Although it will be at least a week before I can try a crude layout as to what might be done via solver, a few rough- simple numbers would be of great help
all numbers rounded to nearest 10 miles or so
1) straight line ground milage from takeoff to howland
2) straitht line milage from howland to estimated crash site in new britian for assumed crash site
3) straignt line milage from takeoff to last ' known' position and time from takeoff
4) straight line milage between takeoff to estimated crash site in new britian
Again- what I hope to do is make a overly simplified solver matrix stuffed with simplified numbers- waypoints to show the process- and then email it to Dave. Any resemblence to most probable aircraft values will be accidental- and my example will be built backwards so that I will create the ' correct' answer that can only be found via application of solver
primarily aimed to supplement/answer/ derive if it was at all possible to fly two legs of a proportional ' triangle' within simple range calcs.