I'm convinced..
You don't have to convince me that it doesn't make any sense that they'd have no reason to continue to fly the line and end up near Gardner Island.
But when two authors of AE books (John Miklos & John Burke) say the 250' trailing antenna wasn't installed, why lather about it being damaged on takeoff from Lae? A few puffs of dust reported? That's absurd. We'll ignore the fact that their reports directly contradict each other.
David Billings says on a Warbirds forum that Amelia planned a 4,305 mile leg from Dakar to Aden. I don't know where he got that info? In any case, she didn't fly that. But if he's right about that, then she must have thought the Electra did have the range to make the return flight.
But then why didn't she drop onto one of the Gilbert's?
I think Mr. Billings efforts would be aided greatly if he could get the University of Wisconsin library to issue a statement confirming the information. And it would be aided even more if the USAF would confirm that the USAAC received the query and the TAG! And that they sent the reply.
Then maybe some of the funds being wasted on TIGHAR might flow to him!