For
grizzled:
My Mother used to say "Patience is a virtue".... whether I forever took a mental note of what she did say or whether I have been pre-programmed by The Almighty I have no way of knowing. However, seemingly, I am blessed with bucketfulls of it and can deal with non-comprehensiveness with that same commodity.
For everyone:
What some people seem not to recognise here is that ALL other Lockheed Model 10E's have been accounted for except for two, both of them being the Long Range Versions. One of the two went to Russia and has two endings...a) Lost on the Steppe and abandoned and b) taken apart for the reverse engineering that the Russians were apt to do in that era, same as the DC-3 and the B-29.
The other 10E is Earhart's.
Patrol A1 on 17th April '45 bumped into an engine on the jungle floor. The airframe with one engine still attached was a bit further on. A Metal Tag was removed from the engine mount of the detached engine. The tag had a string of letters and numbers on it.
The wreckage looked to be "American" and had been there for several years, it was unpainted and they did not see any military insignia.
They reported the wreck, we can read that in a Signal SITREP and they handed in the Metal Tag.
Five weeks later they were told that the "Americans" in the shape pf the U.S. Army had replied and said that the engine was "Not one of theirs". The engine was a WASP engine and may be from a Lockheed as Lockheed were big users of Pratt & Whitney engines. They were therefore (on those grounds) not interested.
If the engine had been a Twin Wasp or a Wright Cyclone, they would have been interested no doubt, but they were not.
We have a TOPO Map from that time which was used by D Company of the 11th Battalion Australian Army which carries Patrol A1 Information and also a Reference, "Ref: 600 H/P S3H1 C/N 1055" which ALL are pointers to a 600 horsepower, Pratt & Whitney R-1340 S3H1 "CIVIL" engine and a notation C/N 1055 and Earhart's Electra was the 55th Model 10 built and carried the Build No. or "Construction No." 1055. I am saying that the "600 H/P S3H1 C/N 1055" in the readout to the troops and on the TOPO map, is the very same "string of letters and numbers" seen by the W/O "on site" as he stood by the engine on the jungle floor. This is borne out by the U.S. Army reply saying the engine is a WASP engine because the S3H1 is a Wasp Engine and a "Civil' version at that. No wonder the U.S. Army were not interested.
Nobody is willing to finance us to a point where we can really get stuck into finding this aircraft. For years I have toiled at this, spent my own dough and it is looking as if I will have to forget it. Time marches on and I am 78 now.
As before if anyone can tell me of an all-metal twin-engined aircraft powered by P&W R-1340 S3H1's that is other than a Lockheed 10E I will be delighted.
David Billings
www.earhartsearchpng.com