The Bevington Object

[tom howard]

Something does not compute or am I missing something Ric?

What you're missing is that tide level above datum is not the same as water level on the reef at the place where we think the airplane was.  The reef surface there is not at tidal datum.  It's well above tidal datum.

Ric, I do believe Gary is correct if the tide was low. If Gary is right, a 13" tide would not even touch the plane 25 yards from the edge given the slope of the reef. It would be sticking straight up with no water around it at all, and would be totally exposed. How could that be missed?
Now, if the wheel got ripped off going over the edge, and stuck on the very edge, Gary is right, it would only be in 5 inches of water. Which would also be darn near impossible for the three Navy planes to miss circling the island. That would be a nice chunk of metal and tire standing there all exposed like a flagpole.
Is Gary correct? Was it near low tide when the Navy flew over?

How did you calculate the landing gear would be covered with water by the time the Navy flew over?

[Gary LaPook]

Something does not compute or am I missing something Ric?

What you're missing is that tide level above datum is not the same as water level on the reef at the place where we think the airplane was.  The reef surface there is not at tidal datum. It's well above tidal datum.

Check your math again, Ric. The only way that the water depth over the reef surface could be higher than the height of the tide above Brandenburg's datum is if the reef surface were LOWER than the datum. Brandenburg has convincingly determined that the reef surface where the airplane is thought to be sitting is 52 inches ABOVE the datum, not below the datum.

Brandenburg uses the Hull island tide data and he carefully calibrated the height of the reef surface compared to the Hull tidal datum. Ric, you described this in 2007 this way,  "he starts the published tides at Hull (Orona) which have been shown, by our own observations, to be a reasonable proxy for Niku. With reliable tidal data it was then possible to accurately hindcast the tides to 1937. He then calculated the difference between the reef height at Niku and the tidal datum at Hull through an exhaustive analysis of dozens of photos of the Norwich City wreckage we took at recorded times. This enabled him to establish the approximate water levels on the reef at Niku during the pertinent tidal periods in 1937. It is incumbent upon anyone who feels that Bob's findings are controversial to show an error in his methodology, observations, or calculations."

Brandenburg said it this way, also in 2007. "I just finished a least squares linear regression analysis of Hull Island tides versus tide data we have for the boat landing channel, which includes data collected by Howard's tide gauge, plus some data collected by Ric with a meter stick in 2001. The correlation coefficient is 0.965 (for non- statisticians, 1.0 would be perfect), and the water level at zero tide is 0.538 meter below the landing channel reef edge. The remaining piece of the puzzle is resolving the height of the the reef surface at the landing channel relative to the western reef flat edge. I'm confident we can do this."

Ric, do you now doubt Brandenburg's calculation? If so, what new data are you relying on for this change? And, as you stated, "It is incumbent upon anyone who feels that Bob's findings are controversial to show an error in his methodology, observations, or calculations." Can you point out an error in his calculations?

gl

[John Ousterhout]

I was under the impression that the Lambrecht photo showed that the reef was submerged.  Is the south-east part of the reef seen in the photo so much lower than the "Bevington" area? 

[Chris Johnson]

I was also under that impression and that the seas were rough so that the surf would actualy be higher than normal.  Infact somewhere on the main site this is discussed but my bad don't have time to dig it out here!

From my experience tides do not get to a point and then say "can't go higher because the tables say i'm there!" Other variables such as wind, moon and such like can induce a higher tide.

[tom howard]

I was also under that impression and that the seas were rough so that the surf would actualy be higher than normal.  Infact somewhere on the main site this is discussed but my bad don't have time to dig it out here!

From my experience tides do not get to a point and then say "can't go higher because the tables say i'm there!" Other variables such as wind, moon and such like can induce a higher tide.

Well Gary is stating the area at reef edge would be 5 inches deep given all those variables(except swell/surf). Ric said the object would be covered just by tide alone (given no surf) as Gary quoted him. If the bevington object was 25 yard from the edge it would be sitting even higher than the edge, and there would be no water at all around it. So if Gary is right on it being low tide, and the tide was 13 inches at low tide( I double checked the low tide charts Tighar reported for July 9th), the Bevington object would be seen sitting high and dry, sticking out like a flag on a mostly dry reef surface.
I don't see how that is possible, something has to be wrong with either-

1. the Bradenburg tide charts during post loss transmissions
2 Gary Lapooks calculation of it being low tide
3 the Bevington object being a landing gear.

Plainly, all three cannot be viable and true.

[Gary LaPook]

I was under the impression that the Lambrecht photo showed that the reef was submerged.  Is the south-east part of the reef seen in the photo so much lower than the "Bevington" area?

The photo shows the east side of the island and the wind and the waves were coming from the east. The Electra allegedly landed on the western side of the island where the reef was sheltered from the prevailing wind and waves. The intervening island and reef acted as a breakwater protecting the western reef from waves. Because of this, the Lambrecht photo cannot accurately represent conditions on the western reef which experiences much less wave action. Since these wind and wave conditions are almost continuous, the Google Earth pictures all show this situation, much greater wave action on the eastern reef compared to the western reef.

gl

[Tim Collins]

... the Bevington object would be plainly seen sitting high and dry.

But would it be sufficiently identifiable to attract interest to a search conducted at altitude? Or would it look like every other piece of detritus scattered on the reef from the Norwich City. We've all seen what people look like from the air in the flyover video.

[Gary LaPook]

I was also under that impression and that the seas were rough so that the surf would actualy be higher than normal.  Infact somewhere on the main site this is discussed but my bad don't have time to dig it out here!

From my experience tides do not get to a point and then say "can't go higher because the tables say i'm there!" Other variables such as wind, moon and such like can induce a higher tide.

There were no reports of unusual weather conditions during the week of July 2nd though July 9th so there is no reason to believe anything other than the normal "trade winds" conditions existed. The log of the Itasca and, later, that of the Colorado shows the monotonous regularity of these conditions in the "trade wind belt." This is also shown my the Pilot Chart for this area, available here.

All the information available shows just the normal weather conditions so the burden is on those who claim that the conditions were not normal to come up with evidence to support their position.

gl

[C.W. Herndon]

If you take a close look at the Lambrecht photo, attached below, you will notice that, at the red arrow on the east side of the island, there are waves far beyond the edge of the edge of the reef and it appears that water covers the reef all the way to the "sandy area" of beach. At the yellow arrow on the western edge of the island, there is no apparent reef showing. At the orange arrows, or anywhere else inside the lagoon, there is no apparent "sandy beach" showing. IMHO, looks like it was closer to "high tide" than "low tide" when this picture was taken.

[Bill Roe]

There were no reports of unusual weather conditions during the week of July 2nd though July 9th so there is no reason to believe anything other than the normal "trade winds" conditions existed.

gl

Um.....
Do you realize what you just stated here?  Add this information to your initial post - the Electra should have been on the reef and not washed away.  And being on the reef, Lambrecht would have spotted the airplane.  Lambrecht was flying at 90 mph in 300'.  The Bevington Object would have stuck out from the natural reef to be seen.  For Pete's sake, I've picked out camouflaged AAA in jungle at 300' and 250 mph.  The Electra was never there.  She was never there.

Gary, you've also indicated that she would not have navigated to Gardner.  { https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/discussions/why-it-was-not-possible-to-follow-lop-to-nikumaroro } 

She was never on Niku.

[Matt Revington]

Bill
The Niku hypothesis as far as I understand it has never stated that unusual weather conditions were required to wash the Electra off the reef, just tides and normal surf action.

http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Overview/AEhypothesis.html

So GL's statement does not logically lead to the Electra never being on Niku, try again.

[C.W. Herndon]

For Pete's sake, I've picked out camouflaged AAA in jungle at 300' and 250 mph.

They must have been shooting tracers at you.

[Bill Roe]

Bill
.......... try again.

Okay Matt.  I'm not the best communicator to put a word down on these pages.  Let's try this......

Based on Gary's research and findings, during the week from the time Earhart disappeared until the Navy Aerial Search, the water was never deep enough or rough enough to cause the Electra to fall off the reef, let alone twist a main gear from the structure of the aircraft.

Take a look at his diagram and re-read his highly researched dissertation.  He's just being tactful and polite by not coming out a clearly stating that she was never there.  I try to keep things in their simplest form - ergo she was never there.

You should take a look at his website.  Gary LaPook is a perfectionist.  He will not publish to these pages unless and until he is 100% certain of his research and facts.  At least that's what I've noticed.  He's extremely knowledgeable and has a fine analytical mind.  I trust, very much, the reliability of his information.

[Ric Gillespie]

Let me se if I can clear up the confusion (wish me luck).

The basic question we're trying to answer is:
How much water was standing on specific parts of the Gardner reef at specific times?
(How much surf was running on a particular day is a different question and more difficult to answer.)

To answer the basic question we needed to know:
What was the state of the tide at particular times in the past?
Reliable data on tidal cycles for Gardner/Nikumaroro is not available.  Reliable data for Hull/Orona (140 nm away), however, is available.  Through direct observation during numerous TIGHAR expeditions were confirmed that the tidal data (times and water levels above datum) for Hull/Orona are a reliable proxy for Gardner/Nikumaroro.


Once we know when and how much the ocean goes up and down at a given time the next question is:
How does that translate into water level on the reef in a particular spot?   To answer that we need to know how high the reef surface is.  We installed a tide gauge (just a graduated piece of re-bar) on the edge of the blasted landing channel and recorded how high the water came at high and low tide.  We found that at low tide the water was well below the reef surface and at high tide it was well above the reef surface (we, of course, recorded the actual levels on the gauge).

Next question:  How does the reef surface height at the landing channel compare with the reef surface height north of Norwich City over mile away?  This was the hardest question to answer. 
We needed to shoot a line of known height (the height of the Robotic Total Station surveying instrument on its tripod) to a point near Norwich City. You can't see the shipwreck from the landing channel so we had to dogleg the shot.  Getting the distance from the tide gauge at the landing channel to the joint of the dogleg (about 500 meters) was a piece of cake. The tough shot was from the joint to Norwich City - a distance of about 1,400 meters. The sun-dazzle off the ocean defeated the infra-red target acquisition feature on the Total Station so I had to make the shot manually with the telescopic sight.  The target was a white hat held aloft on a pole against the dark background of the ship's oil tank.  It took a couple of tries but I got it.

Once we had a point of known height at Norwich City (point "A" on the attached map) we could reposition the Total Station to the beach in that area and get the height of numerous places on the reef relative to that point.  This enabled Bob Brandenburg to produce the attached chart that shows the state of the tide and the water level on the reef in the spot where we think the plane was parked while sending radio distress calls.  As you can see, the tide was about 2 hours past high tide and the water level on the reef in the spot where the plane had been (according to TIGHAR's hypothesis) was .4 meters, about 1 foot 3 inches.  The water level closer to the reef edge at the Bevington Object location was about a foot deeper - and that's assuming flat calm conditions.

I hope this clears up the confusion. 

[Bill Roe]

For Pete's sake, I've picked out camouflaged AAA in jungle at 300' and 250 mph.

They must have been shooting tracers at you.

Heh - Heh

They were on the charts.  Knowing approximate locations helped.