Reply To: Air Navigation

[manxcat]

To: kollsmanUser
Thank you for your excellent explanations! As for Gary LaPook’s website: I believe that I was the one who first posted it to this message board. I asked a question regarding LaPook’s analysis of Noonan’s 1937 World Flight navigation that wasn’t answered on the message board. It regards Noonan’s navigation from Natal, Brazil to Dakar, Africa… which actually ended up at Port St. Louis, Africa instead.
LaPook seemed to harshly criticize Noonan’s supposed navigational ‘error’, which resulted in missing Dakar by around one hundred miles. Despite the fact that LaPook’s work proved that the change in destination was a command decision, to an alternate airport, presumably because of bad weather around Dakar. LaPook mentioned something about Noonan flying too far east if he intended to route to St Louis. Also, Earhart, supposedly wrote in one of her books that she refused a new course given to her by Noonan, which she apparently thought would have been the best course had she taken it. However, LaPook said that if she had followed that course… she and Noonan would’ve likely been lost in the jungle, rather than at sea.
My question is why was LaPook so hard on Noonan? He seemed to be saying that Noonan’s navigation was the probable cause of their missing Howland Island.
The sub-heading of this article is “Navigation to Dakar” on the fredienoonan web-site. If you have the time to look at this section, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Thanks & Have a Nice Day,
–Joseph