J5 PiperCubFan:
One thing about Bill Prymak that I do know and that is he is not about telling porkies.... A few years back Bill told me (and a few others) that he and Joe Gervais visited Gertrude Hessien for an interview and she told them of a Mary Eubank who knew Irene Bolam from childhood and who had been seeing Bolam on and off. Gertrude suggested that they visit Mary on their way back to the airport but Gervais would not go and swore (pressured) Bill to secrecy as it was obvious that if Eubank knew Bolam for years and has seen her regularly until she dies then Bolam could not be Earhart.
The cross-reference to this is as I said before, Bolam worked in a bank in NYC during WWII so how could she be in Weishien Internment Camp in China, or in Garapan Jail on Saipan, or in the Emperors Palace in Tokyo or any other place where conspiracy theorists have her incarcerated, located, comatose or broadcasting as one of the Tokyo Rose gang, or whatever; if Bolam was working in a Bank in New York during WWII ?
SEAL 11:
I discussed the Nikumaroro Hypothesis in post No. 10 and gave four good reasons why it has faults. I think you would agree that the Electra certainly appears to have been late at the half-way point where the USCG Ontario was located with an average Groundspeed of only 120 Smph for the distance LAE-ONT of 1278 Statute Miles after 10.5 hours. Yes, I know some people say the ship was the SS Myrtlebank but the rate of acceleration needed from the
PR at Nukumanu Atoll (at 0718GMT) and the final G/S at arrival over that ship's position (about the same distance as Nauru Island from Nukumanu) cannot be achieved in the "obvious" headwind that was affecting the progress of the Electra.
Therefore, it stands to reason (and logic) that if she only "thinks" she is at or lateral to Howland (by the inference of the 1912GMT call: "We
MUST be on you but cannot see you"), then she does not know for sure that she
is there. She
has to be there to get that 157-337 sunline, which as I keep saying, is in TRUE degrees and Aviators do not work in TRUE degrees and even if they do, they do not broadcast in TRUE degrees and neither do ATC guys.
Look at the Flight Plan time, she said it would take her over 18 hours to get to HOW. She always planned for the magical 150 Smph G/S (if she could get it). She had power settings for weights which gave her that speed in still air for those particular settings. Her flight planning consisted of dividing the distance by 150 and getting an hour figure. Commander Williams' chart shows a NIL wind time LAE-HOW of 17 Hours and 1 minute. Divide 2556 by 150, that's what you get. All she did was feed in the wind. So she used the low end forecast of 12 Smph Easterly and divided 2556 by 138 = 18.52 Hours. 18 Hours 31 minutes.
If she is calling at 1912 GMT, then she is late and she has "missed" the sunrise at Howland and the sun's azimuth is no longer at 067 degrees TRUE, the degree number falls off as time passes and the sun sweeps the sky. By the time they got there (they did not get there...remember !), it would have been more like 138-318 degrees TRUE.
So, I say that as her approach heading to HOW was supposed to be at 068 MAGNETIC, Fred Noonan may have told her to steer 067 MAG due to the wind which by all accounts from records was from the N-East. So if she now, at 1912GMT starts a search, she is going to turn perpendicular to her course and that means 157-337 which is what she called, simple as that, it was not a sunline at all. "We are on the line 157-337", not "We are on the sunline 157-337".......
Regards,
David Billings