This artifact, identified by TIGHAR as 2-2-V-1 and known to people who questioned  its’ TIGHAR stated origins, as “The Magic Scrap”, has had questions thrown at it from left, right and centre.  Proclaimed by Richard Gillespie as a “must be” from the Earhart Electra c/n 1055 in 1992 and again in 2014, it has been turned every which way on top, bottom and sides of an Electra Model 10 in a museum in an attempt to place its’ location on an Electra and it has failed miserably.

After 1992, it then rested for some 22 years until a bright idea emerged from a TIGHAR Member, that: “Could it be that 2-2-V-1 was the ‘Patch’ rivetted over the aperture left by the removal of the large right-hand-rear window ?”…….which ocurred at Miami just before Earhart and Noonan departed on the 2nd attempt at the ‘Around the World’ flight. 

On the TIGHAR Forum, there then followed ream upon ream of explanations as to how this “Patch” could have removed itself from an assumed Electra after an assumed landing on Gardner Island or Nikumaroro as it is called now.  “Pounding wave action”, “Explosive forces”, “Noonan kicking it out with his feet” were put forward. 

There were myriad pages of structural hypotheses from TIGHAR of “internal reinforcements ” and “bracing members” that had been rivetted to this Patch in an attempt to explain away the need fror multiple rivet hole lines on the Magic Scrap, none of which lines “lined-up” with the original rivet lines on an Electra 10.

Those of us as readers of this diatribe who had structural experience with aircraft questioned the very basic mistakes that would have been made by an aircraft structures repair person in applying this so-called “Patch” to an Electra 10. Two CAD drawings were made individually by two current members of this Forum that showed that 2-2-V-1 was too big in one dimension to be able to fit the window aperture using standard repair technique.  Photographs emerged of the Electra c/n 1055 at Karachi and Darwin that showed an oil canning dent on the “Patch” that belied the assertions of “Internal Bracing Structiure” the basic need for the rivet lines.

All through this, over the years, TIGHAR brushed aside these concerns and continued promoting 2-2-V-1 as being part of the Elecra during solicitations for donations.

I applaud the NEAM and Tom Palshaw for his work in obtaining a positive match.  I think all of us wo have questioned the origins of “The Magic Scrap” have felt that the origin lay in the C-47A wreck on Sydney Island.

RPM…