Overall her flight, as was mentioned at the time by the Navy IIRC, was a “Poor plan, poorly executed”. Anyone with sailing or flying experience from the pre-GPS days knows better than to try and find an island looking into the rising sun. You may never see it until it is under you or behind you. Leaving off the correct radios to make up for this did not help.
She really was an early pioneer of the “Do stupid stunts for clicks on YouTube” reality TV lifestyle.
By restoration, I didn’t mean flyable, just showable
Sea water + bare alloy aluminum + Impact damage + 90-years in tropical seas/tides/storms = complete physical and corrosive destruction of all trace of that 1930s aircraft.
Nah, there would be some of it left including the engines. Not enough to make into anything that looks like an airplane, but not nothing. Insurance will have to write if off as a total loss.
Seriously, NO.
I’ve recovered/investigated 2 small jets from tropical waters [Panama, Honduras]… with modern corrosion protection… a few days after crashing… aluminum corrosion and steel rust was already evident… and currents were already stretching the debris field and affecting recovery diver performance.
I agree. After 88 years in warm saltwater, bare aluminum from Earhart’s Electra would be heavily corroded or gone. Impact, storms, and marine life worsen destruction. Recovery chances are extremely slim, only buried fragments or wedged parts may survive. The engines, being more durable, are the most likely components to endure.
Not to forget the aluminum eating crocodiles which probably wish to retain their foodsource. Had one of these show up during my seaplane commercial checkride and these things are scary!
??? Huhhh??? No ‘Salties’ near/around these remote/tiny Pacific atoll islands… but plenty of other marine predators.
BTW old engines were made from magnesium, aluminum and alloy steels… with a few other alloys. And even the prop blades and copper/steel wires and tires and acrylic windows are gone. Even the glass parts would be eroded to oblivion.
“The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.” --Joseph Conrad
Boy here is a bad case of penis envy if ever there was one. Gosh AJ, let’s take a look for a moment at her accomplishments:
- On October 22, 1922, Earhart flew the Airster to an altitude of 14,000 feet (4,300 m), setting a world record for female pilots.
- May 16, 1923, Earhart became the 16th woman in the United States to be issued a pilot’s license
- First woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1928
- note by expert pilots, "General Leigh Wade, who flew with Earhart in 1929, said: “She was a born flier, with a delicate touch on the stick”
- In August 1928, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back
- On April 8, 1931 Earhart set a world altitude record of 18,415 feet (5,613 m) flying a Pitcairn PCA-2[72] autogyro
- On May 20, 1932 Earhart completed the first female solo nonstop Transatlantic flight
- On January 11, 1935, Earhart became the first aviator to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California.
- Between 1930 and 1935, Earhart set seven women’s speed-and-distance aviation records in a variety of aircraft, including the Kinner Airster, Lockheed Vega, and Pitcairn Autogiro
That is just the flying accomplishments, excluding the organizations she started and led.
Do you have any first’s AJ? Break any records? Do something to promote aviation other then be a Debby Downer on females pilots?
You are certainly not the first man to get uncomfortable at the accomplishments of a woman pilot.
She died, like many other famous and not so famous pilots because the Swiss cheese model sadly lined up that day. Ever read “Fate Is The Hunter” because there is a long list of male pilots that died…trying to think if you have anything negative to say about them as well?
In regards to the search, people spend money on far stupider things so if Perdue wants to do this…have at it. If they find it then a great mystery solved as to location, and if they don’t, well I’ll go with the Star Trek version and they got picked up by aliens and transported to a planets far far away.
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Clearly none of you are avid scuba divers. Airplanes do not dissolve into nothing quickly. I have been diving on planes that have been down for many years and still look like airplanes. Here is a WW II wreck that has been down almost a century and while it won’t be flying anytime soon, you can still tell what it is.
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She was a circus act in an era of circus acts.
She (like many others at the time) used aviation to promote themselves.
Basically it was easy being “an aviation first” at a speed or a distance back in the late 20’s and 30’s; doubly easy if you were a woman.
No new records for me, all I have are 50+ years of safe accident free flying.
All I have is the satisfaction of knowing that I broke Earhart’s record in that regard.
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