Warbird Information Exchange

What Earhart and Noonan were trying to do was incredibly dangerous. Casting doubts on her flying ability or his sobriety don't recognize that fact.
Remember that one (of the three) Martin M-130 Clippers just disappeared over the Pacific at around the same time, on a route from Guam to Manila. No one knows what happened, no one has searched for that airplane's remains. The Air Corps in the Philippines refused to send out search missions at the time, out of fears that those planes would be lost, too. There was no weather forecasting then, no shipping in that area to provide reports- the Pan Am crews just went for it, without alternate destinations, relying on celestial navigation to get there. Just as Earhart and Noonan did.
Again remembering Horace Brock, who was waiting in Manila to fly the last leg of that flight to Hong Kong, the Clipper, keeping its course, probably flew into a bank of clouds that was in fact a typhoon- that no plane could survive. And that was a scheduled airline flight! There are plenty of theories about that one too, none proven or provable.
And there was a recent thread here about a B-24 transport, carrying a senior AAF general, that disappeared over the Pacific in 1944. Again, no one knows what happened... bad weather, a single mistake, or a wrong decision doomed many airplanes and crews in those days. Even with experienced, professional pilots and sober navigators.

Absolutely. Prohibition was still a pretty fresh memory for everyone in those days and some of the standards applied were, no doubt, pretty Victorian in some instances. I don’t believe Noonan ever got canned for his drinking or anything, he just… took a drink periodically as many of us do. That he was “a drunk” is really nothing more than here-say, I expect.

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Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

Missed the thread, was that about Gen Tinker [whom they named Tinker AFB after] ?
Probably not, the B-24 that he and 10 others perished with was a combat aircraft, not a transport, and was in the vicinity of Midway.
Even though the aircraft was witnessed by others to go out of control for unknown reasons and plunge into the sea, no crew were recovered and were declared lost at sea ,, Interestingly and tragically, his son was also declared lost at sea a couple years later in combat over the English Channel.

There have been a host of postwar losses of large, professionally crewed aircraft in the Pacific (and other oceans).

Then there was the successful ditching of the Pan Am Stratocruiser.

If anything happened (especially in the days before modern communications) navigational error, weather or something mechanical, you were on your own.

Last year I was returning from London on a 777, the clouds broke long enough for a long look at the North Atlantic and Northern Canada, it is a lot of emptiness. Even sitting in a comfortable seat, enjoying a Coke, and watching our progress on the moving map, I shuddered imaging what it was like for early fliers.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

I’ve flown from SBA (Santa Barbara) to Catalina island solo, and with a couple of passengers, over the years. Sweaty palms always. Something about being out over an ocean with no safe place to set down if something goes wrong is quite unsettling. Can’t imagine what AE felt way out in that vast ocean.

The missing general was Millard Harmon flying in a C-87A Liberator. According to Wiki he was flying from Kwajalein to Hawaii on 25 Feb 45. I know from reading Navy squadron histories & combat reports of squadrons in that area that the Navy spent a huge effort to try to locate the plane. I assume the AAF would have as well.

Mac

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WWII Naval Aviation Research - Pacific
https://www.ww2nar-pac.com/

Allow me to recommend a very good Flying magazine article which discusses the hazards of early transatlantic flights.

https://books.google.com/books?id=3r_N- ... e&q&f=true

The issue is available on Google Books.
Flip the electronic pages to page 49.

It's titled "Lure of the Atlantic" and written by Peter Garrison back in 1968. He captures the danger of early over water flying particularly well.
A few years later, he would fly his self designed home built across both the Atlantic and Pacific.
So, his research in past efforts, which often ended in tragedy, did not scare him off (or you might say teach him a lesson ).

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

Stunned to have a fleeting glimpse of what turned out to be Peter Garrison's Melmoth over my English home in '75 after his trans-Atlantic flight, no idea what it was until I saw a pic of it at Biggin Hill. His Pacific flights were the following year I think. An unfortunate ending to that amazing little aircraft, happily with no casualties.

Do I recall correctly that Fred Noonan was in the rear of the Electra with fuel tanks occupying tgd space between him and the cockpit? Or am I thinking of another long distance flight in the 1930s?

Yes, Noonan was in the rear, they communicated by passing messages, and even that was not easy.

Also, they were in the morning heading into the sun, Earhart was very tired, the island was small, in cloudy skies.

My guess is that this is not the Earhart plane. If this was a hard landing (likely) enough to remove the engines, I do not think the wings would stay connected through the sinking. The blob does not look that much like an airplane.

Also, most interpretations of "crash and sink" think that Earhart and Noonan flew past Howland, and thus place them to the north.

There are a lot of ideas about the fuel being older, the tank not being completely full, running rich, into a headwind, but I doubt if all this adds up to running out of gas a hundred miles short of the destination.

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Kevin McCartney

I'm designing a submarine now to visit this site to see the final resting place of Amelia Earhart in person. I'll make it out of concrete which is a great material to withstand the compressive forces at those depths and should be able to sink readily to the bottom of the ocean. Still haven't figured out how to get it back up, so for now I'll only be selling one way trip tickets.

Return trip powered by maximum hubris - hot air rises, right? Be sure to cut safety corners to offer the full experience!

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Matt

I'm designing one out of plexiglas, 360 view, once in a lifetime experience !
I calculate that the forces from within will counteract the forces from without ,, At least thats what I heard on youtube !
Powered by a 40v Ryobi engine [brushless motor !] And steered with a top of the line Xbox remote, I should be able to sell tickets to the bottom dirt cheap.

Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa walk into a bar.
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Thanks, not sure where I gathered that from...

I heard they used a fishing pole. Really.
Not sure how AE would send messages back to Fred.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.