...Range rears it's head...
WE positively do not know how far the Electra travelled from LAE.
WE also are not 100% sure which way it went.
WE assume it headed for Howland and that is a reasonable assumption.
WE do not know where it was when the supposed last call was made at 2014 GMT.
Cazalet33 says:
"Her penultimate call stated her belief that she was near her destination and that she had less than an hour's worth of fuel."
The key words there are: "her belief". That is completely and exactly correct, her 1912 GMT call, "Must be on you but cannot see you", gives affirmation that she only 'thought' she was at or lateral to Howland but there is absolutely no proof that she was there at all
There is even variance on that statement in the USCG Records ... However, it is recorded she said, "Only a half-hour of fuel left...", but then after an hour was back on the Radio. Consensus of opinion is that she meant .."Only a half-hour of fuel before I get down to my reserve." If she had a Contingency Plan then it stands to reason that she had a reserve... An amount of fuel to a contents figure that she could not go below because at that figure she had to invoke the Contingency Plan.
No-one has any idea what the upper winds were through the night where from indications in the radio calls there was upper level cloud..."Overcast" making Noonan's task very difficult, without a groundspeed figure to go on, it is entirely possible that he had no real idea where they were, hence "Must be on you"... a hopeful statement.
"No chance of a div to PNG, a thousand miles away, then."
From The Gilberts it is...
"The Billings search of the B-17 crash site for the missing four engines is noble, but quite irrelevant to the Earhart case in reality."
I don't quite get what you mean there or what you are angling at... I haven't searched for the other three Wright Cyclones. The one I have seen was hiding in plain sight in the Mumus River and was seen way before I visited (was guided to) the Fuselage remnant of the B-17.
Last edited by David Billings; 26th Feb 2018 at 23:17.