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1. Most likely he was using a Pioneer octant similar to the A-5 but 
there is no record showing for sure what kind of octant he was using. 
See: http://www.fer3.com/arc/imgx/A-5-Manual.pdf

2. TIGHAR claims that he was also carrying a marine sextant. They base 
this claim on a letter written by Noonan to Weems in which he describes 
the equipment carried on the much larger Pan Am Clippers including a 
marine sextant as a "preventer." There is no reason to believe that he 
carried one in the much smaller Electra, no records, no testimony, and 
not on the Luke Field inventory (after the takeoff accident.)

3. Mary S. Lovell's 1987 book, "The Sound Of Wings" discusses the
different coordinates for the island.  Lovell writes that Williams had 
used the coordinates
listed in "Lippencott's Geographical Dictionary of the World" and also
used by the Navy;s Hydrographic Office, as 0º 49' 00" north and 176º
43' 09" west. She also states that Itasca had corrected the coordinates
of Howland on the 1936 cruise but that those had not been published by
the time Williams had consulted the Hydrographer's office.


That position published in the 1938 edition of Bowditch was 0 ° 48' N, 
176 ° 38' W. The previous position had been given about 5 NM further to 
the west but Noonan may have had the correct position to work with.  
Assuming that he computed his LOP to hit that spot five miles to the 
westward and assuming normal accuracy of a celestial LOP shot from a 
plane is 7 NM ( I will not explain why this is so) then if that error 
placed them to the west of that LOP they would still pass only 12 NM 
west of Howland so should have been able to see it given the 20 NM 
visibility reported by Itasca. If the error was less or if it put them 
to the east of the LOP they could have passed much closer and, possibly, 
right over Howland.


The position of Howland from Google Earth shows the southern tip at 0º 
47.7' N, 176º 36.9' W. The northern tip is 0º 49.2' N. 176º 37.4'W. The 
farthest west shore is at 176º 37.5' W and the eastern shore is 176º 
36.7' W. The average of these is about 0º 48.5'N, 176º 37.0' W about a 
mile east of the position given in Bowditch.

I decided to do some more checking on the accuracy of Google Earth 
coordinates to make sure they were accurate in the Pacific. I found the 
published coordinates of Mili airport, 6º 05' N, 171º 44'E;  Mujuro 
airport, 7º  03' 44'' N, 171º 16' 19" E; and Kosrae airport, 5º 21' 25" 
N, 162º 53' 30"E since these were the closest to Howland. Then going to 
them with Google Earth I found that the Google Earth coordinates were 
exactly right, correct to the accuracy of the positions given in the 
airport database. Mili was only given to the nearest minute but the 
others were to the second. ( A second is only 100 feet!) You can check 
for yourself, just go to Google Earth with those coordinates which you 
will see fall on the runways.



The only coordinates that have any relevance are those for where Howland 
is actually located, which we now know to a high level of accuracy, and 
the coordinates known to Noonan that he was aiming for. The difference, 
if any, would be the size of any built in error in following the LOP to 
the island. If Noonan was using the 176º 43' W value then he was aiming 
about five or five and a half NM west of the western shoreline of 
Howland. If he was using the 176º 38'W value he was aiming within one 
half mile of the shoreline. Either way they should have been able to see 
the island.

 In looking at the location of Howland and how possibly wrong 
coordinates for the island may have contributed to Noonan missing the 
island we have all forgotten an important fact, Itasca was making smoke. 
Smoke from ships can extend for great distances and be seen for many 
miles. It was these smoke trails on the horizon that U-boats searched 
for  when trying to find a ship to attack. Smoke is made on purpose by 
spraying unburned fuel oil into the exhaust stack much like smoke is 
made on air show aircraft.

All of the descriptions and the photos of the smoke screen being made by 
Itasca say that instead of rising high up in the air that the smoke was 
blown downwind. The wind was out of the east. This means that the smoke 
would have been blown many miles downwind, to the WEST, probably more 
than ten  miles (Safford) and beyond the erroneous coordinates given for 
Howland and probably much farther. This means that even if Noonan had 
been  aiming for the erroneous coordinates  he would certainly have seen 
the smoke and followed it to Howland. Water don't burn. If they saw the 
smoke they would have known that there was something at the end of the 
smoke trail, a ship or an island, either of which wold have been a 
better than splashing down in the ocean. And it wouldn't take them very 
long to follow it to the end to see what was making the smoke even if 
they went the wrong way at first. Since they had been fighting a 
headwind all the way  they knew that the wind was out of the east so if 
they saw the smoke they would have known to follow it to its source, to 
the east.

4. The equipment carried on the abortive westbound attempt was 
inventoried after the takeoff accident at Luke Field. No known list of 
equipment carried on subsequent attempt.

5. They would have taken the sights at cruising altitude, about ten 
thousand feet using the bubble octant. One of many reasons to not use a 
marine sextant is the very large dip correction from high altitude which 
has a great uncertainty due to the uncertainty in the altimeter. Also, 
at ten thousand feet, the horizon is 130 NM away and it is very unlikely 
that you would be able to see all the way to the natural horizon due to 
limited visibility. Using a marine sextant Chichester had to descend 
down almost to the sea so that he could calibrate his altimeter and then 
climbed to one thousand feet to take the observation.

6. The story about the moon's parallax was all hooey. Noonan used 
Dreisenstock. On the first page are the sextant correction tables, one 
for sun and stars and one for the moon. The moon correction table 
combines the P in A correction with the refraction correction so there 
is was no way for Noonan to correct a moon observation without allowing 
for P in A. See attached.

gl



frankreed@HistoricalAtlas.com wrote:
> 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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