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[Mark Appel]

Great work again, Ric and congratulations.

That reputation in the scientific community is very damn hard-earned indeed--and the primary differentiator that separates TIGHAR from other Earhart hypotheses and their advocates. As we see here and on other occasions, it pays dividends in both big and small ways.

[Jennifer Hubbard]

Wonderfully generous of the lab and much appreciated.

Is testing of the 2-2-V-1 rivet still planned? It was mentioned a while ago in conjunction with the corrosion theory. If I've followed this discussion, there seem to be second thoughts about the corrosion theory, but I wasn't clear on whether the rivet testing was still planned.

[Monty Fowler]

The results we'll get will be scientifically sound, whether or not they're what we want to hear.

Exactly. And this is what sets TIGHAR apart from other Earhart mystery groups. We lay it ALL out, and the facts, when they are known, are indisputable.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP

[JNev]

What is most important to me about this message from Ric is the willingness to take it as it comes and call things as they are when we can know more.  It also clarifies that despite our enthusiasm and the many positives we believe we've found, we still do not have all the answers.  This remains a search.

The need for this kind of truth of process has become more crucial to me as I have matured here than finding Earhart, actually.  No matter how this matter settles, I still believe TIGHAR has a great hypothesis about Gardner / Niku.  But how we get there - or fail utlimately if we must, has grown to be everything from my view if we'd be the laboratory we seem to want to be.

I don't know if we're going to find significant enough differences between mid-thirties metals and those of later millwork through this effort - that's over my head, but this is an interesting exercise.  That the lab is working with us this way is generous and heartening not only for us, but should be for anyone who's interested in answers to the Earhart loss.  Yes, it is good that the lab found enthusiasm for working with TIGHAR - but the whole community ought to note what can happen if we keep a sense of open-minded exploration and a desire to find answeres wherever they might be found.  This lab demonstrates that spirit as I see it and I'd like to think they're responding to that same thing in us: maybe in going there we are saying we still need answers; many can respond to that when they see that spirit.

I also hope that more direct information might come from the Miami photo effort coming up next week.  Nothing could define this whole thing faster and more clearly than a single better-enough photograph that can once and for all give us clear information about the cover and how it mated to the airframe. 

I welcome the outcome, whatever it is.  Of course I'd love it solve the mystery, but if it doesn't I am not swayed from searching.  Let's just do it right.

[Richard Lyon Metzger]

Ric, one question comes to mind regarding 2-2-V-1....it is a "patch" and thus the material could have come from anywhere or from another plane or scrap that had been sitting around for a long time.


I think this is the place....

[Ric Gillespie]

Ric, one question comes to mind regarding 2-2-V-1....it is a "patch" and thus the material could have come from anywhere or from another plane or scrap that had been sitting around for a long time?

Just my opinion but I don't think this a piece of metal that has been sitting around for even a short time.  It's too shiny. New aluminum sheet oxidizes to a dull gray (like the rest of Earhart's plane) in a fairly short time.  We can see the patch get duller and duller as the plane proceeds around the world. I think this was a new sheet ordered from ALCOA.

[Ric Gillespie]

The need for this kind of truth of process has become more crucial to me as I have matured here than finding Earhart, actually. 

I have said many times that, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter what happened to Amelia Earhart.  The value of The Earhart Project is as a vehicle for exploring and demonstrating how we go about figuring out what is true.  That's a skill everyone needs every day.

[Tim Collins]

Just my opinion but I don't think this a piece of metal that has been sitting around for even a short time.  It's too shiny. New aluminum sheet oxidizes to a dull gray (like the rest of Earhart's plane) in a fairly short time.  We can see the patch get duller and duller as the plane proceeds around the world. I think this was a new sheet ordered from ALCOA.

Wouldn't the chances be good that once the patch was in place it would have been buffed or otherwise cleaned up cosmetically?

Why do I seem to have gotten the impression that removing and patching the window was done so as to attract as little attention as possible, if not down right secretly? that couldn't be the case could it?

[JNev]

Might have been, Tim, good point.  But there can also be a desire to not emphasize a new 'patch' by polishing it so nicely in contrast to what surrounds it.

Bottom line, I don't know.  My gut agrees with Ric that we're seeing what was probably fresh stock at the time.

I've gotten one worthy comment about the markings being on the outside and not polished, and that Earhart probably would want such stuff removed.  That could fit your point, or at least that the printed markings were removed at the time.  I do not know the chemical specifics of this, but those of us who have personally viewed 2-2-V-1 don't 'ink', but what appears more as micro-etching of the surface around those characters.  I cannot say whether visible ink would have remained for that to happen, or whether some faint residue would serve to do so.

Just thoughts on this very confoundingly enigmatic piece of metal - who'd of thought a humble piece of clad could generate so much interest...

[Ric Gillespie]

Wouldn't the chances be good that once the patch was in place it would have been buffed or otherwise cleaned up cosmetically?

Why would you do something that would draw attention to a modification which seems to have been done in secret? Remember, the patch was installed at the last minute - sometime between Saturday, May 29 and Monday, May 31. No mention of it occurs in the press or in the various accounts of Earhart's activities while she was in Miami.  You can make a sheet of aluminum shinier by polishing it but there is no way to make it duller to blend in with the rest of the airplane.  That has to occur naturally over time.  I think the patch is shiny because the aluminum was new and shiny and there was nothing they could do about it.

Why do I seem to have gotten the impression that removing and patching the window was done so as to attract as little attention as possible, if not down right secretly? that couldn't be the case could it?

I think your impression is correct and it could absolutely be the case.  Earhart was habitually secretive and often downright misleading about anything that might reflect negatively on her public persona.

[Ric Gillespie]

I do not know the chemical specifics of this, but those of us who have personally viewed 2-2-V-1 don't 'ink', but what appears more as micro-etching of the surface around those characters.  I cannot say whether visible ink would have remained for that to happen, or whether some faint residue would serve to do so.

It's really very simple. We looked at the markings under high magnification at MIT.  They are not "etched" into the metal.  The places where markings are visible today are simply places where the original ink was thick enough to protect the underlying aluminum from oxidation.  The ink gradually wore off leaving areas that are less oxidized than the surrounding metal. Those areas are naturally in the shape of the letters that were once there. 

The attached image shows the D under high magnification.  There is no difference in height between the shiny areas and the dull oxidized areas.

[Ric Gillespie]

Jeff Glickman and I have been working with the two Darwin photos (see below). We need your help in tracking down the best, i.e. most original, hi-res copies of these photos.    Far from disproving the Patch Hypothesis as alleged by some critics, they turn out to be significantly supportive.  Both photos show distortion (aka "oil-canning") of the patch.  The photo of the plane being refueled in Darwin shows distortion of the patch in exactly the same spot as we see distortion in the artifact (see photo overlays). We've been assuming that all of the bending and bowing we see on the artifact occurred after the plane landed at Niku, but these photos strongly suggest that is not the case.  We can also see indications of the presence of a vertical stiffener at Sta. 307. 

Curiously, a good air-to-air photo of the aircraft and patch taken over Java just days earlier shows no oil-canning.  It would appear that something happened between Java and Darwin that destabilized the patch and permitted it to deform.

Where did the Darwin Fueling photo come from?  Does somebody in Australia have a print or negative?  Ditto for the Darwin hangar photo.

[Ricker H Jones]

Do we have this photo taken in Darwin (Melbourne Argus, July 3, 1937)?
If not, it might be possible to track down a better image.
Rick J

[Ric Gillespie]

Do we have this photo taken in Darwin (Melbourne Argus, July 3, 1937)?
If not, it might be possible to track down a better image.
Rick J

That's the Darwin Fueling photo we're talking about.

[JNev]

The best source for that one that I know of is Purdue.  Theirs seems to be high resolution and is best copied with tif to do any analysis, I believe.