Earhart's Plane Found?!

[mikewint]

Exactly, and the big bucks were attracted by the novelty for the time of a female aviator. Not because she was a highly proficient aviator.

Exactly that plus setting records. Is it any different today? What's the income of a highly proficient pilot? Can you make a living being a very proficient swimmer? Heck yea, if you break records. How much money do you think Michael Phelps receives due to his Olympic performance?
Look at Steve's post. Records last only until they're broken and the fame passes on. Amy Johnson was famous when she was the first woman to fly London to Australia and then to Moscow. Then her speed record Japan to Cape Town.
Harriet Quimby 1911 first woman pilot in the US and the first woman to fly the English Channel
Raymonde de Laroche 1st woman in the word to earn a pilots license #36 from the FAI. Longest flight by a woman 201 miles and an altitude record of 15,700ft.
Very few remember them today. Would you remember Christa McAuliffe today if not for her death? She was not even a pilot and had no special qualifications to become an astronaut. She was a social studies teacher.
James Dean made 3 movies total and two were released after he died
Vincent van Gogh sold ONE painting while he lived
Emily Dickinson was a recluse her sister found 40 volumes, some 1800 poems after Emily's death

Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.

 

[Shortround6]

For those who have not seen it before; Lockheed's recommendations for long range flight attempts by the Electra 10E.

https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Report_487/Report487.pdf

Please note that in regular airline service the plane had a max gross weight of 10.500lbs and at such weight the absolute single engine ceiling was 9500ft. altitude at which the plane could climb at 100fpm was much lower.

 

[mikewint]

In the final days of preparations for Amelia Earhart's first world flight attempt, Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson sent three telegrams in which he discussed the power management procedures which he recommended that Earhart follow to obtain the best efficiency on her flight from Oakland, California to Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii. Johnson arrived at his recommendations through actual test flights with Amelia in her own airplane. The numbers were checked and confirmed by A. H. Marshall at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in Hartford, Connecticut.

TWS
Mar 11 1937
AMELIA EARHART
MUNICIPAL AIRPORT
OAKLAND CALIF
I AM ADVISING MARSHALL AS FOLLOWS QUOTE COMPLETE FUEL CONSUMPTION TESTS ON EARHART ELECTRA AT FIVE THOUSAND FEET ALTITUTDE WITH TWENTY TO THIRTY DEGREE HEAD TEMPERATURE RISE GIVE FOLLOWING STOP NINETEEN HUNDRED RPM TWENTY NINE INCHES WITH CAMBRIDGE ZERO SEVEN ONE GIVES FIFTY ONE POINT FIVE GALLONS PER HOUR FOR AIRPLANE STOP EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AT TWENTY EIGHT AT ZERO SEVEN ON GIVES FIFTY TWO POINT FOUR GALLONS PER HOUR STOP FIFTEEN HUNDRED FIFITY AT TWENTY FOUR AT ZERO SEVEN ZERO GIVES THIRTY EIGHT POINT SIX STOP EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AT TWENTY SIX AT ZERO SEVEN ONE GIVES FORTY THREE STOP SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AT TWENTY TWO AT ZERO SEVEN ZERO GIVES THIRTY SIX STOP OTHER VALUES ALSO TESTED STOP HEAD TEMPERATURES NOT OVER THREE SIX FIVE STOP ENGINES SMOOTH USED NEW PLUGS AND HAD EXCELLENT CONDITIONS STOP WE RECOMMEND FOLLOWING POWER AND CAMBRIDGE SETTINGS ON FLIGHT STOP THREE HOURS EIGHTEEN HUNDRED RPM TWENTY EIGHT INCHES FOUR THOUSAND FEET AT CAMBRIDGE SETTING ZERO SEVEN THREE AND FIFTY EIGHT GALLONS HOUR STOP THREE HOURSE SEVENTEEN HUNDRED RPM TWENTY SIX POINT FIVE INCHES SIX THOUSAND FEET AT ZERO SEVEN TWO AT FORTY NINE GALLONS PER HOUR STOP THREE HOURS SEVENTEEN HUNDRED RPM TWENTY FIVE INCHES EIGHT THOUSAND FEET AT ZERO SEVEN TWO AT FORTY THREE GALLONS STOP AFTER NINE HOURS FLY AT SIXTEEN HUNDRED RPM TWENTY FOUR INCHES OR FULL THROTTLE TEN THOUSAND FEET AT ZERO SEVEN TWO AT THIRTY EIGHT GALLONS PER HOUR STOP AWAIT YOUR COMMENTS BY WIRE TODAY FOR ADVISING EARHART UNQUOTE WILL ADVISE YOU MORE FULLY TONIGHT STOP PLEASE WIRE RESULTS OF YOUR TEST HOP OVER OCEAN ON WAY TO OAKLAND AT ONCE.

C L JOHNSON
LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION

telegram 2

TWS
Mar 11 1937
AMELIA EARHART
MUNICIPAL AIRPORT
OAKLAND CALIF

WIRE FROM MARSHALL CONFIRMS MY RECOMMENDATION OF POWER AND FUEL CONSUMPTION STOP REMEMBER TO LEAN MIXTURE VERY SLOWLY STOP NINE HUNDRED GALLONS FUEL AMPLE FOR FORTY PERCENT EXCESS RANGE TO HONOLULU FOR CONDITIONS GIVEN IN WIRE THIS MORNING STOP IF NECESSARY MIXTURE CAN BE LEANED TO ZERO SEVEN ZERO ON LAST HALF OF FLIGHT IF EXCEPTIONAL HEAD WINDS EXIST STOP CHECK SPARK PLUGS BEFORE TAKEOFF STOP WIRE ME FUEL REQUIRED FOR TRIP TO HAWAII ON ARRIVAL THERE SO I CAN RECHECK FUEL REQUIRED FOR OTHER HOP STOP PHONE ME AT BURBANK TWO SEVEN FOUR SIX TONIGHT IF YOU NEED MORE DATA STOP HOLD ALTITUDE GIVEN IN WIRE WITHIN TWO THOUSAND FEET IF WINDS UNDER TEN MPH ARE ENCOUNTERED

C L JOHNSON
LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION

Telegram #3

TWS
Mar 13 1937
AMELIA EARHART
MUNICIPAL AIRPORT
OAKLAND CALIF

REVISED FLIGHT DATA FOR EIGHT THOUSAND FEET AT BEGINNING OF FLIGHT AS FOLLOWS STOP CLIMB AT TWO THOUSAND FIFTY RPM TWENTY EIGHT AND ONE HALF INCHES AT ZERO SEVEN EIGHT TO EIGHT THOUSAND FEET STOP FIRST THREE HOURS AT NINETEEN HUNDRED RPM TWENTY EIGHT INCHES AND ZERO SEVEN THREE AT SIXTY GALLONS HOUR STOP NEXT THREE HOURS AT EIGHTEEN HUNDRED RPM TWENTY SIX POINT FIVE INCHES AT ZERO SEVEN TWO AT FIFTY ONE GALLONS HOUR STOP AFTER SIX HOURS USE DATA GIVEN IN PREVIOUS LETTER OR WIRE STOP GALLONS PER HOUR SHOULD RUN LITTLE UNDER FIGURES GIVEN

C L JOHNSON
LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT CORPORATION

 

[stona]

We don't know what she actually did though. We have no idea how she actually managed her engines and fuel consumption, only she and Noonan would know that, and we can't ask either.
There's a lot of conjecture in all the conspiracy theories about the theoretical endurance she may have had, but her own transmission stating that she was running low on gas, about an hour before her final transmission, surely doesn't leave much room for doubt.
I would say that it supports the theory that some time shortly after that final transmission she was no longer low on gas, but out of gas and heading inevitably for the old briny.
Cheers
Steve

 

[vikingBerserker]

Yup, and that would be common sense.

 

[mikewint]

We don't know what she actually did though. We have no idea how she actually managed her engines and fuel consumption,

Very true BUT the past has always been used to predict the future. It's not 100% but then nothing is so, I've burnt my finger before in fire so I predict that if I put them in the fire again I'll get burnt again. So looking at her previous 2400 mile flight, when the Electra landed at Wheeler Field after nearly fifteen hours and 15 minutes of flying time. Earhart told the awaiting press when asked how much longer she could have flown if she had missed Oahu, "…I have over four hours of fuel remaining." Earhart had used 617 gallons of fuel out of the 947 that she had carried. So she had actually burned an average of 40 gph. She had 330 gallons remaining in her tanks or 8 hours of flying time remaining. From this statement and from what was known of the fuel load for the next sector, one can deduce that the Electra, as operated by Earhart, used slightly less fuel than the consumption figures issued by the aircraft builder, Lockheed. On that basis the Lae to Howland leg was 2556 miles and she carried 1156 gallons of fuel. At 42 gph she had 27.5 hours flying time when she left Lae before fuel exhaustion. Her last recorded contact was at 08:55 and the Itasca operators had a possible at 09:00 though nothing could be understood. That's 23 hours in the air. Now before you all jump with hob-nail boots I do understand that that is conjecture but so is your belief that the sun will rise tomorrow. It's reasonable based on previous data.

she was running low on gas, about an hour before her final transmission, surely doesn't leave much room for doubt.

Ah Steve twer it only so. "RUNNING LOW" what does that actually mean. "LOW" is not OUT of fuel. When my car gauge nears the 1/4-mark I consider myself LOW on fuel. So my doubts here the threefold:
#1. See above. At 09:00 she should have had at least 4 hours of fuel remaining
#2. AE had stated that her back-up plan in case of missing Howland was to turn West and head for the Gilbert Islands and heading west she would have had a tail-wind as well. So the statement "LOW ON FUEL" becomes I'm getting into my reserve fuel supply which I need to reach the Gilberts.
#3. The total lack of ANY emergency/Mayday type radio message after the possible 09:00 contact. As I posted above BOTH engines do not fail at the same time and even with both dead the plane does NOT suddenly drop like a rock. Yea I know conjecture again but I find it hard to believe that in an Out Of Fuel situation, engines dead or dying, she or anyone else would not have grabbed at their only remaining lifeline, the RADIO and MAYDAYED until they were 30ft under water.

 

[Shortround6]

Something to consider is the that the wings tanks held a max of 250 gallons (but normally 200) . . The Fuselage tanks would have at least one of the wing tanks on each side.

Fuel diagram for Earharts plane.

Could there have been a problem switching tanks?

Faulty selector, air bubble? Engines cut and wouldn't restart?

 

[gumbyk]

Man, I hope there is a mistake in those fuel selector valves. The Rear floor valve shows 4 149 Gal tanks, but the diagram shows 3 149Gal and one 70 Gal tanks.

If the engines were running from the fuse tanks when they ran dry, they would both stop within seconds of each other. It could take a long time to get fuel back to the engines, depending on the details of how it is all plumbed up.

 

[Airframes]

Were the radios of the period reliant on an engine-driven generator ?
I'm guessing they were.
So, if total engine failure (due to lack of fuel), there'd be no power to the radio generator, and therefore no signal strength, or, at best, a very weak signal from residual power.

 

[Shortround6]

There should have been an aircraft battery. How long it was good for????

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Very true BUT the past has always been used to predict the future. It's not 100% but then nothing is so, I've burnt my finger before in fire so I predict that if I put them in the fire again I'll get burnt again. So looking at her previous 2400 mile flight, when the Electra landed at Wheeler Field after nearly fifteen hours and 15 minutes of flying time. Earhart told the awaiting press when asked how much longer she could have flown if she had missed Oahu, "…I have over four hours of fuel remaining." Earhart had used 617 gallons of fuel out of the 947 that she had carried. So she had actually burned an average of 40 gph. She had 330 gallons remaining in her tanks or 8 hours of flying time remaining. From this statement and from what was known of the fuel load for the next sector, one can deduce that the Electra, as operated by Earhart, used slightly less fuel than the consumption figures issued by the aircraft builder, Lockheed. On that basis the Lae to Howland leg was 2556 miles and she carried 1156 gallons of fuel. At 42 gph she had 27.5 hours flying time when she left Lae before fuel exhaustion. Her last recorded contact was at 08:55 and the Itasca operators had a possible at 09:00 though nothing could be understood. That's 23 hours in the air. Now before you all jump with hob-nail boots I do understand that that is conjecture but so is your belief that the sun will rise tomorrow. It's reasonable based on previous data.

To start with your last statement, it's not reasonable.

WINDS!

You don't develop fuel consumption data (or assumptions) based on two flights. Additionally I believe this flight was during the first attempt when she later ground looped at Ford Island.

I'll let my pilot and maintainer friends chime in on this but in my experience, anytime you prang an aircraft, even after a good repair, it's never the same. Many times you'll have issues with asymmetry and it will show when the aircraft flies. Its very possible that after her aircraft was repaired it flew straight and true but the slightest deviation in asymmetry could cause the aircraft to fly out of trim and consume more fuel than calculated when the aircraft was factory fresh. To know for certain you would need several flights to confirm performance data developed from the factory.

With that said, I'm all ears if someone has information on her fuel consumption during several or all of her legs before she disappeared.

 

[wuzak]

Now before you all jump with hob-nail boots I do understand that that is conjecture but so is your belief that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Is that some sort of flat earth theory BS?

 

[wuzak]

#2. AE had stated that her back-up plan in case of missing Howland was to turn West and head for the Gilbert Islands and heading west she would have had a tail-wind as well. So the statement "LOW ON FUEL" becomes I'm getting into my reserve fuel supply which I need to reach the Gilberts.

So, does that mean that on her original planned course she had a head wind?

Would that mean that either she had to run the engines at higher power to make the schedule, or she was short of her objective?

 

[wuzak]

Could there have been a problem switching tanks?

Faulty selector, air bubble? Engines cut and wouldn't restart?

Could there have been a fuel leak?

 

[stona]

Low on fuel surely means exactly that? Why do conspiracy theorists always try to read other meanings into plain language? She did not say she was switching to reserve or running on reserve, she said she was low on 'gas'. It's plain American English.
I don't know what the normal situation for 'low on gas' would be in an aircraft, I'm not a pilot. My car is low on petrol when it goes 'bing bong' and an amber light which looks like a fuel pump comes on

It is also worth remembering that journalists on Lae, which was an Australian mandated territory at the time of the flight, quoted Noonan as saying that they would take off with 950 gallons of fuel, not the maximum possible amount. Putnam told journalists that Earhart had been practicing take offs with 1,000 gallons of fuel which 'strained' the aircraft. You can find these reports in the British Library, but not, I'm afraid, online.
In a letter to the British Director of Civil Aviation from whom permission for the flight was required (Australia/Commonwealth and all that) she wrote that for the Lae-Howland leg "I shall carry probably 1,000 gallons of gasoline."
If either of these to statements is true, one verbal from Noonan, one indisputably written by Earhart, then the aircraft left Lae with either 150 gallons or 200 gallons less than the full 1,150 gallon load, something almost always ignored by the conspiracy theorists in their endurance calculations.
I have seen the endurance for 950 gallons calculated by ex RAF navigator Roy Nesbit ( Aeroplane Monthly January/February 1989) as 20 hours and 13 minutes, but I can't vouch for this and don't know how it was done. If that is correct, at the time of her last desperate message, she had already exceeded that time by 12 minutes.
Cheers
Steve

 

[stona]

Nesbit also believes that Earhart went in on a line about 35 miles north west of Howland Island. He bases this on the evidence of two radio transmissions received around sunrise which, be believes, show that Noonan made a fundamental error in his navigational calculations.
The clue lies in two radio messages giving her position. In the first, at 6.14am, she placed herself 200 miles from Howland Island, but in a second, sent 31 minutes later, she was only 100 miles out.

According to Nesbit, himself a trained and experienced navigator

"What many American researchers have overlooked or not realised is the significance of the two messages that were recorded around about sunrise.
This revision of position provides a very important clue to the ultimate fate of the machine and its occupants. The aircraft could not possibly have covered 100 miles in 31 minutes, even allowing for rounding up of distances."

Noonan, he explained, would have plotted his position by the stars until dawn, when he would have had to use the sun as a reference point. Marine navigators are trained to pinpoint the exact point at which the top, or upper limb, of the sun appears on the horizon.
Nesbit believes Noonan, who was trained as a marine navigator, miscalculated his position by forgetting to make a crucial adjustment for the "dip", the difference between a reading taken from the surface, and that taken from an altitude of 2,000ft.

"I think he [Noonan] was exhausted after 18 hours of flying, and simply forgot. They were probably flying up and down a line looking for the island 35 miles west of where they thought they were."

Now, it can be argued that Nesbit is making a conjecture, but it is a educated attempt, by another navigator, to explain a navigational error. Some such an error was undoubtedly made, otherwise Earhart and Noonan would have found Howland and this thread would not exist.

Earhart was not a navigator, and despite Noonan's undoubted ability he was not proficient in morse code. Neither Noonan nor Earhart had the radio expertise of Harry Manning, and it is an interesting 'what if' to imagine what might have happened had Earhart stuck with Manning.
Other posters have already alluded to the fact that the decade between Lindbergh's Paris flight and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart witnessed a transformation of aerial navigation technology and practice. A small community of innovators worked to find better tools and techniques. One of these was a Navy Lt. Commander named Phillip Van Horn Weems. He developed simplified methods of celestial navigation that, when combined with improved sextants, provided a reliable means of determining position (either a fix or a "line of position) when the sun or stars could be seen. By 1928, Weems had gone into business teaching air navigation. His initial students and clients included Charles Lindbergh, eager to find a better way than simply relying on luck to cross oceans, polar explorer Lincoln Ellsworth, and Harold Gatty, the soon-to-be-famous navigator of Wiley Post's Winnie Mae on its around-the-world record flight of 1931.
Weems also trained famous British Aviatrix Amy Johnson, seen here examining a navigational device (the caption says a drift meter) with Weems.

Weems sent the following letter to the Earhart's offering to train her in his navigational techniques.

Putnam replied

She did 'shove off' for another flight pretty soon, and we all know how it ended. I would suggest we also have a pretty good idea why it ended that way too. Such training might not have averted disaster, but it might have helped her to appreciate shortcomings in planning and equipment, and maybe even tempered a tendency to over confidence.

Cheers

Steve

Edit: The 'Hagenberger' referred to by Weems is in fact Albert Hegengerger, for those who like to google the people mentioned.

 

[vikingBerserker]

#3. The total lack of ANY emergency/Mayday type radio message after the possible 09:00 contact. As I posted above BOTH engines do not fail at the same time and even with both dead the plane does NOT suddenly drop like a rock. Yea I know conjecture again but I find it hard to believe that in an Out Of Fuel situation, engines dead or dying, she or anyone else would not have grabbed at their only remaining lifeline, the RADIO and MAYDAYED until they were 30ft under water.

IIRC her radio required a working engine, so if they had stopped due to being out of fuel then they could not have called out.

 

[stona]

As Roger Connor at the Smithsonian put it.

"My own conclusion is that is that the accident chain started with the selection of a South Pacific route and the choice of the Lockheed 10E with inadequate range that then locked in the poor choice of Howland Island as the expedition's most critical way-station. The great shortfall in the Earhart's and Noonan's approach was the inability to see the magnitude of the risk they were taking in selecting Howland and gambling on the reliability of largely untested radio equipment."

He might have added which neither of them properly understood or knew how to operate.

Cheers

Steve

 

[stona]

I've been looking into the often made assertion that Earhart was regarded as a very competent pilot. She was certainly portrayed as such by her publicity. She was tutored to fly the twin engine Electra by the then already famous Paul Mantz. He did not feel that she had an instinctive feel for the controls of an aeroplane, something most 'natural' pilots are credited with, and was particularly concerned with the way she adjusted for slight swings in take off by using the throttles rather than rudder.

I can't comment on her piloting skills, except to note that at least some contemporaries had some doubts about some aspects of her performance.
The evidence of her lack of navigational and radio skills are well documented. It may be that in selecting Noonan as navigator (and his traditional navigational skills are not in doubt) she may nonetheless have picked the wrong guy.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Shortround6]

I would note that with a fuel load of fuel her Electra was almost 60% over it's normal certified gross weight which may have something to do with it's ground handling problems. It may have had something to do with her taking off with the reported less than full fuel load?