2-2-V-1 - patch?

[pilotart]

OK!!  I give up!!  It's from the Electra!  It has to be!  LOL! 
And YES....please "go on"...and on...and on...!

Let's not jump to conclusions. As our friends at the National Air & Space Museum are fond of saying, "TIGHAR has found nothing that can be directly linked to Earhart."

Wish I could see what you're doing tomorrow, but I certainly have faith in your prospects of pinning  2-2-V-1 over that patch installed by PanAm in Miami...

My very Best Friend (for 50 Years) is an Author working on a Completely Fictional Fantasy Novel featuring Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan ditching their Electra into a lake on an Island in the Palau Group which has the magical power to preserve the youth of not only Amelia and Fred, but even their Electra at the bottom of this magic lake.  Of course his story has them recovering it and continuing on their adventure all the way back to Miami in the present day time.  ;D

::) If and when he ever finishes it, I will send you a copy...  I have tried my best to get his support behind your hypothesis but he's solidly within the "crashed-and-sank" school.

Worst of all is that he is into the much too popular opinion that TIGHAR is just a group raising money to pay for their South Pacific Holidays... :(

He's even heavily into supporting "crowd-sourcing" of the Kiva type projects.

[Ric Gillespie]

Worst of all is that he is into the much too popular opinion that TIGHAR is just a group raising money to pay for their South Pacific Holidays... :(

I'd love to put together a tourist cruise to Niku exclusively for people who think we go there for South Pacific Holidays.

[Bill Mangus]

But Ric, the pictures make it look so nice. . .and pretty. . . and inviting. . .and relaxing. . .and relaxing!! ;D

[JNev]

...crabs, don't forget the crabs... BIG ol' nasty ones...

And all ya gotta do is kick down a little Scaveola in high heat to bed down..  with the crabs...

[Mark Samuels]

...crabs, don't forget the crabs... BIG ol' nasty ones...

And all ya gotta do is kick down a little Scaveola in high heat to bed down..  with the crabs...

Oh my, just the mention of crabs make me itch.......unless I'm throwing them in the pot to boil.  :P

[pilotart]

Worst of all is that he is into the much too popular opinion that TIGHAR is just a group raising money to pay for their South Pacific Holidays... :(

I'd love to put together a tourist cruise to Niku exclusively for people who think we go there for South Pacific Holidays.

Looks like a great Cruise (not-tourist, I know ;) ) you have set for 2015.  Donna and I enjoyed some great cruises (Alaska & Caribbean with dinner at the Captain's Table :)

Now I get all these lovely brochures offering "two for the price of one", but I'm only one now...

I saw that the Niku Cruise deal offered something about assigning a room-mate, will have to see how that works if you have it again in 2016.

Huge Land Crabs were so easy to catch on Little Cayman.  We always prepared our own (gathered & caught) sea delicacies, but it was said that the Land Crabs had to be Baked in a Special Sauce, so we always gave them to a 100 year old Native, she would prepare them with great skill in a casserole.

[Dave Thaker]

I'm a first time poster but long time reader of the Forum.

I have several questions about 2-2-v-i whose answers may be obvious to others, but in spite of my best efforts to be well versed in this subject, I am still in the dark.  Sorry if the answers to these questions are obvious to others, but I did make an effort to find the answers before posting.

About the line of 5/32 inch rivet holes — line 5 at the bottom of the picture that Ric posted up thread at reply #369: 

-This is said to be line of doubled rivet holes, but all that is seen on 2-2-v-1 itself is a single line of rivet holes, so how do we know that there was a second line of rivet holes? 
-There is a 'tab' of sorts below the three complete rivet holes we see along this line of 5/32 holes, and here we don't see double rivet holes.  I recall that the explanation is that there was an underlying structural element at this location whose presence caused these rivets to be skipped; if that is correct, then what was that structural element underneath the skin below the tab? This seems an important point, because showing how the tab correlates with the underlying structure would help build the case that 2-2-v-1 matches the known underlying structure of AE's Electra.
-The spacing between the 5/32 rivet holes is irregular (the partial holes as well as the full holes), while the spacing between holes for the other 4 lines of rivet holes is uniform. What is the reason for the irregular spacing of the 5/32 inch rivet holes?

Also:

I know nothing about airplane construction except from looking at various airplane rivet patterns as the discussion of 2-2-v-1 unfolded.  My understanding from this very limited perspective is that airplane skins are typically riveted to the underlying airplane structure within perhaps a half inch of their edges.  But I see perhaps 3/4 of an inch, maybe more, of aluminum skin beyond the line of row 1 rivets in Ric's picture; also, what I referred to as the 'tab' below row 5 was presumably riveted somewhere below the red line in Ric's picture, or else it would not be properly fastened to the plane, so it seems that 2-2-v-1- extended some distance beyond the edge of the tab.

So, my question comes down to this:  at a minimum, how far above row 1, and how far below the tab, did 2-2-v-1 extend before it was torn away from the structure it was attached to?  How and where were the upper and lower edges of 2-2-v-1 attached to the underlying structure of the Electra?

[richie conroy]

Hi All

I was looking through photo's and upon looking at following image, i noticed faint lines either side of rivet line obviously the edges of stringer or structure this skin was attached, Do we know the width of the stringers/structure of Electra and do they match these faint lines ?

Thanks Richie

[Krystal McGinty-Carter]

Richie, I see it too. But I also think I see it continue across the entire length. Unfortunately I dont have any fun photo editing software to put my mark on it.  Anyone else see what Im talking about?

[Ric Gillespie]

Anyone else see what Im talking about?

Yes. What you're seeing is a subtle deformation of the sheet caused by the underlying stringer it was riveted to.  The width of the stringer appears to have been 3/4 inch.  That's the width of standard stringers in a Lockheed 10 (and probably many other aircraft of similar size).

One of the things Jeff Glickman and I discovered this past week is that there is a similar deformation running vertically across the piece, as if there was an underlying stringer or stiffener on the interior surface of the sheet that was not riveted.  It's narrower than the one your mentioned - only about 3/8 inch wide.  The attached photos show the deformation.

[Ric Gillespie]

I've forgotten who it was on the Forum that first noticed a gap in the skins at Station 293 5/8 in the photo taken in Miami before the patch was installed.  That sharp-eyed person wondered if it was caused by fuselage flexing in the area weakened by the window being almost opposite the area weakened by the cabin door (too many cut stringers). Now Jeff Glickman has found photographic evidence of fuselage deformation in that same area in a photo taken in late January or early February 1937 soon after the window was first installed.  It looks like that airplane had a problem as soon as the structure was weakened by cutting the stringers for the window.  Whether it was a factor in later events is hard to say.

[Ted G Campbell]

Now we know where the staggered rivets line up.  Notice the bottom row of #5's vis the upper row.

Look close for that offset revit hole.

Great job Jeff!

Ted

[Ted G Campbell]

This observation of structual problems tells me that this patch job is way beyond an A&P quick fix.

Pan AM is involved some how, maybe by their factory rep from lockheed there in Miami.  Most airlines have mfg reps on site - we did at United in the '60s.

Ted Campbell

[Ric Gillespie]

This observation of structual problems tells me that this patch job is way beyond an A&P quick fix.

Consider this.  The photo in which Jeff sees what appears to be damage was taken before the accident in Hawaii and subsequent major repair at the factory.  Do you think it would go unrepaired if it was considered serious? 

Pan AM is involved some how, maybe by their factory rep from lockheed there in Miami.  Most airlines have mfg reps on site - we did at United in the '60s.

Pan Am didn't have any Lockheed airplanes in Miami.  They operated Sikorsky flying boats from their Dinner Key seaplane base.

[Greg Daspit]

Speculation: The faint vertical deformation in 2-2-V-1 could be evidence they attempted to make sta 307 continuous again, addressing the structural weakness caused by the big added window. This area could have been something of a continuing problem, maybe they thought they had it fixed, but after the Miami hard landing, they finally addressed it by returning it to original condition, or as best they could with the local assets.