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frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.com  wrote:

> what kind of sextant did they carry on that flight? 

Well, I'm not Gary, but if I remember what I've read over the years about her 
final flight I think it was actually a Navy quadrant (I think the reason 
being it was easier to take sight with from an aircraft window - don't 
remember if the Electra was fitted with a bubble for celnav or not).

> Did Earhart herself know any celestial navigation?

Kinda doubt it - if I remember right, she never really mastered the RDF (radio 
direction finder), which I think was supposed to be used for the final 
navigation to Howland (which was just a speck of land in the vast Pacific 
Ocean).

Earhart wasn't even all that great of a pilot (I read something somewhere that 
her piloting skills were only regarded as "average"), she ground-looped 
during the takeoff roll on the first around-the-world attempts and the 
Electra had to be sent back to Lockeed at Burbank for repairs.

--
GregR 


--- On Thu, 10/22/09, frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.com  wrote:

> From: frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.com 
> Subject: [NavList 10236] Amelia Earhart's aerial navigation
> To: NavList@fer3.com
> Date: Thursday, October 22, 2009, 4:38 PM
> 
> I thought it might be interesting to get a conversation
> going about Amelia Earhart's navigation --really Fred
> Noonan's navigation-- on their ill-fated circum-navigation
> back in 1937. There's a movie opening this week, "Amelia",
> produced by and starring Hilary Swank as Earhart. It's
> getting beat up pretty bad in the early reviews (currently
> at a dismal 22% fresh on RottenTomatoes.com: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/amelia_2009/), but I'm
> sure many of us will see it eventually.
> 
> So... I know next to nothing about their navigation. Gary
> Lapook knows lots, and I expect I'm setting you up for some
> typing, Gary. :-)
> 
> I'll just start off with some basic questions: what kind of
> sextant did they carry on that flight? Did they have
> multiple instruments? Were their different instruments
> during various legs of the flight? At what altitude would
> sights have been taken (or did it matter)? I remember a
> discussion a few years ago of a proposed theory claiming
> that Noonan didn't understand the correction for the Moon's
> parallax... that theory struck me as pretty light-weight at
> the time. Can we dismiss it? Did Earhart herself know any
> celestial navigation?
> 
> Thanks in advance to any and all who can fill me in on
> this.
> 
> -FER
> PS: Hey, Gary: when you visited Mystic back in 2008, did
> you get a chance to drive by the house where Amelia married
> George Putnam in Noank?
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> 

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