Posted on 09/10/2016 4:34:24 PM PDT by Kaslin
True enough. Mobile radar really had to await the UK’s development of the magnetron during the war.
Maybe the author meant radio station.
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.
WILSON!!!
Everybody needed a navigator then. Unless you were flying in circles. Remember commercial planes had navigators until the 70s.
Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
~Margaret Mitchell
That sounds like the visit of Fred Groener researching his book “The Search for Amelia Earhart.”
There is also Michael Campbell’s “Amelia Earhart: the truth at last.”
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.
.
Radio, not Radar.
It could have been thousands of miles away. This is especially true at night.
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Thanks for your post #27.
Interesting. Thanks.
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.
Great, I’m a smart ass, and you answer back politely. That’s a dirty trick to play on the internet!
True. Tighar is a scam.
You’re welcome
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!
” ... 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.
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!
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.
My Father knew Noonan back then..., and always said that he probably screwed up the navigation due to too much booze!
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