For First Principal
Magnetic Gradiometer: That has been mentioned but at the moment we are looking at LIDAR which can give a "bare earth" picture of the terrain. We would be able to see bulldozer tracks and would be looking for that activity close to mounds or an obvious disturbance.
For Porterhouse
You would know about groundspeeds then.... Take a look at the groundspeeds that we can figure. The 686 Statute miles LAE to Choiseul done in 5:18 (if you take the time of the Radio call): G/S 129 Smph Av. Choiseul to Nukumanu
PR 224 Sm in 1:75 gives G/S 128 Smph Av. and
PR to Ontario 442 Sm in 3.6 hours gives G/S of 123 Smph Av. The overall average for the 1352 miles to the Ontario in 10.6 hours gives an average G/S of 127 Smph down 23 miles per hour from the normal cruise of 150 Smph. But the last sector was down 27 mph off the 150 normal. This shows an increasing headwind.
With 1252 more miles to run their ETA based on that information and with the prospect of no ASTRO over the sector you have to plan on an ETA of a further 10:12 added to 10:36 making the ETA 20:48 or 2048 GMT, Why call "Must be on you" at 1912 GMT ?
I read where Mr. "Kelly" Johnson told Earhart to "lean off" into an adverse headwind to conserve fuel.... if she was already leaned off the only way t conserve fuel is to ease the Throttles.
You base distance on HF Signal strength ??? How does that work ?
Fuel exhaustion at 10:00 am ? How do you come to that conclusion ? Lockheed documents say with 1100 USG and a specific fuel consumption from Report 487 the Electra could range for 4200 miles... IF it has already done 2556, where did the other 1700 go ? Are you an advocate of opening the throttles into an adverse headwind when "range flying" ?
Could Earhart have meant "my fuel is running low
and shortly i will be eating into my reserves"
There are Facts within the East New Britain story... there was a twin-engined unpainted aircraft wreck seen which bore no military insignia and a map used by the Army unit that saw it bears identifiers for Earhart's Electra "600 H/P S3H1 C/N 1055" ...Why ?
That wreck has to be found even if to eliminate it from the Earhart search.
We can argue all day about a "Hypothesis" of the how's and the why's that ensued as to how it could get to be where it is. Earhart and Noonan never reached Howland and no-one on this globe can tell me exactly how far they did reach on the "Last Flight" but it seems to me based on the Groundspeeds that they were "short" of Howland and they did have a Contingency Plan to turn back for The Gilberts.
They would expect to fly for four hours if they did consider they had reached a lateral point to Howland, seeing land after 1:45 would raise numerous possibilities...
Regards,
David Billings