Warbird Information Exchange

Don't forget the P-38 semi-buried on a beach in UK...

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Sorry for my bad English:-(

I would sure like to see what they blew so much cash on? Why would anyone continue to donate to this gravy train. Sure looks like a gravy train from the outside. Either scamming, poor planning etc must have been happening .

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Well if I can't rollerskate around my playpen while smoking and drinking a beer, I'm staying home..

Saw this earlier today:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120 ... ft_th.html

Still flogging that shoe sole, I see.

I guess it is true - Repeat something long enough, and it becomes fact (especially in this day and age when "due diligence" by most reporters simply means printing press releases verbatim).

The scientific method: Develop a theory and do everything humanly possible to make the evidence fit the theory.
Oh, wait...



Richard

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I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Happy 115th from the Boys at Mud Gully!

SPANNER

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Support Your Local Warbirds! KBO!
The only reasons the airplanes matter is what the veterans did with them... and why.

Wildchild wrote:

"We have a member on the forum here who has better proof to where she is and he has asked for funding. guess what?"

Would that member be me, Wildchild ?

As far as I know, I am the only contributor to post on WIX that our New Britain Project has "actual" evidence about the location of the Electra, both documentary (on a map) and videos of the Army Veterans who saw wreckage and described it.

You see, TIGHAR has a "hypothesis", the organisation has no direct evidence. Bits and pieces of circumstantial information and artifacts that cannot be proven to originate form Earhart, Noonan or the Electra 10E do not constitute evidence. Neither do turtle bones. The hypothesis depends on the notion that Earhart and Noonan were lateral to or at Howland Island but could not see it and flew down a Sunline which went through Howland. There is no proof that AE & FN were at Howland or anywhere near it. My working has them at least 200 miles short of Howland due to higher than forecast headwinds.

We have a WWII map with cryptic writing on the edge which identifies the type of P & W R-1340 she used (and the Horsepower) and we have "C/N 1055" also written there. The map was used by the Australian Army Patrol in the jungle on New Britain Island in April 1945.

Anybody in their right mind would regard this writing and the Vets descriptions as pointing to the fact that the all-metal, unpainted, twin-engined aircraft with no nationality markings that they saw was the Earhart Electra.

Result: We do not get a mention.

I know there is a problem with the range but then again I also know from the Lockheed data that there is a power setting way down that only uses 20 USGPH and yet delivers a speed of 120mph. 120mph is Vmd, Velocity minimum drag for the Electra. Lockheed Report 487 does show this. Earhart herself wrote in her book "...at 10,000 feet, indicating 120 mph, using less than 20 gallons of gas" (Page 37, "Last Flight"). Some say that is "20 per engine", ie; 40USGPH but that cannot be as she would be travelling much faster than 120 mph. At 10,000 feet 38 USGPH was the fuel flow which delivered 150mph in still air.

We are now public on www.indiegogo.com (yes, a "crowdfunder" website) and we are asking, nay, begging... for funding. My small team have spent in the region of US$150,000 and we have received donations of US$40,000. All that has been spent on previous expeditions. If anyone is interested to contribuite, look up the website and add /projects/117588 or just do a search for "Amelia Earhart" and you will find the begging bowl under "Let's find Amelia's plane..." The Indiegogo site was set up by my friends in Los Angeles. I do not like to beg but I see it as the only way to get funding.... Financially we are exhausted and we are, after all, looking for two Americans. We are Australians, why should we care ?

We went twice last year, I broke my left arm in there and when it healed I went back again for more punishment because we got two Magnetometer strikes on the first trip. Sadly, I now think the hill is made of iron ore.... On the last trip in I did receive some additional information from the local people and I am going back in later this year. I have a work commitment in Singapore and then I can go. I will be taking two Metal Detectors now as we have narrowed down the area of search and I now know that it is buried.

Who was it that said that if he contributed he would want to go in as well ? Been in the jungle before ?

Regards,

David Billings

Pacific Wrecks site has a great synopsis of the various Earhart theories. Now it's claimed that the Aussie patrol just found one engine and not an entire a/c as I've read previously. Also they claim the spot where the engine was seen is the same area a B-17 exploded over and rained parts down around the countryside. There is a quote from Gilliespie stating the New Guinea theory is 'silly', which I find amusing. Just to be clear I don't think it is silly.

So was it an entire a/c or just one wasp powerplant found by the patrol? Can anyone clarify that?

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

2.2 million would bring up every airframe in Lake Michigan and then some!

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

Pinecastle AAF

To answer your question:

Yes, there was a complete aircraft there, except that one engine is detached. The cockpit area was smashed back to the wing leading edge, the starboard wingtip was bent upwards by about ten feet and the Lieutenant on the patrol cannot recall seeing the twin fins. I have been to Liberator crash sites (into trees) and the fins do get torn off so it is possible that the Electra fins are close by. The wreck is on its' belly. It was described as bare metal, no national markings and Lt. Backhouse saw glass on the ground. He stood on the port wing root and the fuselage was at his belt height.

The hole in the tree canopy was round and some regrowth had started to cover over the hole which was described as about forty feet across. Being round the aircraft must have gone in at a steep angle as going in level leaves a tear-drop hold in the canopy. The Warrant Officer described the wreck as having been there from before the start of the conflict, which started in New Britain on 23rd Januatry 1942. They found the wreck in 17th April 1945. He considered the wreck to be old due to the heavy corrosion he saw on the engine cowl ring. Earhart had been low over the sea on take-off and the corrosion most probably was caused by impinged salt on the cowlings front surfaces. He said there was no corrosion along the sides of the nacelle. He described tubes at the back of the firewall as being twisted and torn. The Electra did have a tubing truss behind the firewall.

I suspect that the detached engine is the Port engine Serial No. 6150. Why I suspect that is so, is because the Metal Tag was removed from the engine mount tubing behind this engine and my experience tells me that the tag was a "Repair Tag".

If you look at the pictures of the Electra after the Luke Field groundloop you can see that the No. 2 Engine is way out of line and pointing skywards and there was oil on the ground as the oil tank on the firewall must have been crushed. We do know that Lockheed fitted a new engine mount for the No. 2 during the repair at Burbank. The No. 1 Engine is basically still "in-line" but the oil tank at the front of the firewall has been dented as has the firewall so the mount has been pushed back and it would require to be repaired. Therefore it would be tagged with ownership details. We know the tag was removed at the crash site and that it had what was described as: "...a string of letters and numbers on it." What we have on the WWII map they carried is a string of letters and numbers: "600 H/P S3H1 C/N1055".

The four Vets from the patrol who were still alive in 1994 all made video recordings of what they saw. One Vet didn't see anything as he was on the reaguard team with a Bren gun and his team went automatically into rearguard action when the patrol stopped to look at the wreck. Lt. Backhouse told the rearguard to wait thirty minutes when the patrol started up again and then to catch up with the patrol. Roy Walsh said those thirty minutes were the longest thirty minutes of his life but they packed up the rearguard and ran after the patrol, consequently Roy didn't see the wreck.

Only one Vet left now, Lt. Backhouse.

Regards,

David Billings

Thank you Mr. Billings. I had posted a link to that description in its entirety a couple of years ago but couldn't find it again. I'd forgotten about the corrosion noted on the engine cowl which would seem to rule out the B-17 theory.

As a side note I've always wondered who got closer to their destination, White Bird or AE and FN.

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

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Tigger have always had more than circumstantial evidence to support their theory that there is an island located some 400 miles south east of Howland Island and have thousands of artifacts and photos to prove it.

They have also established beyond doubt through eye witness testimony, old photographs and on site investigations that there was some debris, bottles and other floatsum and jetsum on the island, as well as residue from unknown inhabitants including a toilet pit and fire pit, and wreckage (admittedly a ship), and historical records of some bodies, and some turtle bones.

- Its clearly more than enough evidence to support their theory that the island exists.

Its also wrong to say they have come up empty handed from their recent expedition, and I'm sure with some airfix kits and skillful photoshopping lessons from the people responsible for the "Sunderland in Windermere Lake" story in the UK a few years ago, that they could provide some very convincing side scans of the aircraft's remains on the coral reef.

Unfortunately at the moment they are limited to interpreting the blurry images of coral taken from their ROV but with skillful image analysis, enhancement and plain old photo manipulation they are able to identify aircraft remains not easily detected by the naked eye.

In a previous trip they found what appeared to be the undercarriage leg, or at least that is what it looked like once someone drew a red line around it - in the shape of an undercarriage leg!

They will now subject the recent footage to the same process, and here is a tantalising glimpse of some of that first analysis.


Please send more money so they can continue their important work!



http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=452496

There was an interesting observation made on the Key Publishing forum as to how much ongoing funding Tigger would continue to attract - once AE's fate and resting place been conclusively proven?


Smiles

Mark Pilkington

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20th Century - The Age of Manned Flight
"from Wrights to Armstrong in 66 years -WOW!"