Amelia Earhart was a castaway?

[Naki]

Found this interesting...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10588272

[stiz]

"Gillespie said, "We recognise her tremendous accomplishments, but we are scientific investigators. We have to recognise her failings. She ended up where she did because she was not paying enough attention."


bet thats gonna ruffel a few feathers :monkies:

[Rami]

Both Earhart and Noonan share in the blame. But remember, she was flying from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island, about the size of a postage stamp, after a 16 or so hour flight.

[Wing_Z]

Bit spooky, I'm teetering on the notion they should leave well alone...

[TARPSBird]

Both Earhart and Noonan share in the blame. But remember, she was flying from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island, about the size of a postage stamp, after a 16 or so hour flight.
Which is why I consider the comment in the article about "not paying enough attention" to be pretty arrogant, considering we'll probably never know the scenario of the final hours of Earhart's flight. Inattention is when an airliner crew decides to take a nap and flies past their destination, as happened recently in Hawaii.

[Chacha]

Which is why I consider the comment in the article about "not paying enough attention" to be pretty arrogant, considering we'll probably never know the scenario of the final hours of Earhart's flight. Inattention is when an airliner crew decides to take a nap and flies past their destination, as happened recently in Hawaii.

I agree with you, They should just leave her alone! They dont know what really happened there.

Eli :running:

[Helldiver]

That quotes by Gillespie was pretty much the truth. She was a lousy pilot. She took on a drunk to do her navigation. She wasn't paying attention.
That's exactly what people thought about it at the time.
It's only recently have all these strange sightings and theorys have come up. Her remains turned into fish crap many years ago.
I say forget it.

[stiz]

That quotes by Gillespie was pretty much the truth. She was a lousy pilot. She took on a drunk to do her navigation. She wasn't paying attention.
That's exactly what people thought about it at the time.
It's only recently have all these strange sightings and theorys have come up. Her remains turned into fish crap many years ago.
I say forget it.

By 1927, "Without any serious incident, she had accumulated nearly 500 hours of solo flying
August 1928, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back
In 1931, flying a Pitcairn PCA-2 (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/wiki/Pitcairn_PCA-2) autogyro (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/wiki/Autogyro), she set a world altitude record of 18,415 feet (5,613 m)
first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic
On January 11, 1935, Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/wiki/Honolulu,_Hawaii) to Oakland, California (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/wiki/Oakland,_California)
Between 1930–1935, Amelia had set seven women's speed and distance aviation records in a variety of aircraft including the Kinner Airster, Lockheed Vega and Pitcairn Autogiro

yea .. sure sounds like a crap pilot to me .. as for the flight .. maybe you should read up on it a bit .. and dont pull the i was there card again, you would have been around 9 .. and i challenge anybody to rember anything in detail from when they where 9 ...

[Snuffy]

Helldiver is just upset cuz she didn't last long enough to blast any enemey aircraft from the skies ... :kilroy:

[jmig]

When you put her accomplishments in the context of the time, they were amazing. As far as navigation, it doesn't take much more than a "small" error to accumulate into a big error hours later.

I knew of several true tales of KC-135 tankers and B-52's, during SEA time, missing Guam by hundreds of miles. If it wasn't for LF directional finders these aircrews might of become "fish crap".

Helldiver, you come from an era of Dead Reckoning. You know darn well how hard it is to hold a heading for hours on hours. Then throw in the winds aloft. They had no way of knowing them. It is quite hard to determine drift over the ocean. One degree off means one mile off course every sixty NM. (if my mental nav math is still good)

So, 14 hours at say 150mph will be around 35 miles off course with just one degree in error. I think rather than focus on how she got loss we should admire the fact that she and her navigator flew so far and didn't get lost. This applies for all the aviators and aviatrixes of the era.

Take the GPS away from most of us and see just how long it would take us to get totally lost.

[Snuffy]

... aviatrixes ...

Oooh! You mean Aviatresses wouldn't have worked? :bump:

[jmig]

Oooh! You mean Aviatresses wouldn't have worked? :bump:

Toe may ta --- toe ma ta!

*pissed because snuffy make him look up "Aviatresses". He had never seen that word before and didn't know if it was real.....like HIS version better*

:)

[GT182]

Take the GPS away from most of us and see just how long it would take us to get totally lost.

I agree on that. Not many can even read a map these days. GPS for your car should be made of fish crap. It takes you the long way around to where ever in hell you're going.

As for aircraft and nautical GPS, they be a keeper.

[Helldiver]

Siz - You completely forget her three crashes going across the United States. Her flying record was spotty to say the least. She was caused to do these things because her husband used her to generate news.
The best thing to say about her was she was damn lucky to survive all these crashes. She did not have the marvelous reputation, when she disappeared, that she has now. Distance lends enchantment.

[wombat666]

Her remains turned into fish crap many years ago.

Very classy HD!
"Fish crap"????
How about giving her the respect she is due.
:173go1:

[Helldiver]

I'm sorry,
Fish doo-doo.

It was over 72 years ago.

[PRB]

[oops, double post]

[PRB]

When you put her accomplishments in the context of the time, they were amazing. As far as navigation, it doesn't take much more than a "small" error to accumulate into a big error hours later.

I knew of several true tales of KC-135 tankers and B-52's, during SEA time, missing Guam by hundreds of miles. If it wasn't for LF directional finders these aircrews might of become "fish crap".

Helldiver, you come from an era of Dead Reckoning. You know darn well how hard it is to hold a heading for hours on hours. Then throw in the winds aloft. They had no way of knowing them. It is quite hard to determine drift over the ocean. One degree off means one mile off course every sixty NM. (if my mental nav math is still good)

So, 14 hours at say 150mph will be around 35 miles off course with just one degree in error. I think rather than focus on how she got loss we should admire the fact that she and her navigator flew so far and didn't get lost. This applies for all the aviators and aviatrixes of the era.

Take the GPS away from most of us and see just how long it would take us to get totally lost.

Still, they did do it back then. There were many long over-water flights in the 1930s and 1940s. Navigation was done with the same tools Amelia Earhart and Noonan had. They even had a ship with a radio beacon standing by at Howland Island, but AE and company were not proficient in the use of the radio navigation equipment they had on board. The idea that AE was not such a great pilot is not new. Nobody is disputing her courage and tenacity, or rejoices over her fate, but a dispassionate evaluation of history would seem to indicate she and Noonan were not quite up to the task they set for themselves…
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Here’s an interesting read on the subject:
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http://www.electranewbritain.com/ (http://www.electranewbritain.com/)

[stiz]

Siz - You completely forget her three crashes going across the United States. Her flying record was spotty to say the least. She was caused to do these things because her husband used her to generate news.
The best thing to say about her was she was damn lucky to survive all these crashes. She did not have the marvelous reputation, when she disappeared, that she has now. Distance lends enchantment.

and what about the many airman in ww2 who crashed during training, who where used by the media to boost morale, 3/4s of those wouldnt have marvoluse reputations then, but there all hereos now ...

[TeaSea]

Of course the most likely end of the Earhart flight was the crash of the Electra into the Pacific Ocean within a hundred miles of Howland Island. Earhart and Noonan were most likely killed on impact after the aircraft ran out of fuel.

Ironically, Navy Capt Lawrence Stafford (who made this flight his hobby) thought that Earhart was doomed much earlier in the flight, having been forced by weather to climb to a much higher altitude than originally planned, using up valuable fuel which she would have needed to start a pattern search for Howland. Lacking that fuel, if they simply didn't have the time to find the island. It's interesting to note that Earhart and Noonan were actually in communication with the USCG Itasca in the closing hour of the flight.

Earhart was not atypical of women aviators of the time in using sex appeal to promote aviation amongst the populace. Earhart was clearly better than most in that she promoted her own fashion line, books, cosmetics, etc.

It's pretty clear that this "over-promotion" led to some backlash against Earhart and her husband George Putnam. She also doubtless felt significant pressure at completing this around the world flight, having smashed up the Electra at Ford Island earlier, an incident in which there was almost unanimous consensus was caused by pilot error.

All this may have led her to attempt the flight that day, when others felt the conditions were less than ideal.

[TARPSBird]

If the TIGHAR group can find human remains that are a DNA match to Amelia's family members, we'll know where she ended up. Personally I think her fate is described in the first few lines of TeaSea's post above. I don't think it serves any useful purpose to argue over her flying skills (or lack of same), over 70 years after she went missing.

[wombat666]

If the TIGHAR group can find human remains that are a DNA match to Amelia's family members, we'll know where she ended up. Personally I think her fate is described in the first few lines of TeaSea's post above. I don't think it serves any useful purpose to argue over her flying skills (or lack of same), over 70 years after she went missing.

+1:applause:

[TeaSea]

If the TIGHAR group can find human remains that are a DNA match to Amelia's family members, we'll know where she ended up. Personally I think her fate is described in the first few lines of TeaSea's post above. I don't think it serves any useful purpose to argue over her flying skills (or lack of same), over 70 years after she went missing.

A most erudite observation.....

[Odie]

The National Geographic Channel ran a 2006 special this weekend on an expedition that was looking for the plane around an island (one of the possibilities). If I remember this one correctly, they were basing it on the assumption that she ran out of gas and was able to make it out of the ditching and onto the island.

They also found some artifacts (heel from a woman's shoe) on the island but nothing definite. Conditions on the island weren't good, so the odds of survival for a long period of time were not good.

There have also been a number of reports that she and her navigator were captured by the Japanese, among some other instances of sightings.

It's a big ocean.....