NavList:

TIGHAR used that in an attempt to bolster  their claim that a sextant box found on Nikumororo belong to Noonan. But the letter states that the large size of the Clipper allowed him to take as much navigation equipment as he liked. Not so in the Electra where Earhart stripped the plane bare, including her antenna, which is what sealed her fate.

gl

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"Do you know what Noonan meant by carrying a mariner’s sextant as a ‘preventer’?  Not to hold the cabin door open, I hope.   Maybe to check the anchor was holding while on the water, but you could use a hand bearing compass for that.  Interesting also that Noonan thought 10nm was reasonable accuracy from a star fix in the air.  It makes you realise that expecting to find a coral island of 640 acres and about 10ft vertical extent looking initially into the rising Sun using celestial navigation alone would have been almost impossible and had to rely on a DF homing which for various reasons they didn’t achieve.  DaveP"