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 ...
Last seen on radar in 1937?
That’s about as long as the last time Hillary answered non-preapproved questions.
Wow, up till her last flight, she still needed a male navigator.
Tighar has been a running joke for so many years to those of us in the old airplane business.
Seemed early to me, too, but apparently there had been radar for a couple of years at that time.
People have been looking for any remains or clues about Earhart for a long time. I was in the Western Pacific (island of Saipan) in the early sixties and we had a number of visitors on expedition to search for clues. They interviewed natives and people with roots back to that timeframe. We never heard of anything substantial being found. There was always the rumor of her flight going down while on secret mission to spy in Japanese locations in the Pacific...but, who knows. They continue to look.
Amelia, it was just a false alarm.
- Joni Mitchell
There is considerable evidence that she was picked up by the Japanese and held for a few years, until she died in captivity.
Her co-pilot was executed.
Bkmrk.
They had radar in ‘37? If they did, it wouldn’t have had that range I think...not to mention, if they had, it would have been top secret.
Why?
This is not new information. Thousands of people said they heard something or saw something. But none could be verified and most where proven to be hoaxes. This news story is just bringing out some of the hold hoaxes long after the people who could shoot them down are gone.
My thoughts exactly as radar at the time was crude, and quite rare as it was experimental, and coming online at the time. It would seem to me quite the coincidence that radar would be effectual in just those locations Amelia Earhardt happened to be flying.
“By 1936 the first five Chain Home (CH) systems were operational and by 1940 stretched across the entire UK including Northern Ireland”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar
I seriously doubt that there was any radar coverage in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1937. She could not have been on oxygen, so she probably flew at 12,500 feet or less. The horizon at that height would have been about 250 miles.
Did the article say which radar station had contact with her?
No.
Pretty much anyone flying the pacific then badly needed a navigator. It was basically still a stunt to fly out there then.
Noonan was one of the few people on planet earth who understood navigating trans-pacific by air. He pioneered it.
As to the other glittering jewel of ignorance you gave us to minimize this flight, consider something else. No solo flight crossed the Pacific until after WWII. In 46 some guys did it in a couple of planes across the Aleutians. In 51 a guy did the Japan to Wake to Hawaii route. And the basic route Amelia was on wasn’t done solo until 59.
The Pacific is not the Atlantic. Lindberg could not have done Amelias flight solo. The Pacific is very big.
Well, bless your heart.
—— Martha Mitchell
“Seemed early to me, too, but apparently there had been radar for a couple of years at that time.”
Not the case.
In 1937, radar was still being developed by the British. And the first systems they put into action were gigantic fixed ground installations, far too large to be hauled around the world to the Pacific.
Systems small enough to mount on a vessel or an aircraft were still many years in the future; even when such became reality, the critical components were highly classified, available only to select British and US researchers and manufacturers.
The assertion here casts everything else in the article into doubt.
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.