“The Australian”
I had a journalist from “The Australian” visit me over two days this week and they propose to do a story about the project in the Weekend Magazine supplement sometime in this month of June, probably later in June as the July anniversary of the loss is coming up.
The journalist was not an aviation person so there was a lot of explaining to do.
The Patrol A1 details were discussed and during this I broached the subject that some people insisted that the engine that Patrol A1 saw was from the B-17, 41-2429 which lies on a hillside in the Mumus River valley. I displayed photographs of the difference in the B-17 Cowlings to the Electra cowlings, particularly in the nose ring apertures which show that the Electra 10E cowl rings had a rather blunted frontal area compared to the nicely rounded NACA Type cowls of the B-17 and that those B-17 cowl rings did not display “ugly rivets” as described by the Warrant Officer, Keith Nurse in his description of what he saw.
Keith Nurse also described that behind a large “Metal Disc” at the back of the busted cowling he saw, were “black painted tubes which were twisted and broken. What Keith was describing to me was what would be the broken “Airframe Truss” behind the firewall on an Electra. The Electra was designed with a steel tube truss which mounted onto the strength members on the lower side of the wing and just further back the truss attaches to the main spar. This “Airframe Truss” then has the Firewall attached and the actual Engine Mount steel tube truss is then bolted to it through the anti-vibration mounts bolt fittings. This whole arrangement of “two steel tube trusses”, with the Firewall sandwiched between them then carries the Engine. There is a photograph in Carrington’s book showing this very well.
On a B-17 there is no arrangement of two steel trusses, there is only the one “Engine Mount” which bolts to the built up aluminium structure of the Nacelle and photographs of the arrangement of the B-17 engine nacelles show that the nacelle structure forward face is actually the Firewall.
So Cazalet 33 and all those that believe that Patrol A1 saw a B-17 engine should spend some time looking at pictures of B-17’s by putting “Images: B-17 Engine Cowlings” in their top line and spending an hour or two looking….for there, between the two aircraft we have “two” different methods of mounting engines.
The journalist and I obviously discussed the Range and I showed the journalist my working plot Excel file and the derived data from Page 30 of LR487 which is in an Excel “Data File”. I stressed to the Journalist that researchers only know details of the LAE-HOWLAND Flight up to the 1030GMT “Ship in sight “ call and that any method of calculating speeds, heights and distance after 1030 GMT can only be made assumptions based on “what would normally be expected to be done…” and that included that they would NOT firewall the throttles to increase speed to meet a 1912 GMT distance because as we have discussed here in this thread, that would chew their fuel very quickly. I gave the Journalist a tabulated appreciation of how I see the Electra could have made it back to ENB…. and yes, on very little fuel under certain condition of AUW, Fuel at Start, Speeds and of course Density Altitude and Wind. The method being to use the Lockheed Data to do this and I can assure readers that when using that data, there is sometimes, a noticeable effect on Horsepower required when climbing as the Direct Drive Blower loses its’ maintenance of selected power at 5000 feet. Flying higher definitely has an effect on fuel usage. Remember that “The Sound of wings” reported radio reception at Lae has Earhart saying at 0800GMT: “On course for Howland at 12,000 feet”, after the climb to cruising altitude after NUKUMANU. Earhart had flown the Electra at 12,000 feet in the U.S. so she may have wanted to recoup some of the fuel used in the “slow” early part of the flight, or maybe it was just to avoid a cloud layer as night came on..
The Journalist mentioned “S5” as an appreciation of distance in that hearing the Electra at “S5” meant that the aircraft was very close. When I first started on this project, working next to me was a very clued on Avionics Technician who had read Mary Lovell’s book “The Sound of Wings” and when he returned the book to me he said, three things: “Very interesting, their Receiver was ‘out’ and S5 does not mean they were very close to Howland.” On the TIGHAR Forum there have been many quotes from people posting there that “S5” means they were close to Howland. Even TIGHAR’s own Radio Gurus insist that that is not so and that an HF Reception although rated at “Strength 5” does not necessarily mean the transmitting station is close and that it could be a thousand or more miles away and still be “S5”. These gurus are ignored by most TIGHAR Members. The myth persists.
Also, of interest to the Journalist was a notarised letter from Bill Prymak, a well known researcher who lived in Denver, Co.. Bill has left us, but years ago he sent me information that a man named David Kenyon worked at Lockheed and had said that engines mounts made at a foundry in L.A., were received at the Burbank plant and stored with the crated engines outside the assembly building. Each mount had a metal tag attached by wire showing C/N and H.P. rating. The letter says 'Since various engines were used in the Lockheed assembly line, each required a different engine mount configuration, thus proper tagging was essential'. The letteris Notarised by Notary public, Anita Langdon and dated April 24th, 2010.
I will keep readers posted as to when the article will appear.
Last edited by David Billings; 1st Jun 2018 at 10:39.