Unduly snarky, Ric.
Sorry. It's a failing I struggle with. When I get impatient and frustrated I tend to get snarky.
Admission is the first step, and I am familiar with the malady.
We who resort to that so easily, however, might do well to consider the chilling effect it can have and whether that fits within our ethical charge. Just because I'm mostly polite doesn't mean I skin as easily as most are trapped into believing, but I do have a deep concern for whether we have a hostile environment for others here, or not.
Thank you.
Accepted, and good stuff. But then we also know that Earhart may not have been particularly eager to broadcast anything that would bring attention to this kind of detail.
But this isn't Earhart. This is Chater reporting what he knows after she has disappeared. I can't think of a reason why Eric Chater would cover for Earhart.
Some that are similar or greater than mine - one I now realize is a long-standing structures engineering, still practicing at age 74 including working repairs to a Fokker 100 in recent days - which means significant transport-level structures knowledge. Lots of experience as a liaison type between floor and drafting board, analysis, etc. His experience exceeds mine by many years. One ought to know one's critics before critiquing them too harshly, I've learned.
Whether the artifact fits within the dimensions of the patch is not a structures issue. Working solely from photographs it's a scaling issue - and a very complicated scaling issue. Standing beside an airplane with the artifact in hand as Glickman, Scarla and I have done is an entirely different and infinitely simpler exercise. The thing fits.
My meaning in this passage was to do with the potential for oil canning to exist if stiffeners were present or not as voiced by our critics, not photo analysis and scaling.
That said, OK - we'll talk 'dimensions' -
It is not dreadfully hard to see, appreciate and measure distinct structure aspects in photos if one has an understanding of the stations data on drawings and a grasp of lofting, etc. - especially when points such as fuselage stations can be easily discerned and applied for calibration. Think of enhancing Glickman's effort - the engineer's grasp of lofting, etc. is probably better than his. I'm sure he's a fine photogrammetry man, but it might be well to couple him with an able design engineer to extract a more promising outcome, just as a thought.
It was actually my next post that referred to the direct visual evidence that is apparent in the Darwin ramp photo, but since you opened up on it I'll share that my meaning was that the rivet line at STA 320 is visible in that photo and in fact turns out to be easily measured. The stations progressing along the fuselage in that area provide one ample means of thorough calibration and to help account for distortion if one has access to accurate metrics software (I do now). We are also looking at a relatively flat area (minimal distortion) in the mid-waterline area of the fuselage side, also with fairly low angularity to the lens, so it is not hard to work out the metrics as it turns out. This was carefully verified station-to-station by many dozens of comparisons. I actually have some astonishingly precise measurements that now tell me what the actual length of the patch was (verified by careful measurements taken from several different photos), but won't spill that here because I have no intention of imparting bias.
But skip all that - the forward and aft edges of the patch are also clearly visible in a good copy (tiff will do, and contrast adjustment does help - and turns out to be reliable). My direct read now is that the patch does not reach the rivet line at STA 320.
That is my amateur observation, which I've given you already. I'm not offering this as a hard conclusion, but to encourage consideration of something that turned out to be well-founded criticism in my view. I also did not care to go unchecked, and for my own confidence have had a local photo analyst review this as well. I imparted no bias, but simply 'can you tell me where this part end' and 'can you see rivet lines - like these others at STA 343, etc.'. He is the same gentleman who helped me have greater confidence in the Bevington Object photo in 2012, in fact. But that's my business because I am not claiming a firm call, but offer it for you to check if you will. This has long been looked at by critics, so I'm not throwing you to the wolves, either. That is in fact how it came to my attention in the first place by way of another TIGHAR member - for me to rebut if I could. Ignore this as so much critical nonsense, or do with it as you will.
Point being, we're now nodding to what some of those raised as a reasonable challenge to the prospect of light bracing within the 'patch' - which you may recall I postulated on very favorably for the TIGHAR approach only recently. I stand by that possibility, but now we seem to embrace the deformation - and since that was central to the theme of bracing or not, perhaps that remains a concern.
We're not nodding to or embracing anything. I pay absolutely no attention to "the critics." I do pay attention to new information like higher-res versions of the Darwin photos. I sent the Darwin photos to Glickman and said that it looked to me like there might be some oil-canning. He replied, "I am of the opinion that the new .png image below clearly shows oil-canning of the patch, as I have eliminated other possible sources for the image anomaly including media and scanning distortions."
After looking more closely at the photos he wrote:
"Please compare the image of oil-canning during Darwin refueling with 2-2-V-1 in-situ on Nikumaroro.
Please rotate the 2-2-V-1 image 180 degrees, and then compare the v-shaped indentation seen in the Darwin photo to the 2-2-V-1 in-situ image."
And later:
"We may be approaching a point where we can create structural fingerprints of both 2-2-V-1 and the patch, comprised of both the statistical detection of rivet lines and surface deformations, that would be nearing conclusive evidence."
That is interesting, but a picture is worth a thousand words (and millions of bytes); maybe Miami will turn up a better picture, or maybe the Darwin ramp photo will yield more to you than it has me - but I see a lot in it now.
