Simviation Forums

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mys ... ar-BBbVCrA


Researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) revealed that a piece from Amelia Earhart’s vanished aircraft has been identified in Nikumaroro, an atoll in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati..............................

Thank you for the post. I enjoyed the article and hope that there is more to come.

Keep smiling
Tug

Thanks for the interesting Link "jcj78"...glad to see they will do a follow up on the find...

Well, don't believe everything a group looking for funding may tell you. I'm not buying the TIGHAR group's "could be-might be" claims. More likely they're fishing for funding to pay for their trips to the South Pacific, sorry to say.

Time will tell.

Click on the last word ("patch") in the 2nd paragraph to see the Miami Herald file photos taken in Miami at that time.

I really hope that they are on to something positive in the search but I don't think this is the piece they suspect it is.
The horizontal rivet pattern doesn't make sense for a simple window patch, SEE PHOTO 1. Five rows and no vertical rows where the patch would be fastened to the frames? The horizontal rows are also spaced too close together to be consistent with the stringers as shown in PHOTO 2. I say it doesn't match the plans and the Electra's structure as reported in the article, no way. The next sentence confirms it by stating that it was a "field modification". Field modifications by their very nature are not part of the original plans and blueprints of an aircraft.
PHOTO 3 does indeed show a patch/covering over the aft window and again looking at PHOTO 2 it would be rather large because it probably would have gone beyond the window framework. If I was installing a patch like that I would certainly avoid tampering with the framework because that's a high stress area and it's beefed up structure. Altering that would complicate the eventual permanent repair of the window.
I hope it really is a part of her plane; I just don't think it's the window patch.


Hawkeye

I found some more info via the original posted article that I find interesting. The cutout I mentioned above is not in the photo of the spot where the patch was discovered (SEE PHOTOS BELOW) so someone cut a piece off after it was found. The second photo below again shows the inconsistencies in the rivet pattern claimed to be an exact match.
So does my assessment seem logical or am I full of S**t?

Hawkeye