TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => The Islands: Expeditions, Facts, Castaway, Finds and Environs => Topic started by: Gary LaPook on January 05, 2012, 02:39:52 AM
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I have seen the name of Waitt come up before on the Forum. I reviewed the report available on the Waitt site and, to say the very least, I was not impressed. Here are some of my observations:
If you read from a book:
"First place a metal container filled with a liquid heat-transfer-medium onto a source of heat energy. Add energy to the system until the liquid heat-transfer-medium reaches a temperature of 373 degrees Kelvin. Next breach the outer surface of an avian ovum and carefully pour the contents of it into the liquid heat transfer medium..."
You might be able to figure out that this is a recipe for poaching an egg, but one thing you will know for sure is that the guy who wrote these words is not a cook! You know this because cooks use a standard terminology for their instructions while this guy was searching for words to describe the process, words that a cook would never use. The same is true for navigators who also use standard terminology.
I went to this website and read the whole hundred page report and ran into lots of non standard words used to describe the navigation which tells me that it was not written or reviewed by a person who has knowledge about navigation. One of the experts relied on by Waitt was analyzing Noonan's navigation of the leg to Hawaii. He described the direction that Noonan was pointing his sextant to take observations of the stars as the "look angle!" Anybody who knows anything about navigation knows the standard word for this is "azimuth." It is the universal word for this and is the same word in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Greek, Spanish, and probably every other language since this word was of Arabic origin and was absorbed into all of these languages. Yet, this navigation "expert" had never heard of it!
Here is an example. The report states the coordinates for three possible "end of navigation" (EON) points, a term you will not find in any navigation text. It gives the coordinates for EON C as N00° 40' 51.7 W177° 16' 41.1 which is also not a standard format for latitude and longitude. The proper format would be 0° 40' 51.7" N, 177° 16' 41.1" W. ( 0 degrees, 40 minutes, 51.7 seconds North, 177 degrees, 16 minutes 41.1 seconds West.) Notice the Waitt report left off the double quote marks which denote seconds of latitude and longitude. But even more funny is that a navigator would never use seconds but would use only minutes to give the location since seconds are a very small unit. And to make it even more ridiculous it gives the position to a precision of one-tenth of a second. A degree of latitude is 60 nautical miles. (A nautical mile is 6076 feet, 1852 meters, approximately 6000 feet.) Since there are 60 minutes in a degree one minute is one nautical mile, approximately 6000 feet. Since there are also 60 seconds in a minute this means that one second is 100 feet and a tenth of a second is only 10 feet! so Waitt is claiming to know the location to a precision of 10 feet, ridiculous! Also, since the plane was flying at about 150 mph (130 knots) so it was covering about 200 feet per second of time meaning that Waitt must also be claiming to know the time of arrival to one-twentieth of a second of time!
Page 8
mixes and matches statute miles and nautical miles.
Page 9
for support for its statements about celestial navigation (n1 and n2) it cites the report written by the guy I already mentioned who invented the term "look angle."
Page 11
the report states it used as a source "the celestial Almanac Pub 249 used for celestial navigation." There is no document named "celestial Almanac." There are two American published almanacs used for celestial navigation, the Nautical Almanac and the Air Almanac, each published by the U.S. Naval Observatory. These contain the positions of celestial bodies for each second of the year which is needed for calculating celestial fixes. There is a completely separate three volume document entitled Sight Reduction Tables for Air Navigation, U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office Publication H.O. 249 which is used for the actual computation starting with the data already retrieved from one of the almanacs. H.O. 249 and the Air Almanac were not published until years after AE's flight so were not used by Noonan. Noonan used the Nautical Almanac and H.O. 208 which is a set of trig tables used for similar computations as H.O 249.
Page 14
states "Indicated airspeed is roughly equivalent to ground speed at low altitudes" which is wrong. Indicated airspeed is roughly equivalent to "True Airspeed" at low altitudes. You must correct your indicated airspeed to obtain true airspeed and then allow for the wind to find ground speed. So if your indicated airspeed is 130 knots at one thousand feet your true airspeed will be about 133 knots but if you have a 25 knot headwind the ground speed will only be 108 knots, nowhere near the indicated airspeed.
Page 20
states the "EON" point A is an overshoot, meaning the plane went past Howland but the use of his octant by Noonan with the sun almost directly in front of them would keep this form happening.
Page 21
states that with reduced winds the EON C ended up short of Howland. Reduced winds, since they were headwinds, would result in an overshoot, not an undershoot.
Page 21
It also states that Noonan improperly applying the refraction correction and the dip correction to his octant observation of the "sunrise celestial calculation" could have caused up to a 70 nm error. First, Noonan couldn't take a"sunrise" observation because the correction table he had in his Nautical Almanac and in H.O 208 only has corrections for angles above the horizontal that are greater that six degrees. Refraction becomes much greater vary fast below this altitude. The refraction correction for 6 degrees is 8 minutes of arc but at zero altitude it is 34 minutes of arc. A sunrise observed from 10,000 feet is actually at 1 degree and 37 minutes below horizontal. The refraction correction for such a negative observation is 50 minutes of arc but Noonan would not have known this because a refraction correction table covering negative altitudes was not available until 1952. Noonan would have to wait about 25 minutes after the sun rose to allow it to climb above 6 degrees covered by his refraction correction table. Noonan knew this so would not have relied on observing sunrise.
When using a marine sextant you must allow for "dip." When using this type of sextant you use the visible horizon as your horizontal reference but unless you eye was exactly at sea level you are actually looking down towards the visible horizon so that the angle measured by the sextant will be too big. This is the reason for dip correction and is based on your height above the sea. This is applied by sailors. For example from a ship's bridge 25 feet above the sea the correction is 5 minutes of arc but the correction for an altitude of 10,000 feet would be 1 degree and 37 minutes. But this is only used with a marine sextant, not with the type of octant that Noonan was using. His octant utilizes a bubble for its horizontal reference, not the visible horizon, so there is no dip error and so no dip correction is applied.
The myth of the "sunrise observation" was created by people who know "a little bit" about celestial navigation. The 337°-157° sunline line of position (LOP) was derived by an observation of the sun when the sun's azimuth (not "look angle") was 67° true since the LOP is at right angles to the azimuth to the celestial body. When the sun rose in the vicinity of Howland on July 2, 1837 its azimuth was 67° true. Those with "a little bit" of knowledge fastened on this fact to claim that Noonan took a sunrise observation and used only it in planning the approach to Howland. (They apparently believe that Noonan then opened the door and dropped his octant into the sea.) But what these people didn't understand is that the sun's azimuth stayed at 67° until 1847 Z, an hour after sunrise! This means that Noonan would have computed the same 337°-157° LOP from any sight taken during this one hour period and we have already seen that he would have had to wait until the sun was above 6° before taking the sight leaving about a half hour period for taking sights. He would have taken several sights as he approached the LOP then more after the interception to ensure staying on it. See attached Air Force navigator's document about this procedure.
Page 23
I already pointed out the ridiculous level of precision to which they state the coordinates of the "EON" points.
Page 25-26
states that the route was chosen to facilitate "an afternoon setting-sun celestial fix." A number of problems with this. First, you can't get a fix from observing one celestial body, it takes at least two and preferably three. Noonan would have waited till it got dark and then taken two or three stars for a proper fix. The only reason they were using a sun line LOP for finding Howland was that no stars were available during the day. Second you can't take a sunset observation for the same reasons that you can't take a sunrise observation as discussed above. Third we know that Noonan was able to take observations of bodies almost directly behind the plane on the flight to Hawaii so no advantage to this route.
Page 48-49
The report states that no handy calculators were available to make the conversions between indicated airspeed, true airspeed and ground speed until the invention of the circular slide rule type flight computer E-6B in World War Two. The report is only off by one World War. These devices were developed as early as 1910 and found wide use in WW I. The Dalton MK VII was perfected in1932 and the Jensen in 1933. These were as easy to operated and performed the required calculations. With slight modification the Dalton became standardized as the E-6B in WWII. So AE most likely could have made these calculations by herself in the cockpit. And even more to the point, Noonan wrote (as reprinted on page 424 of Weems) that he had a Dalton MK VII computer!
Page 49
Report analyzes AE's notes. While crossing the Atlantic, she had written:
"6:50 Just crossing equator, 6000 feet, Sun brilliant..."
Waitt's explanation:
o“6:50”is then the Natal local time of this logbook entry, and the local time of the equator crossing.
o With this entry is “sun brilliant” which may refer to sunrise, which in Natal on the morning of June 7, 1937 was at 0636 local time."
NO!!!!!!!
At this point they are over 500 NM from Natal so what could this have to do with sunrise at Natal? "Sun brilliant" obviously is referring to the brilliant yellow ball almost directly in front of them at the time, DUH! The sun had been up for one hour and fifty-five minutes at their location crossing the equator at 30 degrees west longitude. (see attached chart.)
On page 50 it goes on:
"At “9:41” Natal time, on June 7, 1937, the sun azimuth from true north was 050.35 degrees, and its elevation above the horizon was +40.81 degrees. AE writes
that “…they can hardly believe the sun is north of them.…” Their true course to Dakar was approximately 038 degrees. The sun would have been slightly to
the right of their heading, south of their course, if they were on course. If they were heading in a more easterly direction, the sun would indeed appear north of
them. From AE’s logs we know that AE was north of course at some point in the crossing. It is possible that these observations of the “…sun…north of them…”
were made after a heading correction to rejoin their original track to Dakar. This heading correction would place the sun to their left, possibly appearing as
if it was “north” of them."
First, no navigator would give the azimuth to one-hundredth of a degree nor would he give the altitude in decimal degrees. This note was made six hours and twenty-eight minutes after takeoff and the plane was at 4° 30' north latitude. The sun was 22°38' north declination (latitude) so it WAS north of them no matter what their heading happened to be. The azimuth was actually 42° degrees not "050.35" and the altitude was actually 64° 31' not "+40.81."
Page 54-55
compares the coordinates for Howland that Williams had used with the current charted coordinates. The were given only to the nearest minute, and accuracy of one nautical mile. Then is uses a Google Earth coordinate for the island and says the spot Noonan was aiming for was "5.92 NM" in error, a precision of one-hundredth of a nautical mile, 60 feet, on a bearing of "095.17 degrees." Some problems with this. Since the charted positions were only given to the nearest whole nautical mile it is silly to then compute distances to a precision of a hundredth of a mile. And it depends on what spot of the island they put the Google Earth pointer on. And the distance that they calculated Noonan would have missed the island by was computed from the center of the island when the near shoreline would have been the appropriate spot to use, cutting the distance by a half mile. And it is also silly to give a bearing to one-hundredth of a degree. They apparently computed this value with their calculator and don't have any idea of what the numbers actually signify, GIGO. It is also quite likely that Noonan had the correct coordinates for the island because Itasca had determined them after Williams completed his work but before AE departed on the second attempt. I don't think AE's student, Elanor Roosevelt would have kept that information from Earhart. Plus they ignore the glaring fact that Itasca was making smoke that drifted past the imagined wrong coordinates which would have been visible from the plane.
Page 59
Makes the ridiculous statement that "Celestial fixes are much more accurate than a sun fix." This again shows a lack on knowledge of celestial navigation since the sun is a celestial body and fixes derived from shooting the sun are as accurate as any other celestial fix.
Page states:
Noonan sun line error exceeded "the standard 15-‐30nm accuracy of 1937 celestial navigation." I have no idea where they come up with such low accuracy unless it was on purpose to discredit the method. All navigational textbooks of the era consider the accuracy of celestial fixes to be approximately 10 NM and this level is also a requirement of the Federal Aviation Regulations. See the excerpts from "Weems" especially pages 422 to 425 which reprints a letter from Noonan himself stating his accuracy is 10 NM! This is available on my website at:
https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/
I could go on and on with additional examples but it should be obvious by now that I have serious doubts about the value of the Waitt report.
gl
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Thanks Gary. I share your view of the research behind Waitt's multi-million dollar search. After they put up their website, the folks at the Waitt Institute invited me to engage in a dialog about the Earhart mystery. I was happy to oblige and I submitted the critique below. I'm afraid it wasn't much of a dialog because they never replied.
Your criticisms of their research focus on navigation - and there's plenty to criticize. My criticisms focus on methodology. Here's what I said:
In 2006, and again in 2009, the Waitt Institute for Discovery (WID) tested the hypothesis that the Earhart Electra went down at sea in the general vicinity of Howland Island sometime between 2013 GMT and 2100 GMT on July 2, 1937. Specific search areas were identified based on analyses of a wide range of data including navigation, fuel consumption, weather, radio reports, and Earhart’s performance on previous legs of the world flight. The search of the sea floor was carried out using technology provided by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Although coverage of the target area was impressively thorough, the aircraft was not found.
Until recently the Waitt Institute’s efforts to find the Earhart Electra were kept strictly secret. To the institute’s credit, having concluded its search, it has now made its data public so that “the area explored can be eliminated from future searches.” The WID website www.searchforamelia.org (http://www.searchforamelia.org) presents a detailed, if somewhat scattered, review of the organization’s search operations and the research upon which they were based. TIGHAR is pleased to accept the Waitt Institute's invitation for comment.
A Fundamental Flaw
Let us acknowledge from the start that no one knows what became of the Earhart Electra. In the absence of indications that something else happened, the intuitive default explanation would be that the flight simply missed a tiny island in a big ocean, ran out of gas, and went down at sea. The Waitt Institute chose to test the hypothesis that the Electra is on the bottom of the ocean somewhere near Howland. It is not TIGHAR's purpose here to lay out the case for the airplane being somewhere else but, rather, to look at the Waitt Institute’s choice of where on the ocean bottom to look. The institute conducted an excellent search but the plane wasn’t there. If we accept that the Electra, or some identifiable part of it, still exists, we must conclude that the reasoning that put it in the now-eliminated areas was somehow flawed.
From the information presented on the WID website, one flaw is apparent and fundamental. The WID hypothesis contradicts the WID’s own data. Simply put – the WID hypothesis has the airplane running out of fuel more than an hour before the WID’s own research says it should.
The WID hypothesis holds that the aircraft ran out of gas sometime in the 47 minutes between 2013 GMT and 2100 GMT History ("Final Flight (http://searchforamelia.org/final-flight)"). Crucial to the hypothesis is the estimated amount of fuel remaining at 1912 GMT when Earhart said, “We must be on you but cannot see you, but gas is running low.” As stated in Research>Appendix 1>Fuel Remaining (http://searchforamelia.org/app-fuel-remaining), “The amount of fuel remaining in the Electra at 1912 GMT is important because it determines how long the aircraft could stay airborne, and how far it could fly, before fuel exhaustion.”
WID’s research, as detailed in Research>Appendix 1>Fuel Remaining (http://searchforamelia.org/app-fuel-remaining), reaches the amazingly precise conclusion that the aircraft probably had 3 hours and 4 minutes of gas left at 1912 GMT - enough to remain aloft until 2216. Why then, does the hypothesis postulate fuel exhaustion less than 2 hours later (by 2100)?
Say What?
The only explanation is offered in Overview>Introduction (http://searchforamelia.org/intro):
“According to famous researchers, Elgen M. and Marie K. Long, ‘There is no uncharted island, rock, shoal, reef, sandbar or water less than 30 feet deep within 350 miles of Howland Island. The inescapable conclusion is that shortly after 0843 IST [2013 GMT], Earhart was forced to ditch the plane somewhere within 100 miles of Howland Island.”
Long’s statement is a non sequitur. How does the absence of land within 350 miles of Howland lead to an inescapable conclusion that Earhart was forced to ditch the plane somewhere within 100 miles of Howland Island shortly after 2013 GMT? Why couldn’t she ditch at some other time and at some other distance? Why the fixation on 2013 GMT?
Inspecting the Foundation
The answer, of course, is that 2013 GMT (08:43 Itasca time) is the generally accepted time of the last in-flight transmission from Earhart heard by Itasca. The assumption that the 2013 GMT transmission and the silence that followed it are indications of the flight’s immediate termination is the foundation upon which the entire Waitt Institute investigation was based. Given the amount of work that went into speculation about why the aircraft ran out of fuel too soon and the millions of dollars spent searching the ocean bottom on the assumption that it did, it is surprising that the WID website includes no examination of the 2013 GMT message beyond a garbled mention in Radio Call Log (http://searchforamelia.org/radio-call-log).
Although it’s a bit like examining the latch on the barn door after the horse is gone, a close look at the 2013 GMT message would seem to be in order.
The final in-flight transmission heard by Itasca is described in one of the two radio logs being kept at the time. The 08:43 (2013 GMT) entry in the original log kept by Radioman 2nd Class William Galten, complete with numerous cross-outs and re-typings, is an important record of the confusion and anxiety that reigned in the radio room that morning. The other log kept by Radioman 2nd Class Thomas O’Hare makes no mention of the call.
According to Galten’s log, the call began at 08:43, almost exactly at Earhart’s scheduled transmission time of forty-five minutes past the hour. Earhart did not say she was running out of fuel. She gave her position as best she knew it – “WE ARE ON THE LINE 157 337” - and she said she would send the message again on her other frequency -“WILL REPEAT MESSAGE. WE WILL REPEAT THIS ON 6210 KILOCYCLES.” - then she said “WAIT.” At that point there was apparently a pause because Galten made the notations he customarily made at the end of a call – “3105 (the frequency), A3 (meaning “voice transmission”), S5 (meaning the signal was at maximum strength). But then, on the same line, he added a second message from Earhart “ (?/KHAQQ XMISION WE ARE RUNNING ON LINE N ES S” meaning “Questionable Earhart transmission, We are running on line north and south.”
The log entry raises some interesting questions:
- After saying she would repeat the message on 6210 and asking Itasca to “wait,” the next thing Itasca heard was a different message on 3105. How long was the “wait?” The answer seems to be twelve minutes. Three contemporary written sources – Itasca’s commanding officer Warner Thompson, and the two wire service reporters who were on the cruise, James Carey and Howard Hanzlick – reported that the final in-flight call from Earhart was heard at 08:55 (2025 GMT). For a detailed discussion see "Final Words" (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Research/Bulletins/49_LastWords/49_LastWords.html).
- Why didn’t Earhart repeat the message on 6210 as she said she would? Maybe she did. Twelve minutes is plenty of time to switch to 6210, repeat the message, receive no response, and come back to 3105 with additional information, “We are running on line north and south.”
- Why didn’t Itasca hear her if she transmitted on 6210? No one knows, but almost every pilot has had the experience of being unable to contact a ground station on a perfectly good frequency with a perfectly good radio. When that happens you simply return to the previous frequency – as it appears Earhart did.
- Why didn’t Itasca hear anything on either frequency after 08:55 (20:25 GMT)? Again, no one can say for sure, but it seems entirely plausible that having failed repeatedly to establish communication on either frequency she simply stopped trying. There is also the point that Itasca did hear signals on 3105 later that evening and over the next several nights.
Perhaps the Electra did abruptly and inexplicably run out of fuel more than an hour before WID’s calculations say it should have, but there is nothing in the last in-flight transmission heard by Itasca to suggest that happened. When last heard from at 20:25 GMT Earhart was still trying to find Howland Island.
Misinformation
Apparently uncomfortable with basing a hypothesis on Long’s assumption that the aircraft ran out of fuel so quickly after 2013 GMT that there was no time to make a “Mayday” call, the WID hypothesis expands the window 47 minutes to 2100 GMT (even though WID calculates that the plane should have been able to remain aloft until at least 2216 GMT). The rationale for extending the time to 2100 GMT without a distress call is explained in Final flight (http://searchforamelia.org/final-flight): “While continuing to search for a sign of Howland, Earhart’s tanks ran dry between 2013 GMT and 2100 GMT. The left engine likely quit first – it powered the only generator on the aircraft–and the radios required this generator to transmit and receive.”
But that’s not true. The radios on the Electra did not require the generator to transmit or receive. Joe Gurr, who worked on Earhart’s radios, sent a telegram to Putnam on July 5, 1937 saying, “Not necessary have motor running for operation radio on Earhart plane stop two batteries carried will permit operation independent of charging generator mounted on motors.”
The complete telegram is available in the Purdue archives (http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=2013&CISOBOX=1&REC=1).
As explained by TIGHAR's radio expert, LCDR Bob Brandenburg, USN (ret):
"The radios, like every other electrical device on the aircraft, got their power via the dynamotor under the pilot’s seat which boosted the voltage provided by the 12-volt main electrical bus which drew from either of the two batteries – the main battery under the floor in the center section and the auxiliary battery in the rear cabin. The generator charged the batteries.
"It was impossible to operate the transmitter from the generator alone because the generator output was limited to 50 amps by the generator control unit, and keying the transmitter would start up the dynamotor, which drew 60 amps. Therefore, it was necessary to have at least one of the batteries on the bus, to provide the additional current required during transmission. When the transmitter was in standby, the battery would receive charge from the generator.
"However, given the battery capacity, it was possible to transmit on battery power alone for a combined total of about 2 hours, if both batteries were fully charged at the outset."
So we’re back to both the engines going silent within a couple minutes of 2013 GMT even though Earhart seems to have been aloft and talking at 2025 GMT and, by WID’s own calculations, the airplane should have been able to continue aloft for another hour or more.
Misrepresentation
In his book Amelia Earhart – the Mystery Solved, Elgen Long got the engines to quit before they should have by alleging that Earhart mismanaged her power settings to overcome headwinds he imagined that she encountered. The WID Hypothesis gets rid of the unwanted fuel by postulating a failure of the Cambridge Exhaust Gas Analyzer (referred to by WID as the Cambridge Fuel Analyzer or CFA). The justification for the proposed failure is offered in Research>Navigation Paths>Detailed Fuel Consumption Analysis (http://searchforamelia.org/fuel-analysis): “Apparently the CFA was also somewhat fragile, as it was frequently being repaired throughout the World Flight, at many of AE’s intermediate stops where maintenance was available.”
It was? Research>Navigation Paths>Detailed Fuel Consumption Analysis (http://searchforamelia.org/fuel-analysis) notes that the analyzer failed en route to Karachi. The plan was for repairs to be made in Calcutta or possibly Singapore, but the only mention of repairs actually being made was in Bandoeng. The analyzer may also have been the instrument that required a return to Bandoeng from Surabaya because it didn’t stay fixed. That’s one failure and possibly two fixes. In Lae, a “new cartridge” was fitted to the analyzer on the starboard engine. See The Chater Report (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Documents/Chater_Report.html). To say that the Cambridge Exhaust Gas Analyzer was “frequently being repaired throughout the World Flight, at many of AE’s intermediate stops where maintenance was available” is simply not accurate. Maybe the analyzer failed en route to Howland, but there's absolutely no evidence that it did.
Flawed Science, Great Technology
The WID hypothesis was based on a single pre-conceived conclusion - that the supposed failure of Itasca to hear anything further from the Earhart aircraft after 2013 GMT was due to premature fuel exhaustion. When WID's analysis of the airplane’s fuel consumption resulted in too much gas, events were imagined that would bring the data in line with the pre-ordained moment of crisis. Rather than change the hypothesis to fit the data, the data are skewed to conform with the hypothesis. This inversion of the scientific method is a systemic problem that runs through the entire selection of where to search. The search itself, by contrast, appears to have been well executed. The Waitt Institute is to be commended for valuable experience gained in the application of deep sea technologies.
Until there is proof that something else happened, it remains possible that the Earhart aircraft ran out of gas and went down somewhere in the open ocean. With the mounting evidence that something else did happen, that possibility grows increasingly remote.[/b]
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The myth of the "sunrise observation" was created by people who know "a little bit" about celestial navigation. The 337°-157° sunline line of position (LOP) was derived by an observation of the sun when the sun's azimuth (not "look angle") was 67° true since the LOP is at right angles to the azimuth to the celestial body. When the sun rose in the vicinity of Howland on July 2, 1837 its azimuth was 67° true. Those with "a little bit" of knowledge fastened on this fact to claim that Noonan took a sunrise observation and used only it in planning the approach to Howland. (They apparently believe that Noonan then opened the door and dropped his octant into the sea.) But what these people didn't understand is that the sun's azimuth stayed at 67° until 1847 Z, an hour after sunrise! This means that Noonan would have computed the same 337°-157° LOP from any sight taken during this one hour period and we have already seen that he would have had to wait until the sun was above 6° before taking the sight leaving about a half hour period for taking sights. He would have taken several sights as he approached the LOP then more after the interception to ensure staying on it.
In any reconstruction of what Fred actually did (rather than what you suppose he would have done), you have to either account for the data that we have or else discredit the data.
If Fred did, in fact, do what you say he would have done, why did Earhart say "We are on the line 157 337" (http://tighar.org/wiki/Last_transmission)? If you do not accept that as a constraint on your imagining what Fred would have done (if he were you), what evidence can you provide from primary sources (your imagination is not a primary source) that they were not using 157 337 as an advanced LOP?
At this point, your argument is nothing but coulda, woulda, shoulda (http://tighar.org/wiki/Coulda).
1. Fred could have done as you suggest.
2. If he were you, he would have done as you suggest.
3. Some period documentation recommends that the ought to have done as you suggest.
None of that adds up to the conclusion, "this is what Fred did on 2 July 1937."
The two fellows who sold TIGHAR on the idea of investigating the Niku hypothesis, Tom Willi (http://tighar.org/wiki/Tom_Willi) and Tom Gannon (http://tighar.org/wiki/Tom_Gannon), and were not amateur navigators by any means. No doubt their solid explanation of how navigation works has been garbled a bit by those of us who are amateurs. I have modified my post on "Visualizing the 337-157 LOP" (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,206.msg1549.html#msg1549) and will, in future, note that any observation in the first hour of daylight would give an azimuth of 67° and a corresponding LOP of 337°-157°.
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If you will allow an off-topic random observation; On that Waitt website is a video of Ted Waitt and Tom Sharp in a helicopter, trying to see Howland Island during conditions similar to those on the morning on July 2, 1937. It is sobering how difficult it is to see that island.
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Thanks for your clarification, Marty.
I have never been able to understand why there has been such a rub over 'when' in the first hour of daylight the shot might have been made, given that we can understand that the sun's azimuth was constant for an hour after sunrise. The point seems to be that a shot made at any reasonable time within that hour would have been a reliable way to establish a LOP.
Could not FN also determine how far east or west NR16020 lay from on a similar determination? If not sunrise, then by the altitude of the sun at a given time?
I hope my terminology is not too offensive as I am not a professional navigator. But most of us can 'get the picture' with a little help, even if we don't know the fine points or proper terminology in all cases.
Thinking all this through one more time it is just not hard to see FN making an emphatic effort to get that shot 'in the first hour of sunrise' to -
- Determine how far east NR16020 had come, and
- Establish a LOP through the desired point-east (where Howland ought to be) that AE could follow by heading.
I WON'T claim that my technical analysis or terminology are worthy of publication, however... :D
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Gary's and Ric's critiques of WID's work is apt, I think. It is a shame that WID didn't match their herculian search investment with more expertise in their report and in how they arrived at what areas to search.
The good news is that apparently their science and technology was otherwise excellent, and that they did do a thorough search and eliminate a large area from further need of investigation. I don't think impeachment of their entire effort would be warranted on the basis of the obvious flaws among some elements of it.
Now if we could just marry WID's kind of search technology and science to TIGHAR's hard-gained hypothesis we might just find that we have indeed a rich field to search... If only.
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Alfred, as an ordinary member here I don't see your post as off-topic at all:
It's one aspect of the mystery that deserves attention, and WID did make an attempt to help us see what it might have been like. I still believe that difficulty in sighting Howland from the air may have been a huge factor.
I'm struck by the relative contrast of islands like Howland to that of other lagooned islands, for one, and by how they contrast with their immediate environment, respectively. Howland looks like a 'challenge' to me.
LTM -
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If you will allow an off-topic random observation; On that Waitt website is a video of Ted Waitt and Tom Sharp in a helicopter, trying to see Howland Island during conditions similar to those on the morning on July 2, 1937. It is sobering how difficult it is to see that island.
A link to that video plus another anecdotal account is in "Problems with Seeing Howland from the Air." (http://tighar.org/wiki/Howland#Problems_seeing_Howland_from_the_air)
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I have never been able to understand why there has been such a rub over 'when' in the first hour of daylight the shot might have been made, given that we can understand that the sun's azimuth was constant for an hour after sunrise. The point seems to be that a shot made at any reasonable time within that hour would have been a reliable way to establish a LOP.
That's something I've learned from Gary. In my talks and writing, I've been guilty of speaking as if the observation could only be made at the crack of dawn.
Could not FN also determine how far east or west NR16020 lay from on a similar determination? If not sunrise, then by the altitude of the sun at a given time?
Yes. I think that is the argument that Gary has been making. Since he could have and should have, and since this is what Gary would have done, Noonan must have done so, even crossing later observations with earlier to get a rough idea of latitude.
But, so far as I can tell from the logged transmissions, the LOP that Noonan cared about was the 337°-157° line. Either that, or else Earhart was not in fact flying on the 337°-157° line when she said she was.
Strange things do happen, and people make mstikaes. But it seems to me that the sober approach is to take the logs at face value until something truly compels us not to. The 0519 transmission (http://tighar.org/wiki/Transmission_timeline) is discarded because it suggests a groundspeed of 37 mph from takeoff to that location at the time of the transmission. Something got garbled somewhere with that transmission and/or log entry. That leaves five "position reports" that have to be dealt with in any renavigation of the flight.
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I have never been able to understand why there has been such a rub over 'when' in the first hour of daylight the shot might have been made, given that we can understand that the sun's azimuth was constant for an hour after sunrise. The point seems to be that a shot made at any reasonable time within that hour would have been a reliable way to establish a LOP.
That's something I've learned from Gary. In my talks and writing, I've been guilty of speaking as if the observation could only be made at the crack of dawn.
That is the only point I have been trying to make, he didn't just have one opportunity to establish his position in relationship to the 157°-337° LOP running through Howland but could, and probably did (based on the published navigation manuals of the time (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/topics/landfall-procedure) as the normal procedure) take a number of such observations, each one leading to a more accurate measure of the distance remaining to the point of interception. And (again according to contemporary manuals including the one written by Noonan's friend P.V.H. Weems (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/resources/weems)) the normal procedure was to then take additional observations while following the LOP to ensure accurately staying on the LOP.
gl
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That makes perfect sense, Gary - thanks!
Once established, would the LOP have primarily been followed by AE (or anyone in such a case) flying mag heading? My thought is she would do so, and would get occasional updates from FN if he was taking additional observations?
What are the restraints for north - south determination by celnav as the sun rose higher?
What are they for east - west?
It seems like if you have visibility, an octant, an accurate compass and time piece that you should be able to determine both, at least with the sun within certain bounds of the sky -
And it strikes me that the sun would have to have enough altitude in the sky to be of use for n - s... but is all that possible?
Maybe FN also needed a morning star to gain all that... 'Electra' can be such a sad name - ironic.
But I'm in over my head...
LTM -
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Thanks Gary. I share your view of the research behind Waitt's multi-million dollar search. After they put up their website, the folks at the Waitt Institute invited me to engage in a dialog about the Earhart mystery. I was happy to oblige and I submitted the critique below. I'm afraid it wasn't much of a dialog because they never replied.
Your criticisms of their research focus on navigation - and there's plenty to criticize. My criticisms focus on methodology. Here's what I said:
Ric, I was shocked by what I read, especially thinking about the amount of money Waitt spent. I am not the only one who knows about this navigation stuff so I can't understand why they didn't get somebody who knows about it to work with them (they could have hired me.) I don't know anything about Long's association with Wiatt, if any, but he wouldn't have let the report go out with the errors I found. Wait...it's coming to me. With all those decimal places it looks like...it looks like...Mr. van Asten.
gl
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With all those decimal places it looks like...it looks like...Mr. van Asten.
Thanks Gary, I passed coffee through my nose!
LTM,
Don
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It is interesting that they went down a path that defies the data. For example, they proposed their own "path C" to avoid the storms at Lae which would have put the plane on a more Easterly course. This was comprised of two legs, a 688 mile leg to the coordinates of -7.3 150, so the 5:19 time stamp would work, and a 276 mile leg to Nukumanu Island at 07:18 GMT. This would imply a 132 Mph ground speed achieved. I believe they liked this fit as AE apparently stated that they were "making 140 knots". With a 23 knot head wind, this would work out to 135 mph ground speed achieved so it fit their model well. This would have implied that AE was already compensating for the 23 knot headwind and reporting her ground speed achieved. While they did say it was possible that the time stamp was perhaps incorrect, maybe the actual time stamp was 2:19 GMT, they completely ignored that line of reasoning going forward.
Update: Waitt document, page 43, "This technique produced en route speeds after 0718 GMT, of 138 knots true air speed, or 158.8 mph. Applying the 23 knots, or 26.5 mph, headwind component, produced 116 knots ground speed, or 132.3 mph ground speed, after the 0718 GMT position, which was held until the perceived descent point to Howland Island at approximately 80 statute miles per Kelly Johnson, Paul Mantz (OAK-‐HNL) and Fred Noonan recommendations."
Something is amiss there. The distance from the point near Nukumanu Island (4.33S 159.7E) to 200 miles out on the great circle is 1,474 miles. If we use the 132.3 mph from 07:18 GMT until 17:42 GMT (10.4 hours), where they are supposed to be 200 miles out, this would produce about 1,376 miles. That is a difference of 98 miles that seems to have disappeared on their trip. Maybe that is why the Waitt Institute thinks they fell short of Howland. ;)
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On page 18 of the Waitt Report, there is the following entry:
Position, 1445 GMT, AE Overcast will listen on hour and half hour 3105. S2. Ibid.
I am not seeing anything about this transmission at 14:45 GMT.
Does anyone know if this is legitimate?
Thanks.
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Strange things do happen, and people make mstikaes. But it seems to me that the sober approach is to take the logs at face value until something truly compels us not to. The 0519 transmission (http://tighar.org/wiki/Transmission_timeline) is discarded [/b][/u]because it suggests a groundspeed of 37 mph from takeoff to that location at the time of the transmission. Something got garbled somewhere with that transmission and/or log entry. That leaves five "position reports" that have to be dealt with in any renavigation of the flight.
"KHAQQ CALLING LAE"
"POSITION SEVEN THREE SOUTH"
"ONE FIFTY (PAUSE) SEVEN EAST LONGITUDE."
or was it
"ONE FIFTY SEVEN EAST LONGITUDE"
What did Balfour and Chater actually hear at 0519 Z ?
The 0519 Z position has always been transcribed consistent with "ONE FIFTY (PAUSE) SEVEN" which was written as 150.7 meaning 150° 07' east longitude which is only 215 SM from departure producing an impossibly low ground speed of only 40 mph. Then the leg from that position to the position reported in the 0718 Z transmission is 642 SM which would require an impossibly high ground speed of 320 mph for the two hour period between the two reports.
But what if what was actually transmitted by Earhart at 0519 Z was actually "ONE FIFTY SEVEN" which would mean 157° 00' east longitude? The distance from Lae to this position is 687 SM producing a ground speed of 130 mph which is not an unreasonable ground speed. Then the leg from there to the position reported in the 0718 Z transmission is 225 SM resulting in a ground speed on that leg of 112 mph which also is not out of the reasonable range of ground speeds. Especially when you keep in mind that the times of these reports were not necessarily he exact time at the coordinates that were reported so it is likely that they were at the 0718 Z reported coordinates sometime earlier than 0718 Z which would have produced a higher ground speed. If the actual ground speed between these two positions was the same 130 mph from Lae to the first point then they would have arrived at the second position in only one hour and forty-four minutes, only 16 minutes earlier than the time of the second report. A 130 mph ground speed is also consistent with the expected air speed and the forecast and reported headwind speed.
When you look at the navigation methods being used by Noonan you find more support for this interpretation. How did Noonan come up with those coordinates? I'll give you a hint, he didn't read it off of a GPS display. If you say he did it with celestial navigation then tell what two objects were available in the sky at the times and at the coordinates that we are considering? It takes two objects to determine a fix. Well.....there was only one object, the sun, and at the 0718 Z time and position the sun was too low, less than 6°, for Noonan to take an observation of it. Oh, Oh, Oh, I know, isn't there such a thing as a "running fix" that you can get by observing just one celestial object? (A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.) Well, yes, but it wouldn't work here. To get a running fix you take an observation of the object (usually the sun) wait a period of time, say one hour, and then observe the sun a second time. You then plot the two LOPs after advancing the earlier LOP based on the DR movement of the plane, to account for that movement, and where the two plotted LOPs cross is the running fix. To get an accurate fix you need the two LOPs to cross at a large angle, 90° is the ideal, but certainly the angle must be greater than 30° and even at that angle the uncertainty in the resulting fix is doubled, and it gets much worse as the angle gets less. A 0419 Z (one hour early) the azimuth of the sun (in the area of the earlier coordinates) was 308° and at 0519 Z it was 301° so the crossing angle (called the "cut" by navigators) of the resulting LOPs would have been only 7° producing an unusable running fix with an uncertainty of more than 95 SM. It would have been even worse for a running fix at 0718 Z because the crossing angle would have been only 2° producing an uncertainty of 330 SM! And after 0650 Z the sun would have been too low to shoot anyway. (van Asten just couldn't get these concepts.) (The uncertainty in a perfect celestial fix, shot from a plane, is 10 NM (11.5 SM) if the cut is the perfect 90°. When the cut is less than 90° then the uncertainty varies with the cosecant of the cut, times to perfect 11.5 SM.)
So how did Noonan get the reported coordinates? He looked out the window. At 0519 Z they were over the center of Choiseul and at 0718 Z (or earlier) just to the west of Nukumano both providing good visual fixes with Noonan getting the coordinates from his chart.
gl
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Did someone invent this 'pause' theory "ONE FIFTY (PAUSE) SEVEN EAST" to fit the time stamps? Is there any real written evidence that suggest that this was the case?
Did they also say "SEVEN (PAUSE) THREE SOUTH"?
Or was it really "ONE FIFTY SEVEN POINT SEVEN EAST SEVEN POINT THREE SOUTH" as we have assumed?
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I have never been able to understand why there has been such a rub over 'when' in the first hour of daylight the shot might have been made, given that we can understand that the sun's azimuth was constant for an hour after sunrise. The point seems to be that a shot made at any reasonable time within that hour would have been a reliable way to establish a LOP.
That's something I've learned from Gary. In my talks and writing, I've been guilty of speaking as if the observation could only be made at the crack of dawn.
That is the only point I have been trying to make, he didn't just have one opportunity to establish his position in relationship to the 157°-337° LOP running through Howland but could, and probably did (based on the published navigation manuals of the time (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/topics/landfall-procedure) as the normal procedure) take a number of such observations, each one leading to a more accurate measure of the distance remaining to the point of interception. And (again according to contemporary manuals including the one written by Noonan's friend P.V.H. Weems (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/resources/weems)) the normal procedure was to then take additional observations while following the LOP to ensure accurately staying on the LOP.
gl
In reading this again I am struck (again) that it makes no sense for FN to have not been able to get very close to Howland. From what we know of the weather and visibility, a number of sun shots should have been easy enough, and there is nothing in AE's remarks about there being a problem with that part of the navigation. Her report of being on the line at least strongly suggests, despite the pilotage / DR possibilities, that some form of celnav was at work.
'Visibility' for whatever set of reasons seems to be a real issue - if not of the heavens, then of the sea and what lay there. Somehow they don't seem to have gotten nearly as close to Howland as AE seemed to believe in her reports - not only was Itasca listening and watching carefully, but Kamakaiwi reported (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Reports/Kamakaiwi.pdf) a dispersal of eager crew out at the runways, etc. to keep watch, and finally he and his crew "keeping "a shart lookout, with a field glass, on all horizons" after the plane was last hear from, so there does not seem to be any lack of attention from the surface. Of course he wrote that after the fact, but he describes an eager crowd who wanted to see the airplane arrive, etc.
Visibility of the island and ship from the air could have been a problem for many reasons - including distance: that somehow Noonan's celnav still never got them as close as he though for some reason. I don't understand that so well, given that FN should have been able to not only establish a LOP, but to find their point of intercept as Gary mentions. Gary's personally familiar with using the same technique as a 'preventer' (back-up to his primary navigation over the ocean) to ensure his own landfalls and may have some ideas of what could go wrong, and perhaps how close or distant that may have left the flight from Howland.
Given what celnav can to (latitude and longitude placement) I am left considering whether NR16020 really did arrive more closely than some of us think - but never saw the smoke from Itasca or the island due to glare, haze, shadows - or some combination. If they were low, below a cloud deck, it seems a silhoutte of Itasca might be visible, if not the low-lying island. 1000 feet was mentioned at some point, if memory serves, but that might be a few hundred too high for that kind of sighting.
No one on Itasca or Howland saw or heard the plane either, obviously.
Confound it. Despite what FN should have been able to do with his celnav, NR16020 just somehow doesn't get near to Howland after all, and for some reason if a reliable LOP was defined, it doesn't look like they located a particular latitude along that line either - until perhaps further 'down' the LOP. Otherwise it seems that FN should have been able to get them much closer to Howland after all. Maybe the sun just wasn't high enough during the time they should have been near Howland to determine latitude, and that only followed after time passed and the flight was further toward the Phoenix group, along the LOP.
I am taken back to Hooven's report (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Hooven_Report/HoovenReport.html) and note the thing he and TIGHAR seem to hold in common: arrival at the Phoenix islands. Where Hooven departs is in trying to understand how the navy could have possibly missed the pair - he goes the Japanese capture route. That almost seems bizarre to me - and could almost make me walk away from Hooven's view, except for one thing (in addition to his scholarly ability and approach): he was trying very hard to answer how the two came to be missing from the few places they might have made landfall. In his understanding, they had simply been made to disappear. That is a very haunting question for all of us who believe they landed at Gardner, but Hooven never had the information we have today from TIGHAR's findings on Niku.
I largely share Hooven's belief as to where the flight could have gone; I don't share his explanation for the disappearance of the survivors and their plane. I can only imagine that it was just enough of a bad day for FN as he was trying to find Howland, had none of the DF steer he was hoping for, and for AE as she was trying to fly to it and spot it, that laying eyes on Howland just couldn't happen. I am left seeing how perhaps FN was able to eventually help her find the Phoenix group, and that the Electra likely ended-up there by flying a heading along that LOP.
Thanks, Gary, for the explanation on celnav. As I've said, it's 'confounding' to me that FN didn't somehow still find Howland, but that's what we're stuck with at a base level.
LTM -
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Did someone invent this 'pause' theory "ONE FIFTY (PAUSE) SEVEN EAST" to fit the time stamps? Is there any real written evidence that suggest that this was the case?
Did they also say "SEVEN (PAUSE) THREE SOUTH"?
Or was it really "ONE FIFTY SEVEN POINT SEVEN EAST SEVEN POINT THREE SOUTH" as we have assumed?
Yes, I just did, copyright 2012.
The fact that 157° east fits the time stamp and 150° 07' east does not is "real evidence" that this is the case.
Written evidence, yes. We know that using the "." (point) was Balfour's notation for separating degrees from minutes from the radiogram from Nauru, (see attached.) Navigators state positions in degrees and minutes not in decimal degrees and do not use the "point" to separate the two in spoken position reports nor even in written notation. A navigator would state it just as I said, "ONE FIFTY SEVEN EAST." If the real value was 150° 07' east he would have said "ONE FIFTY (pause) SEVEN EAST" or "ONE FIFTY ZERO SEVEN EAST" or "ONE FIFTY OH SEVEN EAST." Did they also say "SEVEN (PAUSE) THREE SOUTH" yes, and there was no ambiguity because 73° south is 3900 NM further south. The only time a navigator would use the "point" in giving a position would be if he was giving it to a precision of one-tenth of a minute which would only be of concern to a surface navigator as flight navigation is never attainable to that level of precision. For example, if a ship's navigator had determined the erroneous position to a high level of precision, say 150° 07.3' east, he might have transmitted, "ONE FIFTY (pause) SEVEN POINT THREE EAST" or "ONE FIFTY ZERO SEVEN POINT THREE EAST" or "ONE FIFTY OH SEVEN POINT THREE EAST." This has been standard since well before Noonan's time as a review of any navigation text will confirm.
Your riposte, "but it wasn't Noonan on the radio, it was Earhart." O.K., pilots don't talk that way either, see an example of pilot speak I posted here (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,555.msg8099.html#msg8099).
The most likely explanation of the errant "point" is that Balfour supplied it himself. Do we have any evidence of this? Yes! We don't have to look any farther than the telegram from Nauru to show Balfour's notation. He gives the location of the light as "lat.0.32 S Long.16.55 East". (Didn't anybody else notice the error in this location? that location is in the Congo in Africa!) The correct longitude for Nauru is 166° 55' East. In addition to inserting "points" we see that Balfour doesn't do a perfect job as shown by the errors in the Nauru telegram, the wrong longitude and the wrong height for the light, he added an extra zero to the height of the light.
The other evidence, as I pointed out, is that there was no way for Noonan to determine that erroneous position since it was in the open sea with no land nearby as a landmark and celestial navigation could not have provided those erroneous coordinates.
gl
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What about the .32S? While not completely accurate, it is close.
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What about the .32S? While not completely accurate, it is close.
To the level of precision attainable in flight navigation, to the nearest minute of latitude and longitude, the position of Nauru is 0° 32' south, 166° 55' east.
gl
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Looking at that telegram it is pretty sloppy in general. It looks like the person typing it was drunk. This is where the 5600ft altitude came from instead of the 560ft. There is also the 29.908 barometer?
It might have read 0.32S 165.5E which is close to 0° 32' south, 166° 55' east.
Perhaps Balfour preferred to work in decimal and actually converted the coordinates given by AE? Maybe he heard "SEVEN ZERO ELEVEN SOUTH ONE FIFTY ZERO FOUR TWO" and gave the decimal equivalent?
It is too bad all of these folks are deceased.
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Here is another example of sloppy record keeping, even by two people that were at Lae.
Collopy: "At about three p.m. a message came through to the effect that they were at 10,000 feet but were going to reduce altitude because of thick banks of cumulus clouds. The next and last message was to the effect that they were at 7,000 feet and making 150 knots, this message was received at approx. 5 p.m."
Chater: "These reports were then transmitted by the Lae Operator by radio telephone during each hourly transmission time arranged by Miss Earhart until 5.20 p.m. local time. Arrangements had been made between the plane and Lae station to call at 18 minutes past each hour and arrangements made to pass any late weather information, but local interference prevented signals from the plane being intelligible until 2.18 p.m. The Lae Operator heard the following on 6210 KC –“HEIGHT 7000 FEET SPEED 140 KNOTS” and some remark concerning “LAE” then “EVERYTHING OKAY”. The plane was called and asked to repeat position but we still could not get it. The next report was received at 3.19 pm on 6210 KC – “HEIGHT 10000 FEET POSITION 150.7 east 7.3 south CUMULUS CLOUDS EVERYTHING OKAY”. The next report received at 5.18 p.m. “POSITION 4.33 SOUTH 159.7 EAST HEIGHT 8000 FEET OVER CUMULUS CLOUDS WIND 23 KNOTS”.
1) Collopy says "about 3pm" and "about 5pm", 3:19pm and 5:19pm are not "about" the top of the hour.
2) Collopy mentions a plan to reduce altitude at 3pm from 10,000ft to avoid because of a "thick banks of cumulus clouds", not mentioned by Chater. While the clouds are reported by Chater a plan to reduce altitude is not.
3) Collopy says that around 5pm, they were at 7,000ft making 150 knots, Chater says 8,000ft making no mention of air speed but instead mentions being 'over the clouds' and reports the head winds at 23 knots
All in all, I would says Collopy was probably inventing information. He was not at the radio and received this information second hand.
It really is no wonder that all of this information is suspect.
I am beginning to wonder if they really did take off at 10:00am local Lae (12:00GMT). Maybe that is when they left the hanger and due to the excitement of the moment they lost all track of time. Perhaps she slowly made her way to the end of the runway and warmed up the engines and perform their pre-flight checks. The might not have departed for an additional 20 minutes or more.
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3) Collopy says that around 5pm, they were at 7,000ft making 150 knots, Chater says 8,000ft making no mention of air speed but instead mentions being 'over the clouds' and reports the head winds at 23 knots
You're doing it yourself. Chater said nothing about headwinds. He said that Earhart said "WIND 23 KNOTS."
All in all, I would says Collopy was probably inventing information. He was not at the radio and received this information second hand.
It really is no wonder that all of this information is suspect.
I am beginning to wonder if they really did take off at 10:00am local Lae (12:00GMT). Maybe that is when they left the hanger and due to the excitement of the moment they lost all track of time. Perhaps she slowly made her way to the end of the runway and warmed up the engines and perform their pre-flight checks. The might not have departed for an additional 20 minutes or more.
I agree and yet, using these suspect numbers, millions of dollars of deep-sea searching have been spent based on down-to-the minute calculations of where the airplane was at 20:13Z - the (erroneously) presumed time of Earhart's last in-flight message heard by Itasca.
TIGHAR board member/ former United Airlines instructor pilot/ NASA consultant Capt. "Skeet" Gifford has a saying:
"Measure with micrometer; mark with chalk; cut with an axe."
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You're doing it yourself. Chater said nothing about headwinds. He said that Earhart said "WIND 23 KNOTS."
I meant that he stated the 23 knot head wind in his report stating that this came from Earhart, but did it really? This was probably 2nd hand information from the radio operator Balfour. Who knows though, he might have even have fabricated that as well. If Collopy could not keep the story straight, who says that Chater was not inserting bogus observations as well. It sounds like these 3 sat around and exchanged ideas after the fact. If you asked the three you would probably have three different stories.
From what I understand there was a telegram out of Lae that stated Noonan himself measured the 23 knots while still at Lae. Given the constructions of these reports after the fact, I would not be surprised to learn the report from Chater was another fabrication either by himself or by Balfour.
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You're doing it yourself. Chater said nothing about headwinds. He said that Earhart said "WIND 23 KNOTS."
I meant that he stated the 23 knot head wind in his report stating that this came from Earhart, but did it really?
You miss my point. Chater DID NOT state a 23 knot head wind in his report. All he did is quote Earhart, "WIND 23 KNOTS." Maybe it was a 23 knot head wind. Maybe it was a 23 knot tail wind. Maybe it was a 23 knot cross wind. There is no way to know. By calling it a "head wind" you're treating your own supposition as a fact.
This was probably 2nd hand information from the radio operator Balfour. Who knows though, he might have even have fabricated that as well. If Collopy could not keep the story straight, who says that Chater was not inserting bogus observations as well. It sounds like these 3 sat around and exchanged ideas after the fact. If you asked the three you would probably have three different stories.
Chater's letter was written on July 25 - roughly two weeks after the events he described. Collopy's letter was written on August 28 - nearly two months after the events he described. I see no reason to think that anyone was inserting bogus information. I think they were both remembering as best they could. It would be surprising if there weren't discrepancies in their recollections.
From what I understand there was a telegram out of Lae that stated Noonan himself measured the 23 knots while still at Lae. Given the constructions of these reports after the fact, I would not be surprised to learn the report from Chater was another fabrication either by himself or by Balfour.
I'm not aware of any such telegram.
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From what I understand there was a telegram out of Lae that stated Noonan himself measured the 23 knots while still at Lae. Given the constructions of these reports after the fact, I would not be surprised to learn the report from Chater was another fabrication either by himself or by Balfour.
If they had measured a 23kn headwind then I hope they would not have left because they would know that if sustained they would arrive at Howland on fumes.
rc
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If they had measured a 23kn headwind then I hope they would not have left because they would know that if sustained they would arrive at Howland on fumes.
Of course nobody had any way of measuring winds aloft anywhere along the route. Lae did not even have a meteorologist.
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From what I understand there was a telegram out of Lae that stated Noonan himself measured the 23 knots while still at Lae. Given the constructions of these reports after the fact, I would not be surprised to learn the report from Chater was another fabrication either by himself or by Balfour.
I'm not aware of any such telegram.
You are correct, I had mis-read another quote.
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can some 1 tell me the order these logs are suppose to be in from start to finish plz
http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/37_ItascaLogs/PDF.html
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can some 1 tell me the order these logs are suppose to be in from start to finish plz
There is a log for Position 1 and a log for Position 2. There were kept simultaneously.
So Page 1 of the log for Position 1 covers roughly the same time period as Page 1 of the log for Position 2 - and so on.
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so position 2 page 3, that was when amelia was last heard saying running on line N ES S at 08:43
an was never heard of again.
now the reason am asking is because if u scroll down page to log 10:00-2 it says
NRUI2 V NRUI: - PER TO / GET THE RDO COMPASS WRKING NOW, 7500
NRUI2 Call sign of high frequency direction finder on Howland Island.
does this log mean the radio compass were'nt working till this time... or does it mean get it working on 7500 ?
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does this log mean the radio compass were'nt working till this time... or does it mean get it working on 7500 ?
It means get it working on 7500. They are apparently under the mistaken impression that Earhart can transmit on 7500.
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kk am on it now :)
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The most likely explanation of the errant "point" is that Balfour supplied it himself. Do we have any evidence of this? Yes! We don't have to look any farther than the telegram from Nauru to show Balfour's notation. He gives the location of the light as "lat.0.32 S Long.16.55 East". (Didn't anybody else notice the error in this location? that location is in the Congo in Africa!) The correct longitude for Nauru is 166° 55' East. In addition to inserting "points" we see that Balfour doesn't do a perfect job as shown by the errors in the Nauru telegram, the wrong longitude and the wrong height for the light, he added an extra zero to the height of the light.
gl
As further evidence that we have to be careful in accepting Balfour's non-standard notation, using "points," in his transcription of position coordinates such as with the longitude reported at 0519 Z, we see that there is another error in his transcription of the message from Nauru, he added an extra digit to the barometer reading since barometers can only be read to 1/100th of an inch of mercury and Balfour has recorded it to 1/1000th of an inch! If you don't believe me then you can check the deck log of Itasca and you will see that barometer readings to only recorded to 1/100th of an inch.
I have also attached two other radiograms in which position coordinates were taken down properly, (obviously by someone other than Balfour) without the use of the non-standard "points." These two show the coordinates for the Swan, stationed half way between Howland and Hawaii, see attached chart. The first one states,
"swan 1125n 167 15w.." and the second one states, "swan 11 25n 167 15w..." notice, NO DECIMAL POINTS in either of these.
These add additional support to my interpretation of the position reported at 0519 Z as being at 157° 00' east and not at 150° 07' east as others believe.
gl
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I agree that it was probably Balfour that translated the degrees / minutes to the decimal form. As you said previously it would not make sense for Noonan to do this. This does not necessarily mean that he did the calculation wrong however there is the issue of time stamps. Maybe he was used to working with the decimal form and wanted to track them on a map as they progressed along?
If you think the time stamp was correct for this message:
3.19 pm on 6210 KC – “HEIGHT 10000 FEET POSITION 150.7 east 7.3 south CUMULUS CLOUDS EVERYTHING OKAY”
Then why were they only at 7,000ft one hour prior at:
2.18 p.m. The Lae Operator heard the following on 6210 KC –“HEIGHT 7000 FEET SPEED 140 KNOTS” and some remark concerning “LAE” then “EVERYTHING OKAY”.
There are a couple of other problems that I see. First the track to the new coordinate of -7.3 157 is on a more Easterly course out of Lae so they would have flow directly in the intense storms at 250-300 miles out. If they had passed the storms at 250-300 miles out, why not head back to the original course? I cannot see any logic for continuing on the heading. If they were approaching Choiseul at the time, why would they have not reported that as well?
I would suggest that the "some remark concerning Lae" was probably a distance report. It really is too bad that this was not heard as it might have solved the issue. Another lost opportunity.
The -7.3 150.7 position makes a bit more sense to me. They headed South to avoid the storms and as soon as they cleared the storm they headed back to the course. The report from one hour prior at 7,000ft could make some sense as well as they were perhaps in a slow climb out of Lae as they approach the storm and still unsure of the path they were going to use to avoid the storm or even turn back. After they passed the storm they immediately headed back on course.
I do agree that the times tamps, 2:18 and 3:19 are troubling. Perhaps these were reconstructed from memory rather than written down as events unfolded. This would make sense except the 5:19 local Lae (7:19 GMT) report seems to make sense as far as the ground speed achieved is concerned. I suppose the question remains, how could he have the last time stamp correct and the prior two incorrect? I do not think anyone can easily accept that.
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I agree that it was probably Balfour that translated the degrees / minutes to the decimal form. As you said previously it would not make sense for Noonan to do this. This does not necessarily mean that he did the calculation wrong however there is the issue of time stamps. Maybe he was used to working with the decimal form and wanted to track them on a map as they progressed along?
His notation does not indicate that he received a message in the normal format of degrees and minutes and that he then converted the minutes to decimal degrees (six minutes equals 0.1 degree.) We know this because, even though he used his same notation, "points" as separators, he did not convert the minutes of the coordinates of the light on Nauru to single digit decimals of a degree. He wrote the latitude of that light as "lat.0.32 S" and we know that latitude of Nauru is 0° 32' south. He wrote the longitude for Nauru as "Long.16.55 East" making another error and leaving out that last "6" in the number of degrees of the longitude since the longitude of Nauru is 166° 55' east. So we know that by his notation minutes, not decimal degrees, follow the "point."
The position report was logged at 0519 Z following the 0418 Z report. If the plane had only reached 150° 07' east longitude then the ground speed works out to be only 40 mph at the 0519 Z time. Even if he had actually reached that position only one minute after the 0418 report then the ground speed would still be only 49 mph! If the time was wrong and the report was actually after 0519 Z then the ground speed would have been even less than 40 mph.
gl
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So you are suggesting the actual latitude was 7 degrees 30 minutes South? With the 157 East?
Why do you suppose he was not capable of converting a minute value by dividing by 60? Is this really that improbable?
Granted the Nauru latitude is interesting, do we have any other evidence?
Thanks.
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So you are suggesting the actual latitude was 7 degrees 30 minutes South? With the 157 East?
Why do you suppose he was not capable of converting a minute value by dividing by 60? Is this really that improbable?
Granted the Nauru latitude is interesting, do we have any other evidence?
Thanks.
No, not 7° 30' south. Simply following the format that Balfour used for the Nauru coordinates, the number after the "point" indicates the number of minutes of the position, the "7.3 S" is Balfour's notation for 7° 03' south longitude. Otherwise you are well along on your trip through the looking glass with Alice, chasing after the bunny.
Other evidence, you only have to look at the way he wrote the coordinates for the 0718 Z position report. 4.33 S 159.7 east. The "33" in the latitude is obviously minutes unless you are now going to claim that he changed minutes to hundredths of a degree, you're not claiming that, are you? Or maybe you are saying that he uses the "point" to mean one thing with two digits following it and a different thing with only one digit following the "point." So maybe he actually meant that the 0718 Z coordinates are actually 4°33' south and 159.7° east the same as 159° 42' east. It all becomes jello when you start changing many things around and when you change the meanings of words and symbols in the middle of a sentence.
You have Balfour converting minutes to decimal degrees, but why stop there, be bold, go all the way, have him making the conversions to radians! :D
gl
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have you guys read these reports on purdue
http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=3119&REC=15
:)
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The "33" in the latitude is obviously minutes unless you are now going to claim that he changed minutes to hundredths of a degree, you're not claiming that, are you?
If he was given minutes of 20, I am sure that he could handle dividing by 60 right? I can even calculate it to the thousandths 0.333 in a flash...
0.33...
/------
60/ 200
180
= 200
180
(I see patterns there). So yeah, long division is pretty simple. It is possible.
If we follow the line of reasoning, the 2nd radio call with position would be 4°33' 159°7' correct?
If we compute the speed on the first leg, the ground speed would be 124.9 mph, that is believable. The 2nd leg would be at 112.5 mph, possible but less convincing.
I am not saying that you are not correct however none of it seems to fit well.
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have you guys read these reports on purdue
http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=3119&REC=15
:)
I think this is the same as the ThompsonTranscripts.PDF file (from the book DVD) which is much easier to read. It would be nice if someone ran an OCR on it so that is searchable.
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have you guys read these reports on purdue
http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=3119&REC=15
:)
That entire transcript is on the TIGHAR disk in a much easier to read form.
gl
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The "33" in the latitude is obviously minutes unless you are now going to claim that he changed minutes to hundredths of a degree, you're not claiming that, are you?
If he was given minutes of 20, I am sure that he could handle dividing by 60 right? I can even calculate it to the thousandths 0.333 in a flash...
0.33...
/------
60/ 200
180
= 200
180
(I see patterns there). So yeah, long division is pretty simple. It is possible.
If we follow the line of reasoning, the 2nd radio call with position would be 4°33' 159°7' correct?
Well, yes, and that is how everyone else has taken it. Using your "decimal degree navigation notation" would make the position reported at 0718 Z 4° 20' south, 159° 42' east, 43 SM away from the correct location. (BTW, you are the only person in the history of the world to use decimal degrees for latitude and longitude for navigation, you can find this out for yourself by referring to any navigation text. Just because Google Earth allows people to use that notation doesn't make it a standard navigation notation, Google Earth is not for navigation and it wasn't even available in 1937.)
The distance from the 0519 Z erroneous position, 7.3° S 150.7° E, to 4.33° S 159.7° E reported at 0718 Z, both positions that you prefer, one hour and 59 minutes later is 685.4 SM making the ground speed 346 mph which is a whole lot less reasonable than the 112.5 mph that you calculated for the ground speed between the correct locations.
If we compute the speed on the first leg, the ground speed would be 124.9 mph, that is believable. The 2nd leg would be at 112.5 mph, possible but less convincing.
What are the chances that the plane would arrive next to the visual reporting point of Nukumano Island at exactly the scheduled radio transmission time of 0718 Z? They passed the island some time prior to sending that report. Using your estimate of 124.9 mph (can't we just use 125 mph) from the first leg for the second leg then the time to fly from 7° 03' S 157° 00' E to 4°33' 159°07' is one hour and 48 minutes meaning the plane passed Nukumano at 0707 Z only 11 minutes prior to the radio transmission.
And to be consistent, you must also be claiming that the correct coordinates for Nauru are 0.32° S 166.55° E, the same as 0° 19.2' S 166° 33' E (supplying the missing "6" in the longitude that Balfour forgot.) But wait, putting that into Google Earth takes you to a spot 31 SM away from Nauru, see the attached chart, so maybe that doesn't make any sense.
I am not saying that you are not correct however none of it seems to fit well.
It fits a whole lot better than your interpretation of the facts.
gl
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have you guys read these reports on purdue
http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=3119&REC=15 (http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/earhart&CISOPTR=3119&REC=15)
:)
I think this is the same as the ThompsonTranscripts.PDF file (from the book DVD) which is much easier to read. It would be nice if someone ran an OCR on it so that is searchable.
All of the telegrams are in searchable format in the Jacobson Databases (http://tighar.org/wiki/Jacobson_Databases#Radio_Messages.2C_Group_1_.._Group_13).
ThompsonTranscripts.pdf (http://tighar.org/Publications/Books/FindingAmeliaNotes/Reports/ThompsonTranscripts.pdf) is on the website.
You may do an OCR scan from the .pdf file. We can find a place for it on the website when it's finished.
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Well, yes, and that is how everyone else has taken it. Using your "decimal degree navigation notation" would make the position reported at 0718 Z 4° 20' south, 159° 42' east, 43 SM away from the correct location. (BTW, you are the only person in the history of the world to use decimal degrees for latitude and longitude for navigation, you can find this out for yourself by referring to any navigation text. Just because Google Earth allows people to use that notation doesn't make it a standard navigation notation, Google Earth is not for navigation and it wasn't even available in 1937.)
You are not suggesting that we pull out a map, compass, protractor, and a slide ruler are you? Although Google Earth does display degrees minutes seconds, it seems to only accept decimal degrees as input. Debating over the form of the coordinates is completely irrelevant to the discussion. I also do not see a point in debating whether visualizing in Google Earth is a valuable tool, we are not creating precision navigation plans here, we are talking about 2 points on a map. Are we bound to some secret oath to use old school degrees minutes seconds and nautical miles? If you like it, go for it, I think the conversion is trivial and not worthy of further debate.
The distance from the 0519 Z erroneous position, 7.3° S 150.7° E, to 4.33° S 159.7° E reported at 0718 Z, both positions that you prefer, one hour and 59 minutes later is 685.4 SM making the ground speed 346 mph which is a whole lot less reasonable than the 112.5 mph that you calculated for the ground speed between the correct locations.
Yes, this is why I said the time stamps are problematic and I stated this. It seems reasonable to me that the Lae radio shack was not being run like a well oiled military machine. If it were, we would not be having this discussion. Clearly either the coordinates given are wrong or the time stamps are wrong. For that matter they could be be wrong invented after the fact by a sloppy radio operator that had no idea what was unfolding at the time and had no concept that people would be discussing the details 75 years later trying to make sense of it. There are currently no facts able to substantiate the truth one way or the other at this point.
This modification latitude from 150.7 to 157 was also proposed by the Waitt Institute. Rather than considering that the time stamps could be in error, they also focused on this idea. Is this any more valid than 5:19 becoming 2:19? Maybe Balfour was dyslexic? Who knows. Once you go down the slippery slope of changing the data, anything is possible. I am sure I could find a yet to be discovered set of coordinates that would fit perfectly with the time line with just a couple of digits swapped here or there.
The report one hour prior, where they stated that they were at 7,000ft, is interesting in that it could suggest that they were still approaching the storm, uncertain of a plan to maneuver around the storm and eventually decided to climb up and over at 10,000ft, an hour later. Can you provide a reasonable explanation for the one hour report prior to the 5:19 GMT report?
You also never explained with your line of reasoning why they would continue such a long segment before heading back to the course? Was the storm that large such that they had to go 687 miles out to get around it? Perhaps they were just sight seeing? Waitt never seemed to address that either but it sure pushed that square peg time stamp in to a round hole, hey kind of like a rabbit hole. :)
And to be consistent, you must also be claiming that the correct coordinates for Nauru are 0.32° S 166.55° E, the same as 0° 19.2' S 166° 33' E (supplying the missing "6" in the longitude that Balfour forgot.) But wait, putting that into Google Earth takes you to a spot 31 SM away from Nauru, see the attached chart, so maybe that doesn't make any sense.
Perhaps Balfour's estimate was pretty good and the telegram operator made the mess. It is obvious from the other typos this was not a professional at the keys. How can you explain that? On balance of the evidence, I would say it was the telegram operators fault looking at the other mistakes and typos. I think that the dropped 6 is just as probable as any other explanation. If the standard practice for this guy was to specify degrees to the hundredths, this makes perfect sense.
Let's run down your theory again about the fractions really being the minutes of the coordinates. 0.32S becomes 0°32'.
What about the .32S? While not completely accurate, it is close. (Me)
To the level of precision attainable in flight navigation, to the nearest minute of latitude and longitude, the position of Nauru is 0° 32' south, 166° 55' east. (You)
So let's compare 0.32S 166.55E to your 0°32S 165°55'E. I think, and I could easily be wrong since I am working with decimal values, that the 0.32S 166.55E produces a 30 mile error while the 0°32'S 165°55'E produces and error of 120 miles. And this was your basis for the other coordinates outside of Lae? I am no navigation expert but the dropped 6 makes a lot of sense and one fourth the error.
It fits a whole lot better than your interpretation of the facts.
What fits better? The square peg or round hole?
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What fits better? The square peg or round hole?
The round peg fits perfectly in the round hole.
You are obviously doing something wrong when you use Google Earth and that may be the reason for your confusion. I don't know where you got the 165° 55' east for the longitude of Nauru, I said it it was 166° 55' east, re-read my prior post carefully. These are in the standard degrees and minutes format. If you want to enter them into Google Earth as decimal degrees then you need to convert the minutes to decimal degrees by dividing them by 60, (I'll do it for you) just enter. -0.5333° 166.9167° and they will land you smack dab on top of Nauru. This is consistent with the telegram with the "55" after the decimal point and the "16" before the decimal point obviously missing a "6". I don't know which "6" was omitted by Balfour, it could be the middle "6" or the last "6" as in 166 or 166. It also appears that you input into your map 0.32° NORTH instead of the correct SOUTH latitude.
I have attached an excerpt from the definitive American navigation textbook giving the location of Nauru as 0° 31' S 166° 56' E only 1.4 NM from the location given in the telegram and from the location that I used. Also notice in this excerpt that a "point" is NOT used to separate the degrees from the minutes.
( You do know that this symbol ° denotes degrees and that this symbol ' denotes minutes, don't you?)
gl
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Fyi google earth has a degrees/minutes input. You can change it in the options menu.
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Well, yes, and that is how everyone else has taken it. Using your "decimal degree navigation notation" would make the position reported at 0718 Z 4° 20' south, 159° 42' east, 43 SM away from the correct location. (BTW, you are the only person in the history of the world to use decimal degrees for latitude and longitude for navigation, you can find this out for yourself by referring to any navigation text. Just because Google Earth allows people to use that notation doesn't make it a standard navigation notation, Google Earth is not for navigation and it wasn't even available in 1937.)
You are not suggesting that we pull out a map, compass, protractor, and a slide ruler are you? Although Google Earth does display degrees minutes seconds, it seems to only accept decimal degrees as input. Debating over the form of the coordinates is completely irrelevant to the discussion. I also do not see a point in debating whether visualizing in Google Earth is a valuable tool, we are not creating precision navigation plans here, we are talking about 2 points on a map. Are we bound to some secret oath to use old school degrees minutes seconds and nautical miles? If you like it, go for it, I think the conversion is trivial and not worthy of further debate.
Degrees and minutes are used in navigation for very good reasons, maybe you didn't get the memo. Latitude and longitude are measured in angular units and degrees and minutes have been the standard units used since the ancient Sumerians invented the sexagesimal numeral system and the ancient Babylonians used it for their astronomical observations starting about 2,000 BC. All the calculations for navigation use these units and all the trigonometry tables used by navigators were printed only in these units. Decimal degrees did not come along until the invention of the calculator in the 1970s. Nautical miles are defined so that one nautical mile equals one minute of latitude and also one minute along any great circle on earth. Since all navigation calculations use this notation, the results come out naturally in nautical miles and it takes an extra step, multiplying the result by 1.15, to come up with statute miles. All the charts are printed with a grid of latitude and longitude marked in degrees and minutes. These marks also provide convenient distance scales since one minute tick marks on the chart also represent one nautical mile. You suggested that Balfour converted the minutes he heard on the radio from Earhart to decimal degrees to make it easier for him to follow their progress on a chart, how could this be true since no chart he had was marked in decimal degrees, only in degrees and minutes.
The distance from the 0519 Z erroneous position, 7.3° S 150.7° E, to 4.33° S 159.7° E reported at 0718 Z, both positions that you prefer, one hour and 59 minutes later is 685.4 SM making the ground speed 346 mph which is a whole lot less reasonable than the 112.5 mph that you calculated for the ground speed between the correct locations.
Yes, this is why I said the time stamps are problematic and I stated this. It seems reasonable to me that the Lae radio shack was not being run like a well oiled military machine. If it were, we would not be having this discussion. Clearly either the coordinates given are wrong or the time stamps are wrong. For that matter they could be be wrong invented after the fact by a sloppy radio operator that had no idea what was unfolding at the time and had no concept that people would be discussing the details 75 years later trying to make sense of it. There are currently no facts able to substantiate the truth one way or the other at this point.
This modification latitude from 150.7 to 157 was also proposed by the Waitt Institute. Rather than considering that the time stamps could be in error, they also focused on this idea. Is this any more valid than 5:19 becoming 2:19? Maybe Balfour was dyslexic? Who knows. Once you go down the slippery slope of changing the data, anything is possible. I am sure I could find a yet to be discovered set of coordinates that would fit perfectly with the time line with just a couple of digits swapped here or there.
Absolutely, unless you can show strong justification for doing so as I have done, e.g. Balfour's non-standard use of the "point;" Balfour's other transcription errors (omitting a "6" in the coordinates of Nauru adding a zero to the height of the Nauru light) these indicate that the transcription was in error from the beginning; the impossible ground speeds that result from interpreting 150.7 as decimal degrees; that decimal degrees weren't in use until 40 years after the flight; that interpreting ".7" as another error that should be simply a "7" and doing so produces ground speeds that are consistent with what we know about the air speeds being used by Earhart and about the winds on that day; etc.
The report one hour prior, where they stated that they were at 7,000ft, is interesting in that it could suggest that they were still approaching the storm, uncertain of a plan to maneuver around the storm and eventually decided to climb up and over at 10,000ft, an hour later. Can you provide a reasonable explanation for the one hour report prior to the 5:19 GMT report?
At the lighter weight the plane was operating at around 0519 Z the rate of climb would be greater than 900 feet per minute so it would have only taken a bit more than three minutes to climb from 7,000 to 10,000 feet and the best rate of climb speed is only 20 mph less than the planned cruising speed so slowing to climb speed and climbing for three minutes would add less that 30 seconds to the flight time so no reason to not climb to clear the low clouds below 10,000 feet,
You also never explained with your line of reasoning why they would continue such a long segment before heading back to the course? Was the storm that large such that they had to go 687 miles out to get around it? Perhaps they were just sight seeing? Waitt never seemed to address that either but it sure pushed that square peg time stamp in to a round hole, hey kind of like a rabbit hole. :)
So many are enamored with that line drawn on a planning chart by Williams in the opposite direction months before the flight and not incorporating the most up to date information supplied to Noonan and Earhart at Lae. I have pointed out before that you can deviate a great distance off the straight line between the departure and the destination without adding significantly to the overall flight. Flying over Choiseul did not take them 687 SM out of the way but added only 65 SM to the flight. The straight line distance was 2556 SM and this deviation made it 2621 SM, only 2.5% longer. So if there is any reason to deviate, such as avoiding storms or turbulence, getting on top for celestial observations, to pick up even a slight tailwind or to find even a slightly lower headwind, or to provide an additional navigation check then you do the deviation.
Why aim for Choiseul? As I pointed out in previous posts, during the day, when only the sun is available for celestial observations, you cannot obtain a fix. You can obtain a "running fix" as I explained before but this is dependent on the sun changing in azimuth in a short enough period so that the LOPs cross at a large enough angle to provide an accurate cut and that not so much time has elapsed since the earlier observation so that the DR uncertainty for the run between the two observations is so large as to significantly degrade the accuracy of the "running fix." Running fixes are normally done with the first observation less than one hour before noon and the second observation about the same amount of time after noon because the azimuth of the sun changes most rapidly at noon. Noon at 157° east longitude occurred at about 0130 Z so by 0519 Z it was not possible to get a running fix because the azimuth of the sun changed only 7° in the hour leading up to that time and you need a minimum of a 30° azimuth change for a "running fix." Choiseul represented a target 10° wide starting from Lae so would be very difficult to miss and provided an accurate visual fix from which an accurate wind could be determined that they would use for computing the rest of the flight and for making a decision about turning around or continuing. This provided plenty of good reasons to aim for Choiseul rather than attempting to stay on William's imaginary course line plus avoiding the storms forecast to be on the straight line course line. And, as I said before, without a visual check point Noonan had no way to determine the coordinates that were transmitted in the 0519 Z contact with Lae.
gl
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Degrees and minutes are used in navigation for very good reasons, maybe you didn't get the memo.
Yes, I am aware of it's purpose but I see no point in belaboring whether someone posts here in decimal degrees or degrees minutes seconds on an Internet forum. We were discussing Balfour's conversion, not anything I was posting.
By the way, you never addressed the issue of Balfour using decimal degrees. It is difficult to know why he did, perhaps it was more intuitive to him. If it was so unusual, why was this not pointed out by Chater or Collopy when they sat around discussing the events? They were the ones that created the reports. If it were that outlandish to use this decimal form, why would they themselves have passed along the information in the same form? You also mentioned that decimal degrees weren't in use until 40 years after the flight. Do you have any evidence to support that theory? This defies the evidence that Chater published these coordinates in decimal form.
Absolutely, unless you can show strong justification for doing so as I have done, e.g. Balfour's non-standard use of the "point;"
It is only a non-standard use of the "point" if you believe your theory, otherwise it is is just as it appears at face value, a decimal degree form. You did not address the dropped six being a much more accurate approximation compare to the .minute theory that you proposed.
As far as the mistakes in the telegram go, is the image you posted of the telegram at the receiving station? Who actually typed the telegram on to paper? That is the person you need to look at for errors. The dropped 6, the extra zero on altitude, the extra zero on barometer, let alone the attempts to correct the typing mistakes.
The decimal degree on the second reported position is only about 3.5 miles off the original flight line just passed Nukumanu Island. This is just another coincidence? They surely would have seen the island and FN probably determined the headwinds on that reference which is why this was stated in the report (23 knots). FN would have had at least 12 minutes to perform the calculation before AE announced it. Your reference point is before the island suggesting that they were passing along old head wind calculations from the last time they were over land.
As far as the modified coordinate theory goes, we are also not just talking about the .minute notation, this is transforming 150 degrees to 157 degrees. This is the basic point. If you are willing to make such a change, what is to say the time stamps were not wrong?
They were already fighting a headwind and I cannot believe they were caviler about using fuel excessively or wastefully. If they did not care about being on the flight line, why head back to it at all? The seem to head back to it aggressively and wastefully if we use your 157 longitude.
We have no evidence that the storm was 687 SM is size. It does make a lot of sense that the storms were being reported 250 to 300 miles out of Lae. Once they saw the worst of it and found a path around it they headed back to the flight line. Bouganville Island was closer so the use of a more southerly island does not make sense for land references. The alternative theory also has them flying on a much more Easterly course, flying right in to the storms outside of Lae.
I remain unconvinced that the coordinates given were incorrect. The time stamps being incorrect are just as likely.
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If they had measured a 23kn headwind then I hope they would not have left because they would know that if sustained they would arrive at Howland on fumes.
Of course nobody had any way of measuring winds aloft anywhere along the route. Lae did not even have a meteorologist.
Well there was the MK II pelous for taking drift reading from NR16020 from which Noonan determined the winds aloft. In addition he could measure the wind encountered between two celestial fixes. See U.S. Navy manual (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxmcmVkaWVub29uYW58Z3g6MjUyZDc2MjBmYTMzZTI4Ng) and Noonan's newspaper article (https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/resources/noonan-article/Noonan1936article.pdf?attredirects=0) about taking drift sights. See attached letter from Noonan about computing wind between two fixes by the difference between the "no wind position" and the actual fix.
gl
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Looking at that telegram it is pretty sloppy in general. It looks like the person typing it was drunk. This is where the 5600ft altitude came from instead of the 560ft. There is also the 29.908 barometer?
It might have read 0.32S 165.5E which is close to 0° 32' south, 166° 55' east.
Perhaps Balfour preferred to work in decimal and actually converted the coordinates given by AE? Maybe he heard "SEVEN ZERO ELEVEN SOUTH ONE FIFTY ZERO FOUR TWO" and gave the decimal equivalent?
It is too bad all of these folks are deceased.
I've reread your posts and I think I know what you are saying but just to make sure please answer these questions:
1, You do not claim that Earhart actually used the word "point" in sending the position report at 0519 Z, is this correct, yes or no?
2. You do not claim that Earhart actually used the word "point" in sending the position report at 0718 Z, is this correct, yes or no?
3. You believe that Earhart said "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH" during the 0519 Z position report, is this correct, yes or no?
4. You believe that Earhart said "ONE FIFTY FORTY TWO EAST" during the 0519 Z position report, is this correct, yes or no?
5. You believe that Earhart said "FOUR TWENTY SOUTH" during the 0719 Z position report, is this correct, yes or no?
6. You believe that Earhart said "ONE FIFTY NINE FORTY TWO EAST" during the 0719 Z position report, is this correct, yes or no?
7. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH" from the 0519 Z position report to 7.3 S, is this correct, yes or no?
8. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "ONE FIFTY FORTY TWO EAST" from the 0519 Z position report to 150.7 E, is this correct, yes or no?
9. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "FOUR TWENTY SOUTH" from the 0719 Z position report to 4.33 S, is this correct, yes or no?
10. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "ONE FIFTY NINE FORTY TWO EAST" from the 0719 Z position report to 159.7 E, is this correct, yes or no?
gl
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Gary,
I do not have time this morning to go through each question you posted but I do believe that Balfour was the one that converted from degrees/minutes to the decimal degrees. Will check it out after work.
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The report one hour prior, where they stated that they were at 7,000ft, is interesting in that it could suggest that they were still approaching the storm, uncertain of a plan to maneuver around the storm and eventually decided to climb up and over at 10,000ft, an hour later. Can you provide a reasonable explanation for the one hour report prior to the 5:19 GMT report?
I see, you believe that they climbed to 10,000 feet to get over the storm clouds and you don't think the storm would have extended that far. Here's some news, you can't get above a storm by climbing to only 10,000 feet, storms go much higher, just ask the crew of Air France flight 447 (oh, you can't, they're dead) that crashed in 2009 flying in storm clouds at 35,000 feet at about the same latitude as Earhart's plane. But you might respond "that was in 2009, storm clouds didn't go that high in 1937." Well then, we have the report of the PBY sent from Hawaii to Howland that was in a storm at 12,000 feet and the clouds extended up to 18,000 feet, see attached excerpt from the Murfin repor (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Reports/Murfin.pdf)t. The reason that Earhart climbed from 7,000 to 10,000 feet was stated in the message, it was due to cumulus clouds that she could top at 10,000. Staying lower where there were scattered cumulus clouds would have necessitated weaving around them or flying through them on instruments and cumulus clouds are bumpy inside so they would then have had to deal with the turbulence. Climbing to ten avoided these problems. Nothing to do with any storm.
gl
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I'm with Gary on this one. No one used decimal degrees in 1937. Dials on instruments were in degrees, minutes and seconds. Work sheets used by navigators were in degrees, minutes and seconds. Instruction manuals, Training courses, official documents, etc, were in degrees, minutes, etc... Those conventions did not change until GPS became popular, and even now has not changed most navigation instruments, conventions, training, etc. Most GPS instruments, for that matter, offer display option of degrees, minutes and seconds in order to make sense commonly available maps that use that universally recognized scales.
A telegraph operator might or might not be familiar with the generally accepted nomenclature associated with degrees, minutes and seconds. I can easily imagine an operator recording a dot for the space he hears in the middle of a number. It is similar to the current use of an underscore_to_denote_a_space. To anyone reading it at the time, no one would confuse a dot in the midst of a position report with a conversion to a decimal system, anymore than someone reading an underscored string of words would think it meant some sort of mathematical conversion. I'll give an example:
This_doesn't_equal = This-doesn't-equal-this = this.doesn't.equal.this = this+doesn't+equal+this
They're all equally readable, but Thisdoesn'tequalthis isn't.
(This subject is even related to the reason telegrams use the word "stop" rather than using ".", because it's easily misread.)
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Looking at that telegram it is pretty sloppy in general. It looks like the person typing it was drunk. This is where the 5600ft altitude came from instead of the 560ft. There is also the 29.908 barometer?
It might have read 0.32S 165.5E which is close to 0° 32' south, 166° 55' east.
Perhaps Balfour preferred to work in decimal and actually converted the coordinates given by AE? Maybe he heard "SEVEN ZERO ELEVEN SOUTH ONE FIFTY ZERO FOUR TWO" and gave the decimal equivalent?
It is too bad all of these folks are deceased.
I've reread your posts and I think I know what you are saying but just to make sure please answer these questions:
1, You do not claim that Earhart actually used the word "point" in sending the position report at 0519 Z, is this correct, yes or no?
2. You do not claim that Earhart actually used the word "point" in sending the position report at 0718 Z, is this correct, yes or no?
3. You believe that Earhart said "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH" during the 0519 Z position report, is this correct, yes or no?
4. You believe that Earhart said "ONE FIFTY FORTY TWO EAST" during the 0519 Z position report, is this correct, yes or no?
5. You believe that Earhart said "FOUR TWENTY SOUTH" during the 0719 Z position report, is this correct, yes or no?
6. You believe that Earhart said "ONE FIFTY NINE FORTY TWO EAST" during the 0719 Z position report, is this correct, yes or no?
7. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH" from the 0519 Z position report to 7.3 S, is this correct, yes or no?
8. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "ONE FIFTY FORTY TWO EAST" from the 0519 Z position report to 150.7 E, is this correct, yes or no?
9. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "FOUR TWENTY SOUTH" from the 0719 Z position report to 4.33 S, is this correct, yes or no?
10. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "ONE FIFTY NINE FORTY TWO EAST" from the 0719 Z position report to 159.7 E, is this correct, yes or no?
gl
While it is impossible to know exactly what was said, such as "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH", which could have been read "SEVEN ZERO ONE EIGHT SOUTH" or any other possible combinations, I think it is very possible that Balfour did the conversion to decimal himself since this would not be a format that Noonan would use and Earhart was probably not performing conversions.
As I stated before, if the decimal notation was so unusual, why did Chater pass it on without question. If it was so obvious, why was it not corrected and pointed out back then? I am sure they could have typed 150°7' but for 150.7, why didn't they? While it would make sense if a telegram keyboard did not have a apostrophe perhaps the period was standard practice. Do you have any evidence of that? We know that Balfour's telegram discussed earlier was a pretty good approximation if we assume decimal degrees. The DEGREE.MINUTE theory did not exactly pan out in that instance did it?
Even if we say the meaning is DEGREES.MINUTES, this would not change the positions but a few miles. If we assume your proposed interpretation, the ground speed achieved would be 117.5 MPH versus 124.2 MPH. I am not sure what is achieved by doing this but it does make spotting the Ontario more probable.
Now when you take liberty to change 150.7 to 157.0, this is something else entirely.
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Heath,
You wrote to Gary:
While it would make sense if a telegram keyboard did not have a apostrophe perhaps the period was standard practice. Do you have any evidence of that?
Radiotelegraph traffic relating to the Titanic disaster provides many examples of the period used as a separator between degrees and minutes for communication of geographic position. See, for example, the links below.
1. Message transcriptions that include position data in the form degrees.minutes:
http://www.qsl.net/g3yrc/Titanic.htm
http://www.hf.ro/#trd
2. Two copies of hand-printed message receipts that include position data in the form degrees.minutes:
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/marconi/exhibition/titanic.htm
3. A Titanic-related 1912 report from the Hydrographic Office that gives positions in a form that confirms that the period is being used as a separator between degrees and minutes in the radiotelegraph traffic examples above:
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq94-1.htm
Chuck
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Chuck,
That looks pretty convincing that this was some sort of standard at the time. Good find.
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Looking at that telegram it is pretty sloppy in general. It looks like the person typing it was drunk. This is where the 5600ft altitude came from instead of the 560ft. There is also the 29.908 barometer?
It might have read 0.32S 165.5E which is close to 0° 32' south, 166° 55' east.
Perhaps Balfour preferred to work in decimal and actually converted the coordinates given by AE? Maybe he heard "SEVEN ZERO ELEVEN SOUTH ONE FIFTY ZERO FOUR TWO" and gave the decimal equivalent?
It is too bad all of these folks are deceased.
I've reread your posts and I think I know what you are saying but just to make sure please answer these questions:
7. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH" from the 0519 Z position report to 7.3 S, is this correct, yes or no?
gl
While it is impossible to know exactly what was said, such as "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH", which could have been read "SEVEN ZERO ONE EIGHT SOUTH" or any other possible combinations, I think it is very possible that Balfour did the conversion to decimal himself since this would not be a format that Noonan would use and Earhart was probably not performing conversions.
It could not have been "SEVEN ZERO ONE EIGHT SOUTH" as that would be 70° 18' south which, based on your theory, Balfour would have converted to decimal degrees of 70.3 S. But it does make sense that she could have said "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH" or "SEVEN ONE EIGHT SOUTH" either of which would have been converted to the same decimal value, 7.3 south.
gl
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Looking at that telegram it is pretty sloppy in general. It looks like the person typing it was drunk. This is where the 5600ft altitude came from instead of the 560ft. There is also the 29.908 barometer?
It might have read 0.32S 165.5E which is close to 0° 32' south, 166° 55' east.
Perhaps Balfour preferred to work in decimal and actually converted the coordinates given by AE? Maybe he heard "SEVEN ZERO ELEVEN SOUTH ONE FIFTY ZERO FOUR TWO" and gave the decimal equivalent?
It is too bad all of these folks are deceased.
I've reread your posts and I think I know what you are saying but just to make sure please answer these questions:
7. You believe that Balfour (or someone else in Lae) converted the received "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH" from the 0519 Z position report to 7.3 S, is this correct, yes or no?
gl
While it is impossible to know exactly what was said, such as "SEVEN EIGHTEEN SOUTH", which could have been read "SEVEN ZERO ONE EIGHT SOUTH" or any other possible combinations, I think it is very possible that Balfour did the conversion to decimal himself since this would not be a format that Noonan would use and Earhart was probably not performing conversions.
It could not have been "SEVEN ZERO ONE EIGHT SOUTH" as that would be 70° 18' south which, based on your theory, Balfour would have converted to decimal degrees of 70.3 S.
gl
Ok, "SEVEN PAUSE ONE EIGHT SOUTH" or "SEVEN POINT ONE EIGHT" or "SEVEN DEGREES EIGHTEEN MINUTES". The convention used to report has nothing to do with what Balfour reported. What Balfour heard is not knowable.
The question is whether the meaning is DEGREES.MINUTES or decimal degrees. As Chuck pointed out this seemed to be a typical reporting format for the era.
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The report one hour prior, where they stated that they were at 7,000ft, is interesting in that it could suggest that they were still approaching the storm, uncertain of a plan to maneuver around the storm and eventually decided to climb up and over at 10,000ft, an hour later. Can you provide a reasonable explanation for the one hour report prior to the 5:19 GMT report?
I see, you believe that they climbed to 10,000 feet to get over the storm clouds and you don't think the storm would have extended that far. Here's some news, you can't get above a storm by climbing to only 10,000 feet, storms go much higher, just ask the crew of Air France flight 447 (oh, you can't, they're dead) that crashed in 2009 flying in storm clouds at 35,000 feet at about the same latitude as Earhart's plane. But you might respond "that was in 2009, storm clouds didn't go that high in 1937." Well then, we have the report of the PBY sent from Hawaii to Howland that was in a storm at 12,000 feet and the clouds extended up to 18,000 feet, see attached excerpt from the Murfin repor (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Reports/Murfin.pdf)t. The reason that Earhart climbed from 7,000 to 10,000 feet was stated in the message, it was due to cumulus clouds that she could top at 10,000. Staying lower where there were scattered cumulus clouds would have necessitated weaving around them or flying through them on instruments and cumulus clouds are bumpy inside so they would then have had to deal with the turbulence. Climbing to ten avoided these problems. Nothing to do with any storm.
gl
I don't know how many thunderstorms you have seen from the inside from a small plane but I can tell you they go a whole lot higher than 10,000 feet. In the U.S. weak thunderstorms go up into the mid 20's and the garden variety go up to the mid 30's where they are stopped by hitting up against the tropopause. Really strong storms actually punch through the trop and continue up thousands of feet into the stratosphere. Storms are even taller near the equator because the trop is higher, above 50,000 feet.
Chatter recorded the messages from Earhart:
"Arrangements had been made between the plane and Lae station to call at 18 minutes past each hour and arrangements made to pass any late weather information, but local interference prevented signals from the plane being intelligible until 2.18 p.m. The Lae Operator heard the following on 6210 KC –“HEIGHT 7000 FEET SPEED 140 KNOTS” and some remark concerning “LAE” then “EVERYTHING OKAY”. The plane was called and asked to repeat position but we still could not get it. The next report was received at 3.19 pm on 6210 KC – “HEIGHT 10000 FEET POSITION 150.7 east 7.3 south CUMULUS CLOUDS EVERYTHING OKAY”. The next report received at 5.18 p.m. “POSITION 4.33 SOUTH 159.7 EAST HEIGHT 8000 FEET OVER CUMULUS CLOUDS WIND 23 KNOTS”.
They are describing the common scattered cumulus clouds found over the ocean, called "fair weather cu's" that top out usually below 10,000 feet.
gl
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Ok, "SEVEN PAUSE ONE EIGHT SOUTH" or "SEVEN POINT ONE EIGHT" or "SEVEN DEGREES EIGHTEEN MINUTES". The convention used to report has nothing to do with what Balfour reported. What Balfour heard is not knowable.
The question is whether the meaning is DEGREES.MINUTES or decimal degrees. As Chuck pointed out this seemed to be a typical reporting format for the era.
The problem with deciding which is correct, 7.3° or 7° 03' is that they are close to each other so neither can be eliminated since we don't know the correct answer, and this goes for the other latitudes and longitudes in the two position reports. But we may have a way to discern Balfours notation methodology by looking at the telegram containing the coordinates for the light on Nuaru. These coordinates were recorded as "THE FOLLOWING FROM NARAU STOP NEW NARAU FIXED LIGHT LAT 0.32 S LONG 16.55 EAST..." You interpreted these as 0.32° south and 16.55° east and I take them to be 0° 32' south and 16° 55' east and these also are close to each other. First, there is an obvious problem with these coordinates since no matter which version you accept that location is more than 10,400 SM away from Nauru, in the center of Congo in Africa. You resolved this problem by shifting the decimal point one position to the right, changing the longitude to 165.5° east. I resolved this by supplying a missing "6" that was apparently omitted making the longitude 166° 55' east. Can we decide which interpretation is the correct one? Yes, because we do know the correct answer. One way is to place both on Google Earth and see which comes closest to Nauru. I have done this and I am attaching the map. Your position, 0.32° S 165.5° E, is 103 SM away from Nauru while my interpretation, 0° 32' south and 166° 55' east, lands right on Nauru! But maybe Google Earth is not definitive. I have attached a second source for the accurate coordinates for the Nauru light from the 1938 edition of the American Practical Navigator which gives it as 0° 32' south and 166° 55' east. This pretty conclusively proves that when Balfour used the "point" notation that he was using it to separate the degrees from the minutes in the position of the Nauru light and it would be pretty hard to argue that he used the "points" in a different manner when recording the aircraft position reports.
And since you were perfectly happy to move the "point" one space to the right in your re-interpretation of the longitude of the Nauru light you cannot now argue against my doing the exact same thing with the longitude transmitted in the 0519 Z report making it 157° 00' East, that would be a clear case of "the pot calling the kettle black." This is especially true since my re-interpretation results in a position that makes sense as it is consistent with what we know about normal methods of talking on aircraft radios, "ONE FIFTY SEVEN, " which you have admitted regarding the other numbers transmitted in the position reports. The derived position is also consistent with what we know about the airspeed, the wind speed, and the ground speed on that leg of the flight while your moving the "point" moves the position of the Nauru light away from what we know is its actual position.
gl
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They are describing the common scattered cumulus clouds found over the ocean, called "fair weather cu's" that top out usually below 10,000 feet.
Where did you see scattered? The forecast from the previous day predicted rain squalls 250 miles East of Lae.
Although they did not receive the following report, this might be a clue as to the actual conditions.
As the machine was leaving the ground the following weather reports were received at the Lae Wireless Station –
"EARHART LAE
ACCURATE FORECAST DIFFICULT ACCOUNT LACK OF REPORTS YOUR VICINITY PERIOD CONDITIONS APPEAR GENERALLY AVERAGE OVER ROUTE NO MAJOR STORM APPARENTLY PARTLY CLOUDY WITH DANGEROUS LOCAL RAIN SQUALLS ABOUT 300 MILES EAST OF LAE AND SCATTERED HEAVY SHOWERS REMAINDER OF ROUTE PERIOD WIND EAST SOUTH EAST ABOUT TWENTY FIVE KNOTS TO ONTARIO THEN EAST TO EAST NORTH EAST ABOUT 20 KNOT TO HOWLAND
FLEET BASE PEARL HARBOUR
and
BARO 29.898 THEMO 83 WIND EASTERLY 3 CLOUDY BUT FINE CLOUDS CI CI STR CU CUMI MOVING FROM EASTERLY DIRECTION SEA SMOOTH. NARU 8 AM UPPER AIR OBSERVATION 2000 FEET NINETY DEGREES 14 MPH 4000 FEET NINETY DEGREES 12 MPH 7500 FEET NINETY DEGREES 24 MPH".
So if the clouds were at 10,000ft or below they might have headed South-East and decided to climb above the clouds at 10,000ft. They probably could not fly much higher if they wanted to. I believe the recommended altitude was 8,000ft for the first six hours or more. This would suggest that this was some attempt to avoid the conditions outside of Lae.
Arrangements had been made between the plane and Lae station to call at 18 minutes past each hour and arrangements made to pass any late weather information, but local interference prevented signals from the plane being intelligible until 2.18 p.m.
Could that interference been caused by the storms outside of Lae? If so, perhaps the 2:18pm and 3:19pm were actually earlier in time, as they approached the storm and reception was still possible.
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"ONE FIFTY <pause> SEVEN, " is a far cry from the normal flowing "ONE FIFTY SEVEN". It could have easily have been "ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DEGREES EAST SEVEN MINUTES SOUTH". As I stated before, this is simply impossible to know since Balfour was probably sitting there by himself.
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"ONE FIFTY <pause> SEVEN, " is a far cry from the normal flowing "ONE FIFTY SEVEN". It could have easily have been "ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DEGREES EAST SEVEN MINUTES SOUTH". As I stated before, this is simply impossible to know since Balfour was probably sitting there by himself.
Except that your newest proffered interpretation suffers the same problem as all of your other interpretations of the 0519 Z position report, that they all end up requiring completely impossible ground speeds. This newest incarnation places the plane, as reported at 0519 Z, 487 SM from takeoff meaning it only maintained a ground speed of 92 mph and also flying a course that was 54° off the direct course to Howland placing it 400 SM north of course, and you always advocate that they would have stayed on the direct course. Then, the second leg from this new position to the position reported at 0718 Z is 726 SM, requiring a ground speed of 363 mph! There is also the problem of how would Noonan have been able to determine those co-ordinates since there is no land nearby for a visual fix and, as I explained before, this position could not have been determined by celestial observations.
You will come back and say that the position was actually reported at an earlier transmission time and that the just forgot what time they heard it and put down the time of the 0519 Z scheduled report. Let me give you some free legal advice. If you are ever drafting your will and you want to make sure that your ungrateful son gets nothing, DON'T just leave him out of the will completely without him being mentioned at all. If you do he will claim that he was not mentioned only due to some mistake or inadvertence and will sue to break the will and get his greedy hands on your money. What you do to make sure that he can't make this argument is to mention him in your will and leave him one dollar. Since he is in the will he can't claim that he was left out by mistake.
Chater wrote:
"Arrangements had been made between the plane and Lae station to call at 18 minutes past each hour and arrangements made to pass any late weather information, but local interference prevented signals from the plane being intelligible until 2.18 p.m. The Lae Operator heard the following on 6210 KC –“HEIGHT 7000 FEET SPEED 140 KNOTS” and some remark concerning “LAE” then “EVERYTHING OKAY”. The plane was called and asked to repeat position but we still could not get it. The next report was received at 3.19 pm on 6210 KC – “HEIGHT 10000 FEET POSITION 150.7 east 7.3 south CUMULUS CLOUDS EVERYTHING OKAY”. The next report received at 5.18 p.m. “POSITION 4.33 SOUTH 159.7 EAST HEIGHT 8000 FEET OVER CUMULUS CLOUDS WIND 23 KNOTS”.
Chater clearly mentioned the one hour earlier report, 0418 Z (2:18 p.m.), so we know that the "ONE FIFTY SEVEN" report was not received then. Chater also clearly did not accidentally omit mention of the earlier expected reports to be received at 0118 Z, 0218 Z and 0318 Z and stated that local interference prevented hearing them. You would have to be claiming that the 150° 07' longitude report was received at one of these earlier times that were covered up by local static. If these co-ordinates (or any of the other permutations that you have proposed) had been received at the immediately prior reporting time, 0318 Z (0118 p.m.,) then you end up with ground speeds that are way too high and even worse if you claim it was at an even earlier time.
In order to support your theory, you have had to make multiple changes to the reported evidence, all without any reasonable explanation supporting those changes. If you have to make multiple changes then it is unlikely that you have the correct explanation, an example of Occam's Razor. My theory requires correcting only one piece of data and I have given a reasonable explanation supporting this change based on mishearing "ONE FIFTY SEVEN" as "ONE FIFTY SEVEN", the type of error that is quite common and understandable to anybody with an open mind. This interpretation is supported as the correct interpretation since the resulting ground speeds then fall right into the reasonable range based on what we know about the winds and the airspeed of the plane and this interpretation also explains how Noonan could determine those co-ordinates by a visual fix on Choiseul Island since celestial navigation was not possible at that time of day.
gl
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They are describing the common scattered cumulus clouds found over the ocean, called "fair weather cu's" that top out usually below 10,000 feet.
and
BARO 29.898 THEMO 83 WIND EASTERLY 3 CLOUDY BUT FINE CLOUDS CI CI STR CU CUMI MOVING FROM EASTERLY DIRECTION SEA SMOOTH. NARU 8 AM UPPER AIR OBSERVATION 2000 FEET NINETY DEGREES 14 MPH 4000 FEET NINETY DEGREES 12 MPH 7500 FEET NINETY DEGREES 24 MPH".
So if the clouds were at 10,000ft or below they might have headed South-East and decided to climb above the clouds at 10,000ft. They probably could not fly much higher if they wanted to. I believe the recommended altitude was 8,000ft for the first six hours or more. This would suggest that this was some attempt to avoid the conditions outside of Lae.
Arrangements had been made between the plane and Lae station to call at 18 minutes past each hour and arrangements made to pass any late weather information, but local interference prevented signals from the plane being intelligible until 2.18 p.m.
Does anybody know what type of clouds the code "CUMI" means? I have never seen it before and I taught meteorology classes at the University of Illinois.
gl
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CU is Cumulus but i've not been able to find a sub class of cloud that could be MI. Could it be a typo instead?
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CU is Cumulus but i've not been able to find a sub class of cloud that could be MI. Could it be a typo instead?
That was my thought too. The other ones are the standard ones, cirrus, cirrostratus, and cumulus. "Cirr" means high clouds, above about 20,000 feet so have nothing to do with storms, and normal "cu's" also do not mean storms either. Also, the typo in the barometer reading (one too many digits) supports the typo theory. If you believe that the barometer number isn't a typo, remember what the barometer numbers mean, the height of a column of mercury in inches, try measuring that to a thousandth of an inch. If using an aneroid barometer, the needle is wider than the one-hundredth of an inch marks. Also, such a small unit of measurement has absolutely no significance. As proof of this, the standard way of coding barometer readings for transmission by radio during the '30s only differentiated by one whole millibar, which is equivalent to 30/1000ths of an inch 30 times less precision than implied with the "29.898.". A barometer reading of 29.898 would have to be encoded as either a "12" meaning 29.89 or as a "13" meaning 29.92, there were no choices in between, there was no way to report an intermediate value such as the "29.898." This level of precision is all that is necessary for weather reports and weather forecasting, no need to read out to 1/1000th of an inch. (See attached Table VIII.)
gl
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I'd be surprised to see Cumulonimbus mentioned in such a generic weather report, and I doubt that "CUNI" was the standard notation even at that time - it's "CB" now, but the operator might not have known the notation and used what he thought was good enough. We'll never know.
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I'd be surprised to see Cumulonimbus mentioned in such a generic weather report, and I doubt that "CUNI" was the standard notation even at that time - it's "CB" now, but the operator might not have known the notation and used what he thought was good enough. We'll never know.
The American Practical Navigator, U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office Publication Number 9, 1938 ed. uses Cu. for cumulus, Nb. for nimbus and Cu.-Nb. for cumulo-nimbus so the "CUMI" can't mean thunder storm clouds.
gl
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The "N" is right next to the "M" on the keyboard (assuming they were using the QWERTY board) so maybe it was intended to be CUNI for CumuloNimbus??
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The "N" is right next to the "M" on the keyboard (assuming they were using the QWERTY board) so maybe it was intended to be CUNI for CumuloNimbus??
No because then it would be "CUMB" if he replaced the "N" with an "M" because the correct coding for cumulo-nimbus is "CU-NB" not "CU-NI."
GL