I don’t know if there is a technical difference in the nomenclature, but I think the Electra wings are straight but tapered, not swept. But I’m not an aeronautical engineer.
Apparently, they didn’t immediately review the data from the specific run where the AUV collected these images because they thought the data had been corrupted. It was only later, when they were no longer onsite, that they realized the data was intact and what it had potentially spotted.
That makes sense. and yes, the Electra would have tapered wings. If this turns out to be a plane from the time frame of WW-2 then there aren’t many that would qualify as swept wing.
I might be misremembering but I thought her last transmission reported she only had 30 minutes of gas left.
I have no clue about their actual end game.
I was simply enumerating the broad-brush possible scenarios.
If there is credible evidence one of those scenarios is either guaranteed or impossible, that’s all news to me.
It has been, and was—a long time ago. Like, the reporting in 2014 made it seem as if, after years of diligent research, researchers finally concluded the panel must have been from Earhart’s plane. No. They decided as soon as they found it in the early '90s that it was “proof” of the Nikumaroro hypothesis, and were being called out on it immediately. This, even before it transpired that the piece is labeled with a trademark that wasn’t in use until after the crash.
Conceivably there is serious scholarship being done on Amelia Earhart’s crash. I don’t know about Deep Sea Vision. It does bear noting that TIGHAR’s ongoing Earhart fanfiction, though, is all the academic rigor of a true crime subreddit with a generous helping of grift fundraising. So I would take the sonar images on their own; at least this fits what I would venture to say is mainstream opinion, which is “ditched in the middle of the ocean and sank.”
I don’t think it’s in doubt they ran out of gas (but of course not known for sure), I think the unknown is where they were when it happened. I suspect they got lost. And of course it could have been a little off or way off.
They were not far of course. The radio signals from Earhart’s plane were strong and consistent (over 30 minutes) suggesting she was flying nearby Howland Island.
Here’s an interesting article on radio and navigation issues for Amelia–although it’s 30 years old:
It’s NOT the case that radio and navigation equipment was not good enough in 1937; instead it’s the inadequacies of the equipment on her plane and her mistakes in using the equipment she had.
Something similar was said about Amy Johnson; that she wasn’t in fact a very good pilot, and took too many short cuts, and one of them eventually caught up with her.
Then you’re far more excited about this than I am.
I’m bumping this thread because a higher resolution sonar image has just been released. I’m not too surprised that it now looks more like a rock formation than a plane. Here’s a gift link to the Wall Street Journal article.
It’s like the face on Mars.
Yeah, I’ve worked with submarine sonar my entire adult life and pareidolia is definitely a very real problem. The dude from Scripps in that article knows what he’s talking about–you can see all sorts of things in sonar imagery that isn’t there.
(One of my personal favorites was seeing a post on reddit where someone was convinced they found a submarine on their fishfinder because the trace had the traditional submarine hull/sail shape. I was like “you know that just shoots a beam straight down and draws a trace as you move along? So unless you went directly over a boat from stern to bow you’re just looking at a tiny underwater mount?”)
This just in: Amelia Earhart is still missing. And still dead.
Do you have a status update on Generalissimo Franco?
I’m still waiting to be sure.
I think there is a non-zero chance he got abducted by aliens and placed on a planet in the Delta quadrant. With a group of other abductees they call “the 75s”.
Hmmm, if only there was a good news source to confirm it; especially for those hard of hearing. I guess we’ll have to wait for the Weekend for an Update.
There is a new book coming out next month:
But there is an extract just published in the New Yorker:
Putnam asked Bradford Washburn, a skilled explorer, mapper, and pilot, to accompany Earhart. Putnam invited him to their estate in Rye, New York, and Earhart showed him her planned route on a world map, highlighting how the westward leg from Hawaii to New Guinea necessitated the refuelling stop at Howland Island. Washburn pronounced it a dangerous folly. When he asked about her navigational plan, Earhart responded, “Dead reckoning”—estimating a plane’s position based on speed, time, and direction from a known point. Washburn was appalled. “I didn’t feel that she had anywhere nearly adequate equipment and preparation for a long overseas hop to Howland Island,” he later reflected. Earhart, however, was certain that she’d hit her tiny target with the gear already on board. Washburn said that she should at least place a radio on the island which would allow the Electra to home in on its position. Putnam dismissively told Washburn, “If you go to all that trouble, the book will not be out for Christmas sales.”
It is one of the oddities of history that Earhart is still probably the best known woman aviator of all time - even more so that women who have literally flown into space - despite the fact that she likely wasn’t one of the 100 best woman aviators in the world when she was actually flying.
I mean, say what you will about that ol’ philandering Nazi Charles Lindbergh, but he really earned his fame by being a genuinely brilliant pilot.
This is some years old, but this video goes into a lot of the technical glitches/miscommunications she had going against her.