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TV To Watch: Amelia Earhart

I watched the show. It was really great. When they get back to the island, I hope they discover the plane in the deep water. It would be nice to know the end of the tale.
 
That was a great show. Lot's of new information for me. I do hope they find part or all of the plane in the deep water search.

One thing though, something that drives me up the freekin wall about regular TV. Seven minutes of show followed by 4 minutes of commercials, over and over and over. In a two hour show you get over half an hour of commercials. :rant I must just be getting old.
 
"lethal289" said:
i thought the show was well put together. Randy, have you ever gone on one of those expeditions?
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No I haven't, and to tell you the truth, I really don't want to. That's hard work!
 
"Opentracker" said:
That was a great show. Lot's of new information for me. I do hope they find part or all of the plane in the deep water search.

One thing though, something that drives me up the freekin wall about regular TV. Seven minutes of show followed by 4 minutes of commercials, over and over and over. In a two hour show you get over half an hour of commercials. :rant I must just be getting old.
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Yes !! Commercials !!! And yes John .. we are getting old for this world.
 
I watched as well. I'm not sure I followed the footage showing the puff of smoke behind the tail on takeoff being the snap of the radio receiving antenna breaking. If it was under high tension or if it was a heavy cable, then the noticeable reaction hitting the runway? Anyway, it was a better explanation of why Amelia couldn't hear the Itasca's transmission, than the Hillary Swank movie version that some Navy seaman let a battery run down. IIRC from the show last night they said she still would have received short range transmission with the top wire? I would have assumed she would have done a radio check shortly after taking off?

And what was it with the British putting 20 settlers on the island before WWII? an island with no water, no soil--made me think of Papillon.
 
I don't believe there was much other units for her to check for radio communication. The way they say she setup her radio contact, there seemed to be very limited use also.

I would have thought someone might have seen and located the lower antenna if in fact it did fall/break off.
 
I watched as well. I'm not sure I followed the footage showing the puff of smoke behind the tail on takeoff being the snap of the radio receiving antenna breaking. If it was under high tension or if it was a heavy cable, then the noticeable reaction hitting the runway? The story goes that the cable was under some tension, but with a heavily overloaded plane and a grass runway, the rear mast snagged on a mogul. It had rained earlier that morning, so the "smoke" may have been water sprayed up from the breakage. There's an unconfirmed anecdote that folks found a cable on the runway after the take-offAnyway, it was a better explanation of why Amelia couldn't hear the Itasca's transmission, than the Hillary Swank movie version that some Navy seaman let a battery run down. IIRC from the show last night they said she still would have received short range transmission with the top wire? The top wire is actually the RDF receiver, which should have been able to hear signals, but not RDF on signals above 1400 kHz. Since AE had a main receiver antenna, why use a secondary antenna (RDF antenna) when the other one should work? If course, she had no idea it had broke off.I would have assumed she would have done a radio check shortly after taking off? We've learned never to assume anything logical with Earhart. She did do a radio check the day before, and the radioman had problems hearing her well, and she had a very loud signal from Lae.

And what was it with the British putting 20 settlers on the island before WWII? an island with no water, no soil--made me think of Papillon. The colonists knew how and where to build wells for fresh water on coral atolls; there simply isn't any fresh water on the surface that is easy to get at. They did have problems until the well was dug.
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Thanks Randy. That's the kind of detail I wish they had time to get into (maybe less time with the commercials). The other point they didn't spend much time on was the navigation that Noonan was using was accurate only to within 10 miles (?), making Howland Island the proverbial needle in haystack. If I understood correctly, his navigation was accurate along a north-south axis and in the ballpark on the east-west axis, which was the direction they were flying?

And Rick Gillespie reminded me of Shelby Foote on the Ken Burn's civil documentary--earnest, slow talking, but captivating. Look forward to seeing the next expedition.
 
Ahhh...my area of expertise: navigation! The precision of 10 miles for celestial navigation has more to do with the inaccuracies of the readings and time measurement than anything else, particularly when you are moving. With three star fixes, accuracy can get within 2-3 miles, but a single sun or star shot only gets you a line of position: you can be anywhere on that LOP (+/- 10 miles or so on either side). A very clear sunrise shot can get you down to 3-4 miles, but you have to have a perfect horizon, free of clouds and haze. Very fortunately, the LOP from the sunrise shot was nearly perpendicular to the flight path, so one needed only to advance the LOP by dead-reckoning. Then, you turn left or right onto the LOP to find your target. The MK1Mod1 eyeball and radio direction finder can then guide you to your destination. With clouds present, the shadows look like islands. The Itasca deck logs indicate cloudless conditions except 30 miles to the NE, so this is puzzling why they couldn't see the Itasca, which should have stood up against the flat terrain of the ocean and Howland Island.

I did some Monte Carlo simulations of the flight path, assuming only dead-reckoning since Lae, using weather conditions that were known and unknown to AE. The most probable scenario was that they were about 65 miles south of Howland when the sunrise shot was made, but we will never know for sure.
 
Just finished watching the show from the DVR and thought it was very interesting.

Are you the person they referenced when they said a researcher found the logs 'buried'?

What are your thoughts Randy, do you think that is her campsite? I wish they could have gotten to the plane wire they found. It's a bummer they couldn't DNA from the button they had....

I'm sure the underwater equipment is pricey that they use, but I would be trying to take two of everything if I am going out in the middle of the ocean. Although the backup research ship they got looked like a nice upgrade!
 
That was a researcher in Kiribatis (once the Gilbert Islands), not me. What the show didn't talk about was the large number of artifacts found that did belong to the Coast Guard, who went to the area for target practice. I'm not 100% convinced the 7 Site was where AE ended up, but I do think she likely made it to Nikumororo.
 
Interesting.

It's hard to believe the bones that were discovered in the 40's have just disappeared and no one knows where they are.
 
Well, not really. The bones at the time were determined to be not of interest and not AE. The War then broke out, and Suva, Fiji was thought to be a significant target by the Japanese, including invasion. A lot of material was secreted or thrown away. In addition, a lot of administrators changed hands, so information was undoubtedly lost.
 
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