Bone sniffing dogs are being taken to some island to search for Amelia Earhart's bones. Was just on the news ...
Probably the same guys who believe the plane is in a photo, and thinks they found pieces of wreckage just off an island I don't recall at the moment...
Shutter, you are referring to the TIGHAR (spelling?) group that thinks Amelia ended up at what used to be known as Gardner Island which is about 450 miles south of Howland Island. Gardner is about a three hour flight in Amelia's aircraft from Howland.
If Amelia had three hours of fuel left when she radioed the people at Howland that "we must be upon you", then she and Noonan would have had sufficient time to find Howland. It's a long story, but in my personal opinion there is a real possibility that Earhart and Noonan actually overshot Howland and probably ended up in the northeast quadrant from Howland.
You have it exactly right (including the TIGHAR spelling). They are looking on Nikumaroro Island, which was formerly known as Gardner Island.
You are not allowed to view links.
Register or Login
I remember reading a book on the subject and to determine which direction to fly to Howland, they'd rotate an antennae while receiving a broadcast from the base on Howland and whichever direction they got the loudest signal was the direction to fly. They turned it all the way around and got a loud signal everywhere, leading them to believe they must be right on top of Howland.
I believe the speed of her plane was about 140 mph, so to get to Gardner Island, as you say, she would have needed about three more hours of fuel.
377, please comment on the characteristics of the two antennas that are required in an airborne ADF. The long wire antenna which is usually on top of the fuselage is the main tuning antenna and the smaller antenna (there are many types of these antennas) on the bottom of the fuselage was the sense antenna (if I remember that right) that determined if the station to which you were tuned was in front of you or behind you (assuming you were flying directly to or from that station).
The TIGHAR organization has recently claimed that Amelia's bottom (sense) antenna was damaged during the take-off from Lae. But if I remember correctly some posts 377 and I exchanged a number of years ago, the sense antenna can be heavily damaged and still put out valid "to/from" information.
Reportedly, the radio that the Navy had provided to the Coast Guard at Howland Island, and which was battery powered and on the island itself, was an ADF from a PBY flying boat that was undergoing maintenance in Hawaii. But the people at Howland ran the battery down long before Amelia got within range and was thus was worthless for assisting her in finding the island.
The Coast Guard ship at Howland had the capability to provide a "steer" to Amelia. However, Amelia did not "hum" into her microphone as required in order for the Coast Guard to locate her and give her a heading to fly ("steer") to Howland. Even private aircraft pilots, me included, were routinely taught how to obtain "steers" up to about 1970. It doesn't take more than five minutes total to explain a "steer" and demonstrate it in flight. But, unfortunately, Amelia apparently never learned how to do that.
So radios were of no assistance in helping Amelia locate Howland Island. That left only Fred Noonan and his sextant to locate Howland. The way that is done is NOT to try to fly the last portion of the flight directly to Howland Island. About an hour or two from Howland, Noonan would make his last possible sextant star sight (sunrise would be only minutes later) and then make about a 30 degree course change to either the north of Howland (which is probably what happened here) or to the south of Howland.
From the last sextant star sight, Noonan would calculate distances, times, and headings for Amelia to fly to get to Howland. AND THESE DISTANCES, TIMES, AND HEADINGS MUST BE FLOWN PRECISELY. After the 30 degree course change, the new heading would be flown until it intersected a line perpendicular to the original Lae to Howland course line and that ran through Howland. After flying the specified time and heading (and distance) to a point North of Howland, they would know that Howland was off their right wing and at a specified distance from the point where they then turned toward Howland. If everything worked, Howland should turn up at a specified time as they flew toward it from a northerly direction.
One of the last messages from Amelia stated that they were flying back and forth on that northerly/southerly line. So the above procedure was apparently what they were using. After his last sextant star sight, Noonan would have to wait for a period of time before he could start getting sun shots (not as good as star sights) and it would be up to Amelia to fly the aircraft precisely as Noonan had specified.
Nobody knows exactly what happened, but somewhere in there they apparently got off Noonan's specified course and weren't able to figure out their exact location again before they ran out of gas. They apparently spent a substantial amount of time just flying around looking for Howland without success.
