I only have imagery from a year ago in Google Pro (4/9)2024.

I don't know what you mean by "right across to the south of the boat entry there is a small diamond shape that had this feature in it."

The landing channel is what I think of as "the boat entry."

I suppose you might also be thinking of the Tatiman Passage as "the boat entry."

See attached map with an outline of the government station in that area.

This is the pic of the satellite image. Notice the square in the middle of the image.

I was on the net this evening and found out something very interesting. I went to a satellite map of the island and found a new impression of an outline of an existing building of some sorts with two round features within the square. I dont know exactly how old this feature was or what time frame the map was made, but right aross to the south of the boat entry there is a small diamond shape that had this feature in it. However, when I went to see it on Google Earth Pro it wasnt there. But, I did manage to see something I dont know if any of you may have noticed. The satellite map is a current 2025 map and the island looks to be in pretty bad shape. I dont know if those were fallen trees from heavy hurricane or heavy winds. But, I'm pretty sure that at some point recently theyve had a serious drought on the island. It looks like everything is dying per say. But, I was able to manage to see through the fallen and dying foilage. Anyway, I was hoping someone could look at this and clarify this for me...thanks

Quote from: Christian Stock on March 27, 2021, 10:55:31 AMI hate to bring this up again, mostly because it's been beaten to death very recently, but I just rewatched the aerial tour video, and there IS something under water in the exact spot, reflecting light. It's at 23:44 and appears for about 2 seconds.  In my image it is at 8 o'clock, near the left edge of the picture. The reflection appears and disappears before going out of frame.

If you watch the video for 30 seconds or so around that time, you will see plenty of sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water. This image shows a reflection from something underneath the surface. Maybe a bare spot of sand-worn coral reflecting some sunlight? It's certainly not an entire airplane....

Put a pin in this. ;-}

Quote from: Don White on May 13, 2025, 08:10:24 PMYou mention the Ameliapedia, which also seems to be a casualty, with no updates in a long time. I read all of that too.

I know it has not been updated for a long time.

When we moved to our current ISP, it was left behind.

We do not have as many privileges on this server as we had with our old ISP.

I was able to partially revive it. I thought that we were going to move again and that perhaps we might be able to restore the old SEO URLs, but I'm not sure what happened to those plans. Ric and Pat were very busy with finishing the book and finalizing plans for the upcoming work on the Midnight Ghost. I was the driving force behind the development of the Ameliapedia and I have lost my mojo, I guess.

By my count, the last Niku expedition was 2014 (!).

• Niku I (1989)
• Niku II (1991)
• Niku IIIP (1996)
• Niku III (1997)
• Niku IIIIP (1999)
• Niku IIII (2001)
• Niku VP (WOF--2003)
• Niku V (2007)
• Niku VI (2010)
• Niku VII (2012)
• Niku VIII (2014)

I really enjoyed tying the results of those expeditions together.

I thought that the underwater searches would turn up an Any Idiot Artifact, but I was wrong.

Because they were sponsored by other organizations, I didn't feel motivated to do any in-depth coverage of them.

I did watch the videos of the most exciting moments. It is a tremendously complex environment that could easily swallow up all of the pieces that might clinch the argument. Reasoning from the clarity of artifacts found on the ocean floor around the wreck of the Titanic was a mistake. Niku is at the other end of the spectrum. What worked so well for the Titanic does not seem to be capable of searching all of the underwater hiding places on the slopes of Nikumaroro.

I kept working away on the list of sextant numbers up until 2018, when "The Ghost of Gardner Island" proved that the sextant box had been on the survey ship in 1939. That made all of the material I had collected on the Ameliapedia page irrelevant:

Sextant Box found on Nikumaroro

My last edit on that page was on 27 January 2019, at 09:17. At that time, I had been working in Rome for six months or so and had decided that I could resign my teaching position in Buffalo and make a commitment to stay here. I had hoped to get a new assignment in the states last year, but my provincial decided to assign me to stay for another three years. The first is done, leaving two to go, if I don't get sick or die first.

You mention the Ameliapedia, which also seems to be a casualty, with no updates in a long time. I read all of that too.

Quote from: Don White on May 12, 2025, 07:30:09 AMHaving an eclectic mind (I read nearly anything) it even led me to read Marty's writing in his career field, that had been for his students (and very interesting it was, too).

I am laughing out loud! 

I started my TIGHAR career by reading the entire website twice in 2000. That was just after Niku IIIIP. There were many exciting expeditions after that!

Ameliapedia -- Category: Expeditions

There were six more Niku expeditions after that, and they were full of drama and discovery.

At that time, conversations took place on different versions of a mailing list. The Forum was born in 2009. When TIGHAR knew that there was going to be interest in the website, we would double or quadruple the size of the server until the rush had passsed. Those were glory days. There were remarkable experts debating each other on the Forum every day. 

Those days are gone. They were not the product of willpower and determination. The time was ripe to pull together many pieces of information.  Among other things, Randy Jacobson did extraordinary studies of the Naval archives to dig out all of the material relative to the loss of and search for AE and FN.

Yes, the Forum is a shadow of its former self, but what fun we had while it lasted -- "What a long strange trip it's been."

I think that forums in general, on many topics, are less active than they were in the past. The format seems to attract fewer users than formerly. I see this in other forums in which I participate or have participated. In some there is also a demographic aspect as to who is likely to be interested in the topic (I notice this in the antique-car forums I sometimes use, my interest being mainly 1920s cars--I am currently preparing a 1931 Ford for summer touring). And in this forum, a lot of topics have indeed already been dealt with, so only when new evidence appears, or a new interpretation, is there anything to talk about.

I appreciate that the forum is here, with all its historical content. I began as a reader of the web site and forum before becoming a member. After joining TIGHAR, I read through many of the old threads to bring myself up to speed on the state of the inquiry, including what had already been discovered or explored. New members tend to ask the same questions, to many of which I found answers in past forum threads. It is also interesting to see what the hot topics were, or the lines of inquiry that led to something, or to nothing.

Having an eclectic mind (I read nearly anything) it even led me to read Marty's writing in his career field, that had been for his students (and very interesting it was, too).

Don W

What if L'Oiseau Blanc had a tailwind?

In my original analysis, I created a flight plan which plausibly accounted for the reports of the aircraft passing Kilrush in Ireland and Harbour Grace in Newfoundland, using the wind reports from the French report in the Tighar archive which suggested a headwind.

https://tighar.org/smf/index.php?topic=2251.0 

To summarise, the elapsed time from Kilrush to Belle Isle was 24hr 46min giving an ETA at Belle Isle of 10:39UT (07:09AM, an hour or two after sunrise). However, if they failed to lay-off the drift they would end up somewhere between Belle Isle and Harbour Grace, position C1. The aircraft was seen over Harbour Grace at 13:00UT (9:30AM Local) therefore, the elapsed time from Position C1 to Harbour Grace was 2hr 21min and point C1 was about 235nm North of Harbour Grace or about 65nm South of Belle Isle.

In response, Arthur Rypinski posted a chart depicting the weather situation on the 9th May 1927 and indicating a tailwind. I have rewritten the flight plan using the winds from this chart to examine the effect of a tailwind. This gives an elapsed time of 16hrs 18min from Kilrush (observed at 09:53UT) to Belle Isle ETA 02:11UT on the 9th (22:41PM on the 8th about 6hrs before sunrise). (02:11+24:00-09:53=16hr 18min). This leaves 10hrs 49min to be accounted for, between landfall at 02:11UT and when the aircraft is seen at Harbour Grace at 13:00 UT.

 If the crew correctly allowed for the drift and made landfall at Belle Isle at 02:11UT, then it should only take about 3 hrs to fly 300nm to Harbour Grace leaving 7hrs 49min to be accounted for.

 If the crew did not allow for drift and because of the shape of the coast, they would make landfall at Position D1 about 240nm North of Belle Isle about 2hrs later (04:11UT) still in the dark. The flight to Harbour Grace would then be about 540nm taking 5hrs 24min and leaving about 3hrs 25mins unaccounted for. (13:00UT-04:11UT-5hr:24min=3hrs 25min)

The difficulty with this scenario is that if they made landfall North of Belle Isle and their only option was to go South, how did they miss Belle Isle and end up at Harbour Grace? During the night of the 8th/9th there was a half-moon in the West so there should have been enough light to see the coast. Possible reasons for the unaccounted time could be time spent searching for the Straight of Belle Isle or looking for another way around Newfoundland or avoiding weather or waiting for sunrise.

If they had found the Strait of Belle Isle soon after landfall and crossed the Gulf of St Lawrence to Nova Scotia they would have made it to New York at 14:15UT (09:15AM NY) with 677litres of fuel remaining after a total flight time of 33hrs 57mins. But that did not happen.

As it was, whether they had a headwind or a tailwind, they ended up near Harbour Grace at 13:00UT with insufficient fuel to make New York.

These two scenarios result from the guesswork as to where the low-pressure system East of Newfoundland was exactly located. If it was a bit South, it would allow them to gain a tailwind as they passed North of it. If it was a bit North and they passed South of it, they would have headwinds. I think the latter case is simpler, more likely and leaves fewer unanswered questions.

Quote from: Jennifer Hubbard on May 01, 2025, 02:22:58 PMI wondered, are the sediment data and the comparison pond data available anywhere on the TIGHAR site? 

I think not.

It's not a question that I remember seeing asked and answered here.

That doesn't mean that Ric or other associates in the project do not have such data available to them.