Originally Posted by
CONSO
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.
Answers from Google Earth this morning:
1. T.O. to HOW: 2629 Statute Miles with doglegs straightened.
2. How to crash site: 2209 Statute Miles.
3. Last known position has two choices:
a) Close to NUKUMANU 912 Sm as per the 0718 Tx but cannot be correct, the time is more likely at 0700 GMT..
b) Taking "my" Timing at the ONTARIO 1357 Sm at 1036 GMT
4. T.O. to site on ENB: 4838 Sm.
The AUW on T.O from LAE:
Greg47 is saying 15,750 lbs which would be a 50% overload figure. On the first attempt with four POB and all their baggage and the spares and engine covers Earhart says on Page 32 of "Last Flight" that the Electra lifted off at SFO at 14,000 lbs., with probably 937 USG after the Warm up and taxi usage, so if she was rounding off, probably 13,940 lbs., at lift off..
At DRW, Earhart and Noonan had packaged up what they didn't need and sent it by surface mail back to the States. A similar clean up took place at LAE with Earhart even giving her pistol to Harry Balfour. So, even if we take the SFO Lift off figure of 14,000 pounds and add the extra fuel we are only going to get an AUW of 15224 with the 'extra' 204 USG of an 1151 USG load. Take two persons out (figuratively speaking: Manning and Mantz) and their baggage and that AUW gets down to 14854 and take off the warm up and taxi fuel of ten gallons and we get
14,794 lbs as the lift off weight.
Rgds,
David