Reply To: Air Navigation

[manxcat]

To: JDavHuston
The disappearance of Amelia Earhart & her navigator over the Central Pacific in 1937 is the greatest mystery and biggest conundrum of the century, which is most ironic… because it was neither a ‘mystery’ or a ‘conundrum’ as you wrote in your Email. The World Flight of 1937, which Amelia Earhart herself referred to as a “Stunt-flight’, was a screwed up, strictly amateur operation. With the exception of Fred Noonan, the navigator, who was a top professional (so he has no excuse–he should’ve known better). Even the Navy and Coastguard personal involved acted very unprofessionally–even shamefully. Her last ‘Stunt-Flight’ was poorly planned and poorly executed–it was a dangerous flight made foolhardy by unpreparedness and it was no surprise that it ended in a disaster at sea, thousands of miles from civilization. Amelia Earhart had limited skills, and way too much courage. The moral of her story? We shouldn’t start believing in are own press-clippings.
It’s good you can do your own work on a vintage bubble-octant. You can have it done by specialized service providers, but I am sure the cost would be pretty high… and the quality of their work? Who knows. Gary LaPook has some short videos of him using a bubble-octant in flight to get sun L.O.P’s… while piloting the plane!
I’ve included a hyper-link to a navigational airplane rescue article from the Web-site of Sierra Aeronautics:
https://sierrahotel.net/blogs/news/cessna-188-pacific-rescue