I keep seeing in my mind these giant crabs poised to eat me, and then drag my bones off to their lairs.
But I have an advantage, I can swim, and I love being in water. All those crabs can do is scuttle about on the bottom. And those crabs did not eat an aluminum airplane.
So the Earhart plane would have had a vacuum tube radio, probably running off of 400hz 115volts. Standard for aircraft then, and for heavy aircraft today, as far as I know.
Using 400hz instead of 60hz, the transformer core and the filter capacitors would have been smaller. But no way to run off of batteries.
So engine would have to run for about 30 seconds to warm up vacuum tubes.
Won't run well without propeller, not enough rotational inertia, no cooling.
Antenna for aircraft HF, usually runs from roof of cockpit to vertical stabilizer.
Lets see what we can find out online right now.
Here again, about the Coconut Crabs:
mentalfloss.com
Here they talk about high tech quest to find the plane. ( should be lots of planes out there under the water from the Pacific War )
digitaltrends.com
"On June 1, 1937, a plane took off from Miami, Florida. It was a twin-engine Lockheed Electra plane, which just so happened to contain the world’s most famous pilot and her navigator. Their mission? To circumnavigate the globe and make a triumphant return to Oakland, California."
"Somewhere during the perilous voyage, between Lae, New Guinea and a small uninhabited coral islet in the Pacific, it disappeared."
"A combination of bad weather, radio transmission problems, and low fuel meant that the last recorded contact with the plane took place July 2, 1937. What followed was the most expensive sea and air search in American aviation up to that point. Tragically, no plane was ever discovered. Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were finally declared dead on January 5, 1939."
ameliaearhart.com
curious here:
ameliaearhart.com
Pacific island Nikumaroro
use zoom outs and changing back to maps, to see where this is:
google.com
About 600 miles north of Samoa
Like say coming East from New Guinea, to? Maybe Tahiti?
So I guess there is some confusion here, wanting to fly West from Oakland, but a crash and repairs in Honolulu. Then flying again, East from Miami.
Then this:
"On June 29, they arrived in Papua New Guinea, only to depart again on July 2, headed for the uninhabited Howland Island, located just north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean."
"A U.S. Coast Guard cutter, the Itasca, received voice transmissions from Earhart during that leg of the trip, saying, “We are on the line of position 156-137. Will repeat message. We will repeat this message on 6210 kilocycles. Wait. Listening on 6210 kilocycles. We are running north and south,” according to the museum."
So this would be just a bit more than 50 meters wavelength of radio use.
And it would then seem that plan had to have at least one engine running, and it sounded like it was flying.
"Their flight should have lasted about 19 hours, but the plane never arrived at Howland, leaving Earhart’s disappearance as one of history’s biggest mysteries."
"They have been looking into the possibility that Earhart and Noonan might have made an emergency landing on Nikumaroro (now called Gardner Island), in the Republic of Kiribati, where they may have subsequently perished. (Earhart’s plane has also remained missing, though in 2014, TIGHAR researchers found an “anomaly” on the seafloor off Nikumaroro that they said needed closer examination.)"
okay, so this Nikumaroro is about 300 miles South of the Howland Island they were aiming for.
So from Papua New Guinea would be about 2600 miles. And this was to have taken 19 hours.
So that would have been about 130mph. DC 3's would cruise at 180mph.
Okay, the bones they think are likely her's, and they have male bones too.
ameliaearhart.com
They have a liquor bottle and a sextant of the type the navigator used for backup.
Still have not found the plane. Still no mention of the radio transmission long after their plane had to have been down.
That had been the main proof that they did not just go down into the ocean.
But then if they have bones, that would settle all that.
They see coconut crab damages on the bones.
Okay, so it was British who originally found the bones in the early 40's.
They also have some aluminum, and some plexiglas, and a jar of freckle cream.
tighar.org
Now here they do talk about distress calls, like received at Honolulu. Sound like they are no longer flying. Could be ditched, or on that reef which makes up that island, maybe with the plane just barely staying on land?
So this is what they think, the plane was on the reef, making distress calls for SEVERAL DAYS!
And my understanding is that to use the radio you needed to have an engine running!
So they think it did land basically safely, on its landing gear.
"According to TIGHAR's hypothesis, Earhart would have used the aircraft's radio to make distress calls for several days until the plane was washed over the reef and disappeared before Navy searchers flew over the area."
livescience.com
Okay, here it says that they had to have the right engine running, and propeller clear of obstructions.
"Transmissions from Earhart's Electra (NR16020) were possible on three primary frequencies: 3105 kHz, 6210 kHz and 500 kHz. For the latter, however, there were no reported post loss signals.
(500khz would have been the old LW band, slightly lower frequency than the AM broadcast band. Don't think anyone uses this anymore. )
On her world flight, Earhart transmitted on 3105 kHz at night, and 6210 kHz during daylight, using her 50-watt WE-13C transmitter.
The Itasca transmitted on 3105 kHz, but did not have voice capability on 6210 kHz.
Under favorable propagation conditions, it was possible for aircraft operating on the U.S. west coast at night to be heard on 3105 kHz in the central Pacific. Indeed, the Itasca reported hearing such signals on one occasion.
There were three 50-watt Morse code radio stations in Nicaragua which could be heard on a receiver tuned to 3105 kHz, but the stations sent only code, not voice.
Moreover, all transport aircraft in the area used assigned route frequencies, instead of 3105 kHz.
"Therefore, other than Itasca, Earhart’s Electra was the only plausible central Pacific source of voice signals on 3105 kHz," said Gillespie.
Although several of the analyzed post-loss signal reports were determined to be hoaxes, Gillespie ruled out the hypothesis of an illegal transmitter "given the numerous constraints militating against successfully perpetrating a signal transmission hoax."
"We do not really have hoax transmissions but rather reports from people who, for whatever reason, claimed to have heard something they did not hear," Gillespie said.
To make multiple transmissions, the Electra plane needed to run the right-hand, generator-equipped engine to recharge the batteries.
"The safest procedure is to transmit only when the engine is running, and battery power is required to start the engine," said Gillespie. "To run the engine, the propeller must be clear of obstructions, and water level must never reach the transmitter."
To verify the hypothesis that the plane landed on Nikumaroro's reef, TIGHAR researchers analyzed tidal condition on the island from 2 to 9 July 1937, the week following Earhart disappearance.
It emerged that transmission of credible signals occurred in periods during which the water level on the reef was low enough to permit engine operation. (okay, so landing gear may have been partly in water. Could not always run engine, propeller clearance )
According to Gillespie, at least four radio signals are of particular interest, as they were simultaneously heard by more than one station.
The first signal, made when the pilot had been officially missing for just 5 hours, was received by the Itasca, and two other ships, the HMS Achilles, and the SS New Zealand Star.
The Itasca logged “We hear her on 3105 now - very weak and unreadable/ fone” and asked Earhart to send Morse code dashes.
The Achilles did not hear “very weak and unreadable” voice, but heard Itasca’s request and heard dashes in response. The SS New Zealand only heard the response dashes.
In other cases, credible sources in widely separated locations in the U.S., Canada, and the central Pacific, reported hearing a woman requesting help. She spoke English, and in some cases said she was Amelia Earhart.
( for those HF bands, you can get ionospheric skip at night. Could potentially be heard anywhere in the world )
In one case, on July 5, the U.S. Navy Radio at Wailupe, Honolulu heard a garbled Moorse code: “281 north Howland - call KHAQQ - beyond north -- won’t hold with us much longer -- above water -- shut off.”
At the same time, an amateur radio operator in Melbourne, Australia, reported having heard a "strange” code which included KHAQQ, Amelia's call sign.
According to Gillespie, the re-analysis of the credible post loss signals supports the hypothesis that they were sent by Earhart’s Electra from a point on the reef at Nikumaroro, about ¼ mile north of the shipwreck of the British freighter SS Norwich City.
"The results of the study show a body of evidence which might be the forgotten key to the mystery. It is the elephant in the room that has gone unacknowledged for nearly seventy-five years," said Gillespie.
"
Sounds to me like she just got lost, ran out of fuel, ended up on a wrong island. They in following days likely the sea washed her plane off of the reef, making it harder to find her via overflights.
Wonder how long they were able to survive on that island?
If they can find the plane under the water, that would really clench it. Also looking to DNA analysis? Not sure if they still have the bones.
Not much of an island, very little usable square footage.
livescience.com
Clarence Kelly Johnson, first task, convincing his bosses that the original single vertical stabilizer Electra was unstable. So they went to the twin tail version.
upload.wikimedia.org
SJG
Wicked Lady, great album cover
youtu.be
Boz Scaggz
youtube.com
