New Guinea - Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan, en route to Howland Island, 2 July 1937

[AC4RD]

Amelia Earhart in a rare 1937 Photo.
She went missing in her Lockheed Electra aircraft, along with her Navigator Fred Noonan on 2 July 1937

There are many differing theories and opinions regarding what became of that flight ranging from the aircraft crashing and sinking to an emergency water or island landing.

Here is a link to a website which discusses some of those many theories:

Earhart Research Page of Honor

I don’t know why this page was so long in coming, or even why the idea finally dawned on me when it did, but the old cliché, “Better late than never,” just about covers it. Ironi…

earharttruth.wordpress.com

Thank you! I don't recall ever seeing that photo before--and it's a great one! I'm one of those annoying twits who thinks he is a photographer and I think that's a stunner!

 

[HMSHood]

I always thought Amelia Earhart was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned.

 

[Richard]

I always thought Amelia Earhart was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned.

There are a number of researchers who have come to believe that Amelia and Fred were captured and imprisoned by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA).

Some of the evidence of this comes from witnesses who came forward at the end of World War II, when Saipan and the rest of the Mariana Islands and other Pacific Islands were in US hands.

There are, of course, different theories as to Amelia's and Fred's disappearance and eventual demise. Some claim that they crashed or ditched in open water, sank and died. Some claim that they landed on or near Gardner Island and died on land. And yet others believe that they ditched or landed on an atoll in Micronesia which was under Japanese administration/control.

Unfortunately, Amelia never announced on radio what her intentions were - other than that she was trying to see Howland Island or the Coast Guard Cutter Itasca. The ship could receive her transmissions, but she could not hear theirs. Her transmissions "in the blind" were not very helpful in determining where she was or what problems she may have been experiencing - other than that she was short on fuel and could not locate her stated destination.

A strong clue supporting the belief that she landed or ditched safely was that many radio stations and Amateur radio operators reported receiving faint signals on her frequency AFTER the time that her aircraft could no longer have been airborne. Had she landed successfully or ditched, and if her antenna, radio, and battery were still intact, she could have indeed sent out transmissions.

If Amelia and Fred had landed inside the area of the "Mandated Islands" controlled by the Japanese in July 1937, it is all together possible and likely that the Japanese would have picked up her transmissions and searched for her, salvaged her plane, and taken them to IJA headquarters on Saipan by way of ship and flying boat.

 

[PrairieWind]

I always thought Amelia Earhart was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned.

I never really gave that theory much credibility for a long time. Then I really sort of delved in to it and came to realize it was actually more plausible than I realized. I still think that the most likely scenario is that she just ran out of fuel looking for the Itasca and ditched into the sea. I don't give much credibility to the idea that she was sending radio messages later on.

 

[AC4RD]

I don't give much credibility to the idea that she was sending radio messages later on.

Nor should you, IMO. Never happened. To be fair, "MHO is that it never happened." But it didn't happen. She couldn't transmit unless one of the two engines (don't recall which) was running. She'd have had to land on the Gardner beach with the correct engine and propellor undamaged and out of the water--never happened IMO. The antenna would have been a few feet over the water, using amplitude modulation, on 3 or 6mHz, and 45 watts. I've spent thousands of hours using shortwave transmitters and I say "massively bogus" based on my own experience. If she HAD made it to Gardner and COULD still run the engine and COULD have transmitted--not a soul would have heard her outside a few dozen miles. Being heard from that location on the radio is possible, but it would have taken skill and the right equipment, and AE had neither.

If she DID fly to Gardner and later transmitted asking for help, why didn't she also ask by radio for help while she was on the hour-or-whatever flight from the Howland area to Gardner? For that matter, if she couldn't find Howland, how could she navigate from its non-found location to a third location? It's moot; she had no gas for that extra flight, and the radio strength reports show clearly she was near Howland shortly before she went down.

You may know (not many people do, these days), that shortwave listening was a very popular pasttime in the USA before WWII--just look at magazines of the period, with ads for Hallicrafters and Zenith "Transoceanics" and many other multiband radios. That poor disturbed girl who scribbled in the notebook about "hearing Amelia" isn't EVIDENCE of anything. If that particular broadcast happened, it was a hoax, but it would have been heard by hundreds or thousands of other people who were listening for Amelia on her publically published frequencies--3105 and 6210kHz.

Sadly, there were thousands and thousands of people with the ability to transmit on those frequencies, and just as happens today, there were some disturbed people who created hoax calls. (this is something that happens every year or so--crazies transmitting false distress calls.) SO: AE and Fred never created radio transmissions from anywhere after they missed Howland Island; it just did not happen. (IMO.) We'd all like to think of some other end to her story. :-(

 

[Richard]

Neat ads for radios. I have an old Zenith that looks a lot like the one in the first ad.

Amelia did have an HF radio in her Lockheed Electra 10 which apparently was working in transmit mode while in flight. For it to work with the plane on land or in the water - after a landing or ditching, the plane would have to be pretty much intact or at least the radio and top antenna in working condition. Power needed to run the radio could come from a running engine or from the aircraft's battery - as long as it was still intact and not under water. These are a lot of "IFs" but still a possibility.

There were, in fact, a number of hoaxes and mistakenly interpreted radio signals. But there were also some reports by official tracking stations which seem genuine. Here is a link to a study done on the many reported receptions of radio signals believed to have come from Amelia:

https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Brandenburg/PostLossSignals/PostLossRadioAnalysis/PostLostRadioAnalysis.pdf

The organization that sponsored the study uses it as "proof" that she landed on Gardner Island. But it is also possible that other conclusions could be reached.

Regardless of whether or not Amelia could or did send post flight radio messages, those alleged signals were part of the story back in July 1937 immediately after she went missing. Front page news stories which told of her disappearance also mentioned the "faint signals".

Of interest in the analysis is that some signals were reported as being heard on "harmonics' of her frequencies. And anyone receiving signals in the US would have to be listening at night to Sky wave or "skip" signals.

 

[Betty P]

Neat ads for radios. I have an old Zenith that looks a lot like the one in the first ad.

Amelia did have an HF radio in her Lockheed Electra 10 which apparently was working in transmit mode while in flight. For it to work with the plane on land or in the water - after a landing or ditching, the plane would have to be pretty much intact or at least the radio and top antenna in working condition. Power needed to run the radio could come from a running engine or from the aircraft's battery - as long as it was still intact and not under water. These are a lot of "IFs" but still a possibility.

There were, in fact, a number of hoaxes and mistakenly interpreted radio signals. But there were also some reports by official tracking stations which seem genuine. Here is a link to a study done on the many reported receptions of radio signals believed to have come from Amelia:

https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/ResearchPapers/Brandenburg/PostLossSignals/PostLossRadioAnalysis/PostLostRadioAnalysis.pdf

The organization that sponsored the study uses it as "proof" that she landed on Gardner Island. But it is also possible that other conclusions could be reached.

Regardless of whether or not Amelia could or did send post flight radio messages, those alleged signals were part of the story back in July 1937 immediately after she went missing. Front page news stories which told of her disappearance also mentioned the "faint signals".

Of interest in the analysis is that some signals were reported as being heard on "harmonics' of her frequencies. And anyone receiving signals in the US would have to be listening at night to Sky wave or "skip" signals.

Thanks for posting, Richard. I knew I had read something on this topic recently.

Here's another article

Think it is plane? Unidentified radio signals associated with the Earhart Mystery | Old Time Radio

www.otrcat.com

I do think it's possible she did land somewhere and some reports of her sending messages might be valid. MOO

Then again, there were so few islands in that area and so much ocean.

 

[Richard]

Thanks for posting, Richard. I knew I had read something on this topic recently.

Here's another article

Think it is plane? Unidentified radio signals associated with the Earhart Mystery | Old Time Radio

www.otrcat.com

I do think it's possible she did land somewhere and some reports of her sending messages might be valid. MOO

Then again, there were so few islands in that area and so much ocean.

The Pacific Ocean does indeed cover a huge part of the earth. I was a long-range celestial navigator when in the Navy, and can say from first hand experience that almost all you ever see outside of the aircraft is water evewhere! It is very difficult to see small islands, and when you do see them, hard to determine exactly which islands they are.

Fred and Amelia were using dead reckoning (time and distance calculations) updated by obtaining celestial fixes from star shots at night and sun lines during the day. They were hoping to obtain radio signal line of bearings to home on during the final stage of their flight. Unfortunately, they were unable to receive any of Itasca's transmissions.

The logs of Itasca indicate that they could hear Amelia and what she was saying, but evidently, she could not hear them. Because of this, she could not obtain a vector to/from them. All of her transmissions from the plane were done "in the blind" that is she was hoping that Itasca would hear her, but with no feedback, she did not know if she was getting through.

I have to believe that both Amelia and Fred were experienced enough aviators that they had an alternate destination or plan should they fail to reach Howland. This would be standard procedure for any flight then and now. What that plan might have been is anyone's guess - because Amelia did not include any alternate destinations in her flight plan and she did not state her intentions in any of her transmissions.

I am of the opinion that Amelia would NOT have simply orbited around open ocean waiting to run out of gas and crash into the sea. At some point after failing to find Howland or Itasca, she would have turned in the direction of other islands on her chart for a place to land or ditch. Even if she were to run out of fuel, the aircraft wouldn't fall out of the sky like a rock - it could be glided down for a ditching or emergency landing.

Once on the ground or floating in the water, she would have tried to raise someone on her radio. Navy planes at the time (and still today) carried removable emergency HF radios, but Amelia did not have one of those, so her only possible way of communicating would have been on her plane's HF radio. She did have an inflatable rubber life raft and other survival equipment on board.

Following their failure to find Howland Island or the Coast Guard Cutter Itasca:

If they were SOUTH of Howland Island, they might have seen Gardner Island and landed or ditched there on the beach. But there was a great deal of US Navy Search and Rescue (SAR) flying around that area in the days which followed her disappearance, and nothing was seen or reported in those islands. There have been many explorations in recent years of Gardner Island by a group seeking evidence that she might have landed there. So far without much luck.

If they were NORTH of Howland/Itasca and decided to fly back west toward the Gilbert Islands looking for a place to land, they would have entered the area of the Marshall Islands which were under Japanese control. There are some who believe that Amelia and Fred landed on or near Milli Atoll and that they were picked up first by a boat and transferred to Jaluit Atoll, and subsequently picked up there by the Japanese and taken to Saipan.

Jaluit Atoll - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There are a number of different possible scenarios.

 

[AC4RD]

I have to believe that both Amelia and Fred were experienced enough aviators that they had an alternate destination or plan should they fail to reach Howland. This would be standard procedure for any flight then and now. What that plan might have been is anyone's guess - because Amelia did not include any alternate destinations in her flight plan and she did not state her intentions in any of her transmissions.

I am of the opinion that Amelia would NOT have simply orbited around open ocean waiting to run out of gas and crash into the sea. At some point after failing to find Howland or Itasca, she w

Richard, that's an admirable summary--and you know my respect for your opinions is unchanged by the fact that I entirely disagree with some of them.

It is well-documented that the Electra's radio could only have worked if the right-hand engine were undamaged and running--not possible in a water landing, say the experts (i'll attach) and not possible if the right prop/engine were damaged in landing on a beach.

As you say, AE was certainly carrying out a search procedure when she and FN decided they had missed Howland. What they were searching for was almost certainly Howland, IMO, because we know they were "skosh fuel" and couldn't have made it to Gardner, even IF AE thought they could find it despite that being vastly farther from their dead reckoning certainty than Howland--again, IMO and I'm not a pilot. I respect your experience on that.

But I do have literally thousands of hours of shortwave radio experience starting around 1965, including routinely working from North Carolina into Aus/NZ/Tahiti/etc with 5 watts or less of transmitter power (Morse, obviously, using a mix of storebought and homemade gear.) Based on that experience, I believe Bellart's radio log shows beyond question that AE went in the water very shortly after her last radio transmission.

Paul Rafford, an old Pan-Am radio man and AE crewmember briefly, thinks AE's radio issues were deliberate, not due to her well-established lack of even basic radio protocols (she was chewed out on landing in Australia for just that, in fact.) He thinks, IIRC, that she was on a secret mission. To each his own; maybe that tinfoil helmet *does* help thought. Rafford's book on the subject DOES have a nice summary of why almost ALL of the RDF "hits" post-crash, outside the immediate Howland area, were meaningless.

You're certainly aware that the Electra's radioi transmitter, feedline, and antenna would have been tuned for the primary frequency, vastly diminishing any harmonic radiation--which is something radios and feedlines and antennas are designed to suppress below noticeable levels. Yes, a harmonic making it to the USA is just barely possible--but it beggars belief, IMO, that an AM voice signal at 50 watts would produce a harmonic on 15mHz strong enough to be heard that far away, much less copied so plainly by an emotionally disturbed girl fantasizing in front of her radio. And if the harmonic HAD been that strong, others WOULD have heard it, again IMO but it's a hill I'd be crippled on, if not a hill I'd die on. *ETA: AM voice is extremely inefficient; I can work Australia on 1 watt of Morse code with difficulty when 100 watts of AM voice would be entirely insufficient. The idea that an AM voice signal on a harmonic would be that plainly readable under those circumstances is IMO absolute poppycock, and you can tell the TIGHAR people they're full of baloney on that point.

Again, we clearly reach some differing conclusions based on the same set of data. My father-in-law, a West Pointer, AF pilot, and a judge after retirement, was one of the smartest men I've known--except on the JFK issue. "Reasonable minds may differ."

 

[Richard]

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020,

LINK:

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020 | This Day in Aviation

 

[AC4RD]

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020,

LINK:

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020 | This Day in Aviation

Minutes ago I was at Amazon, and looked at the Kindle "Today's Deals" list. One was a kindle edition of a book I've never seen before: _The Earhart Enigma: Retracing Amelia's Last Flight_, by by Dave Horner (Author), Ronald Reuther (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition I have no idea if it's any good but for $3 it's a no-brainer. I'll report on it later.

I'd never seen that color cutaway illustration of the Electra--very nice! The "how long would the Electra float?" question we touched on earlier reminded me that I saw discussion about whether the "dump valves" in the Electra's tanks would have survived a hard water landing. Without breakup or other problem (like the valves) that airplane apparently would have floated for a LONG time, as in days or many days, IIRC.

 

[Richard]

The Bendix RA-1B, used in Amelia Earhart’s Electra during her final flight without apparent success, was a brand-new product and was reputed to be pushing the state of the art in aircraft receiver design.



Bendix Corporation rep Cyril Remmlein holding a version of the RA-1B with Amelia holding the direction finding loop antenna. The loop antenna can be seen just above the cockpit of her plane.
(Photo from Laurance Safford’s Earhart’s Flight Into Yesterday.)

The linked website below has an interview between Fred Goerner (Amelia Earhart researcher and author) and Joseph Gurr (a radio expert who worked on Amelia's radios). Gurr stated that Amelia could have transmitted on her radios if her antenna was out of the water (and intact) and that it could have been powered for perhaps 30 minutes of transmitting on the aircraft battery.

LINK:

April 2023 – Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last

3 posts published by earharttruth during April 2023

earharttruth.wordpress.com

 

[Richard]

Richard, that's an admirable summary--and you know my respect for your opinions is unchanged by the fact that I entirely disagree with some of them.

It is well-documented that the Electra's radio could only have worked if the right-hand engine were undamaged and running--not possible in a water landing, say the experts (i'll attach) and not possible if the right prop/engine were damaged in landing on a beach.

As you say, AE was certainly carrying out a search procedure when she and FN decided they had missed Howland. What they were searching for was almost certainly Howland, IMO, because we know they were "skosh fuel" and couldn't have made it to Gardner, even IF AE thought they could find it despite that being vastly farther from their dead reckoning certainty than Howland--again, IMO and I'm not a pilot. I respect your experience on that.

But I do have literally thousands of hours of shortwave radio experience starting around 1965, including routinely working from North Carolina into Aus/NZ/Tahiti/etc with 5 watts or less of transmitter power (Morse, obviously, using a mix of storebought and homemade gear.) Based on that experience, I believe Bellart's radio log shows beyond question that AE went in the water very shortly after her last radio transmission.

Paul Rafford, an old Pan-Am radio man and AE crewmember briefly, thinks AE's radio issues were deliberate, not due to her well-established lack of even basic radio protocols (she was chewed out on landing in Australia for just that, in fact.) He thinks, IIRC, that she was on a secret mission. To each his own; maybe that tinfoil helmet *does* help thought. Rafford's book on the subject DOES have a nice summary of why almost ALL of the RDF "hits" post-crash, outside the immediate Howland area, were meaningless.

You're certainly aware that the Electra's radioi transmitter, feedline, and antenna would have been tuned for the primary frequency, vastly diminishing any harmonic radiation--which is something radios and feedlines and antennas are designed to suppress below noticeable levels. Yes, a harmonic making it to the USA is just barely possible--but it beggars belief, IMO, that an AM voice signal at 50 watts would produce a harmonic on 15mHz strong enough to be heard that far away, much less copied so plainly by an emotionally disturbed girl fantasizing in front of her radio. And if the harmonic HAD been that strong, others WOULD have heard it, again IMO but it's a hill I'd be crippled on, if not a hill I'd die on. *ETA: AM voice is extremely inefficient; I can work Australia on 1 watt of Morse code with difficulty when 100 watts of AM voice would be entirely insufficient. The idea that an AM voice signal on a harmonic would be that plainly readable under those circumstances is IMO absolute poppycock, and you can tell the TIGHAR people they're full of baloney on that point.

Again, we clearly reach some differing conclusions based on the same set of data. My father-in-law, a West Pointer, AF pilot, and a judge after retirement, was one of the smartest men I've known--except on the JFK issue. "Reasonable minds may differ."

Great input on radios. I have had some experience with various types of aviation radios, but most of my radio work was either voice transmit/receive, or drafting messages for the plane's Radio Air Teletype operator to send. Also, we began using satellites for both navigation and communications - long before today's cell phones.

Just for the record, I am not associated in any way with TIGHAR or any organizations searching for Amelia. I have read some of their literature and a few books by others. As I said in my earlier post, there are many different possible theories and scenarios. Unfortunately most of it speculation, but certainly within known and possible factors.

Whether or not Amelia was able to transmit post flight emergency messages is not known for certain, although there were many radio operators who thought that they heard her. Her frequencies were well known and many were listening and hoping to hear her. Perhaps some of those listeners who thought they heard her were affected by "wishful thinking".

I agree that Morse Code keying would have been a much more effective and longer ranging transmission method than voice. Our Navy "Gibson Girl" emergency HF radios were the oldest items on board the planes I flew on. All of them were made during World War II, but they were still operable and considered a valuable survival tool. They had an "hour glass" shape (thus the name Gibson Girl). These radios would be held between one's legs and had a hand crank on top to generate electricity. A long wire antenna would be raised either by a kite or by a balloon. They transmitted (no reception possible) on 500 Khz by keying Morse code with a button on top. The Morse Code was printed right on the top of the radio, so it was not necessary to have memorized it.

Unfortunately, Amelia and Fred did not have their long antenna or Morse key set on board, having left them behind somewhere along the way. Their flight preceded the advent of the Gibson Girl, but what a great asset one would have been.

I do not necessarily buy into the theory that Amelia was on some sort of a secret reconnaissance mission for the US Government - at least not one that would have taken her to Saipan. If the US had wanted such surveillance, it could have been done far more effectively by the US Navy using one of their long range PBY patrol planes flown out of Guam.

 

[AC4RD]

The linked website below has an interview between Fred Goerner (Amelia Earhart researcher and author) and Joseph Gurr (a radio expert who worked on Amelia's radios). Gurr stated that Amelia could have transmitted on her radios if her antenna was out of the water (and intact) and that it could have been powered for perhaps 30 minutes of transmitting on the aircraft battery.

Gurr was incorrect, according to the Lockheed engineers, see attached.

 

[AC4RD]

Gurr was incorrect, according to the Lockheed engineers, see attached.

More interesting info from that book I was looking at last night, "Earhart Enigma" by Dave Horner: Quotes Alan Vagg, about working AE/FN (KHAQQ) by Morse code during that flight: 'he confnirmed that Noonan's Morse ability was slow but clear and easy to read.' AND it says that the navigator's station in the Electra had headphones and a telegraph key for the radio--like an extension phone. So presumably FN COULD have made contact on 3105/6210kc from the flight. This definitely requires some further reading and thought, IMO.

Quoting Capt A. Detzer Jr, USN(ret), "who was in charge of OP-20-GX in 1937 .... 'None of the HF-DF's we had in 1937 were accurate at any considerzble distance to within 5 to 10 degrees."

And it quotes Harry Balfour as saying that when AE was lightening the Electra and removing unneeded weight, she gave Balfour her book of radio reference frequencies and schedules, '... including all her radiograms concerning her communication arrangements with the _Itasca_ and frequencies to be used. She could not have remembered all the information these papers contained ... however, I can guarantee that her radio equipment was in good order when she left."

Interesting, yes?
------------------
ETA: Oh, and I found a chart; it appears that the radio receiver was under one pilot's chair and the dynamotors to power it were under the other. Inside the fuselage, the dynamotors could have worked for a few mimnutes, IMO. The battery (and I'm still looking for information on this if you know any) was outside the protected part of the fuselage and would have been underwater immediately, in a water landing, so they'd have gone out fairly quickly, I think. One schematic I saw seemed to say "35aH battery" but it seems unlikely that a plane that size would have only one so small. I've often jumped a Chevy Impala with a 12aH gelcell, but you wouldn't depend on such a small battery in an airplane, right?

... and I'll attach another photo of AE with her DF loop. Not as winsomely charming as the other photo. Long's book has what I think is a critical observation about the loop-control box and the radio, and AE's training, and I see references to that (I believe) upcoming in the 'E.Enigma' book.

 

[PrairieWind]

Holy cow, sooooo much good stuff posted here in the last few days. I need to find time to read all this. Thanks everyone.

 

[AC4RD]

Our Navy "Gibson Girl" emergency HF radios were the oldest items on board the planes I flew on. All of them were made during World War II, but they were still operable and considered a valuable survival tool. They had an "hour glass" shape (thus the name Gibson Girl). These radios would be held between one's legs and had a hand crank on top to generate electricity. A long wire antenna would be raised either by a kite or by a balloon. They transmitted (no reception possible) on 500 Khz by keying Morse code with a button on top. The Morse Code was printed right on the top of the radio, so it was not necessary to have memorized it.

Unfortunately, Amelia and Fred did not have their long antenna or Morse key set on board, having left them behind somewhere along the way. Their flight preceded the advent of the Gibson Girl, but what a great asset one would have been.

I do not necessarily buy into the theory that Amelia was on some sort of a secret reconnaissance mission for the US Government - at least not one that would have taken her to Saipan. If the US had wanted such surveillance, it could have been done far more effectively by the US Navy using one of their long range PBY patrol planes flown out of Guam.

I keep meaning to comment on this, too! When I was a kid, the electronics and ham-radio magazines were still full of WWII and similar vintage electronics, and those hand-crank raft transmitters were available for amazingly low prices as surplus. Still far out of my own reach, like the B-17 receivers and control panels that were also cheap and popular for nerdy goons like me. (I've still got my father's old Hamilton USN "hacking watch" from Korea.)

One of my parents' neighbors, when I was a lad, was a ham-radio op, retired USN, who had a 1940s era Navy receiver and transmitter, plus piles of other surplus gear, in his garage. He talked to his friends every afternoon, other old retired radiomen. They mostly used AM voice but would switch to Morse on occasions. Great old guy, I wound up talking to him several times ... wow, 25+ years ago.

 

[AC4RD]

Holy cow, sooooo much good stuff posted here in the last few days. I need to find time to read all this. Thanks everyone.

There IS a huge amount of detail to be confused by, @PrairieWind, and it is sometime true that the more one peers at details, the more details one is confused by. :-/ As an example, just the other day I stated confidently that the Electra's running power came from a generator on the RIGHT-hand engine. Then a little while ago, I found the attached in what I believe to be an authentic Electra 10E flight manual, saying the power was from the left-hand engine. What? Are electrons backward in the Southern Hemisphere?

And I have an aviation question for Brother Richard: if AE were landing at Gardner (not that I believe she could possibly have been there), on the beach: The manual says wheels UP for water landing, and also "on rough ground where there exists a possibility of nosing the airplane over" (which I'm guessing was way trickier with wheel-draggers as compared to modern tricycle gear?) ... but if AE had been able to get to some island and she tried to land on the beach, do you think she'd have had the gear down hoping for hard-packed sand? Or would it be less risk with the wheels up, given that AE already knew she wasn't going to be flying it back out the next morning?

And speaking of confidence and details, the reason I'm wondering this is that it looks to me like the Electra's dynamotor(s) (under one of the pilot seats as discussed) might have been above water, apparently unlike the battery compartment, for a bit. Now, I still think *none* of the post-crash signals were real, and there are reasons for that but I'll spare you those details for now.

But if this is true and a beach/dry landing was moderately soft (i.e., didn't physically damage the batteries/cabling/controls), it's certainly possible IMO that the dynamotors (see below) could have powered the transmitter for a little while, hour or three? Again, I don't think for a moment that it happened--but this latest reading has made me reconsider my opinions on at least some points.

------------Footnotes-----------
A dynamotor was a device that used a rotating electric motor to transform a low-voltage DC source, such as a car battery, to the high-voltage DC power needed for vacuum tubes (which is what we had before transistors.) I found to my surprise that the pre-WWII ones I researched, each claimed around 65% efficiency from input to output, which is better than I would have guessed.
(and now another digression)
Richard may know if an Electra had a 24-v battery bus? I thought airplanes did, though I see references to 12v in other parts of the manual. That's another detail I need to find out about, I suppose. (sigh) :-/ For what it's worth, my guess is that AE's fifty-watt transmitter would have required about 15 amps from a 12vdc system with "key down" TX CW; less for AM voice peaks. (50w out from maybe 120w input pwr to the tx (including modulator), requiring 175 watts input to the dynamotor, again, just rough guessing; call it ten amps is AE really WAS discussing her thoughts with an unseen audience)

 

[Richard]

There IS a huge amount of detail to be confused by, @PrairieWind, and it is sometime true that the more one peers at details, the more details one is confused by. :-/ As an example, just the other day I stated confidently that the Electra's running power came from a generator on the RIGHT-hand engine. Then a little while ago, I found the attached in what I believe to be an authentic Electra 10E flight manual, saying the power was from the left-hand engine. What? Are electrons backward in the Southern Hemisphere?

And I have an aviation question for Brother Richard: if AE were landing at Gardner (not that I believe she could possibly have been there), on the beach: The manual says wheels UP for water landing, and also "on rough ground where there exists a possibility of nosing the airplane over" (which I'm guessing was way trickier with wheel-draggers as compared to modern tricycle gear?) ... but if AE had been able to get to some island and she tried to land on the beach, do you think she'd have had the gear down hoping for hard-packed sand? Or would it be less risk with the wheels up, given that AE already knew she wasn't going to be flying it back out the next morning?

And speaking of confidence and details, the reason I'm wondering this is that it looks to me like the Electra's dynamotor(s) (under one of the pilot seats as discussed) might have been above water, apparently unlike the battery compartment, for a bit. Now, I still think *none* of the post-crash signals were real, and there are reasons for that but I'll spare you those details for now.

But if this is true and a beach/dry landing was moderately soft (i.e., didn't physically damage the batteries/cabling/controls), it's certainly possible IMO that the dynamotors (see below) could have powered the transmitter for a little while, hour or three? Again, I don't think for a moment that it happened--but this latest reading has made me reconsider my opinions on at least some points.

------------Footnotes-----------
A dynamotor was a device that used a rotating electric motor to transform a low-voltage DC source, such as a car battery, to the high-voltage DC power needed for vacuum tubes (which is what we had before transistors.) I found to my surprise that the pre-WWII ones I researched, each claimed around 65% efficiency from input to output, which is better than I would have guessed.
(and now another digression)
Richard may know if an Electra had a 24-v battery bus? I thought airplanes did, though I see references to 12v in other parts of the manual. That's another detail I need to find out about, I suppose. (sigh) :-/ For what it's worth, my guess is that AE's fifty-watt transmitter would have required about 15 amps from a 12vdc system with "key down" TX CW; less for AM voice peaks. (50w out from maybe 120w input pwr to the tx (including modulator), requiring 175 watts input to the dynamotor, again, just rough guessing; call it ten amps is AE really WAS discussing her thoughts with an unseen audience)

A wheels up landing (ditching) would be used over water, but the pilot would have to make the call when attempting to land on a beach or dry reef. Landing with gear down runs the risk of hitting a pot hole or obstacle and flipping the craft or collapsing the gear. A belly landing on land would probably be more safe in some situations. While it tears up the bottom of the plane, it would stay on the ground and come to a stop safely without flipping or shearing off into an obstacle. Again - pilot's call.

Landings with a tri-cycle type gear plane would not be all that different from a "tail dragger" plane - at least as far as approach and touch down. The main two wheels under the wings would be how you land and then either the nose or tail gear is put down. The tricky part with a tail dragger is trying to see where you are going after you land and are trying to see out ahead to taxi. I did have some flights in a Navy training plane called a C-117, which was a later version of the old tail dragging DC-3

I flew on two different large Navy Lockheed aircraft. There were many changes in technology, electronics, instruments, radios, and equipment from 1937, until my time in the planes, but basic airmanship and procedures have remained consistent over the years. The planes I flew in had transformers that put out 28 Volts DC to various instruments and controls. We didn't power anything by battery to my recollection. However, I believe that many smaller planes have batteries and alternators more like automobiles.

I am not certain what Amelia's Lockheed 10A electrical system was like, but I believe you are correct to say that a dynamotor powered her transmitter. I don't know where it got its power - if solely from the plane's engine, or if there may also have been a battery involved. I believe that she could have powered her radio receiver (if it worked) with just a 12 volt battery. Transmitting probably would have required more voltage or amperage.

I know that her plane had a battery or batteries, but not certain how many or where they were.

The only experience I have with a 24 volt battery system was with the old military Jeeps. They had 24 volt alternators, but the batteries were simply two normal 12 volt car batteries joined together to make it 24 volts.

 

[Betty P]

Holy cow, sooooo much good stuff posted here in the last few days. I need to find time to read all this. Thanks everyone.

Yes, it is good information, especially for amateurs like myself. The TIGHAR information and reports always sound well researched and optimistic, but it’s very helpful to hear some skilled rebuttal.

I can’t fathom making such a long trip over the Pacific Ocean back in those days, especially with such little assistance for navigation. I assume there was also little traffic in the air or on the ocean at that time.