Print

[Andrew M McKenna]

No hard hat diving, sorry.

Would be interesting though.

Andrew

[Todd Attebery]

Adding fuel to the fire....   this is a photo of the tail of a Lockheed 12 that I took in Oshkosh several years back.  I'm not sure how close the 10E and 12 are.  Did she have lights ?

LTM

[richie conroy]

Am gonna miss posting on this topic  , as the fourth coming results will end this discussion either way  which way i dunno 

But i look forward to many more debated topic's discussion's that arise in Tighar in future 

[Tom Swearengen]

No Richie----we will keep on looking for new things---IMHO---even as goos as the assets are, they cant cover everything!
Tom

[John Balderston]

Adding fuel to the fire....   this is a photo of the tail of a Lockheed 12 that I took in Oshkosh several years back.  I'm not sure how close the 10E and 12 are.  Did she have lights ?

LTM

Todd, I've found that TIGHAR's website offers a wealth of information.  In the "Ameliapedia" wiki a search on the word "Electra" will take you to this page (http://tighar.org/wiki/Lockheed_Electra_10E_Special_-_NR16020).  Look for the hypertext link to the "BAC inspection report", which states that prior to world flight #2 NR16020 was known to have the ubiquitous "Grimes" nav light at the tail (not certain, but I believe in 1937 Grimes was the only mfg of nav lights in the 1930's as it was that company's innovation.).

The lighting configuration on the Oshkosh Electra 12 freaks me out a little.  The aircraft (and ship) navigation lighting convention is red on the left wingtip (port side), green on the right wingtip (starboard side), and white on the tail (as far aft as possible).  Why someone would want a red nav light on the aft end of their airplane and risk another aviator's confusion is beyond me. - jb

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

AE's Electra had a trailing wire antenna which was deployed out of the back where the lights were. This was later removed as it was deemed a 'nuisance' having to deploy and winch it back in every time you wanted to make use of it. (a decision that might have crossed their minds in the latter stages of the search for Howland)
I don't know what type of retrofit went in after it's removal though, back to a light?

[John Balderston]

AE's Electra had a trailing wire antenna which was deployed out of the back where the lights were. This was later removed as it was deemed a 'nuisance' having to deploy and winch it back in every time you wanted to make use of it. (a decision that might have crossed their minds in the latter stages of the search for Howland)
I don't know what type of retrofit went in after it's removal though, back to a light?

JVH, I remembered seeing this photo in Purdue's on-line exhibit.  The white nav light above and trailing wire below can be clearly seen.  If your point about trailing wire replacing a light is correct, maybe a red light beneath the white was a typical config in those days???

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Could well have been John. In hindsight of course, I would have kept the trailing wire antenna but, the red light does look pretty cool.
Good find

[pilotart]

...Why someone would want a red nav light on the aft end of their airplane and risk another aviator's confusion is beyond me. - jb

Anti-collision lights were not required back then, but would now need to be installed under current regulations.  This could be a 'Rotating-Beacon' (usually Red) or a 'Strobe' (usually White), this could be a red strobe, but I agree that it is a poor choice of color for that location which probably filled the hole left from an old antenna's removal.

[Gary LaPook]

AE's Electra had a trailing wire antenna which was deployed out of the back where the lights were. This was later removed as it was deemed a 'nuisance' having to deploy and winch it back in every time you wanted to make use of it. (a decision that might have crossed their minds in the latter stages of the search for Howland)
I don't know what type of retrofit went in after it's removal though, back to a light?

I gotta say, that was the stupidest thing she did. It is not like they had to reel it out and then in every time they used the radio since they could still use the "V" antenna for transmissions on 3105 and 6210 kcs. The only time they would need to reel out the trailing antenna was when they wanted to send out a signal on 500 kcs, say when they wanted Itasca to take a bearing on them.

gl

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Well said Gary! It's not like it was a big deal anyway to reel it in. Having hooked a few monsters on fishing trips off the south coast here I can honestly say that a few hundred meters of empty cable would have been a cinch in comparison.

[Tom Swearengen]

Why not leave it deployed? I mean she did have enough power, so the little bit of extra drag should not have been an issue. OH ------Thats why she was low on fuel----the antenna was deployed----UHHHHH not--

[C.W. Herndon]

For the benefit of some of our "new guys", here is the link to the discussion about the removal of trailing wire antenna.
http://tighar.org/wiki/Removal_of_trailing_antenna

Below is a picture showing the "sock" after the antenna was moved and here is the link to the original picture.

http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/u?/earhart,378

[Gary LaPook]

Why not leave it deployed? I mean she did have enough power, so the little bit of extra drag should not have been an issue. OH ------Thats why she was low on fuel----the antenna was deployed----UHHHHH not--

If she had deployed it then she has to reel it in prior to landing or, in most likelihood, the wire will be torn off when the weight at the end snags something on the ground but this doesn't damage the plane, it was a common occurrence in those days. But it appears that she would not have had occasion to use it prior to the approach to Howland so where was the downside in leaving it installed?

gl

[John Balderston]

For the benefit of some of our "new guys", here is the link to the discussion about the removal of trailing wire antenna.

Woody, this is helpful and really interesting - thanks for sharing.

On the subject of T/R frequency and antenna tuning, I can't help sharing an anecdote.  When I first came to work for "big aerospace company" many years ago, I worked with a brainiac antenna engineer so introverted that when he was forced to leave the lab he would no kidding walk scuffing against the wall, outside shoulder raised and curved inward to shield his face and eyes glued to the tile floor-black rubber baseboard interface as he moved forward.  However, on one particular occasion as our meeting broke up I asked him THE QUESTION - "tell me, how do you account for variable frequencies on a fixed aperture - say a VHF blade antenna?"  20 minutes later, as he is still breathlessly talking with passionate animation about the intracacies of ground planes, bandpass filtering, impedence matching (I remember hearing the words "ultimate mismatch" and thinking "what the h__"), etc.  my brain hit overload and I increasingly just wanted to escape.  I became the introvert!  Great lesson.