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Paul, I read a great book about this around a year ago. I can't remember the
title but will try to find it and pass it on to you or the group. That and
other mistakes in radio frequencies used and monitored by both the vessels
and the plane on approach to the area. Also, one of the compounding mistakes
could have been as simple as calculating the incorrect time of sunrise thus
throwing Amelia and Noonan off by enough miles that when they made their
north-south run to sight the island they were not close enough.
Interesting read.

-----Original Message-----
From: Navigation Mailing List [mailto:NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM]
On Behalf Of Paul Hirose
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 7:20 PM
To: NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM
Subject: lunar parallax killed Amelia Earhart

This web page speculates that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan missed
Howland Island because Noonan failed to correct for parallax when he
shot the Moon:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3694854

On the other hand, engineer Fredrick Hooven wrote that Earhart's
decision to utilize a lighter and less sophisticated radio direction
finder was probably a fatal mistake:

http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Documents/Hooven_Report/HoovenReport.
html

"Unfortunately the direction finder was unable to tell which direction
to turn to go toward Howland due to the ambiguity of its loop signal."
However, temporarily changing course 90 degrees and watching the bearing
drift aft would soon resolve the ambiguity. It's hard to believe Earhart
and Noonan would not know that.

For another point of view, the next article blames the Coast Guard
cutter Itasca at Howland Island for 1) failing to transmit a beacon
signal on 500 kHz, and 2) bungling the search when it became clear the
plane was down.

http://www.usni.org/NavalHistory/Articles00/nhriley.htm

Point #1 looks shaky to me -- several times Earhart requested that
Itasca take a bearing on her aircraft, but as far as I've seen, she made
no request that a homing signal be transmitted on 500 kHz.


Interestingly, Earhart planned to carry two navigators on her round the
world flight:

http://www.unmuseum.org/earhart.htm

But due to a two month delay while damage from a takeoff accident was
repaired, the other navigator had to drop out of the project. Later, he
must have felt rather like that deck officer who got bumped off the
Titanic crew right before sailing!

   

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