NavList:

Where to begin, where to begin. 

This will be short. The Itasca obviously did NOT have radar.

This is just Gillespie stirring the pot again in an effort to get contributions to his "non-profit organization" for another expedition and so that he can continue to pay himself that $238,000 salary that he had to report on the TIGHAR tax form. 

Here is a link to his last presentation in which he mentions the Australian ham, apparently the source for the first newspaper account.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jSyR0Jyafk

To keep tis short, Gillespie left out some significant facts:

At 7:42 Earhart radioed to the Itasca, "only half hour of gas left;"

Gardner island had a Coast Guard LORAN station during the war which is the source for all the western objects that Gillespie has found there;

His theory is that they followed the 157-337 LOP to Gardner because they knew of the existance of the Phoenix islands yet not one of the purported radio messages contain the words "Gardner" or "Phoenix" or say "I don't know exactly where we are but we flew southeast for about two hours from where we thought Howland island was;

None of the radio "bearings" were taken at the same time so they cannot be triangulated since could have come from entirely different sources. Gillespie ignores the bearings that don't go near Gardner. One of the "bearings" that Gillespie claims as "credible" lasted for two hours and the Midway Island station, that took that bearing, stated that it definately was NOT Eahart and was coming from a statioin in China or South America;

And, as we navigators know, the 157-337 LOP only existed for a short time and that its azimuth changed as the sun moves across the sky and would not pass anywhere near Gardner island by the time they could have reached that island;

The Itasca reported clear skies south of Howland in the direction of Gardner. The sun and the moon were at close to a perfect cut for Noonan to obtain a fix and then plot a course directly back to Howland where there was an airport waiting for them. You navigators can do the computations yourselves. July 2, 1937, 1800 to 2400 Zulu.

I could go on for a thousand pages, I have posted more than 2,000 pages on the TIGHAR website (before I got banned) and on http://aviationmystery.com//index.php

in case you have any inclination to get interested in this.

Also, for you navigators, I put up a website with a lot of contemporary navigation manuals so that you can see how Noonan used H.O. 218 for his celnav. Go to https://sites.google.com/site/fredienoonan/

gl

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Re: Radar in July 1937 or too much MD370 reporting?
From: Don Seltzer
Date: 2016 Sep 13, 10:12 -0400

For about a week, I have been noticing these media accounts popping up.  I went to the TIGHAR website to see what new evidence/revelations have occurred to prompt this publicity.  It seems that there is none, and that Gillespie is a bit embarrassed about the butchered versions with the radar reference that have surfaced.

Apparently it started with an Australian reporter who dredged up notes from an old interview from several years ago, noticed an Australian connection (one of the people who 'heard' the call for help) and decided to run with it.  Other media have picked up on it in a cascading effect with the facts altered at each generation.

Don Seltzer

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 5:08 AM, David Pike <NoReply_DavidPike@fer3.com> wrote:

The Amelia Earhart disappearance has raised its head again recently both on Fox News on 10th Sep http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/09/10/new-evidence-reportedly-indicates-amelia-earhardt-survived-crash.html   and the Times newspaper on 12th Sep.  The information from TIGHAR includes the curious statement "Earhart’s plane was last seen on radar on July 2, 1937" and "Gillespie said that from the time the plane vanished off radar on July 2 to July 6, there were more than 100 radio transmissions from Earhart calling for help".
We are regretably used to seeing statements about aircraft disappearing from radar in the 2000’s, but in July 1937 radar was still in very much an experimental state and in use in just a few countries.  If it was available at all, it would have been a very fuzzy "A scope" display probably only in use in experimental establishments.  One is tempted to ask who saw the aircraft and on which radar equipment?  Did USCGC Itasca have radar??  Very unlikely.  Was this perhaps a dangerous popularisation and updating of the facts to make them more understandable to the average reader, even if completely wrong?  Why not just say "vanished" ?  DaveP

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