Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Amelia Earhart made contact with radio operators for days after her plane went down
News.com.au ^ | September 10, 2016

Posted on 09/10/2016 4:34:24 PM PDT by Kaslin

DID Amelia Earhart survive her plane crash? This is the most likely theory, with evidence emerging that she was making contact for days after her plane disappeared.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) believes Earhart safely landed her plane when it disappeared in 1937 and died as a castaway.

During a presentation in the US last month, TIGHAR’s Ric Gillespie backed up all of the group’s theories.

Earhart’s plane was last seen on the radar on July 2, 1937.

After becoming the first woman pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, she embarked on a mission to fly 47,000km around the world.

But on July 2 1937, four months after beginning her trip, she found herself in trouble.

She was flying at 375m looking for Howland Island, southwest of Honolulu, but was low on fuel.

It is believed she was not as close to the island as expected so she safety landed on another island, believed to be Nikumaroro, also known as Gardner Island, which is surrounded by a reef and about 640km southeast of Howland Island.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...


TOPICS: Front Page News
KEYWORDS: 1937; ameliaearhart; aviation; earhart; frednoonan; godsgravesglyphs; nonsense; noonan; radar; tighar
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141 next last
To: schurmann

True enough. Mobile radar really had to await the UK’s development of the magnetron during the war.


21 posted on 09/10/2016 5:01:08 PM PDT by sparklite2 (The game overs whether you play it or not.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: schurmann

Maybe the author meant radio station.


22 posted on 09/10/2016 5:01:31 PM PDT by Reily
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: BwanaNdege

I don’t think there was ANY radar in the pacific in 37. The set we had in Hawaii in 41 was the very first to my knowledge.
And as for other radio and navigation aids, there was a line of US Navy ships set up along the anticipated route as radio pickets.

This was not an ordinary thing to try. Before that it was only done in the Clipper flying boats with a ton of fuel, and highly skilled navigators, flying the exact routes Noonan had pioneered.


23 posted on 09/10/2016 5:01:44 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs are man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino

WILSON!!!


24 posted on 09/10/2016 5:03:27 PM PDT by wetgundog ("Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice" -AuH2O)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: proust

Everybody needed a navigator then. Unless you were flying in circles. Remember commercial planes had navigators until the 70s.


25 posted on 09/10/2016 5:05:09 PM PDT by discostu (If you need to load or unload go to the white zone, you'll love it, it's a way of life)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: sparklite2

Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

~Margaret Mitchell


26 posted on 09/10/2016 5:07:12 PM PDT by eddie willers
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: EagleUSA; Kaslin

That sounds like the visit of Fred Groener researching his book “The Search for Amelia Earhart.”

https://www.amazon.com/search-Amelia-Earhart-Fred-Goerner/dp/B0007DOXTO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1473552562&sr=8-2&keywords=amelia+earhart+SEARCH+FOR

There is also Michael Campbell’s “Amelia Earhart: the truth at last.”

https://www.amazon.com/search-Amelia-Earhart-Fred-Goerner/dp/B0007DOXTO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1473552562&sr=8-2&keywords=amelia+earhart+SEARCH+FOR


27 posted on 09/10/2016 5:09:15 PM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

But in any case, I think the researcher is just looking for funding for another search. Something else he said that didn’t make any sense was that Amelia needed a running engine to use the radio. That’s complete nonsense. The Radio ran off the battery with no engine being running, also that specific Lockheed had extra batteries installed.


28 posted on 09/10/2016 5:09:29 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs are man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BwanaNdege

.
Radio, not Radar.

It could have been thousands of miles away. This is especially true at night.
.


29 posted on 09/10/2016 5:11:28 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

Thanks for your post #27.


30 posted on 09/10/2016 5:14:32 PM PDT by zot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino

Interesting. Thanks.


31 posted on 09/10/2016 5:14:44 PM PDT by proust (Trump / Pence 2016!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Reily

I agree. Reading that again, I think that was a turn of phrase used by an ignorant reporter. Nothing in the article actually says they were tracked by radar.
It said “last seen on the radar in 1937”. As in “last time that topic was on the radar”.

I’m taking that as a reporter having no clue that there was a time before Radar. I think they meant it as in...” last seen out there somewhere”.
If someone really meant actually radar tracked, someone would want to know where the track ended. And also, what the hell kind of radar in 1937 could track a plane at 1000 AGL out there in the middle of the central pacific.


32 posted on 09/10/2016 5:15:58 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs are man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: proust

Great, I’m a smart ass, and you answer back politely. That’s a dirty trick to play on the internet!


33 posted on 09/10/2016 5:17:48 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs are man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: HANG THE EXPENSE
Tighar has been a running joke for so many years to those of us in the old airplane business.

True. Tighar is a scam.

34 posted on 09/10/2016 5:18:02 PM PDT by zot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: zot

You’re welcome


35 posted on 09/10/2016 5:18:28 PM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: henkster
Last seen on radar in 1937?

Try "RDF" Radio Direction Finder back then! Not all that precise (particularly at great distances) unless you had very sophisticated equipment back then! Even the, the "Margin of Error" for triangulation could be hundreds of miles!

36 posted on 09/10/2016 5:21:47 PM PDT by ExSES (the "bottom-line")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: BwanaNdege

” ... She could not have been on oxygen, so she probably flew at 12,500 feet or less. ... “

Before the Second World War, rules of flight were far less detailed and far less restrictive. The FAA safety bureaucracy did not exist (the FAA itself did not exist until the 1950s). Civilian fliers routinely climbed far above 12,500 ft MSL that today marks the upper limit of flight in the US, without supplemental oxygen: they did it to deliver airframes to buyers, or on scheduled airlines outside CONUS. In his autobiography, the late Ernest K. Gann describes ascending to some 18,000 ft MSL to clear mountain passes in South America.

Gann is better known for his novels (Island in the Sky, Fate is the Hunter etc), but he did duty as a civilian transport pilot for Military Air Transport Service during WWII.

The books and essays he subsequently authored on commercial flying in the 1930s and 1940s are a revelation: well worth the effort to find and uniquely readable, for those interested in that period of the history of aviation.


37 posted on 09/10/2016 5:24:54 PM PDT by schurmann
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: DesertRhino

Problem was, Noonan was good, but not particularly great navigator (Amelia was a terrible!) and had drinking problems at the time.

That left the two as a solo pilot and a solo navigator. Either make a mistake, and the other could not correct it, and may not even be able to recognize that an error had been made!


38 posted on 09/10/2016 5:29:12 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Robert A. Cook, PE

Actually, he was very good at open water navigation, one of the very best, and was a pioneer in the field. The slanders against him loomed large because people were really not wanting to blame Amelia.
But there was zero margin for error on either of their parts.
It was a leg that was essentially flying from Los Angeles to Washington DC. The target was hundreds of miles from nowhere isolated. The target at that distance was a flat featureless, uninhabited island much smaller than most typical airports in America today.
If Fred made the slightest error, or if Amelia looking out into the featureless haze blinked, they missed it. The whole mission was an exceedingly dangerous one and really before its time to be done safely except by giant flying boats.

Noonan was damned good.


39 posted on 09/10/2016 5:38:56 PM PDT by DesertRhino (Dogs are man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Robert A. Cook, PE
Problem was, Noonan was good, but not particularly great navigator (Amelia was a terrible!) and had drinking problems at the time.

My Father knew Noonan back then..., and always said that he probably screwed up the navigation due to too much booze!

40 posted on 09/10/2016 5:39:43 PM PDT by ExSES (the "bottom-line")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson