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Author Topic: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937  (Read 548426 times)

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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LTM,

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richie conroy

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #106 on: April 21, 2012, 10:12:02 AM »

thank Marty  :)
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richie conroy

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #107 on: April 24, 2012, 06:49:19 PM »

the search by 3 planes on Gardner July 9th 1937 

troubles me, because of the fact only 1 picture was took of island from a mile out.

so i  put myself in 1 of them planes in 1937 ?

observer in 1st plane gets a photo of island on approach good enough..

but now u have 3 planes flying in close proximity of each other within 4 mile radius ?

would u be comfortable taking photo's of island, or looking for answering wave, or would u be more concerned were the other aircraft were ?

just wondering  what u guys girls think ?

in my opinion i think i would be more focused on other planes positions than what was seen on ground

i know they were trained,

 but i think they would have been more worried of goings on around them, than worried about seeing someone waveing at them   
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richie conroy

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #108 on: April 24, 2012, 08:26:49 PM »

Jeff

i agree but i know, an have gone over an over in my head..

 i would try staying awake an trying to get a SOS out for as long as possible, howland is only 300 miles away Noonan had been in enough accidents to know help would come

why did the search party spend so much time searching 281 miles north of howland, when there is no land obvious on map but if u go 281 south, your under 20 miles from gardner island

?
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #109 on: April 24, 2012, 09:09:31 PM »

All very emotive however it has not yet been established if Earhart and Noonan were there to be seen. I agree that it would be sad if someone had been too weak to attract the attention of the aircraft flying over, but whether there was anyone on the island at the time has not been established. One way or another that needs to be established by TIGHAR on the next trip to Nikumaroro. Otherwise they risk drifting off into fantasy. 
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Gary LaPook

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #110 on: April 25, 2012, 12:57:28 AM »

All very emotive however it has not yet been established if Earhart and Noonan were there to be seen. I agree that it would be sad if someone had been too weak to attract the attention of the aircraft flying over, but whether there was anyone on the island at the time has not been established. One way or another that needs to be established by TIGHAR on the next trip to Nikumaroro. Otherwise they risk drifting off into fantasy.

See my prior post. Here is a part of it:

"In my prior post, for simplification, I assumed the strip of land making up Gardner Island between the lagoon and the sea was half a nautical mile wide (3038 feet), but this was an overstatement. In fact, 39% of this donut is less than 700 feet wide and a further 45% is less than 1200 feet wide. Only the northern end of the island is a half nautical mile wide. This means that the search planes flying down the center of the strip of land would only have to search 350 feet either side of the plane (a little bit longer than a football field) for 39% of the circuit and 600 feet for 45% of the circuit. Only on the northern tip, constituting the remaining 16% of the island,  would they have to search a quarter mile either side, 1519 feet. You can see then that for fully 84% of the circuit the the distance they would have to look was significantly less than the distance that would allow spotting a bobbing head out on the ocean so should have had a very high probability of spotting an entire person on dry land. Only on the northern tip would the search distance be slightly greater, 1519 feet versus 1215 feet, than you would expect to spot a bobbing head among the waves so you would expect to be able to spot an entire person at this distance. "

And another prior post here.

It is hard to conceive of any formation or search pattern that didn't bring one of the planes within a few hundred feet of every spot of dry land on Gardner. And they had time to make three complete circuits each.

gl


Searching with three planes with tracks spaced 3,000 feet (1/2 NM) apart.


Searching with three planes with tracks spaced 1,200 feet (1/5 NM) apart.

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Gary LaPook

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #111 on: April 25, 2012, 01:13:33 AM »

Jeff

i agree but i know, an have gone over an over in my head..

 i would try staying awake an trying to get a SOS out for as long as possible, howland is only 300 miles away Noonan had been in enough accidents to know help would come

why did the search party spend so much time searching 281 miles north of howland, when there is no land obvious on map but if u go 281 south, your under 20 miles from gardner island

?
Gardner in NOT 281 miles south of Howland. I have attached a chart showing that spot, it is 175 miles from there to Gardner.

gl
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #112 on: April 25, 2012, 02:13:49 AM »


See my prior post. Here is a part of it:


I agree with you Gary and I would like to add that there has been a tendency by some to dismiss the Navy aviators as sort of rank amateurs only capable of spotting something like the splash from a 16inch naval shell. These were trained airmen whose job was aerial observation and to operate in the uncomfortable conditions offered by observation aircraft of that time.

Much is made of the TIGHAR video of overflight in the helicopter and the difficulty of seeing people on the ground. Yes, when I first viewed that video I was far more interested in the geography of the island, on the second viewing however I looked for people and they were there to see. In my own career I used helicopters and I had no great difficulty spotting quite small objects from the air when I was focusing on that task because it was part of my task. It all depends on what you are concentrating on, and if people haven't done work where aerial spotting is involved then they will be unable to comprehend that.

If there had been aircraft wreckage the aviators would have seen it, especially as it appears that according to the latest theories proposed, there was a sizable chunk on the reef to the north of the wreck of the Norwich Castle - or is Emily's account wrong as I have suggested elsewhere. Claims about the tide, waves etc. obscuring these from the naval personnel seem to me to be no more than special pleading. And may I further reiterate regarding Emily's claim - aluminium doesn't rust, while the Electra was largely made of aluminium not steel. The only steel structural members would be quite small and restricted to parts of undercarriage and the engine mounts. None of which are long strut shaped structures as described by her. Emily specifically describes what she saw as starting out shiny and then rusting away - aluminium doesn't do that. 
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Andrew M McKenna

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #113 on: April 25, 2012, 03:43:38 AM »

Malcolm

We've chased our tails around the probability of detection, Gary thinks it should be as high as 90% for the overflight, and I've argued that it is realistically much lower, particularly for a staving, dehydrated, half dead person who would have been seeking shade back in the bush.  From 400 ft up these guys were looking for an Electra more than a person.

In any case, Emily never says she saw aluminum, she only saw a rusty structure, tubular in nature, perhaps as much as 10 ft long with a round thing at the end.

where does she indicate that anything was shiny?  here is a quote from her interview:

RG:   You saw none of the other parts of the plane. The aluminum, the shiny parts?
ES:   No, all gone. Nothing.

I believe the main wing spar - probably the largest structural member of the entire aircraft, was built of steel.

Andrew
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #114 on: April 25, 2012, 05:41:08 AM »

Malcolm
In any case, Emily never says she saw aluminum, she only saw a rusty structure, tubular in nature, perhaps as much as 10 ft long with a round thing at the end.
Andrew

There is a pic on the files here of the Electra's cabin looking forward towards the cockpit without the auxiliary tanks which clearly shows the main spar passing through the cockpit and it isn't tubular. It is like most main spars a girder and it is clearly aluminium. I misread that about shiny however, as I have said aluminium does not rust so I can only return to what I surmised in another post that all this strikes me as being some sort of gossip based thing arising from the 1940 find of the skeleton and Gallagher's idea it may have been Earhart. He may have been keen on keeping it all hush hush but I am willing to wager it probably became pretty hot gossip amongst the Nikumaroroans - a story to be told and retold.

Also in this -

http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/15_Carpentersdaught/15_Evaluation.html

we have the following quote -

"During roughly the same time period, his daughter Tapania sees a “piece of a wing” in the water on the reef off the shore of Nutiran not far from the main passage. Aerial photographs taken in 1953 indicate the presence of anomalous light-colored, reflective material on the reef in this same area. (map reference 3) Tapania also sees “airplane parts” in the shoreline vegetation (map reference 4) not far from a “European house” made of lumber rather than native materials. "

Now at the risk of seeming unduly negative but even suggesting that this so-called anomaly is part of the Electra does seem to be a bit of a leap of faith. And again if this is part of an aircraft and visible in 1953 why is there no sign of it or the aircraft when Lambrecht and his colleagues fly over the island on the 9th of July in 1937. If by some chance the aircraft had landed on the reef, it would have had to break up very rapidly (which I very much doubt) why is there no sign of this light coloured anomaly then? It doesn't hang together at all this story - rusty aircraft wreckage? when just down the reef a bit you have a wrecked cargo ship made entirely of iron which is being broken up by waves and it's parts distributed up and down the reef.

I am afraid that "a rusty structure, tubular in nature, perhaps as much as 10 ft long with a round thing at the end." strikes me as being just a long section of pipe with a flange on it from the Norwich City, which is just rusting away.

We also have in the various testimonies references to aircraft wreckage like -

The association of the bones with taboo airplane wreckage is something that we’ve heard before. Tapania Taiki, in 1997, told us of seeing pieces of an airplane on the reef and in the shoreline vegetation when she was a child on Nikumaroro in the late 1950s:

“The older people said they saw the skeletons of a man and woman, one each. The elders said, ‘Do not go where the plane is. There are ghosts there.’ They were trying to scare us to keep us away from there.”
 

Now the first question I ask myself is why, given the stir when Gallagher sent the skeletal material off wasn't all this raised then, and that as time slowly passes we have the elders saying they saw the skeletons of a man and a woman, but none of this is in Gallagher's report which one must take very seriously no matter what we make of the identity of the bones. This has all the traits of a Nikumaroroan urban myth gradually being embellished with each retelling. Perhaps as a means to explain the skeletal material that resulted from the deaths at the time of the Norwich City wreck, and their disturbance over the years by waves and crabs and whatever.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2012, 05:44:44 AM by Malcolm McKay »
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Jeff Victor Hayden

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #115 on: April 25, 2012, 08:33:21 AM »

Here's a similar situation only, the aircraft type is a tad larger than a lockheed Electra...
Lockheed 10-E Electra Specifications:
Length: 38 feet 7 inches
Wingspan: 55 feet, 0 inches
Height: 10 feet, 0 inches


http://www.boeing.com/commercial/startup/pdf/767_ext.pdf

This must be the place
 
« Last Edit: April 25, 2012, 08:44:26 AM by Jeff Victor Hayden »
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Jeff Victor Hayden

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #116 on: April 25, 2012, 12:04:58 PM »

Size counts.

That was not a pretty ditching.
Dead stick was the probable reason it went pear shaped
This must be the place
 
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #117 on: April 25, 2012, 07:45:13 PM »


As to those who seemingly would like bury this search -

Where then?  To chase a tale of someone having seen a serial number on a plate so many miles beyond where the Electra could have reached?  Not for me, thanks. 

I hear so often how thin our case is - but we do have things in-hand, and a great picture...

LTM -

Bury this search? - who is trying to bury the search. If you think that questioning evidence offered is an attempt to bury it then I presume that all you want is unalloyed acceptance of every claim that is made for Nikumaroro. As for the comment on the East New Britain claim it does have one thing that so far Nikumaroro has not given and that is a possible C/N match with Earhart's Electra. I am not saying that that is a certainty but it deserves to be considered much more than side issues like mistaking rusting iron for aircraft parts (I am still amazed that that was not simply noted and rejected politely). 
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Malcolm McKay

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #118 on: April 25, 2012, 10:09:14 PM »

Oh my... ;)

etc.

LTM -

Perhaps you should have asked why the hi-res pic has not been released. If it is of such interest then it would not harm TIGHAR's case to publish it. It isn't as if it some highly classified military secret. TIGHAR wouldn't be disadvantaged by publication if it shows what it is purported to show. After all the Nessie pic has been doing the rounds for some time now. You may like to consider also that the claim about the rusting piece of metal being an aircraft part was actually advanced long before the enhancement of the photo, and formed part of that steadily developing Nikumaroroan tradition about skeletons and aircraft parts which I have discussed elsewhere. 

I am well aware of Billings' claims about the East New Britain hypothesis. The metal tag affixed to the engine mount bears data one would expect, and the C/N 1055 shows as he claims an acceptable means of making sure a component detached for repair, as was the engine mount of the Electra after the ground loop, would be reunited with the correct airframe in the repair facility. Nothing more nothing less. And as was posted by others on that thread this form of construction number was standard Lockheed procedure.

Pacific Wrecks has an openly stated aversion to all searches for Earhart's aircraft taking the view that the only wreckage of interest, and therefore the only wreckage that should attract funding for searches, is that of WW2 aircraft. I don't think that view is helpful but we do live in democratic times.

The ugly rivets refer to the prominent type of cowling fixings that Earhart's Electra was fitted with - those appear in contemporary photos, while the yellow interior sounds to me to be none other than Zinc Chromate.
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Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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Re: FAQ: Colorado / Lambrecht Search, 9 July 1937
« Reply #119 on: April 25, 2012, 10:27:52 PM »

Perhaps you should have asked why the hi-res pic has not been released.

Asked and answered, in this very Forum, and discussed at some length.

TIGHAR does not own the picture.

Anyone who wants to purchase the rights to "release" it has to negotiate with the owners.

Two folks from TIGHAR have gone to England today to get a better copy of the picture.

Jeff Glickman will discuss the photo analysis at the Symposium in June.
LTM,

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