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[Andrew M McKenna]

Here is a screen shot of Linda Finch's aircraft that seems to be flying over the same type of terrain as the photo Richie Posted.

You can find it at minute 2:17 of Part 2 of 4 of "The Final Hours Amelia Earhart's Last Flight - 2000 Documentary"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_1899&feature=iv&src_vid=ZkZa0O3ZvVk&v=T-mlCT4ED3w

The funny little blob on the aft starboard side is evident in both photos, but not in any of AE's photos.

amck

The "funny little blob" appears to be an exhaust outlet that somehow relates to the cabin heater system.  I studied that on the Finch airplane at Museum of flight.  My guess is that there was an alternate exhuast path that ran from the nacelles to the fuselage and along the lower outboard edges of the cabin (inside and just above the floorboards, where we know the 'heater ducts' were normally located), thence out at the rearward area where we see the 'little blob'.  The 'blob' is a faired protrusion - aluminum - that houses what appears to be an exhaust outlet similar to the one we can also observe on the outboard sides of each nacelle. 

Guessing again, my thought is that with cabin heat selected, some or all of the engine exhaust would be routed through this contraption - which may have included a double-walled pipe as it traveled through the cabin (just a thought - the whole thing give me the willies and wouldn't be certifiable today...).  Maybe someone can dig up more facts on how that all worked - but that is what the 'blob' device appears to be part of.

The Earhart airplane does not seem to have this arrangement.  Perhaps the bird was spec'd to exclude a heater system.  My additional guess is that cabin heat would not have been so vital on the round the word trip since it was fairly equatorial, but one does wonder about other flying Earhart did.  It does seem there were likely compromises such as this to save weight in the 'flying laboratory', however.

Interesting, however, we know that Earhart's aircraft did have heater ducts, they can be seen in some of the construction photos.  Furthermore, it would seem that the Dado structures were used to shield the fuel tanks from the heater ducts as we discovered with the Gilliam Electra in Alaska.

Perhaps there was an alternate exit port for Earhart's heater system that was later replaced by the "blobby" thing we see on Finch's aircraft.

Begs the question, if Earhart's Electra had heater ducts running along the floor, how and where did they exit the aircraft?  What about the Alaska Electra?

Andrew

[JNev]

Good questions, Andrew.  I don't know the answers, but if that is how the heater worked, there should have been outlets somewhere near the aft belly area.  Maybe there were and they were flush in the early days and we just haven't seen them.

I'd have to look at the construction pix again to see what was actually installed inside of NR16020 - were the actual heat ducts there, for sure?

[Ric Gillespie]

I'd have to look at the construction pix again to see what was actually installed inside of NR16020 - were the actual heat ducts there, for sure?

For sure. Those are the heater ducts running along the base of then cabin wall.

[Ric Gillespie]

Check my logic.

IF 2-2-V-1 is the patch, how did it end up washed up where we found it?
IF the plane was torn apart in the surf and the patch was just one of the pieces that got ripped apart by the water, why is it the only more or less intact section of skin we've found?
If, on the other hand, it was kicked, pried, broken out by AE and/or FN and ended up lying on the reef surface it could explain why if suffered a different fate than the rest of the airplane which went over the edge into the ocean.
The absence of sheets of skin may suggest that the plane did NOT get torn apart in the surf and, instead, sank more or less intact.
Does that mean that there's a greater chance that the anomaly is the fuselage of the Electra?

[JNev]

2-2-V-1 looks more like a target of opportunity to me than the result of a full break-up, if it came from NR16020.  "Human intervention" is somehow implied when a single piece of sheet is found clear and away from the mother ship like that, and further suggested by the relatively 'clean' removal of so many fasteners as we see.

Pure speculation on my part, but it is not hard for the mind's eye to see someone grabbing and tearing away a somewhat loose or apparently easily dislodged component like the window patch might have been from a carcass lying in the surf, otherwise more or less largely intact.

That would also tend to support the possibity of a whale-like remnant of the Electra lying about somewhere down-cliff, it would seem to be.

Just thoughts - other's MMV, of course.

[Andrew M McKenna]

Where is the location of the window/patch in relation to the cabin door?

The impression I've gotten is that it was pretty much directly across the cabin from the door.  If so, could the patch have been blown out by wave action coming in through the door?

Yes, if the patch was separated from the aircraft in a different way other than total destruction of the aircraft, it would stand to reason that the rest of the aircraft may be more intact than you've been speculating.  I've never subscribed to the "ground up into bits" theory.

Andrew

[Bill Mangus]

If the 1953 aerial mapping photos Jeff G. analyzed are pieces of aluminum, they are most likely from the tail; i.e. horizontal and vertical stabilizers and maybe, just maybe a section of the fuselage aft of where the patch was.  Seems there's an awful lot of stuff there -- the patch, the cut through frames and stringers for the patch, the cabin door on the port side, and now the apparent buckled skin seen in the Herald photo -- that would have created a weak point for separation to occur and the surface area of the tail provides a large 'lever' effect as the waves break over it.  This separation would also account for the way 2-2-V-1 looks now.

I can't really buy into the idea of human intervention, especially out off the beach.  I cannot imagine standing in knee deep surf, barefoot on a slick reef trying to pry, lever and tear a small piece of aluminum away from a larger piece of the fuselage.  You're going to get hurt -- badly!

The remainder of the fuselage, the engines and main spar went over the reef and probably remain someplace on the trail Richie's Anomaly made as it traveled sideways down the reef face.

[Ted G Campbell]

All,

Since we are all noodling on the issue with the patch let me introduce another scenario:

There was some type of low level explosion inside the plane – a battery coming in contact with sea water or a short circuit in one or more of the aux gas tanks.  This could account for the two “window” pieces we’ve found.  The Plexiglas sheet we found earlier and the patch we’ve found later.

What would be the weakest part of the fuselage, the main body or the windows?

Ted Campbell

[Bill Mangus]

More to my post above:

Of course the patch -- 2-2-V-1 -- could have been 'hanging by a thread' or stringer more likely and been ripe for picking.

And isn't there a colonist story of kids playing with what sounded like an aircraft cabin door over on the other side of the island?

All these factors or issues present in one section of the fuselage in total represent a not insignificant percentage of the circumference of the fuselage just in front of the tail, just the right place for it to break.  I can just imagine the surf working the tail back-and-forth and up-and-down, tearing aluminum and separating rivets.

[Bill Mangus]

Feel free to move to another thread if appropriate.

Here's one way we may have ended up with "The Artifact Formerly Known as 2-2-V-1

----------------------

The Breakup of NR16020

Here's how I envision the breakup of NR16020 after it's abandoned by AE and FN.  I'm not an aircraft
architect, so the terms may not be precise.  Please correct. 

This didn't happen all at once.  With a little more work I can fit it into the time line Ric came up with a few years ago.

Once the surf starts pushing the aircraft around the first thing to fail are the landing gear.  They're probably broken off where the strut attaches to the main spar/engine mount, maybe not all at once so they're flopping around underneath as the a/c is moved around, grinding up the underside of the wings and the belly.

Eventually the a/c gets broadside to the breaking waves and the tail begins to break off at the patch/cabin door/buckled skin/weakened frames point.  The tail separates, ripping and tearing the window patch but keeping it, and being relatively light is washed inshore. It begins its journey through the Norwich City debris field, getting knocked apart even more as it moves toward the lagoon entrance and the large reef flat just to its north.  By now it is separated into its component parts; horizontal and vertical stabilizers and a section of fuselage from just in front of the patch/cabin door.  Our artifact 2-2-V-1 is probably still attached to the tail section of the fuselage at this point.  Later, months or years later given the amount of carbonate (coral) encrustation,  it's recovered by an enterprising colonist.  The flat tail sections and fuselage piece are photographed in the 1953 aerial mapping survey, then are likely washed through into the lagoon to be buried in the sand or ground to aluminum dust.  At some point the cabin door washes ashore is found and played with.

Meanwhile, back at the landing site, the remaining largest section of the fuselage is broken off from the main spar, washes over the edge, sinks and begins its journey across the reef face, ending up as Richie's Anomaly.  The sections of the wing outboard of the engines have gone away and probably drift a fair piece as they sink.  More surface area for the current to push against means they probably went past the NC debris field and are further off shore and deeper. 

The main spar, one or both engines and both main gear are left.  One gear, strut, and tire become the Bevington Object.  The other, somehow makes its way to Tatiman Passage and becomes the Wheel of Fortune.

The main spar and perhaps one or both engines remain in the surf line north of the North City and are photographed as the 'dot-dot-dash' by the New Zealand expedition and are seen by the colonists (and Emily) before eventually falling off the edge of the reef.  I expect they went straight down and did not drift as the fuselage did.  I think the engines would come off and go tumbling down into the depths.  The main spar frame, a large, heavy rectangular shape would resist tumbling may still be fairly shallow.

Nothing is left above water except 2-2-V-1

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A fun thought piece.

[Tim Gard]

As a baseline, Norwich City hullplates were simply blown from the wreck and frisbeed along the beach.

Since the Electra was closeby and exposed to the same seas, it's reasonable to conclude that fuselage plates suffered the same fate.

[C.W. Herndon]

Where is the location of the window/patch in relation to the cabin door?

The impression I've gotten is that it was pretty much directly across the cabin from the door.  If so, could the patch have been blown out by wave action coming in through the door?

Andrew

Andrew, the window/patch was in a separate compartment, the lavatory area of the Electra, with a door between the two areas.

Picture 1 below shows the main cabin door open with the two regular passenger windows across from each other and the "blank" side panel across from this door. This blank area is the area shown between the two windows in picture two. Picture 3 is a Harney drawing of the interior of the Electra, and while not well labeled for the purpose here, does show the general layout of the interior. The area shown as where the rear interior door opens is also the area where the main cabin door (external) opens.

[Ricker H Jones]

A near analog of the Earheart hypothesis was the landing of the Monospar Croydon ST-18 on Seringapatam Reef in October, 1936 (see this and this ). Interviews with the fishing crew which picked up the aircrew of the Croydon can be found in Chapter 4 of Boats to Burn: Bajo Fishing Activity in the Australian Fishing Zone:

"We went to have a look at the plane afterwards and measured the wingspan¬-it was eight depa (fathoms) long.” “The frame of the plane is still there to this day”

 It appeared these crew interviews were made in the 1990's.

[pilotart]

Off the 'skin' topic...  I had been searching to locate where a contemporary Aviation expert (Harold Gaty??) had told a Pacific Island Official that most likely scenario from not finding your destination Island was to land on a reef, when I happened across the Croyden story.

The next 15 posts following my post linked above (inside a 34 page topic) have a lot of information and links dealing with that somewhat very much parallel incident.

Have never seen anything about the 'expert opinion' (Harold or whoever) statement I was looking for.  It was certainly 'drowned-out' by truth of what HAD happened.  Rick did an excellent job of outlining and documenting it.

The possibility of tying this 2-2-V-1 panel to that repair in Miami truly has potential, I believe it will happen.

I have had difficulty finding FAA or Repair Station Engineering Reports that turned up lost or destroyed after just 20 years, looks like contemporary photographs and expert analysis might be the best hope.

[Monty Fowler]

I have had difficulty finding FAA or Repair Station Engineering Reports that turned up lost or destroyed after just 20 years, looks like contemporary photographs and expert analysis might be the best hope.

Exactly. THE photo or drawing we need is there, somewhere. Things associated with Amelia Earhart are still turning up almost 80 years after the fact. We just have to get lucky. Again. Which is what I'm working towards.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP