NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Earhart plane fragment may be authentic
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2014 Oct 31, 01:04 -0700
From: Don Seltzer <NoReply_Seltzer@fer3.com>
To: garylapook@pacbell.net
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:31 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: Earhart plane fragment may be authentic
From: Gary LaPook
Date: 2014 Oct 31, 01:04 -0700
(First, the pressure doesn't increase, the plane was not pressurized)
Aluminum used in manufacturing aircraft is known as "Alclad" and has specification "24 ST" and the aluminum sheets are marked. You can see on the surface of Ric's piece of aluminum the "AD" in the word "ALCLAD." All
the photos of Earhart's plane and, other planes from 1937, show that the aluminum is marked "24 ST" and is was not marked "ALCLAD." We know that the marking was changed by World War 2 but Ric claims that it is uncertain when the changeover was made and that some 1937 aluminum might have had the "ALCLAD" marking instead of the "24 ST" marking. Obviously, if Ric were to admit that this marking only happened after 1937 then his new fund raising piece is an obvious scam. When confronted with all the photos of Earhart's plane under construction showing "24 ST" he explains it away by saying the "patch" was applied in Miami and that Miami had a different batch of aluminum with the new marking.
O.K. since Ric is proffering this aluminum as evidence of Earhart's plane being on Nikumaro then he has the burden of proof that it was made in 1937 and not during WW2. He always tries to turn this around and demands that others disprove that it was 1937 aluminum but since it is his piece of evidence he has the burden of authenticating it. If 1937 aluminum was marked "ALCLAD" then why hasn't Ric been able to come up with even one photo or one piece of it from 1937 to substantiate his claim?
O.K. since Ric is proffering this aluminum as evidence of Earhart's plane being on Nikumaro then he has the burden of proof that it was made in 1937 and not during WW2. He always tries to turn this around and demands that others disprove that it was 1937 aluminum but since it is his piece of evidence he has the burden of authenticating it. If 1937 aluminum was marked "ALCLAD" then why hasn't Ric been able to come up with even one photo or one piece of it from 1937 to substantiate his claim?
Ric softshoes around this by stating:
Another puzzle is the etched remnant of what appears to be a portion of the original manufacturer’s labeling of the aluminum sheet. The letters AD, presumably part of the word ALCLAD, are visible on the exterior surface of the artifact. Some of our earlier interpretations of the labeling, based on opinions offered by ALCOA engineers have proved to be in error. Photos show that the ALCOA labeling on aluminum Lockheed used to build Earhart’s aircraft in 1936 abbreviated
ALCLAD to ALC, but the patch dates from a year later and was not fabricated by Lockheed. More research is needed.
See photos of aluminum marking from the 1930's:
TIGHAR's artifact showing the "AD" of ALCLAD (Tighar even named this photo "AD on skin.jpg:
I posted this on TGHAR's Facebook page last night::
Before you send any money to TIGHAR ask Mr. Gillespie to produce a piece of 1937 aluminum bearing the markings "ALCLAD". He claims that his "patch" was installed on Earhart's plane in 1937 but it clearly shows the "AD" in ALCLAD that wasn't used until 1941.
See: http://i.imgur.com/yfWrMi4.png
gl
I added this to the TIGHAR Facebook page:
Aluminum was not marked with the word "ALCLAD" until 1941 so the "AD" on Mr. Gillespie's piece of aluminum disqualifies it as coming from Earhart's plane. It is Mr. Gillespie's burden to prove that this marking was used in 1937 and he has
never been able to find any such proof or to produce an authentic piece of 1937 aluminum with this marking on it. Demand that he do so before you send him any of your money.
These posts were gone this morning.
Ric said the artifact fit PERFECTLY ......ok , move that stringer there, add that one there, widen the rivet spacing here, insert a footnote about the alclad lettering .....TA DA ..PERFECT!
If you look at TIGHAR's report it has several photos showing the interior of the exemplar L10E in Wichita with the window cut out area indicated. Remember, when NR16020 left the factory this is what Earhart's plane looked like, it had aluminum skin in this area just like the Wichita plane. Note there are only two stringers shown so there were only two stringers in NR16020. Go to the later pages of the report and Ric has installed 5 stringers instead of the original two in order to explain all the rivet lines in his piece of aluminum. If two stringers were designed in by Lockheed and were strong enough when the plane had an aluminum skin there, then why would there be a need for five stringers when the skin was re-installed in Miami? Oh, right, so Ric can
sucker more people into giving him money. Neville comes up with an obviously contrived explanation.
If you look at TIGHAR's report it has several photos showing the interior of the exemplar L10E in Wichita with the window cut out area indicated. Remember, when NR16020 left the factory this is what Earhart's plane looked like, it had aluminum skin in this area just like the Wichita plane. Note there are only two stringers shown so there were only two stringers in NR16020. Go to the later pages of the report and Ric has installed 5 stringers instead of the original two in order to explain all the rivet lines in his piece of aluminum. If two stringers were designed in by Lockheed and were strong enough when the plane had an aluminum skin there, then why would there be a need for five stringers when the
skin was re-installed in Miami? Oh, right, so Ric can sucker more people into giving him money. Neville comes up with an obviously contrived explanation.
And, DUH, I almost missed this. In Ric's report he says:
" It is not possible from the photographs to tell the thickness of the aluminum sheet, but, according to FAA Flight Standards District Manager Aris Scarla*, standard practice is to make a scab patch the same, or preferably, one thickness greater than the surrounding skins. The surrounding skins on the Electra are .025″ so the scab patch should have been
.032″. Artifact 2-2-V-1 is .032″ in thickness."
I hadn't even considered that the patch was not the same thickness as the rest of the aircraft skin, I thought that the plane was entirely .032 thick aluminum but it is only .025. The patch is .032. So Ric finds some idiot FAA dude to say,
what exactly did he say, read it carefully. A patch should be the same thickness or greater, which Ric then restates that patches should always be thicker. That is not what HIS GUY said.
But, we can look to official FAA publications and maintenance guidance on this point. I have attached two pages from the FAA Maintenance Technician Handbook-Airframe, the whole book is available here:
Note it says that only if the patch cannot be placed on the outside then a one size thicker piece of aluminum should be used. The "patch" was on the outside so it did NOT need to be a thicker piece of aluminum, contrary to Ric's statement. And, going with Neville, the thicker aluminum would have been harder to work with, to bend to the curvature of the fuselage, so it would have made much more sense to use .025 aluminum for the
"patch."
gl
From: Don Seltzer <NoReply_Seltzer@fer3.com>
To: garylapook@pacbell.net
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:31 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: Earhart plane fragment may be authentic
On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 3:21 PM, Rommel John Miller wrote: > You did access this site didn't you? > http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/73_StepbyStep/73_Step_by_Step.html Yes, that is the web site. > It shows how three rows of stringers would have been rivited in place to > stiffen the cover. Without these batten/stringers of sorts, a patch riveted > around the periphery to the fuselage alone would just blow out under > elevated air pressure. I don't think that is correct. It was suggested/assumed that Amelia Earhart would have been annoyed by the popping sound of the patch 'oil canning'. Gary could probably comment on this point. > I think the explanation the researchers at TIGHAR did in this regard is the > best explaination for the three rows of holes more or less centered off of > the two top and bottom fuselage rivet joints. But that is backwards reasoning that presumes the conclusion. They have a piece of scrap aluminum that they are trying to match with a field patch made to the Lockheed plane. The only thing known about this patch is the approximate dimensions. If they could match the scrap piece by rivet holes along the periphery, that would be convincing. But instead they have several rows of nicely spaced rivet holes in the center of their scrap piece. They explain these extra holes by claiming that there must have been three internal stiffeners added to the patch. It is certainly possible, but there isn't any evidence that the field patch included such stiffeners in those exact locations. It is simply a convenient assumption made up by TIGHAR to fit their desired conclusion. > As for the contemporary photos of Electra, owe not being able to discern > them up to the quality of silver based development of pictures. > HavingDigital technology is a great thing, but the pixelations in old photos > can not be enhanced even if enlarged, only a processed negative can offer > greater detail. A silver oxide print is only a good as the process used to > print it. And sadly in smaller photos details suffer and are often lost. I totally agree. And that brings us to the linchpin of the argument. TIGHAR claims that the low quality Miami photo does indeed show these lines of rivet holes, and their subsequent chain of reasoning is almost completely based upon that finding. I looked at what they published and I can't see them. They assure their followers that the subreport on the image analysis is pending. They did not want to publish it at this time because there is further forensic analysis to be done. Claiming a perfect finger print match and near certainty seems a bit premature, before the release of the key evidence. Don Seltzer
File:
File:
