in the stated facts only "flight visibility" and "current visibility" neither of which have any relationship to the distance at which these two similar planes could be spotted.
The National Search And Rescue Manual covers ocean searches in much more detail than land searches. Tables 4-4 through 4-9 cover searches for 25 different kinds of objects from a person in the water to, 1 to 25 person life rafts, power boats from less than 15 feet up to 90 feet, sailboats from 15 feet up to 90 feet, and ships from 90 feet up to greater than 300 feet. This is the kind of table that is missing from the CAP land search manual. These tables list the distance at which you have an 80% probability of detection based on altitudes from 300 feet up to 3,000 feet, prevailing visibility from 1 NM to 30 NM and also divided by fixed wing and helicopter. For example, there is an 80% probability of spotting a ship longer than 300 feet with visibility of 30 NM and from an altitude of 500 feet at a distance of 20.7 NM. For a 40 foot power boat the distance is 8.25 NM using the same conditions. So we know that these objects are large enough to be spotted at those distances. Using your analysis you would think that if the visibility goes down to 10 NM that you would be able to see the large ship at 10 NM as restricted only by the visibility since it is large enough to be seen at twice that distance and you would expect no change for the 40 foot boat since it is large enough to be visible only at 8.25 NM so it shouldn't be further restricted by a 10 NM visibility. But, in fact, if the visibility goes down to 10 NM the spotting distance goes down to 6.6 NM for the 300 foot ship and 4.05 for the the 40 foot power boat. Lower visibilities make it harder to see objects even though they stay the same size and are closer than the limit of visibility. This is what the search visibility columns accomplish in the CAP manual, accounting for the greater difficulty of spotting an object with lower visibility (less clarity of the atmosphere) and these columns have nothing to do with the size of the object or how far it could be spotted in perfect conditions.
gl
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Gary forgot to attach the definitions from page 150 of the CAP manual. Here they are:
Meteorological Visibility - the maximum distance at which large objects, such as a mountain, can be seen.
Scanning Range - the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track. Within the area formed by the ground track and scanning range, the scanner is expected to have a good chance at spotting the search objective. Scanning range can be less than but never greater than the search visibility.
Search Visibility - the distance at which an object on the ground (CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given height above the ground. Search visibility is always less than meteorological visibility. [Note that on the POD chart that the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles.]
I interpret this to mean that Search Visibility changes based upon the size of the object. CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example. At best, you can see a car on the ground from four miles away. That's why the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles. Scanning Range is much more specific and is "the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track."
If anything is proved by all this it's that the CAP POD tables do not contemplate a search for anything smaller than a car. Most people are smaller than most cars.
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Now imagine you are flying 200 ft higher than the helicopter and there are only two persons, maybe just one, down in the trees.
In correcting our understanding of the difference between the helicopter and the naval aircraft, don't we also have to imagine a different field of vision for the pilot and observer as compared to that of the heli pilot and observer?
It seems to me that helicopters make excellent observation platforms. The rotor is above the observers. A camera operator often can shoot directly down and to the side of the fuselage, giving a much better view than is possible from the cockpit of a biplane.
In other words, the geometry of the visible area is different. At the same altitude and airspeed, the biplane occupants must look further forward at a smaller slice of the horizon than the occupants of the helicopter. The wedge that the biplane observers see is marked by the fuselage of the biplane on one side and the wings on the other. The folks in the helicopter don't have such large constraints on their field of view.
This is just a guess ...
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In other words, the geometry of the visible area is different. At the same altitude and airspeed, the biplane occupants must look further forward at a smaller slice of the horizon than the occupants of the helicopter. The wedge that the biplane observers see is marked by the fuselage of the biplane on one side and the wings on the other. The folks in the helicopter don't have such large constraints on their field of view.
This is just a guess ...
I have considerable time in both helicopters and open cockpit biplanes. Marty is right.
This is not a guess......
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Gary forgot to attach the definitions from page 150 of the CAP manual. Here they are:
Meteorological Visibility - the maximum distance at which large objects, such as a mountain, can be seen.
Scanning Range - the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track. Within the area formed by the ground track and scanning range, the scanner is expected to have a good chance at spotting the search objective. Scanning range can be less than but never greater than the search visibility.
Search Visibility - the distance at which an object on the ground [1](CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given height above the ground. Search visibility is always less than meteorological visibility. [Note that on the POD chart that the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles.]
[2]I interpret this to mean that Search Visibility changes based upon the size of the object. CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example. At best, you can see a car on the ground from four miles away. That's why the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles. Scanning Range is much more specific and is "the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track."
If anything is proved by all this it's that the [3]CAP POD tables do not contemplate a search for anything smaller than a car. Most people are smaller than most cars.
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I attached page 150 to my prior post, go back and look.
https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=508.0;attach=309
1. An automobile is only an "example" of thing that a pilot might look for in order for the search pilot to estimate what the actual visibility in the search area is (search visibility) which is likely to be different than the "meteorological visibility" as measured at the airport. If you can identify a car on the ground it doesn't mean you have 4 mi search visibility only that you know that it is a car. After you identify the car you estimate how far away it is and that distance is the measure of search visibility.
2. Perhaps you missed this part of my post:
"Look at the definition of "Scanning Range" which is the distance that a searcher "is expected to have a good chance of spotting the search objective" so scanning range is what you have mistaken for search visibility. To make this even more clear, the definition continues, "Scanning range can be less than but never greater than the search visibility" so these are obviously two different things."
3. The manual states that persons on the ground are the second most common search subjects so the CAP contemplates searching for persons and uses the POD table to plan the search for people and to assess the effectiveness of the completed search.
If you are correct that the smallest thing covered by the POD table is the size of a car, since people are the second most common object searched for, where is the correction table that would be necessary to adjust the percentages derived from the POD tables to account for the smaller object of a person. And why don't the tables include greater distances than 4 mi because you can certainly see a crashed B-52 more than 4 mi away?
gl
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You can prove this to yourself. Go outside and look down the sidewalk and I'll bet you can see people walking a quarter mile (two city blocks) down the sidewalk.
gl
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By chance today I had the opportunity to see how far I can see an object the size of a person. I was driving on the freeway and I noticed up ahead a person on a motorcycle, I could clearly see his body and shoulders. When he passed an exit ramp I looked at my odometer and then again when I passed the exit. Turns out he was .5 miles ahead of me. I then drove faster so I could close the distance until I could see his helmet clearly. I did the same experiment and I could see his helmet clearly a .3 miles. Although I don't claim that this was representative of the conditions in the bush at Gardner the test conditions were similar to spotting someone in the open on the island. So it is possible to see a human sized object at .5 miles under optimum conditions, and maybe more. You can repeat this experiment for yourselves.
gl
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Gary forgot to attach the definitions from page 150 of the CAP manual. Here they are:
Meteorological Visibility - the maximum distance at which large objects, such as a mountain, can be seen.
Scanning Range - the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track. Within the area formed by the ground track and scanning range, the scanner is expected to have a good chance at spotting the search objective. Scanning range can be less than but never greater than the search visibility.
Search Visibility - the distance at which an object on the ground (CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given height above the ground. Search visibility is always less than meteorological visibility. [Note that on the POD chart that the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles.]
I interpret this to mean that Search Visibility changes based upon the size of the object. CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example. At best, you can see a car on the ground from four miles away. That's why the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles. Scanning Range is much more specific and is "the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track."
If anything is proved by all this it's that the CAP POD tables do not contemplate a search for anything smaller than a car. Most people are smaller than most cars.
Note, the definition of "search visibility" says "the distance at which an object on the ground (CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given height above the ground." It DOES NOT say "the distance at which an object on the ground (CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given distance." So your assertion that the CAP considers 4 mi as the distance that a car sized object can be spotted is disproved by the definition itself.
Andrew pointed me to this reference:
http://www.cap-es.net/NESA%20MAS/Aircrew%20Chapter%209%20-%20Search%20Planning%20and%20Coverage.ppt
and I am attaching the definitions slide from there. You will note in this reference there is no mention of an automobile in the definition of "search visibility" so there is no reason to think that the distance that you can see an automobile is taken as any kind of standard for determining "search visibility."
gl
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Gary forgot to attach the definitions from page 150 of the CAP manual. Here they are:
Meteorological Visibility - the maximum distance at which large objects, such as a mountain, can be seen.
Scanning Range - the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track. Within the area formed by the ground track and scanning range, the scanner is expected to have a good chance at spotting the search objective. Scanning range can be less than but never greater than the search visibility.
Search Visibility - the distance at which an object on the ground (CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given height above the ground. Search visibility is always less than meteorological visibility. [Note that on the POD chart that the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles.]
I interpret this to mean that Search Visibility changes based upon the size of the object. CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example. At best, you can see a car on the ground from four miles away. That's why the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles. Scanning Range is much more specific and is "the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track."
If anything is proved by all this it's that the CAP POD tables do not contemplate a search for anything smaller than a car. Most people are smaller than most cars.
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Just for you Ric, I am attaching page 74 from the CAP manual since it appears to apply to you.
"Scanning range sometimes may be confused with search visibility..."
gl
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Considering the large number of motorcycle accidents caused by car drivers who "didn't see the motorcycle", Gary's example also illustrates the common problem of preconception on the part of the search person. Car drivers are expecting to see something that looks like a car when they are watching for a gap in traffic (as one common scenario). When the gap in the stream of cars arrives, they accelerate through it, not noticing that a motorcycle is in that "gap". The motorcycle doesn't register at all. I've witnessed this many times as a motorcyclist.
The relevance to the discussion is the question "what were the searchers expecting to see"? I doubt we can answer this question, given what little we know. I think it safe to assume they would have been likely to have noticed an aircraft, and might have been looking for one as the principal indication of EA/FN present on an island or reef. The searchers mention that Gardner Island was covered with "low bushes and trees" (please correct my memory if this quote is inaccurate) when in fact the bushes and trees were very large. This may indicate a mistake in perceived scale that would have been likely to fool an observer looking for people. A person on the beach would appear much smaller than expected, making them less likely to be noticed.
Also, a person on the west side of the island might be hidden in the morning tree shadow. Wasn't the flight about 09:00? How much of the western beach was in full sunlight at that time? Might a person on the beach know it was important to stand in the sun in order to be seen, or would they make th emistake of standing in the shade waving their arms?
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Considering the relationships of scale, consider this paraphrased exchange between a friend of mine meeting his father at the Salt Lake International Airport many years ago. Both were college-educated and worked in geology-related fields. His father was visiting the west for the first time:
"Jeff, tell me, what kind of moss is that on the hills?
"Ummm, Dad, those are trees on the mountains...."
LTM,
Friend
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Quote from: Ric Gillespie on November 13, 2011, 09:02:03 AM
Gary forgot to attach the definitions from page 150 of the CAP manual. Here they are:
Meteorological Visibility - the maximum distance at which large objects, such as a mountain, can be seen.
Scanning Range - the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track. Within the area formed by the ground track and scanning range, the scanner is expected to have a good chance at spotting the search objective. Scanning range can be less than but never greater than the search visibility.
Search Visibility - the distance at which an object on the ground (CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given height above the ground. Search visibility is always less than meteorological visibility. [Note that on the POD chart that the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles.]
I interpret this to mean that Search Visibility changes based upon the size of the object. CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example. At best, you can see a car on the ground from four miles away. That's why the maximum search visibility listed is four nautical miles. Scanning Range is much more specific and is "the lateral distance from a scanner's search aircraft to an imaginary line on the ground parallel to the search aircraft's ground track."
If anything is proved by all this it's that the CAP POD tables do not contemplate a search for anything smaller than a car. Most people are smaller than most cars.
Note, the definition of "search visibility" says "the distance at which an object on the ground (CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given height above the ground." It DOES NOT say "the distance at which an object on the ground (CAP uses an automobile as a familiar example) can be seen and recognized from a given distance." So your assertion that the CAP considers 4 mi as the distance that a car sized object can be spotted is disproved by the definition itself.
Andrew pointed me to this reference:
http://www.cap-es.net/NESA%20MAS/Aircrew%20Chapter%209%20-%20Search%20Planning%20and%20Coverage.ppt (http://www.cap-es.net/NESA%20MAS/Aircrew%20Chapter%209%20-%20Search%20Planning%20and%20Coverage.ppt)
and I am attaching the definitions slide from there. You will note in this reference there is no mention of an automobile in the definition of "search visibility" so there is no reason to think that the distance that you can see an automobile is taken as any kind of standard for determining "search visibility."
gl
https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=508.0;attach=311 (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=508.0;attach=311)
* Aircrew Chapter 9 - Search Planning and Coverage-1.pdf (89.08 kB - downloaded 3 times.)
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Considering the large number of motorcycle accidents caused by car drivers who "didn't see the motorcycle", Gary's example also illustrates the common problem of preconception on the part of the search person. Car drivers are expecting to see something that looks like a car when they are watching for a gap in traffic (as one common scenario). When the gap in the stream of cars arrives, they accelerate through it, not noticing that a motorcycle is in that "gap". The motorcycle doesn't register at all. I've witnessed this many times as a motorcyclist.
The relevance to the discussion is the question "what were the searchers expecting to see"? I doubt we can answer this question, given what little we know. I think it safe to assume they would have been likely to have noticed an aircraft, and might have been looking for one as the principal indication of EA/FN present on an island or reef. The searchers mention that Gardner Island was covered with "low bushes and trees" (please correct my memory if this quote is inaccurate) when in fact the bushes and trees were very large. This may indicate a mistake in perceived scale that would have been likely to fool an observer looking for people. A person on the beach would appear much smaller than expected, making them less likely to be noticed.
Also, a person on the west side of the island might be hidden in the morning tree shadow. Wasn't the flight about 09:00? How much of the western beach was in full sunlight at that time? Might a person on the beach know it was important to stand in the sun in order to be seen, or would they make th emistake of standing in the shade waving their arms?
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You are absolutely right that car drivers don't see motorcycles because they are not looking for them. My experiment suffered from this same problem, I was not looking for motorcycles yet I first spotted it a .5 miles. If my goal had been to spot motorcycles I most likely would have noticed him even further away.
gl
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so would the writeing on side of plane be readable to some 1 on the ground ? at that height ?
i ask this because if amelia were'nt to expect an Air search then what if the planes were Japanese an seen her an took her hostage ?
so decided to wait for a ship but it turned out to late ?
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<h2>A TRAGEDY OF THE PACIFIC</h2><iframe src="http://www.britishpathe.com/embed.php?archive=7439" name="pathe_flash_embed" width="352" height="264" scrolling="no" frameborder="1"><p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p></iframe>
also on 1.19:44 ov this video wen the view from plane was on ships, u can see ships but u cant see planes on the ships ?
what height can we ashume the planes are ?
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so would the writeing on side of plane be readable to some 1 on the ground ? at that height ?
i ask this because if amelia were'nt to expect an Air search then what if the planes were Japanese an seen her an took her hostage ?
so decided to wait for a ship but it turned out to late ?
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December 7, 1941, is four and a half years after Earhart disappeared. No reason to fear the Japanese since her original plan was to land in Tokyo. Phoenix islands are nowhere near the Japanese Mandated Islands so no reason or ability for Japanese planes fly that far, the nearest is Mili one thousand nautical miles away from Gardner. Even if Japanese planes came off of a carrier there was no reason for the Japanese to be mad at Earhart since Gardner is not a Mandated island so no reason to think Earhart was a spy.
gl
gl
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dont matter the dates the japenese cud ov been secretly makeing maps of the islands in case of war ?
an ur answer dont answer my other question of how high the plane was in that video ?
also this is for Ric "almost lost Ric in the -- uh -- guano pit that occupies the middle of the island, otherwise found nothink"
McKean Island haha :)
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what is it wid u an pits lol :)
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dont matter the dates the japenese cud ov been secretly makeing maps of the islands in case of war ?
an ur answer dont answer my other question of how high the plane was in that video ?
also this is for Ric "almost lost Ric in the -- uh -- guano pit that occupies the middle of the island, otherwise found nothink"
McKean Island haha :)
sorry didnt mean this to sound like i was being funny i just tend to type how i speak :)
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I think we should re-title this thread "Interminable Flogging of Dead Horses."
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I think we should re-title this thread "Interminable Flogging of Dead Horses."
I second the motion. :)
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I think we should re-title this thread "Interminable Flogging of Dead Horses."
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Sure, we have both stated our positions clearly, others can read it and make up their own minds.
What is interesting is how we each approach this issue and the many other issues we have discussed over the last 9 years. I am a skeptic, I have serious doubts about your theory (I have much more serious doubts about the various Japanese capture theories though.) So when I see information that calls into doubt theories about the disappearance, such as the POD tables, I use it to evaluate the theory. Since the POD tables show a high cumulative probability that they should have been spotted IF they had been on the island, this just increases my doubts about your theory. You, on the other hand, KNOW, in your heart of hearts, that Earhart was on Gardner so the search, no matter how thorough or professional must have missed seeing them for some reason, hiding in the bush, couldn't get to the beach in time, the pilots were untrained, drunk, blind, misapplying the POD tables, etc., always some way to explain away anything that doesn't comport with your certain knowledge that Earhart was on Gardner. After all, there must be something wrong with the search because Earhart WAS THERE.
I hope you are successful in finding indisputable evidence that actually proves your theory, I would like to know the answer to this mystery before I die, so good luck.
gl
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You, on the other hand, KNOW, in your heart of hearts, that Earhart was on Gardner so the search, no matter how thorough or professional must have missed seeing them for some reason, hiding in the bush, couldn't get to the beach in time, the pilots were untrained, drunk, blind, misapplying the POD tables, etc., always some way to explain away anything that doesn't comport with your certain knowledge that Earhart was on Gardner. After all, there must be something wrong with the search because Earhart WAS THERE.
My belief that Earhart was there has nothing to do with my heart of hearts (there are many who would testify that I don't have one).
I am convinced by the abundant evidence - archival, photographic, physical, and anecdotal - that she was there. You are not. It's as simple as that.
As you say, others can make up their own minds.
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... I have not read anything put forward by TIGHAR on these matters that I cannot see as other than rationally based on hard-nosed observations. I am also not very taken by efforts to debunk such rational observations on nothing more than speculation about what the weaknesses may be - especially in the absence of any stronger theory about what probably could have happened....
This statement sums up nicely my feelings about this particular thread's topic . . . and several other topics which have been similarly hashed over and over by some in recent months. Early in the discussion, a skeptic's position versus TIGHAR's becomes established and clear; at that point some profit for understanding the issue has been gained for the reader. Further belaboring and long-winded nit-picking, however, result in diminishing returns for the reader, accompanied by an increasing desire to just "move on."
My two cents - and worth every penny of it. ;)
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Further belaboring and long-winded nit-picking, however, result in diminishing returns for the reader, accompanied by an increasing desire to just "move on."
This is valuable input. Thank you. I'm always reluctant to cut off skeptics and critics for fear that we're trying to stifle dissent - but there are limits.
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Chris
We do know something about how the search was conducted and the key word in Lambrecht's report is "Sibsequent". From that I deduce that prior to the "bird problem" at McKean the search circling was at an altitude of 50 feet and increased to 400 feet at and after McKean, including Gardner. All we can say is that the search did not uncover anything related to the AE/FN disappearance. Unfortunately, we know nothing about what Lambrecht meant by "signs of recent habitation" Sie La Vie, Aci Es La Vida, That's the wAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES.
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All we can say is that the search did not uncover anything related to the AE/FN disappearance.
Or at least, nothing that was recognized as such at the time.
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Unfortunately, we know nothing about what Lambrecht meant by "signs of recent habitation"
In a 1970-something interview with Fred Goerner, Lambrecht recalled that the signs of recent habitation at Gardner were "markers of some kind." Not very helpful.
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From that I deduce that prior to the "bird problem" at McKean the search circling was at an altitude of 50 feet and increased to 400 feet at and after McKean, including Gardner.
If the number of birds on McKean were the roughly same in 1937 as they are estimated to be now (http://oceandots.com/pacific/rawaki/mckean.php), I wonder how the outcome of the search might have been different if Lambrecht, et al, had commenced recon at Gardner. Would a lower-number bird population at Gardner (as was encountered during the 2001 Niku overflight) allowed the searchers to fly lower increasing the chance of discovery rather than "OK gents, here's Gardner; let's not risk scaring up the birds like we did over on McKean - stick to 400 feet."
Thoughts?
LTM,
Friend
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is it possible he meant campfires, as there would have been a trail from norwich city to seven site over the course of a week
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Hello to all.
My first post here.
I'm curious to know realistically what signs of inhabitation could of been left by Earhart and noonan in just 7 days. The signs that the pilots seen must of been dismissed as unimportant hence no real follow up.
Thanks
Colin
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I'm curious to know realistically what signs of inhabitation could of been left by Earhart and noonan in just 7 days. The signs that the pilots seen must of been dismissed as unimportant hence no real follow up.
The Colorado pilots were under the impression that all of the islands had native populations, so we might be justified in assuming that whatever Lambrecht saw did not strike him as being uniquely non-native. We might also ask what it was about whatever he saw that caused him to believe it was "recent." So - what might Lambrecht have seen that was not necessarily non-native, would not be expected to survive for very long ("recent"), and might later be described as "markers of some kind" (plural). If he saw a campfire why didn't he say he saw a campfire? Or did he see several campfires and didn't recognize them as such and called them "markers of some kind?"
What were the "markers" made of? He may have recognized the "markers" as something that would be washed away if waves washed over the beach in a storm - hence they must be "recent." Were the "markers" simply marks tramped out in the sand? Cut vegetation laid out in a pattern? If you're going to do that, why not spell out words?
HELP or even just AE. It has always puzzled me.
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they may have put the stones down to build fire on, if floor was damp or dig a small hole an mound cobbles\stones rnd to keep wind from blowing it out :)
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The comment about signs of recent habitation "here" comes right after mention of a grove of coconut palms. Could mean the signs were close to one of the groves. Where were the groves in relation to the seven site?
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Nice analysis Chris.
The comment about signs of recent habitation "here" comes right after mention of a grove of coconut palms. Could mean the signs were close to one of the groves. Where were the groves in relation to the seven site?
There were five groves of coconut palms on the island at that time - survivors of the Arundel planting in 1892. Their locations were plotted by the 1938/39 New Zealand Survey and included on the map created from that survey. As you see, they were a long way (roughly two miles) from the Seven Site. I personally don't think AE and FN were yet anywhere near the Seven Site on July 9.
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The report is a frustrating one,
The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or taken off in any direction with little if any difficulty. Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her plane in this lagoon and swam or waded ashore. In fact, on any of these islands it is not hard to believe that a forced landing could have been accomplished with no more damage than a good barrier crash or a good wetting.
So what we are saying here is " yes she could of landed in that lagoon" but we ain't going to investigate any further on it. With this type of observation you would of thought Putnam would of read it and maybe sent out a landing party just to be sure.
It would be interesting to know if after the island search did anyone inform the pilots that "hey no one has lived on gardener since the 1890,s"
Did Putnam know this?. Doesn't make any sense.
Regards
Colin
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With this type of observation you would of thought Putnam would of read it and maybe sent out a landing party just to be sure.
Putnam probably never saw what Lambrecht wrote. Lambrecht was not writing an official report. It was an article for the weekly newsletter of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics - not available to the public. Nonetheless, Putnam did try to mount a private expedition but was never able to raise the money. See Finding Amelia, page 238
It would be interesting to know if after the island search did anyone inform the pilots that "hey no one has lived on gardener since the 1890,s"
Did Putnam know this?. Doesn't make any sense.
Who would inform them? No one associated with the search had any information about the Phoenix Group. We didn't know until we dug the information out of British archives.
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All,
Another interesting point that Lambert makes is that he doesn’t see the broad reef flat adjacent to the Norwich City as a possible landing site. Does this imply the high tide was in and ruling out the flats and that left the lagoon as the only possible land site?
Ted Campbell
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Another interesting point that Lambert makes is that he doesn’t see the broad reef flat adjacent to the Norwich City as a possible landing site. Does this imply the high tide was in and ruling out the flats and that left the lagoon as the only possible land site?
The tide was high when Lambrecht was there. We know that from the photograph and from our own calculations. He had no way of knowing that the reef dried at low tide and offered a possible landing area.
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I'm curious to know realistically what signs of inhabitation could of been left by Earhart and noonan in just 7 days. The signs that the pilots seen must of been dismissed as unimportant hence no real follow up.
The Colorado pilots were under the impression that all of the islands had native populations, so we might be justified in assuming that whatever Lambrecht saw did not strike him as being uniquely non-native. We might also ask what it was about whatever he saw that caused him to believe it was "recent." So - what might Lambrecht have seen that was not necessarily non-native, would not be expected to survive for very long ("recent"), and might later be described as "markers of some kind" (plural). If he saw a campfire why didn't he say he saw a campfire? Or did he see several campfires and didn't recognize them as such and called them "markers of some kind?"
What were the "markers" made of? He may have recognized the "markers" as something that would be washed away if waves washed over the beach in a storm - hence they must be "recent." Were the "markers" simply marks tramped out in the sand? Cut vegetation laid out in a pattern? If you're going to do that, why not spell out words?
HELP or even just AE. It has always puzzled me.
I believe the term "markers" was sometimes used interchangebly to refer to rock cairns, flagpoles and other types of methods to lay claims to territories back then. If I'm not mistaken didn't some of the other islands (birnie, edenbury, etc) have rock cairns from previous habitations. Either from indigenous groups or claims by unknown groups trying to "mark" their turf sand for purposes of "We got here first, this is ours"?
Could Lambrecht simply have been using the term "markers" in this context?
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I thought so. Thanks for the confirmation. Perhaps that explains the use of the term markers.
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The fact that Lambert couldn't see the dry reef at low tide - the landing strip - and didn't see the plane in the lagoon leads one to the idea that he came to the conclusion that AE couldn't have found Gardner and landed there.
Depending on how deep the water gets where we now think a landing gear is stuck - therefore Lambert doesn't see it - leads one to believe by the 9th of July the Lockheed is gone and supports the thesis that is why the post lost transmission are over by the 7th of July.
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Perhaps that explains the use of the term markers.
Except that Lambrecht used the plural. In 1937 there was only one sovereignty notice on Gardner. On February 15, 1937 HMS Leith called at Gardner to erect a flagpole (with Union Jack) and a "notice board" proclaiming the island the property of His Majesty King George VI. The event is recorded in Leith's log and in two reports, "Visit to the Phoenix Group in HMS Leith in Feb. 1937" and "Notes on Various islands of the Phoenix Group visited in HMS Leith in Feb. 1937."
The landing was made in the spot where the landing channel was later blasted through the reef. The flagpole with notice board was erected "at the edge of the scrub about 50 yards south of the landing-place." There is no mention of a cairn.
If Lambrecht saw a flagpole flying a British flag would he describe that as "markers of some kind?" If the flag was gone after five months, would he have described a bare pole with a board on it as "markers of some kind" and "signs of recent habitation?" I don't know, but it doesn't seem to fit very well.
If the notice board left by Leith is the "signs of recent habitation" Lambrecht repeatedly "circled and zoomed" he was doing it a long way from where we think AE and FN were.
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thing is though, earlier today my lad broke screen on his 10" notebook so i connected it via vga connection to my 42" flat screen, an then copy an saved photo's from forensic imaging 2, as i was on forum before he broke it, anyway because of resolution u can see what he meant by recent habitation as there is path ways thru scaevola from seven site to airplane shaped opening, an if it were path ways from last inhabitants in late 1800's it would have grew back by time he flew over, but as its overgrowth that has been flattened recently it hadnt.
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http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/23_SevenSite/23_SevenSite.html
sorry this is link for image i looked at flat screen
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The apparent "trails" appear in the Dec. 1. 1938 aerial photo. For an in-depth discussion see "Not-So-Happy Trails (http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/2000Vol_16/trails.pdf)"
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I noticed on the sketch attached to Lambrecht's report that their flight path over Gardner approached from the NE. To an observer camped near the Norwich City at 08:00 on an early July morning, that direction would have been obscured by the trees and roughly in the morning sun. In other words, there would have been no warning of approaching aircraft to anyone who might have been in that location.
Almost nothing is recorded of the detailed flight path over the island.
The flight departed to the SE.
What would a rational survivor on the NW part of the island do if a flight had suddenly appeared from the East, and departed to the south east? Staying on the NW part of the island when evidence of help might seem to be to the East and South?
One more thing I noticed from the sketch - Lambrecht's plotted return path to the ship passed within roughly 15 NM of Gardner, also to the east of the island, travelling from south to north. That's close enough to be heard and seen from Gardner, under decent conditions. The winds at the time were "northeast to east, 13-15 knots...", making the east side of the island in the lee of the wind, and therefore quieter and better able to hear aircraft in the distance.
To get from one side of the island to the other is a slow process. Anyone seeing aircraft overhead on the NW shore might not have time or inclination to move to the Eastern shore. They might not even be aware of the direction of approach, nor of departure.
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Can we at least all agree on the bottom-line fact that Amelia and Fred were not seen by the Colorado's planes?
There are only two conclusions that can be drawn from what we know about what they saw:
- They saw "signs of recent habitation" on an island that hadn't been inhabited since 1892
- They didn't see any people
I have not had the time to read all of these posts. Just think the back and forth is pointless as to the chances of them being spotted from there are are of any percent. The facts are they were not found, or not meant to be reported as found. I don't see the point in debating weather or not they could of scene them. We should be putting this energy to use as to where they were rather where they could of been spotted.
Ric, I did have a question. I am not sure you or anyone can answer it but I'll ask anyway. When you say [- They saw "signs of recent habitation" on an island that hadn't been inhabited since 1892] does that include the Norwich City? I ask because I am wondering if that could be the "sings" they are talking about. They crew was there a few day's and did make a rather large camp on shore, if I am not mistaken I think i read there was a long boat left from the rescue as well. Could these be the signs they saw and maybe signs of Amelia and Fred, but wrote them all off as part of the survivors of the Norwich? Heck, it was High Tide, parts of the plane could of still been on the reef but mistaken as debris from the Norwich.
Just some conjecture on my part.
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When you say [- They saw "signs of recent habitation" on an island that hadn't been inhabited since 1892] does that include the Norwich City?
No.
I ask because I am wondering if that could be the "sings" they are talking about. They crew was there a few day's and did make a rather large camp on shore, if I am not mistaken I think i read there was a long boat left from the rescue as well.
The NC survivor's camp was back in the trees, not out in the open.
Could these be the signs they saw and maybe signs of Amelia and Fred, but wrote them all off as part of the survivors of the Norwich?
I think we established that, according to the 1939 Bushnell survey (http://tighar.org/wiki/USS_Bushnell_Survey_(1939)), there were three lifeboats washed up. (What happened to the fourth one? Burned up with the ship? Drifted away?) None of the lifeboats is visible in the 1938 aerial photo of that shoreline, so all of the boats must be up in the vegetation (indeed, the New Zealand survey photographed one of them in the bushes). The only way they could get there is if there had been sufficient storm activity to flood the beaches. That's a big storm - certainly big enough to obliterate footprints, campfires or anything else on the beach.
Heck, it was High Tide, parts of the plane could of still been on the reef but mistaken as debris from the Norwich.
Certainly possible.
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To me the most naturally frustrating aspect of all this is the "signs of recent habitation" that wasn't pursued beyond the over flight. Certainly we have the luxury of 20/20 hindsight (no little thanks to all TIGHAR's research) which causes us to say that any signs of recent habitation, given the circumstances, should have warranted further investigation for either rescue or recover, but it clearly didn't for Lambrecht or his superiors. So I'll go out on a limb and say that he probably didn't see anything that could have been associated with AE or her situation = aircraft associated elements. Would I be right in assuming that there was no (official or otherwise) threshold of evidence that would have actually required a further investigation, and that it all rested on realtime judgement by the searchers? Though this may seem obvious, I am wondering just what rules or guidelines for search Lambrecht was operating under.
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Would I be right in assuming that there was no (official or otherwise) threshold of evidence that would have actually required a further investigation, and that it all rested on realtime judgement by the searchers? Though this may seem obvious, I am wondering just what rules or guidelines for search Lambrecht was operating under.
If there were any official guidelines nobody mentioned them. It's clear that Lambrecht and Co. were looking for an airplane but it's also clear that they paid close attention to signs of people. In fairness, we should remember that Gardner was only the second island they looked at. This was a rescue mission. For all they knew AE and FN could be near death on the beach at the next island. Landing in the lagoon would be dangerous and accomplish little. It's not like they could taxi to shore, get out and look around. The water near the lagoon shore is way too shallow. Lambrecht landed at Hull but only because there were people there who could come out in a canoe and talk to him. For Colorado to heave to and send a boat ashore through the surf would be hazardous and would probably take all day.
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Ric, thank you for your answers. They were as I expected and what I thought. But as with everything in this search the words "if only" comes to mind. If only they went back, if only the bones were kept track of, if only more was done.
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... if only more was done.
We'd have to find some other great mystery to solve. ;D
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If there were any official guidelines nobody mentioned them. It's clear that Lambrecht and Co. were looking for an airplane but it's also clear that they paid close attention to signs of people. In fairness, we should remember that Gardner was only the second island they looked at. This was a rescue mission. For all they knew AE and FN could be near death on the beach at the next island. Landing in the lagoon would be dangerous and accomplish little. It's not like they could taxi to shore, get out and look around. The water near the lagoon shore is way too shallow. Lambrecht landed at Hull but only because there were people there who could come out in a canoe and talk to him. For Colorado to heave to and send a boat ashore through the surf would be hazardous and would probably take all day.
Is this to suggest that the the Lambrecht/Navy search was less earnest than it could have been?
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Is this to suggest that the the Lambrecht/Navy search was less earnest than it could have been?
It's not for me to pass judgement. I'd urge anyone to read the primary source material and form their own opinion.
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No Brit (did i just type that?) would greet a stranger with "cherrio"
You're a better judge of that than I am old chap.
and some of the island reports appear 'padded' out to make the story bigger and the search more intense.
Lambrecht's submission of his article for publication was not well received. A memo to Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet dated 27 July 1937, from Commander Battle Force (Colorado's captain's boss) reads in part:
"Certain undesirable features in this correspondence including the undue informality of expression in certain portions, are being taken up with the Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Colorado , in separate correspondence."
In other words, Friedel lost a chunk of his butt for not keeping a tighter rein on his senior aviator's language. You can bet the manure continued to travel downhill. "Mr. Lambrecht, the CO would like to see you in his cabin."
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I'm under the impression that what seems like a less than earnest search, if it was in fact lacking earnestness, was due to the lack of spotting an Electra - or recognizable parts of one. First and foremost, the plane was what they were looking for - find the plane, find AE and FN. No plane, no inhabitants in sight...move on to the next island. That's my take...
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Wayne H. Heiser’s U.S. Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Aviation, Volume I, 1916-1942 Chronology (http://books.google.com/books?id=aMetzGkCrI0C&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=navy+cadet+aviation+syllabus&source=bl&ots=MFX7Q6Izmv&sig=D7WacTPyKeA5D16vybGLoEktvUk&hl=en&ei=FoLGTqiaL7HXiAKvgIW_Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CFIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=navy%20cadet%20aviation%20syllabus&f=false)includes the following description of the Naval Aviation flight training syllabus at Pensacola in 1935
“The primary and advanced flight training syllabus at NAS Pensacola was revised on 1 May 1935. The new syllabus required completion of about 300 hours of flight instruction and 465 hours of ground school instruction in a period of one year. The flight syllabus was divided into nine weeks in primary seaplanes, eighteen weeks in primary landplanes, nine weeks in observation landplanes, nine weeks in service seaplanes, and seven weeks in fighter planes. There was no distinction between training given to regular Navy students and aviation cadets except that the cadets had to complete an additional 90 hours of indoctrination in naval subjects.
Training was not ended for aviation cadets with the designation as naval aviators and assignment to the Fleet. Comprehensive syllabi were prepared and followed for training in all aspects of flying at sea. In addition, to correct deficiencies in general seagoing knowledge, training and study courses were conducted aboard ship in gunnery, engineering, etc.”
It looks like the doctrinal training for specific military tasks was conducted at the unit level after the aviator was assigned to sea or shore duty, and not during flight training. Never-the-less, it appears there was a pattern in the search for AE by the Colorado’s planes in that each island was evaluated in a similar fashion:
Circle Island, Search target will be: Plane/raft,
If none, check for:
Habitation, Evaluate contemporary or dated?
If recent,
Determine presence of people: Circle and Zoom
If people present: land
Interrogate witnesses
If no news of sightings
Continue on
If people not present, observe conditions suitable for forced landing report such for additional searches if required.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the experience gained by the Colorado’s air crews during the Earhart search was used for unit level “training” for new pilots and observers, and the Earhart searchers used what advice they could glean from previous search experiences.
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Cherrio, toodle pip, goodbye!
or
whatho! hello, good morning!
Just to be clear about this, am I correct in understanding that "Cheerio" is an alternative to "Good Bye," never "Hello"? Hence, Lambrecht's claim that the resident manager at Hull greeted him "with a cordial Cheerio" is evidence that Lambrecht embellished his narrative?
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Chris
AE/FN on land, then plane also on land. Not necessarily.
Assume that they Ditched in the water but near enough to land to raft to it or swim to it. Plane sinks, people safe on land. The search needed to be looking for a plane and/or people.
IMHO the searchers were less than enthusiastic about being sent out in the ocean to look for some publicity-seeking dumb ninny of a female "aviatrix" . They went about the formality of boring holes in the sky and getting back to the ship.
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Chris
AE/FN on land, then plane also on land. Not necessarily.
Assume that they Ditched in the water but near enough to land to raft to it or swim to it. Plane sinks, people safe on land. The search needed to be looking for a plane and/or people.
IMHO the searchers were less than enthusiastic about being sent out in the ocean to look for some publicity-seeking dumb ninny of a female "aviatrix" . They went about the formality of boring holes in the sky and getting back to the ship.
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I think that is an unwarranted and unsubstantiated slur, impugning the professionalism and dedication of our Naval Aviators who, just a few years later, were fighting valiently in WW2. They may have thought that Earhart was a publicity hound but you have no reason to speculate that that would have kept them from doing their very best to find her. You should be ashamed of yourself.
gl
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Wm. Short's letter to his father includes the line "...However, if I can only keep my date with Amelia it will be worth it!", which sounds to me as though he took his duty seriously. Neither he nor Lambrecht show any indication of anything less than dedication to the search. The Colorado was sent on a rescue mission, participating in a search for one of the most famous people in the world. That's a big responsability, regardless of what they might have thought about her exploits. Finding her would have been the biggest thing to happen to them all, as if there wasn't enough motivation already.
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I think that is an unwarranted and unsubstantiated slur, impugning the professionalism and dedication of our Naval Aviators who, just a few years later, were fighting valiently in WW2. They may have thought that Earhart was a publicity hound but you have no reason to speculate that that would have kept them from doing their very best to find her. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Chill Gary. I too disagree with Harry's characterization of the search as "boring holes in the sky and getting back to the ship." I think the pilots and observers probably did the best job they could under the circumstances, but I base that opinion on the available evidence, not upon some jingoistic prohibition on impugning the professionalism and dedication of "our Naval Aviators."
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Gary
The acronym IMHO stands for In My Humble Opinion. I think we can still express opinions in this country and on this forum. You of course may also express yours. I served 6 years in service to my country and I don't need a personal attack from you. Take a hike if you don't like my opinion.
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Gary
The acronym IMHO stands for In My Humble Opinion. I think we can still express opinions in this country and on this forum. You of course may also express yours. I served 6 years in service to my country and I don't need a personal attack from you. Take a hike if you don't like my opinion.
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I read your "IMHO" as applying to your first sentence and your second sentence looked like you were stating a fact, not an opinion. If that is your opinion your are entitled to it. I used to flight instruct at Point Mugu Naval Air Station and you can't find a more dedicated, motivated and intelligent bunch of people anywhere else and I have no doubt that the 1937 version of these people was just as good, so your comment rubbed me the wrong way.
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BTW, it was fun flying at NTD because the approach end of runway 27 is marked out just like a carrier deck and there was the same approach light system ("call the ball") and the arresting gear you find out on the boat. It looks like the proverbial postage stamp and was interesting getting the T-34 down on just the carrier deck and sharing the traffic pattern with F/A-18s.
gl
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Think I may be nit picking a bit.
Nit picking?? On this Forum???
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Good, I see the pattern there of how they may have approached each island search.
I don't think it was anything like that organized. As far as I can see, the plan was:
Fly over each island and see if there's any sign of the lost plane or its crew.
The decision to land at Hull was a spur-of-the-moment thing.
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Don't understand why anyone can't get by the fact that ditching and sinking is not an option.
Post loss radio transmissions. Enough were credible. Can't be explained away and can't be done from underwater either. So it's not if she landed, it is where she landed is the first question. Then what happened after the last transmission is the last question.
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on Tighar's travels round gardner or seven site did u check tree's for markings or if sumthink has been carved like
Amelia woz ere 1937 :)
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on Tighar's travels round gardner or seven site did u check tree's for markings or if sumthink has been carved like
Amelia woz ere 1937 :)
Yes, we've looked.
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Dan Swift's post re: ditching
Let's say that they made a water landing (Ditched) near enough to an atoll with a coral reef that their momentum caried them to and on the reef. Post loss radio transmissions sent out, plane subsequently washed off the reef. Just a guess, not masquerading as a fact.
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Let's say that they made a water landing (Ditched) near enough to an atoll with a coral reef that their momentum caried them to and on the reef. Post loss radio transmissions sent out, plane subsequently washed off the reef. Just a guess, not masquerading as a fact.
If they were washed up onto the reef would they be able to raise the landing gear so that they could run the engine?
Ditching bends props (and lots of other items) which could render the engine(s) useless....let alone the airframe damage that might occur during the ditching/beaching make this a highly improbable scenario.
LTM,
Friend
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Plane on reef flat, gear up, pilot touches extend gear switch, sturdy gear extension worm gear system lowers gear, wheels turn as plane moves up onto gear and gear locks in place. Radio batteries are fully charged, Distress calls sent out. (ducking the Nits, LOL)
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Geez Jeff
You must be a physchic or something to know all the things that happened.
I wonder what Sully Sullenberger would have done had he had you whispering in his ear about all things that might have gone wrong when attempting a landing on the Hudson River.
I don't know the empty weight of the Electra, or whether the gear extinsion system could raise the plane as it operated to lower the gear, but most of the fuel (6600 lbs) had been burned.
The props would have been feathered, the engines wouldn't have been turning, the temperature was in the 100's so things would dry out fairly fast.
A low, slow gentle glide slope with the engines off and props feathered tail low and nose high so that contact with the water was as gentle as possible would be the way to go.
Do I believe that this is what happened? No, but it is a possibility.
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Do I believe that this is what happened? No, but it is a possibility.
I don't think it's even a possibility. I don't think there has ever been a gear retraction/extension system on any airplane that was capable standing the airplane up if it was on its belly.
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Do I believe that this is what happened? No, but it is a possibility.
I don't think it's even a possibility. I don't think there has ever been a gear retraction/extension system on any airplane that was capable standing the airplane up if it was on its belly.
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Well we agree on something. The gear EXTENSION system is just strong enough to extend the gear against the slipstream and to raise only the weight of the gear after takeoff. It is not designed to jack up the plane after a belly landing. That is why the runway is blocked for so long after a gear up-landing. The mechanics have to put jacks under the wings and then jack the plane up high enough to EXTEND the gear so that the plane can be towed away.
gl
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Reminds me of what is said about pilots that fly retractables
There are two kinds of them
1. Those that have landed with gear up. and
2. Those that are gonna land with the gear up.
I guess they would have had to put the gear down while in the water floating towards the reef.
I doubt if the water would have any effect on the worm gear's mechanical advantage.
Next?
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Here I go again, 'knowing something in my heart....if not in my head' as Ric might say. No way to really know this unless I was in her head at that exact time. But this is what I would think so close to finishing the great task:
Amelia wanted to set that plane down in one 'flyable' piece. Get rescued, refueled, and continue that trip. A second failure was looking probable until the reef flat was spotted. A 'safe' (no damage) landing would give her an outside chance of continuing. Then came in the tide and changed all that 'thinking'.
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Here I go again, 'knowing something in my heart....if not in my head' as Ric might say. No way to really know this unless I was in her head at that exact time. But this is what I would think so close to finishing the great task:
Amelia wanted to set that plane down in one 'flyable' piece. Get rescued, refueled, and continue that trip. A second failure was looking probable until the reef flat was spotted. A 'safe' (no damage) landing would give her an outside chance of continuing. Then came in the tide and changed all that 'thinking'.
I think that makes sense. She had gotten lost, landed, got help, and continued her trip before. The airplane was not insured and she still owed a fortune for the repairs following the wreck in Hawaii.
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I also agree, although I find it hard to imagine a pilot would think about anything beyond taking advantage of what looks like a safe landing spot on bingo fuel. That seems like enough motivation, to me.
"Hey Fred, we're almost out of gas. Should we land on that big flat spot, or keep looking for someplace better?"
They might not have thought they were in a survival situation as they were landing. That might not have occured until a day or two later, when they were getting dehydrated and help hadn't arrived yet, and then they couldn't use the plane to transmit from for whatever reason.
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The props on the NR16020 could not be feathered.
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The props on the NR16020 could not be feathered.
Thanks Ric - that cinches that detail.
What a handicap if she'd lost an engine mid-ocean - lots of drag.
I had trouble thinking of a scenario short of engine failure where she would have bothered anyway - in other words, the odds would have been nil in my thinking.
Feathering a prop is all about reducing drag in-flight; it does nothing to improve your shot at avoiding groung damage, unless you are really going to go retentive on getting the blades horizontal before touch-down (that's mostly Hollywood thinking in real life). Industry experience suggests that one is generally far better off by concentrating on just flying the airplane all the way through the best landing possible in those situations - even using normal power-to-idle as appropriate throughout the exercise - "just fly".
LTM -
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Of course you pull the props back to low r.p.m., high pitch, lowest possible drag position, just like you would do in a single. It appears that dealing with the loss of one engine is why the standard Electra 10 came with fuel dump valves installed in the standard wing fuel tanks which increased the single engine ceiling, so the plane could maintain level flight with one engine shut down.
Putting the props horizontal prior to an emergency landing may be just "Hollywood" to you but I saw a guy do exactly that at the Hinsdale airport near Chicago in 1973. He was flying a Twin Beech and couldn't get the gear down. He flew over the airport, shut down both engines, feathered the props, cranked them till the blades were horizontal and put it down on a taxiway, sliding on the nacelles with very little damage to the plane.
gl
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The props on the NR16020 could not be feathered.
Thanks Ric - that cinches that detail.
What a handicap if she'd lost an engine mid-ocean - lots of drag.
I had trouble thinking of a scenario short of engine failure where she would have bothered anyway - in other words, the odds would have been nil in my thinking.
Feathering a prop is all about reducing drag in-flight; it does nothing to improve your shot at avoiding groung damage, unless you are really going to go retentive on getting the blades horizontal before touch-down (that's mostly Hollywood thinking in real life). Industry experience suggests that one is generally far better off by concentrating on just flying the airplane all the way through the best landing possible in those situations - even using normal power-to-idle as appropriate throughout the exercise - "just fly".
LTM -
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Of course you pull the props back to low r.p.m., high pitch, lowest possible drag position, just like you would do in a single. It appears that dealing with the loss of one engine is why the standard Electra 10 came with fuel dump valves installed in the standard wing fuel tanks which increased the single engine ceiling, so the plane could maintain level flight with one engine shut down.
Putting the props horizontal prior to an emergency landing may be just "Hollywood" to you but I saw a guy do exactly that at the Hinsdale airport near Chicago in 1973. He was flying a Twin Beech and couldn't get the gear down. He flew over the airport, shut down both engines, feathered the props, cranked them till the blades were horizontal and put it down on a taxiway, sliding on the nacelles with very little damage to the plane.
gl
Interesting about the dump valves, makes sense.
Glad it worked out. My guess is he was fairly high-time and confident of his machine and the conditions at-hand - good for him. I too am aware of cases where it worked (to bump the props clear) - but it's bad advice, generally. Maybe the airport is safer with us boring types around -
There are others who would have been better served to have just chilled and made the best landing they could have - like one local fellow who flew his Arrow for about 3 hours to burn off fuel, diverted to a grass strip to 'save' his bird and tried to stop the engine - which kept windmilling (no feather on a typical single). It piled it in fairly hard with substantial damage as he was struggling to get the prop stopped.
I know of several others over the years who simply 'made the best normal (sic) landing they could' and came away with minimal damage in that same and similar types. I witnessed (among others) a T-34 land with wheels up - minimal damage because the pilot was unaware; he joked later that he couldn't hear our calls warning him because of 'that loud horn'... I'd rather just try to remember to cut everything off immediately and vacate what would hopefully be a mostly intact airplane.
It comes down to conditions, skill, attention and ODDS. Making as "normal" a landing as possible (meaning with normal power to the end of it) stacks the deck better for the average pilot IMHO. Props can be replaced and tear-down inspections are a fact of life these days. It used to be that props were often straightened (fixed pitch) or blades replaced and a 'run-out' was done on the crank flange and the oil screen would be checked - and back into service it would go. No more - too much liability came to be realized - flanges that broke 100 hours later, etc. Too easy to catch this sort of thing in a timely tear-down inspection. Thankfully these events are rare enough and the usual lasting effects are a slightly bruised ego and perhaps somewhat modified premiums for a while. No pilot in his right mind will criticize another for it - as someone said, "3 types...".
So yes - "aviate, navigate and communicate" in the most basic form is the better call IMHO, therefore for me the idea remains "Hollywood" - right in there with squat-switch-commanded gear retractions on rotation, hard turn-outs close to the ground, etc.
And back to the topic of this string - "the odds of spotting survivors from the air" may have been enhanced (if unsuccessfully) by AE making the best normal landing that she could have in NR16020... ; )
LTM -
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I did an experiment once. In a C-150, at a good altitude above an empty uncontrolled field, I pulled the mixture and then slowed the plane down until the prop stopped. When that happened I could feel the reduction in drag, the plane felt like it was real slippery, kinda like flying a sailplane. No problem getting it down safely, dead stick, on the runway. It was a pretty convincing demonstration of the amount of drag created by a windmilling prop. (Note, I don't recommend trying this for everyone.)
gl
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I did an experiment once. In a C-150, at a good altitude above an empty uncontrolled field, I pulled the mixture and then slowed the plane down until the prop stopped. When that happened I could feel the reduction in drag, the plane felt like it was real slippery, kinda like flying a sailplane. No problem getting it down safely, dead stick, on the runway. It was a pretty convincing demonstration of the amount of drag created by a windmilling prop. (Note, I don't recommend trying this for everyone.)
gl
Cool.
I tried that in my trusty Cessna 140 in my A&P school daze, but her poor ol' C-90 Continental had such sleepy compression the prop never got stopped! I had a ton of fun with that little bird - she really taught me to fly (and yes, eventually I gave her a fresh top... ;) ).
One of my fun little exercises was slipping her to a landing on a quiet taxi-way at our country airport and turning into my 'private' hangar - just off the airport property and through the woods. Those were the days, what I wouldn't give to relive some of that now!
I remember takeoffs and climbs in a C-140. It reminded me of the children's book "Li'l Toot", "I think I can, I think I can."
gl
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do any 1 know what this is at edge ov reef
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http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675063657_Amelia-Earhart-Putnam_Fred-Noonan_transatlantic-flight_Fred-Noonan
makes intresting viewing watching stuff be removed from its case to save weight
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do any 1 know what this is at edge ov reef
A breaking wave? Flaw in the print? That photo was taken in April 1939. The water in that location is hundreds of meters deep. If it's an object it must be floating. I don't think it's anything to get excited about.
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:) k just thought would check
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... and a gent stands nearby who could easily be a 'Fed' of the day... using something that resembles a 'pocket calculator' ...
I'm pretty sure your "Fed of the day" is none other than George Putnam ... probably inventorying all that superfluous stuff (like an inflatable raft! and one of Ric's helmets) as he logs the weights on his iPhone app. :D And isn't that FN leaning against the wing near the end of the clip as AE demonstrates how note-passing will be done during the flight?
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I am not sure that I should be extending this thread, starting a new one, or finding another thread more appropriate, however:
We should give more credit to the Colorado's aviators. Lambrecht's descriptions are very detailed and accurate for the other islands searched. For Gardner he says they saw signs of recent habitation. Not abandoned huts, not a flagpole, not the old Norwich City camp. "Recent habitation" is what he saw.
Occam's razor says he saw Camp Zero.
If we further give the aviators credit for observational skills and good eyesight, then they saw Camp Zero on the first loop around Gardiner.
Camp Zero could have been (likely was) a very seductive target, including "markers," and thus should have led Lambrecht to focus entirely on Camp Zero and nearby areas. This could have drawn in all three planes, if Camp Zero was seductive enough. I may be wrong but I have an impression that coordinated, formation flying was their training and default response in unfamiliar circumstances. Without radio communications it seems unlikely to me that one of the junior pilots would have taken the initiative to hie off and explore other parts of the island, and especially unlikely that one pilot would continue the previous search pattern (circling the island or whatever).
After repeated circling and zooming with no result Lambrecht would have concluded Camp Zero was abandoned and (watching the fuel guages?) immediately continued onward to Carondelet (this is a literal reading of Lambrecht - it maybe wrong).
My scenario results in only one loop around Gardner and a departure from the Camp Zero vicinity toward the Southeast, either across the lagoon or along the southern shore.
So why didn't the Colorado aviators see EA or FN? Obviously, they weren't there. They (or she) were elsewhere on the island, likely on the north or west beach (in the shade) trying like hell to get back to camp.
Context: the Electra had been swept off the reef, so there is no very good reason to continue to use Camp Zero, for reasons fully explained elsewhere. They are very likely in desperate straights regarding food and water after a week on Gardner. The night of the 8th may very well have been the first night when they (she) actually slept.
The morning of the 9th: Awake at dawn, desperate for food and water, believing Camp Zero is going to kill them if they stay there. It is still cool but by midday physical activity for the depleted survivor(s) will be near impossible. AE is not the type to give up - she has a strong will and determination to survive, which means: go find food, go find water, go find a better camp. NOW! The tide is rising and crossing the channel to the South is undesirable, even perhaps dangerous (there is a good chance they hadn't ever done it yet). So she heads North.
Surely it is possible (even likely) that between 6 AM and the searchers' arrival she has travelled more than a mile from Camp Zero and is in deep cover as it gets warmer, as the search for water takes first priority and the best place to find it is in the woods in hollows and cupped leaves. A mile in depleted condition over rough terrain would take 20-30 minutes. Too long. Lambrecht has left.
Conclusion: Almost everything went right. But AE and FN weren't in camp (FN may have been but was unconscious or dead) when the searchers arrived, and, tragically, the markers were so good (but not good enough to overcome the absence of people) that the searchers failed to properly search the rest of Gardner.
Jon
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Great analysis, Jon.
Not only would there have been no reason to hang around the plane once it was gone (and with it the radio), it would have been almost incumbent on them to move, and quickly, to explore the island, particularly if one of them was injured. Water, better shelter...and there was also the chance, however slight, that there were other humans on the island somewhere who could get them help quickly. Having no firm knowledge they couldn't be sure of, or rule out, anything. What if there was a survey party or native fishing expedition on the other side of the island somewhere?
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Two points
First is that if Lambrecht thought he saw something worthy of zooming on then why not land in the lagoon or request a followup overflight, or even a land search by a landing party? In my opinion he did not see anything compelling enough to warrant any of those three possible options. Instead he flew on. Apparently none of the six sets of eyes saw anything noteworthy enough to warrant one of those three actions.
My second point is that we know the last post loss radio message was Thursday night. The overflight was Saturday morning. If we believe in the post loss radio messages then this means the aircraft likely went over the reef's edge between those two points in time. Could AE and FN inadvertently gone over with it? The Electra is a tail dragger. With a rising tide does this mean the tail would now be floating free and possibly pivoting the aircraft on its two large float tires? Could the aircraft have just worked itself to the reef's edge on the Thursday night and dropped over the edge taking the two crew with her? We just don't know. But I would think there was nothing noteworthy for 6 sets of eyes to see on Saturday morning. If AE and/or FN were on the island at that time then it is a sad set of circumstances that prevented eight people from spotting each other. I also make note that the 6 pilots were looking for castaways and the 2 castaways likely looking for rescuers.
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I still believe a castaway would try to leave something to indicate they were there on the island. Maybe they wouldn't start right away as confidence of being rescued was high but as time marched on and confidence waned a castaway might create some diary to at least keep track of time and events. If for no other reason than to leave some message for future island visitors to say "I was here and didn't get rescued."
Would AE and/or FN actually expect to be rescued by aircraft? By extension would they have prepared to be spotted from the air? They knew how "quiet" the Pacific was in relative terms. Heck Ric has stated that all the modern day expeditions by TIGHAR have not been interrupted by a lot of boat traffic. I think he said only once did TIGHAR come across another ship. Would aircraft be even more scarce? FN himself was a pioneer in transpacific flights. He knew how rare they were.
This thread is "Odds of Spotting survivors from the air." It was only a week after landing that this flying search took place. We're the survivors in such poor shape after a week to not be able to make themselves seen? Were three rotary engines flying around drowned out by the sounds of surf and wave? Did the survivors think to make some sign that could be recognized from the air as a plea for help? Again Lambrecht and the other 5 aviators saw nothing to warrant further investigation. I have to wonder if our castaways got caught by surprise by the sight of three aircraft overhead. Both our castaways would have identified those aircraft as able to land on water. They knew no land based aircraft had an airfield nearby. AE had the government build her one on Howland but there were no aircraft stationed there.
I submit the castaways likely got surprised and couldn't respond for any number of valid reasons. Not the least of which was a week without fresh water. But they were surviving somehow as they had the strength to start the engine and operate the radio. So they became so incapacitated from Thursday nights last radio message to Saturday mornings search flight that they couldn't signal. Weakened yes. Incapacitated? And so far Lambrecht was the first, and only, sign of a search.
Ah. If only we had a crystal ball to gaze into to understand why nothing became of the Lambrecht overflight.
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Good points Irv. I put this thread up a little while back about being caught totally unprepared for a WW2 Dakota suddenly flying overhead. Didn't even get time to get a decent picture. Obviously it didn't circle but then again I was out in the open fields...
http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1238.0.html (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1238.0.html)
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Extra/more credit by any one of a number of people involved and we would not have a 76 year old mystery. ::)
Extra credit is overcoming the single line of thought. In this case it is likely the thought of a "big visible airplane" or “smoking crater” they expected to see. After all it has to be transmitting and in some working order on land per reports they had. No airplane than no good reason to go and check it out. Aka land the plane: risk a bird strike, or flipping the plane landing by in the lagoon and hitting an uncharted object. Then you get to explain the aircraft loss to your commander…
I submit a reasonable expectation was to see the airplane due to radio signals reported and having to be on land confirmed by Lockheed.
With everything they noticed you have to ask why they didn’t take the time to check it out. They had the discretion to do so before the paper got shoveled when they got back. Why is there a camp here? Did the campers see an airplane? Maybe we should ask these yahoo’s what they are doing out here… Mindset as seen even today with the DC sniper “Must be a van.” And it turned out to be a sedan. “Must be a big airplane visible…”
They already had to overcome the misinformation and early reports of splash and sink.
“Signs of recent habitation” Really? Is that all they could think of to write? This lack of information from the description did not help the situation. Next in chain of command would look at that with a ‘you didn’t see anything’. Describing the signs seen may have sparked a second look to possibly look up the island’s state of occupation and thus be worthy of extra credit.
The report says this “habitation” about two islands.
The thought that the airplane got swept away from the tide took decades to come up with.
IMO camp zero was the airplane itself safe from the wildlife with a working radio. I imagine the aircraft went over the edge with dead batteries after every drop of fuel was used to keep it on the reef and power the radio. After the visible plane is ‘gone’ you need a new marker…
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I also make note that the 6 pilots were looking for castaways ...
Really? My reading of the Lambrecht Report suggests he was looking for the missing plane, not people.
Do we know the orders Lambrecht was given?
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I can't help thinking that perhaps, tragically, they were asleep when help came. They landed sleep deprived, and if the post-loss messages are to be believed they spent their nights in the cockpit and they can't have gotten much sleep at Camp Zero during the daytime with the lack of cover, daytime temperatures and crabs, plus possible injuries and most likely trying to scout for water. It's easy to imagine the scenario where they finally give up on help, remove to a place where they can rest comfortably and marshall their energy, finally fall into their first real deep sleep in a week and then bam...Bob's your uncle, game over.
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“Signs of recent habitation” Really? Is that all they could think of to write?
It's fascinating to me and might be to others that Eric Bevington mentioned "signs of previous habitation" in his diary of October 1937 (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bevington_Diary.html), almost the exact words Lambrecht used. As with Lambrecht, that is all he said. Bevington was there on the ground to see the signs, or perhaps he saw them close in to the shore from the lagoon. He later in 1992 pointed on a map to the lagoon side of Aukaraime South (http://tighar.org/wiki/Aukaraime_South) as the place he vaguely recollected seeing them. Gallagher seems to be the only individual from the early days of the search of the actual island (edit: although he was by no means a part of the official search) who saw something and speculated in his writings it might be related to Earhart. But Gallagher found human bones and had reason to speculate further than Bevington or Lambrecht.
Joe Cerniglia ~ TIGHAR #3078 ECR
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To Paul Parsons
A plane on the ground means people on the ground. They didn't try zooming to alert the big shiny bird.
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To Paul Parsons
A plane on the ground means people on the ground. They didn't try zooming to alert the big shiny bird.
Irv, you might try being a bit more direct so as to not be misunderstood... ;D
I don't know that I've ever seen the orders but they may exist among the Colorado's lore published on this site. It seems clear enough that they would be looking for signs of Earhart and Noonan - floating debris; debris scattered on shore; a downed plane; people, dead or alive. Smoke. Clothing on flagpoles. Coconuts on beaches...
I have doubts that their orders were so narrow as to exclued either plane or people, but would likely be worded to include 'any and all visible signs that may exist of Earhart and / or Noonan's presence on the land or in the sea along your route of flight' or similar. Just IMO, of course. Now you make me want to dig this out a bit...
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And so I have:
No direct orders, but perhaps a clue or two of Lambrecht and his flight's focus -
According to Lambrecht (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Lambrecht's_Report.html): "M’Kean did not require more than a perfunctory examination to ascertain that the missing plane had not landed here, and one circle of the island proved that it was uninhabited except for myriads of birds. Signs of previous habitation remained and the walls of several old buildings apparently or some sort of adobe construction, were still standing. M’Kean is perfectly flat and no bigger than about one square mile."
So much for McKean. But note the airplane was an obviously sought object, as was the determination of the presence of any people. In McKean's case it was small and open enough to realize quickly that no one was there, despite clearly evident old structures.
The prospect at Gardner reads somewhat differently, fairly clearly because it was a different kind and size of island -
"...the planes proceeded to Gardner Island (sighting the ship to starboard enroute) and made an aerial search of this island which proved to be one of the biggest of the group. Gardner is a typical example of your south sea atoll … a narrow circular strip of land (about as wide as Coronado’s silver strand) surrounding a large lagoon. Most of this island is covered with tropical vegetation with, here and there, a grove of coconut palms. Here signs of recent habitation were clearly visible but repeated circling and zooming failed to elicit any answering wave from possible inhabitants and it was finally taken for granted that none were there.
At the western end of the island a tramp steamer (of about 4000 tons) bore mute evidence of unlighted and poorly charted “Rocks and Shoals”. She lay high and almost dry head onto the coral beach with her back broken in two places.
The lagoon at Gardner looked sufficiently deep and certainly large enough so that a seaplane or even an airboat could have landed or taken off in any direction with little if any difficulty. Given a chance, it is believed that Miss Earhart could have landed her plane in this lagoon and swam or waded ashore. In fact, on any of these islands it is not hard to believe that a forced landing could have been accomplished with no more damage than a good barrier crash or a good wetting."
Note the references to observed signs of 'recent habitation' - a sign of 'people', and the implicit need to contend with a screen of vegetation which may imply to some degree an appreciation that people might have been concealed there, hence 'zooming' (signs were there, where are the people... perhaps needing to emerge from the bush?).
The shipwreck was not only noticed but attentively observed, hence a rather good description provided. The potential 'wet' and 'dry' landing possibilities were noted as well. An observance for an airplane is implied by that, IMO.
Could it have been there and been missed? I believe so, if at least largely submerged in / under a heavy surf.
Like I said, not really 'orders', but maybe these things give insight to Lambrecht's methodology, and therefore perhaps in essence his response to the orders he understood. Implicitly, if looking for people lost in an airplane, you need to look for an airplane, people, stuff they may have had with them that might be showing as signs of their presence or shelter, etc. Any or all of that being a 'sign' of the lost people...
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Thanks Jeff. Your gentlemanly streak is showing again. My apologies to Mr Parsons if he felt I was being too direct and short. No disrespect intended. Posting is never an exact science when it comes to communication. I felt it natural that Lambrecht would have been ordered or instructed to look for "any" sign of AE and FN. After all the Electra had been down for a week. No one really knew/knows where so "any" sign would have been helpful. IMHO.
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A point to remember:
Lambrecht's description of the mission is not a report. As far as we know there was no official after-action report other than what Colorado's commanding officer wrote about the entire search effort. What Lambrecht wrote was an article for the Navy's Bureau of Aernautics Weekly Newsletter. He had to submit it to the CO for approval before sending it in after they made port. The CO approved it and it was published but Lambrecht did catch some flack for the article's informal tone.
For another account of the Gardner search by a different pilot see Lt.jg William Short's letter to his father in the TIGHAR archive.
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For those of you who are new to the forum, here are links to Captain Friedell's Report (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Friedell's_Report.html), Lt. Lambrecht's Report/letter (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Lambrecht's_Report.html)and Lt.Short's letter (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Letters/Short.pdf).
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Another indication of attitudes aboard Colorado is the fact that, during the flight that visited McKean, Gardner and Carondelet Reef, back aboard ship the crew was whooping it up in the previously-postponed Crossing The Equator hazing/celebration.
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I read this biography of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (http://www.amazon.de/Charles-Kingsford-Smith-Those-Magnificent/dp/1743137346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377802787&sr=8-1&keywords=FitzSimons+kingsford+smith) over the summer holidays. The 1929 "Coffee Royal" incident and the subsequent Air Accident Investigation Committee Inquiry are discussed in great detail in Chapters 13 and 14 (pp. 384-428). As well as being fascinating in its own right, the account helped me put the Colorado search flight into the wider perspective of 1930s aircraft accidents/disappearances and aerial searches. There must be lots of other, lesser-known incidents and looking at these might be interesting to get a better grip on the odds of spotting people (and airplanes!) from the air without today's much more sophisticated equipment.
Kingsford Smith' airplane, the "Southern Cross", left Sydney for Wyndham on Australia's western coast on March 31, 1929 with a crew of four (Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, a navigator and a radio operator). The plane got lost in very bad weather and ran out of petrol having searched for Wyndham airfield for several hours. Kingsford Smith managed a controlled crash landing in deserted, very difficult terrain (a mangrove swamp); incredibly the plane wasn't damaged and none of the crew were injured. The navigator determined the exact position of the site (later dubbed "Coffee Royal" by the men) and the radioman was able to operate the receiver with the help of copper wire rigged up in the mangrove trees. However, the transmitter wasn’t working and not having any petrol the men were unable to start the generator. Although there was a mission station about 25 miles away, the men didn't know its exact location. Overall, the Southern Cross crew was in a position not totally different from what AE/FN would have experienced if they landed on Nikumaroro.
Like the Electra, the "Southern Cross" was a big, shiny airplane (it was painted silver and blue), and it was sitting on what from the descriptions of the "Coffee Royal" site must have been fairly open, greenish-brown ground. To my amateur imagination, this seems like rather ideal conditions to be spotted by searchers fairly quickly. (The probability of detection table given at the start of this thread can’t be applied to this I think because it refers to the probability of spotting people but surely it must be safe to assume that an airplane is easier to spot than people because of its size, shape and colouring).
Besides relying on the plane being visible, the crew gathered mangrove wood and sump grass to keep a signal fire going on a nearby hill. However, when after four days a search plane circled over the area twice at a distance of about four miles, it failed to see the plane, the crew and the signal fire.
Another search plane again circled twice at about the same distance on the following day but yet again, neither the plane, nor the crew, nor the signal fire were spotted and the search plane flew away. Fortunately, the search wasn't abandoned at this point and a third search plane eventually found the "Southern Cross" twelve days after the crash landing.
That the searchers missed the airplane and the signal fire on two occasions wasn't picked out for comment in 1929, but it's of course quite interesting in the context of the Colorado search in 1937. The "Southern Cross" should have been spotted by the searchers much earlier both in terms of commonsense assumptions of what searchers look out for and notice and in terms of statistical probability; and of course, the signal fire should have been noticed much sooner, too. The "Southern Cross" can't in any way have been obscured by surf and of course wasn't submerged by tides or swept over a reef, it just sat there intact (and in fact took off from that very spot having been refuelled a couple of days later). Yet two search missions missed it, full stop.
They also missed the signal fire. There was a public inquiry into the "Coffee Royal" incident because the press voiced suspicions that the plane's disappearance had been staged to generate publicity. The inquiry committee found it hard to understand the way Kingsford Smith and his man had acted; they felt they should have been more active. (Apart from desperate but useless attempts to get the generator going, the crew - all experienced and physically healthy - seem to have been so harried by the heat, the mosquitoes, the lack of provisions - they found a water hole nearby though- and their inability to communicate by wireless that they spent most of the time in a kind of exhausted stupor). Among other bits of criticism, the barrister who questioned Kingsford Smith asked why the men hadn't poured machine oil on the fire to make heavier smoke. Kingsford Smith replied that they'd tried but found that the black smoke generated by the machine oil was less visible in this environment than the white smoke a mangrove wood and sump grass fire produced. The barrister was not convinced and the failure to use machine oil was soundly criticised in the committee's report. What I find interesting in this context is that seemingly some fires are more efficient than others; also, it's stunning that the outside perspective on something can be so totally different from the inside perspective.
I admit that the idea that a search mission flying over Nikumaroro could have missed evidence of a controlled crash landing on the island seemed preposterous to me when I first read about it and I suspected the idea of the plane going over the reef of being an attempt to “explain away” the Colorado search at first. I still have my moments with it at times. But the more I read about other thorough searches for other planes in the 1930s that failed to turn up results with the planes being found years later in spots that had been searched (one or two other examples are mentioned in the FitzSimons biography), it doesn’t seem so unlikely after all.
It's fascinating to me and might be to others that Eric Bevington mentioned "signs of previous habitation" in his diary of October 1937, almost the exact words Lambrecht used. As with Lambrecht, that is all he said.
I also find it very interesting that another person who came to Nikumaroro went away with the impression that there were signs of recent/previous habitation there. To me, Eric Bevington's remark that it looked like someone had bivouacked for the night is even more intriguing that Lt. Lambrecht's account. Bevington was on the ground (as opposed to on a moving airplane), and he must have been closer to the signs of habitation. Also, having spent some time in the South Pacific he should have had more background to evaluate what he saw. Both comments leave a lot of room for interpretation and guesses; mine is that while both came away with the impression that someone had lived there recently (because of a campfire? objects strewn about? or something completely different?), they didn't see anything specific that pointed to a Westerner, a woman or a crash landing because these would have been so unusual as to merit a much closer look (to the extent that the Colorado planes might have risked the British getting even more 'miffed', and have landed in the lagoon).
Christine
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(because of a campfire? objects strewn about? or something completely different?)
Harry Maude, who accompanied Bevington, spoke of low mounds (http://books.google.com/books?id=ylnr7k6QzxgC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=amelias+shoes+low+mounds&source=bl&ots=fOaXqo71sf&sig=zTy1gNlSB6v58gYEESVcqDN6zlo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YbEfUojtEKqtsQSf7YDoBw&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=amelias%20shoes%20low%20mounds&f=false) of debris, in a letter to senior archaeologist Dr. Tom King. Curiously, this spot was likely near the spot where parts of a woman's shoe and the heel from a separate pair of shoes were found by TIGHAR in 1991.
Joe Cerniglia ~ TIGHAR #3078ECR
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[
Harry Maude, who accompanied Bevington, spoke of low mounds (http://books.google.com/books?id=ylnr7k6QzxgC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=amelias+shoes+low+mounds&source=bl&ots=fOaXqo71sf&sig=zTy1gNlSB6v58gYEESVcqDN6zlo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YbEfUojtEKqtsQSf7YDoBw&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=amelias%20shoes%20low%20mounds&f=false) of debris, in a letter to senior archaeologist Dr. Tom King. Curiously, this spot was likely near the spot where parts of a woman's shoe and the heel from a separate pair of shoes were found by TIGHAR in 1991.
Maybe. Bevington put a question mark on a map to indicate his recollection of where he and Maude saw signs of previous habitation. The spot where we found shoe parts in 1991, some of which MIGHT be from a woman's shoe, was further down the island. There was no indication that the shoe parts were associated with a pre-settlement campsite. There was a campfire nearby (charcoal and ash) but it contained a partially burned can label that had a barcode on it (not earlier than 1970s).
IMO, what Maude and Bevington saw was the remains of the final Norwich City survivors' camp.
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In light of the topic at hand...I ran across this video as I was searching on Youtube for videos of Gardner Island. Although the song is not completely finished...the lad gives an almost chilling feeling of what it must have been like on Gardner Island. Has a good sound to it!!!
http://youtu.be/UCxqsjOKr0o
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The spot where we found shoe parts in 1991, some of which MIGHT be from a woman's shoe, was further down the island. There was no indication that the shoe parts were associated with a pre-settlement campsite. There was a campfire nearby (charcoal and ash) but it contained a partially burned can label that had a barcode on it (not earlier than 1970s).
IMO, what Maude and Bevington saw was the remains of the final Norwich City survivors' camp.
I was under the impression from the Bevington video for TIGHAR researcher use that Bevington put the mark at Aukaraime South, where the land first juts out south of Bauareke Passage. I was under the impression the Norwich City survivors crossed the lagoon to Aukaraime North or thereabouts on that side, the opposite side from Aukaraime South. Could you mark a map showing where Bevington put his mark in relation to the shoe site? It's possible the map on the table in the Bevington video was oriented upside down from the way I thought it was.
I must be mistaken in how I have oriented areas of the island and related them to one another.
Joe Cerniglia ~ TIGHAR #3078ECR
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Could you mark a map showing where Bevington put his mark in relation to the shoe site? It's possible the map on the table in the Bevington video was oriented upside down from the way I thought it was.
Sorry. I meant to include this map with my earlier posting.
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Another indication of attitudes aboard Colorado is the fact that, during the flight that visited McKean, Gardner and Carondelet Reef, back aboard ship the crew was whooping it up in the previously-postponed Crossing The Equator hazing/celebration.
I don't think one can use this example to reach any conclusion regarding the attitude of the crew about the search. Not that their attitude would have made any difference to the search. The attitude of the officers would have, but my understanding is that the Crossing the Line tradition typically excluded officers, or kept them in very peripheral roles - at least this is how I read the Wikipedia entry on the topic and Patrick O'Brian, who is usually very dependable for detail of naval life at sea in the 19th century.
The crew of the Colorado amounted to some 2,000 sailors. Six of them were directly involved in the search. Almost the entirely of the rest of the crew were certainly involved, NOT in the search, but in the normal business of the ship - operating one of the largest and most complex war machines ever built. The Crossing the Line celebration was a naval tradition going back hundreds of years, and was normal business aboard a USN warship at the time.
Evidence
Jon
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Ric, is that "shoe site" close enough to have been washed there in a serious storm from the other side of the island...across the lagoon? When I say close enough, really it's feet above water level vs feet from water's edge.
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a shoe could have washed up there in a big storm or something
Not likely. The "shoe site" is about 100 meters inland from the lagoon shore. The lagoon can get pretty choppy in a storm but not enough to was something that far inland.
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You got me Jeff.....again!
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a shoe could have washed up there in a big storm or something
Not likely. The "shoe site" is about 100 meters inland from the lagoon shore. The lagoon can get pretty choppy in a storm but not enough to was something that far inland.
Tighar has observed storm wash inland at (or near?) the village site. I assume this storm wash was from a significantly larger storm than Tighar has experienced on Niku. It is possible that a sufficiently large storm could over-wash much of the island, as the reef gives little protection compared to other tropical islands.
Do we know if the settlers ever experienced a direct hit from a tropical cyclone? Do cyclones even track through this part of the Pacific (my impression from the Wikipedia entry about cyclones is no) - if not, a gale is the worst Niku would ever see. Note the Norwich City encountered a "cyclonic weather disturbance" (quote from Ameliapedia) on the night of their stranding. Cyclonic wind and waves of course come from any direction, not just from the west.
Thanks,
Jon
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As do Tsunamis Jon.
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So between possible large storm overwash and possible tsunami effects we cannot completely discount the shoes being moved across the lagoon and redeposited where found.
But the probability of that happening is quite low, thus Ric's "not likely" is the best answer we will get with current facts.
Jon
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This may help. I put together this map showing where we have seen clear evidence of incursions of sea water inland and even over wash (yellow) and I've included the dates when the damage is known to have occurred. The purple areas indicate where there may have been sea water incursions in the past based upon the assumption that sea water "poisons" the ground for large trees such as Pisonia grandis (Buka) and Cordata subcordata (Kanawa).
I see clear evidence of sea water incursion on the west side of the atoll, which is what we would expect. Historically, heavy weather comes out of the west and northwest.
I see evidence of incursion along the north side of the lagoon shore and at the far end but not along the south side of the lagoon shore.
I see evidence of some incursion along the southern coastline, but no over wash except though the southern passage.
I see no evidence of incursion at either the Seven Site or the Aukeraime Shoe Site, so I think it's pretty hard to make the case that shoe parts migrated form one to the other.
Only coconuts migrate. ;D
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Only coconuts migrate. ;D
That depends on if they're being carried by an African or a European swallow, of course. Scientifically speaking, mind you.
LTM, who knows who was in Casper,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER.