NavList:

The UK Times published another Perdue Earhart story today.  https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/amelia-earhart-new-search-plane-south-pacific-island-ps9vjnq93   I didn’t bother to read it, because I knew what it would say.  However, the 107 comments below it were interesting ranging from one Douglas Denny extoling Gary’s views on the subject to a post suggesting that as Earhart wasn’t a very good pilot, Noonan did most of the flying.  That reader was obviously unaware of Earhart’s solo records.  A follow up to this post suggested that you could tell this was true, because in all the publicity photographs, the aircrafts propellors were set at angles which best enhanced Earhart’s appearance.   (As an aside, no sane person would ever dream of standing anywhere near an aircraft propellor unless they were intending to start the engine, and even then, only if they couldn’t persuade somebody else to do it.)

Seriously though, how easy would it have been for Fred Noonan to even reach the controls of the Electra in flight.  I’m not going to search through the books again, but I’m sure I read somewhere that Noonan was in the rear of the aircraft doing the plotting bit with extra fuel tanks in front of him.  Moreover, all the PR photographs show Earhart entering and exiting the cockpit through the hatch above her head. DaveP