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It's one of the most enduring mysteries of our time: what happened to pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 as she attempted to fly around the world?
Four border collies named Berkeley, Piper, Marcy, and Kayle may have answers. On Wednesday, National Geographic reported that an expedition organized by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) will set sail from Fiji on Saturday, June 24, with the specially trained forensic dogs from the Institute for Canine Forensics along for the ride.
The mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart may be as close as it’s ever been to being solved https://t.co/Kqa1bGdu1c
— National Geographic (@NatGeo) June 21, 2017
The group's Earhart Project has spent decades testing the hypothesis that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed safely on Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro, about 400 miles (640 kilometers) southeast of their intended landing spot, Howland Island. According to the project's website, the group believes Earhart and Noonan survived on the island for a time as castaways, catching and cooking small fish, seabirds, turtles and clams.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday June 25 2017, @12:49PM
http://www.theelectraproject.com/electra-flies.html [theelectraproject.com]
With an elaborate explanation of navigational technique of that era and communications discussion why:
"the downed plane may be either west or east of Howland at some distance – perhaps between 30 and 60 miles" and then goes into a discussion of why based on weather reports it was probably west when it crashed into the sea.
Something I can't find online is in the 90s there was a boxed retail flight sim addon for Earhart's planned route, including all the airports at that time and if I recall it contained minimal charts. Its been so well memory holed I can't find its existence via the usual google searches. I purchased it in the 90s (couldn't have been as recent as 00s for some living quarters reasons and pilot license training reasons) and I remember her aircraft wasn't the easiest to fly and had relatively poor visibility.