RPM, FF, TGT…Been through all this before….
This is just Tighar rolling out the “old shellgame” again…. just a headline grabbing exercise. Stay in the news at whatever the cost to people’s opinions or feelings…..
All this was discussed ages ago, maybe a year or so ago on this very forum.
My estimate was “I think” 1.5 Million US$… Why ?
The area is TIDAL… It will need pilings all around it…. It will need a cradle to lift it out when all the sand is pumped out. What will lift it out ? A Crane. The crane will need to be amphibious.
It will immediately need a WATER TANK on site and the local council will need to supply fresh water for that tank to keep the “hulk” WET. Then it will need the Electrolysis treatment.
What will you have ?
All this blather from Tighar that it is in “remarkably good shape, very little corrosion” is just that: Blather. It will be rotten.
You will have a grey, mishapen lump of corroded aluminium. All the magnesium parts will have fizzed off 70 years ago, soon after it ditched. You will be lucky if it holds together during the removal process the structure will be so thin.
Logic says: “Pie in the Sky”, Gentlemen.
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…Further reference to the Search on East New Britain….
Sigh… sorry for the thread drift…..
Mr. Boyle….
We have been through all this before. Many, many people have inferred just what you are inferring, ie; “That it could have been a Japanese aircraft, that they saw”… which is what you are saying. People will continually try and place another aircraft type in that spot on the side of a hill in ENB without looking at the words of the Vets and reviewing the evidence.
One ridiculous statement made recently on “another forum” by a brainless individual, put the aircraft they saw as a three-engined Guinea Airways Junkers G31, “destroyed by the Army of Nippon and then placed on ENB”. If that were the case the Australian Diggers would have referred to it as being made of “wriggly tin”, the common expression in Oz for corrugated iron. Then logically, identification would have fallen onto a “wriggly tin” aircraft….
Yes, what they saw was “wrecked”, they gave no indication that it was “burnt” (tanks dry) and so, …onto your “faded”….
Mr. Boyle, as for Hinomaru’s fading…. I have stood looking at a Nakajima Helen sat forlornly at Alexishaven and seen a bright and shiny Hinomaru on it 45 years after the end of WWII so you cannot tell me that if it were a Jap aircraft they saw with the longest possibility of only three years “of fading” that they would have somehow “missed” the big red blob on the side of the fuselage…..
Chill out yourself, Mr. Boyle …and apply some logic to the pointers to identification contained in the website.
RPM, FF, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com
RPM, FF, TGT…Mention of the East New Britain search for Earhart’s Lockheed 10E on this thread…
For those that have mentioned a Japanese aircraft as the possible contender for what my Project Group are searching for in the ENB Jungle, they say the following:
J Boyle in Post #5 suggests that a Japanese built Lockheed 14 or indeed a Japanese Lockheed from wherever s the contender for our search.
Stony in Post # 7 suggests a captured Lockheed 12 from the NEIAAF.
Scouse in Post #14 says a Lockheed 14.
Flying-A suggests J Boyle has a good point about Japanese aircraft being the contender.
My response is this:
What we have on our 1945 Patrol Map notation concerns a Pratt & Whitney R1340 S3H1 “Wasp” engine of 600 H.P. There is no mention of a larger sized engine being found such as a Wright Cyclone or a Sakai or any other Japanese engine of larger value horsepower.
Also Lockheed 12’s used by the NEIAAF used the 450 H.P Wasp engine and this engine is not mentioned on the Map.
Furthermore don’t you all think that any Australian soldier engaged in hostilities with the Japanese Imperial Army would fail to notice a Bl**dy great red Hinomaru on the side of the fuselage if it was a Japanese all-metal unpainted aircraft they were looking at ? Were they blind as well then ?
Would you care to read the website again, Gentlemen.
RPM, FF, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com
RPM, FF, TGT…Recent developments on the Tighar Forum
There have been two new developments on the Tighar Forum made by a contributor in New Zealand…
It may be recalled that New Zealand administered the Phoenix Group on behalf of the Empire…. (the Kiwis were the nearest to Gardner)
Point 1: The contributor has been reading the Auckland Star newspaper archives and in a memorable post cites the history of Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) as being in receipt of many visits by mariners including whaling ships and points out that quite a few personages were lost on the island due to shipwrecks well before 1937 and in one instance 10 Crew were buried on the island….. so there are many sources for “bones”.
Point 2: The contributor today has posted two .urls from the Auckland Star which show that Dr. Berry’s Freckle Cream was on sale in NZ for 3 Shillings and 11 pence in the 1930’s and it must be remembered that in 1938 a NZ Survey party set foot on the island with surveying equipment which no doubt included a sextant but also may have included Dr. Berry’s cream because in NZ the cream was advertised not only for “freckles” but also for “sunburn”. So who is to say that some Kiwi Surveyor did not have a jar of Dr. Berry’s in his knapsack to protect his beak from the sun ? Hmmm ?
Tighar has been very quiet about Point 1 and Point 2 has only just hit the fan….
Food for thought.
RPM
RPM, FF, TGT…New Britain Project…
If Billings, or anybody else, had hard evidence we wouldn’t have the mystery still! What Billings has, amongst other things, is a wartime map and inexplicable notes of the C/N . Coupled with the other veterans reports its far more than anybody else has.What possible explanation is there of that C/N?
Simply said, there isn’t any other explanation for the C/N1055.
What was seen was an all-metal, unpainted wreck with Pratt & Whitney engines. There were no nationality markings on the wreck and they did not see any letters or numbers on the exterior at all. The cockpit area was all smashed back to the leading edge and when the Lieutenant stood on the Port wing root, the fuselage top was at his belt height. The starboard wingtip was bent upwards by about ten feet from the tip. One engine is still on wing and one engine is detached and lies thirty yards from the main wreckage. The wreck had been there some years. They all agreed that this wreck had been there for some years due to the corrosion evident and to the jungle growth around it. There were plants filling the cockpit area for instance.
The wreck they saw points to the East and is on the side of a hill which drops off into a valley which contains a small stream or creek.
They reported the wreck when they got back and five weeks later were told it did not belong to the U.S. Army Air Force.
In regard to the reports in “Pacific Wrecks” that what they saw was the B-17 in the area. I have seen that B-17 main wreckage and I am probably the only white fella who has seen it. It has no cockpit area as it broke off at the production joint. It also has no engines fitted as they came off when it blew up and there are none at the site. I have seen one engine half a mile from the wreck and it was struck in a river by one vertical prop blade and that is the only Wright engine I have seen from this wreck. It has no outboard wing panels or inner central wing panels carrying the outer engine nacelles. It has no rear fuselage as it broke off at the wing trailing edge. The wreck points to the NW and is on the side of a hill above a large river. The empennage from this B-17 lies about half a mile away from the main wreckage. This B-17 wreck is a few miles away from where we search for the Electra.
I have spoken at length with the very young man who runs Pacific Wrecks and he is totally incorrect in his assertion. For one thing, B-17’s had Wright Cyclone engines, not Pratt & Whitneys. That particular B-17 was also camouflage painted and would still have had paint on it in 1945. This very young man has made incorrect statements about the configuration of aircraft previously. He is not as expert as he claims to be.
So, we battle on….. Now that Gillespie has failed again (for good reason), maybe we will get some attention.
Regards,
David Billings
RPM, FF, TGT…
http://www.electranewbritain.com
RPM, FF, TGT…The Electra was never at Nikumaroro
Despite all the shouting by TIGHAR, one pertinent fact remains out of their whole sorry saga and that is:
There never was any evidence that the Electra landed anywhere on Nikumaroro. It is only a hypothesis and they have now spent in the region of US$7.5 Million on this.
In contrast to this hypothesis, there is direct evidence by a sighting and documentary evidence from a WWII Australian Army Patrol on New Britain Island in New Guinea, which says that the Electra is there and is waiting to be found. How it got there is another story to be unravelled but the fact is the evidence points to it being there.
I have been looking for this wreck seen in WWII for eighteen years by visits to the area every second year or so. We are now getting close to finding this wreck as some new information came my way last year. We definitely know now that the wreck is buried and I now know roughly the area where it is buried.
I will be taking my team in again later this year and we will be using metal detectors. I have a work commitment ahead of me for the next two months or so and then I can go in.
In the meantime my friends in Los Angeles have put the story up on http://www.indiegogo.com which is a “crowdfunder” website and we are seeking donations from the public to give us some funding. We have spent around $150K of our own money on this so far and have previously received around $40,000 in funding which has been spent on earlier expeditions.
Please see: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/117588?a=379054 “Let’s find Amelia’s plane…” There is a short video there and brief introductions to the project.
The whole project story is on my website. My website http://www.electranewbritain.com has been around since 2004 and will shortly be brought up to date.
It is by our standards “expensive” to get into the area and we are now asking the public worldwide for some support.
Sincerely,
David Billings
RPM, FF, TGT…
ex-682100 F/Sgt Billings, former Flight Engineer 110, 267 and 114 Squadrons R.A.F.
RPM, FF, TGT…Well, here you are then… an alternative….
Hello to everyone that is interested in the Earhart and Noonan Mystery…
Expedition plans are afoot by the East New Britain Project Team !
I had planned to go back to the jungle around this time but the last Air Niugini aircraft check I attended in Singapore took longer than planned and the “boss” had already asked me to do the next one so I am committed. The next F100 maintenance check should end in September and we will be going again in October. Date yet to be fixed….
I now have two Metal Detectors. One for surface searching and one for deep searching. I now know that the wreck we seek is buried and I also know roughly the area where it is buried and the area of around five acres fits the description given to me by the ex-Lieutenant from the Patrol who is “still breathing” in Perth W.A. My information says it is buried by the side of a track and we know where they all are…. After the first trip last year, I went back in alone and scouted around with the local people when I heard the news that it was buried in late 1996 or early 1997, just before logging started in there again.
As to funding, the East New Britain Project has now been put on “Indiegogo”, which is a public funding website and can be seen at:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/117588?a=379054 or by simply opening up the website http://www.indiegogo/projects and doing a search for Amelia Earhart.
It only went up three days ago. There is a short video on there from our 2006 expedition and among all the climbing hills shots is one shot of team member Jason in his tent with the rain pouring down and you can hardly hear him. That day’s rain was the worst we have experienced in there, the camp was very nearly flooded.
The campaign for funding will last three months and we are asking for US$100,000.00 this is also to be able to produce a short film of our endeavours when we do find it. There are links to YouTube and to Facebook which also has some pictures.
I’d be happy to receive 20 Grand from the campaign as that would pay the cost of the expedition in October. I do not expect the funds to grow at a rapid rate and then I only expect that funds will trickle in until Gillespie comes back empty handed…. I say that tongue in cheek because there will be the “inevitable” twist to his story which somehow will keep Tighar in the public eye…. Maybe another turtle bone or “invisible DNA” this time !
The team in Los Angeles who are assisting me put the show on the road and I am grateful to them for that.
Therefore, all you interested people (including Stepwilk) if you wish to use Indiegogo, I will say, “Thankyou”.
Regards,
David Billings
ex-682100 F/Sgt Billings
Flight Engineer, 110, 267 and 114 Squadrons, Royal Air Force…
now trying to hibernate in Australia….
RPM, FF, TGT…The latest from Tighar….
From the TIGHAR Symposium, underway in the US of A, we learn that Jeff Glickman, the photographic expert that TIGHAR has employed, has said that the “Nessie” object which does indeed look like a floating aircraft “Mainwheel” is actually 36 inches in diameter. Which as you have guessed it is said to be the outer diameter of the tyres on the Electra 10E….. simple…..
The “Mainwheel” codenamed “Nessie” (as said to be) from the enhanced photograph of an October 1937 snap taken by Colonial Officer Cadet Eric Bevington does indeed look like a “round object’, or a “wheel”. The Hub centre cannot be seen, in the enhanced picture.
Now, I can’t get my head around how an indeterminate photo snap, taken from a boat offshore of Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) which was at an unmeasured distance from the “Nessie” object and at an unknown distance from other fixed objects can be accurately measured at “36” inches in diameter.
I could understand it if Trigonometry is used here but it does not seem possible to be “mathematically” possible to produce an accuracy of “36 inches”: from what was basically a “tourism snap” taken from a boat on the sea.
Years ago (like 50+) I did venture into Calculus but I confess it was a complete mystery. Sorry about that……
How did I survive amongst all the brains available ? Even today, when apparently there is accuracy down to “an inch” from 50 to 75 Yards (sorry Metres)……from 75 Years ago…. Well, I guess I must be lucky….
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…Careful here now….
I propose a word of caution here in the posts contained within this thread….
Please do not call TIGHAR any other names except the misnomer that they do verily call themselves anyway. I say “misnomer” because despite US$5.5 million flowing under the bridge, they have not “recovered” anything in the way, shape, or form of an “Historic Aircraft”.
To do otherwise and to embark on a crusade of name calling will only awaken Stepwilk, who, angered at the thought of derision of his beloved TIGHAR will gird his loins and breast with armour, mount his fiery white steed, be passed his lance and shield emblazoned with the Coat-of-Arms of Cornwall (upon Hudson) and come charging into the thread….
Hark ! I think I hear the thud of hooves now…. “Quickly Lads, raise the Portcullis and lower the Drawbridge…Hang on !…other way round…. raise the Drawbridge and lower the Portcullis…”.
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…The long list…
So, this little glass jar joins the long list of items found on Nikumaroro which are inferred to be, but not proven to be, associated with but not necessarily part of Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan, the Electra 10E or the Pratt & Whitney S3H1 engines….
We also have the ‘bones” found in 1940 and sent ultimately to Fiji, pronounced by a British Doctor to be “male, mixed-race, 5′ 6” tall but TIGHAR feeds the measurements the good doctor made through a Computer and the results say: “Female, Nordic race, 5’ 9″ tall”. Who was that then ?
We have a shoe sole size 10, at first said to be Earhart’s (too big however, so pronounced to be Noonan’s without further ado). Presumably he had normal feet.
We have a Sextant box which is “similar” to the one Noonan used, inferring that it could be Noonan’s.
We have a metal box with a Consolidated Aircraft Part No. on it which is inferred to have been Noonan’s bookcase because the Electra passed through Naval Bases and the USN “may have” given one to the duo for use in the Electra. There was a crashed B-24 on Canton Island during WWII.
We have a ragged piece of aluminium skin presumably off an aircraft because it has rivet holes in it, but try as they might, TIGHAR cannot match it to an Electra at all and former workers at Burbank say it cannot belong to the Electra 10E. There was a crashed C-47 also around the area on Sydney Island.
We have some bronze bushes found in the old Carpenters Hut on Nikumaroro which are inferred to be out of the Pratt & Whitney engines but how did the local islanders possibly disassemble a Wasp with their wrenches made from coconut shells ? Would a more practical source of the bushes have been as bearings for the carts used to collect coconuts for the production of Copra ? Bushes kept as spares for the carts used in the Government scheme to start Copra Production on the island ?
The list goes on and on and also captures a bone fragment which when tested cannot conclusively be said to be human but which was gathered up together with turtle bones.
Now, we have big news of a glass jar. A little jar “similar” to that kind of jar used, but not proven to be that kind of jar, used as a freckle cream jar. It is certainly not proven to be a “Dr. Berry’s Freckle Cream” jar.
Would it be correct to say that some of the U.S. Navy personnel and U.S. Coast Guardsmen of a young and tender age who were stationed on the island at the LORAN Facility during WWII could not possibly have had “freckles” ? Not possible for them to have had freckles ?
Why does it have to be Earhart’s freckle cream jar ? It could have belonged to some young freckled lad from Idaho, Minnesota, Hawaii or Oregon (IMHO)…. even if it indeed “is”, a freckle cream jar.
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…Little Interest…
Anson says:
Earharts Electra
________________________________________
Having read countless theories, and discounted a lot, I look forward to the TIGHAR July search which I suspect will turn up nothing. The Billings ENB theory, which originally I thought was a non-starter, has now become my most favoured explanation. The map notes seem inexplicable other than it refers to Earharts Electra.He seems to have more than any of the other ‘researchers’. I’m surprised he can’t get more interest.
As the person who “heads-up” the New Britain Project….. So am I.
Oh, I have had offers to fund the Project but most of them are based on greed and I reject them, most also do not take into consideration my team’s efforts and expense and most want information as to “where it is” so they can start their own little excursions without a thought to the difficulties involved.
The greed takes various forms of attempts but is just basically: “Greed”…
Some want the Electra to take away and use for whatever purposes they seem fit like in a travelling circus or permanent exhibit in a place of their choice when it will not be theirs to take away. It will not be mine either.
Some want to “Ah, we can come in with you, Yes ?” carrying TV cameras in the knowledge that when it is found, footage of the find can be syndicated around the world.
Some want to accompany an expedition carrying same TV cameras and then ask for rights to the story without putting a cent up front to assist my team.
Some want the story and offer half what you need to carry out a decently equipped expedition and then want “all rights” to the story, leaving you half-shod and signed away.
As soon as I smell greed I reject the approach.
I have been at this now for eighteen years and I and my team have spent a bundle with only minimal assistance from America, which surprised me a lot considering what we have in evidence.
The big obstacle in my opinion is that we are not Americans and therefore, “what do we know ?”.
Well, I’ve been researching this saga since 1993 and I see statements in forums and books and magazines that are ill-informed and sometimes downright inane.
Over the last few days the New Britain Project has been discussed and is still being discussed on the Tighar Forum and even they with their supposed knowledge, they can’t get it right either. Lately, they think I can get confused between a P&W Wasp and a Wright Cyclone…ah, well.
There is a B-17 there and I have seen it but it is well away from where we now search.
The story has been on this Forum, the Pprune Forum and the Warbirds Forum and the website has been up since 2004.
To any genuine sponsor, I will answer any question on this saga to the best of my ability.
The big question is “range”. How could the Electra fly for approximately4350 miles ?
There are a few pointers to the superb (for its’ time) qualities of the Electra:
1. The wing design married to the fuselage, the explanation of the efficiency I read in a book sounded feasible to me.
2. Earhart’s “practical operation” of the Electra as put forward by Johnson and honed by Mantz led me to look into what information was available on fuel used on flights. Scant though it is, I firmly believe the “lean” way she operated the Electra conserved gas.
3. Clarence Williams strip map for ADEN-DAKAR of 4302 miles in 28 hours 40 minutes at 150 mph Groundspeed in NIL wind. Why produce a flight plan for this if the Electra could not do it ? The Lockheed figures show that she would have needed 1267 USG in a capacity of 1151 USG.
4. Earhart was obviously operating the engines at “Lean of Peak”. This is clearly shown in “Last Flight” where it is written that one engine was “in and out”…. “leaned too much”, she said.
5. On arrival at Wheeler Field she was asked what she would have done if she had “missed” Oahu. In the reply she said she had “over four hours of gas left”. The Lockheed figures say that she should have had less than that.
6. The “Daily Express” the sister ship of C/N1055 flew from Blackpool to New York at the 5000 foot level (to avoid icing) across the Atlantic on 1200 USG of gas and had some top up from cans and still arrived at New York with gas to spare. It was also equipped with De-Icer boots which mar the efficiency of the wing.
Why New Britain ?
That was not the intention at first. The intention was for The Gilberts in-line with her statement to Gene Vidal about what she would do if she could not find Howland. She would not expect to see The Gilberts for four hours and yet from what I gather she saw them after one and three-quarter hours. That threw the question into the hat of, “What do we do now? We still have gas”. “We have islands in front of us that we can reach without putting it down here.”
Rabaul had two good airfields (there was a third also)
What fuel consumption could she get it down to ?
On page 37 of “Last Flight” is written: “At 10,000 feet, 120 Indicated airspeed, I am using less than 20 gallons of gas”. Earhart had slowed down the Electra as she did not want to arrive at Wheeler Field in the dark. She had pulled the power “back” from Cruise power to a setting which gave her 120 IAS (I believe this to have been CIAS) and which “slowed down the Electra”. Now, the Cruise Power setting by Lockheed is 38 USGPH for the time of the sector (at the 14 hour point). Only yesterday someone who should know better said “This is 20 USG PER engine” i.e; 40 USGPH. Now I ask: “How can you slow down the Electra from Cruise Power of 38 USGPH by using a power setting of 40 USGPH ?”
How close are we to finding it ?
We have wasted some time on “red herrings” and were looking in a totally incorrect area for the first few years. Information then became available which led us to the general area of where it is and with more research to the actual ridgeline where it is. After two expeditions last year and further information we received, we are now very close. It is buried but we are in the correct area.
Sponsors
I have had a few people sends some funds and to date that has been a total of around US$35,000 which has been spent on three or four expeditions as an assist to our own money.
What I am looking for is someone who will sponsor this and then sit back and wait for us to find it. When we do find it I will acknowledge the assistance and with any income we receive I will refund the money.
I still work at 72 and am currently in Singapore looking after a Fokker F100 on maintenance. I am due for a break shortly and may find the time to take a trip in if some of the team are available.
David Billings
RPM, FF, TGT…
RPM, FF, TGT…Reading and Digesting….
Continually, I find that people read….but do not digest….
I did not say that “I” have evidence of Noonan’s DNA. I said I know that someone has it and that TIGHAR knows of that. Whether or not TIGHAR has access to it is TIGHAR’s business and the business of the person who has it. I am certainly not going to discuss the why’s and wherefore’s behind that.
Similarly, “I” have a person willing to give me access to Amelia Earhart’s DNA who is direct in the maternalline but that person does not wish “a name” to be made public and access will only be given on finding something positive.
Before we go any further, it has been said that quite often “professionals” are not always right and “amateurs” are not always wrong. Academia and qualifications sometimes mean very little in many fields. I agree with that.
In the vastness of the New Guinea Jungle, it would not be unusual for the local people not to know every nook and cranny within their local area. We have seen things in there that the local people have not seen because we have been to areas that they have never been. They did not know of a 150 foot waterfall for instance. They did not know of some species of animals for instance, which we think are “new”. A frog with claws on its digits for one (which I am told by an academic ‘learned’ expert on frogs is, “…..an impossibility”, yet it exists in an old volcano), a 12-inch tail-less “glider” mammal, a 9-inch mollusc which is totally transparent except for its’ organs and a 7-8 foot long variety of snake which appears to be a very large tree snake with a bright yellow colour around it’s mouth and a pale electric blue body. None of these things have been seen by the local people.
In 1994, with us were ten local people who had never been to the area we explored. I made comment of this and it is due to the fact that a nomadic incestuous tribe lived in the area who were killers and plunderers and who were only eradicated from the area in 1951. They still remember that era. Their village sufferred from that. Hunting and gathering takes place on the lowlands in the main, they do not normally climb the hills.
Stating the obvious seems to be a passion with some people and I of all people fully recognise that my Project will not be complete until we do find that twin-engined, all-metal, unpainted wreck on a hillside which we know was fitted with P & W engines.
“Misquoted and misread” – I have lost count of the number of times.
RPM
RPM, FF, TGT…They did….
[QUOTE=J Boyle;1875142]Any idea why the troops didn’t say anything at the time?
I understand that AE’s disappearance was a bigger story in the US than Australia, but did they say anything at the time? If not, why?
Mr. Boyle….
The Patrol Report made when the patrol returned did inform their HQ thatbthey had found an aircraft. Since it had P & Wengines this information was passed down through the echelons of the Army and did reach the USAAF in Port Moresby or wherever their HQ and ADmon section was at the time. By April 1945 the 5th Air Force had left New Guinea and the 14th AF was moving through.
Five weeks after the find, the Army Company were informed by a Staff Officer that “…the Americans say it is not one of theirs, don’t worry about it”. Some of the Company at reunions in Perth, W.A. over the years also remember the Officer sayign that the Americans had also sadi that the aircraft “could be” a Lockheed. Not all the Vets I interviewed remembered this. There was interest from “the Americans”, because two US Army Officers visited the fighting zone to speak to Lt. Backhouse but he was out on another patrol and they left.
So, it was reported and there was some follow-up but no result.
RPM
RPM, FF, TGT…Range
For Creaking Door
I have since modified the text since I wrote the website in 2004 but I am not going to amend the website with the latest research.
Clarence Williams who made up the strip maps for Earhart produced one for the ADEN-DAKAR flight which has a distance of 4302 Statute Miles. These strip maps are “still air” Flight Plans with an average groundspeed of 150 Smph. Divide 4302 by 150 and you get 28.66 Hours or 28:40.
The published Lockheed figures for fuel consumption which most reseachers use would mean that Earhart had to have 1267 US Gallons on board to make that flight when the capacity of the Electra was 1151 USG. There does not appear to be (from what I have read) any means of topping up the tanks from cans on CN1055 as against what was possible on the Merrill and Lambie 10E, “The Daily Express”.
By my calculations to make this 4302 SM flight using the Lockheed figures and 1267 USG, the Electra would require a constant tailwind of 10mph but with no fuel reserves. Therefore the tailwind required would be greater if there is to be enough fuel for a missed approach on arrival Dakar.
In the event, Earhert flew Eastabout and faced headwinds across Africa and did not make the DAKAR-ADEN flight non-stop, which “westabout” Williams FP indicates was possible without a tailwind, without a wind at all according to the Williams FP it was possible both ways.
In order to get back to the Rabaul area Earhart would have to employ the fuel economy “mode” that she employed on the flight from the US West Coat to Hawaii in March 1937. It can be shown that there would have been more fuel left over from that flight than the Lockheed figures say “should have” been aboard the aircraft when it landed at Wheeler Field.
On that flight, Earhart pulled back the power to slow the Electra down for the last two hours as she did not want to arrive at Wheeler Field in the dark. In the book “Last Flight” on Page 37 can be found the clue as to how Earhart and Noonan were able to achieve a long distance flight of around 4350 miles in order to get the Electra to where it rests on a hillside in East New Britain.
On Page 37 of the book, Earhart writes in her own hand on a slip of paper: “10,000 feet, 120mph indicated speed, using less that 20 gallons per hour”. This is also written into the text of the book.
Note: The speed would be in Corrected Indicated Airspeed (CIAS), term previously used.
There are those that say, “Oh, that would be 20USGPH per engine”, but that is nonsense. Earhart was “slowing the ship down” not using Cruise Power which at that stage would be 38 USGPH (Lockheed figures). So, 2 x 20 = 40 USGPH, which is above Cruise Power and she would have still been going fast when she wanted to slow the Electra down.
From what we have in our evidence the wreck on the side of a hill is the Electra from the documentary evidence and from the description of the wreckage mainly by the patrol Lieutenant, who is “still breathing”.
The veracity of the Veterans has been questioned, both here and by others. I met all of the four survivors of the patrol and I do not doubt the words of any of them, neither would anyone else who met them. I believe it is despicable to question the honesty of men never met and who had no public personna, no fame in the press, none were celebrities and none have any seedy convictions in law.
Captain Safford USN, came to the same conclusion as I when he worked his figures and I did not know this until I read his book about three years ago. he also has AE & FN “short” of HOW but Safford believes they ditched. I believe they turned around at a point where they still had 300 USG left, enough for the 550 mile turnback to the Gilberts and a search for a place to put it down, a ditance that they thought they had to run to reach the Gilberts.
If they arrived overhead the Gilberts after 1:45 hours which was when at 2200GMT, from Goerner’s book, NAURU heard “Land in sight ahead on 6210Kcs, and ITASCA did not hear it then the Tx was too far away for ITASCA to hear, but close enough for NAURU to hear.
At 20 USGPH, the Electra can endure for 11 Hours using 220 USG.
I have said that I do not intend to amend the website. The 200mph G/S is incorrect, I now work at 145 Smph G/S and the Gilbert’s atoll of Nonouti is 1590 Sm from Rabaul with its’ two airstrips….
That is what I think happened. I’ll leave you to work out the out and back distance if the Electra was 200 miles short of HOW.
All I know is that there is an all-metal wreck on a hillside in East New Britain that was seen in 1945 and it has P & W engines and no-one claims it. We have a string of letters and numbers on a WWII map used by the patrol and this evidence points to it being the elusive Electra.
RPM
RPM, FF, TGT…Assumptions, assumptions….
Malcolm says:
That is where we must differ – I don’t dismiss it, simply because others at the time didn’t.
O.K., Malcolm…. We agree to differ.
I will, however, add that the confusion that did exist at HOW on that day automatically assumed that AE & FN were close, with statements like, ”They must have been on top of us the radio was so loud…”, and “We expected them any minute to appear….”. So, in their minds then (at that time) AE & FN were there and this trickled down to the fleet hastily put together for the ‘rescue’.
It is only in later years when all the information has been disseminated that it becomes likely that they were “not there” and the Navigation failed (for various reasons).
I’ve been reading all the various theories for many years myself and they all have one thing in common which is that they have all remained just theories. Not one theory has been demonstrated to be correct. But there has been a lot of name-calling, publicity and book sales but nothing else.
Amongst all the theories then, which ones have you discarded and which ones have you kept as possibilities ?
Now if I was asked, after all that I have read, what I would suggest is most likely to have happened, I would say simply that they ran out of fuel and came down in the open ocean,
That simply puts you into the Group known as “Crashed and Sankers”…
…..and went down somewhere to the east. Equally it could have been somewhere to the west and that is a considerable amount of very deep ocean to search.
Indeed it is, Mr. Waitt’s pockets are a little emptier after finding an oil drum… somewhere to the W or NW.
…..the plethora of theories all slightly glamorous like being a spy or landing on a beach….
…or, being returned from the Emperor’s Palace in Japan to Rumson, New Jersey, dressed as a Nun and having her head shaved by a Monsignor in order to look for micro-chips buried in her scalp… have you heard that one ?
You have simply dismissed the TIGHAR hypothesis not by providing conclusive evidence but by simply providing another hypothesis equally unproven.
..and my hypothesis is ?
Stepwilk says:
No, absolutely applicable to my own “scribblings.” Malcolm’s comment was more intelligent, overall, than any of mine.
How exceedingly modest of you Stepwilk, an admirable statement. Ten house points.
RPM
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