Busy time for Project Amelia Earhart flyer

Busy time for Project Amelia Earhart flyer

The commemorative Amelia Earhart flight by Brian Lloyd WB6RQN reached Darwin to enjoy local hospitality and some Territory Day celebration events that included a fireworks display.

When the 62 year old Texan landed at Darwin airport on July 1 there were so many aircraft there he had to put his single-engine 1979 Mooney 231 aircraft in the ‘boneyard’ for no longer needed aircraft.

Greeting his arrival in Australia was Stuie VK8NSB, who had been in contact with him on the 20 metre band and via a satellite phone while he was in the air, having left Bandung Indonesia.

During an earlier news conference in Bandung, Brian WB6RQN told of his around the world flight, the achievements Amelia Earhart who disappeared in 1937, and how he was looking forward to seeing Australia as a tourist.

Stuie VK8NSB found that most of the time he talked about mutual interests in radio, flying, and in telling Stuie’s two young children of his adventures so far. He hoped to return to Australia later.

“With Brian now part of the family, we headed to the Territory Day fireworks at East Point Darwin, had dinner there … spending about two hours before heading home.”

Brian WB6RQN was very grateful for the hospitality after his 10 hour flight. Spent time answering emails, updating Facebook and other Internet requirements, and off to sleep.

As Stuie VK8NSB explains the flyer was cooked a ‘big breaky, bacon and eggs with a full spread’, then taken to the Casuarina shopping centre for an Australian phone card.

He had planned to fly out of Darwin at lunch time Sunday, with Stuie VK8NSB willing to assist in many ways including seeing that the aircraft was refuelled.

“I helped him push his plane on to the taxiway, wrote a welcome to Australia message and signed the wing, and oh, helped him stick the flag of Australia on the plane - each country he goes to he puts the sticker on, in order.”

Stuie VK8NSB found the whole experience very rewarding, and putting on the Australian flag was a “very cool to be part of that with Brian”.

During the meeting Brian WB6RQN revealed that he “plans to drop a reef of flowers when over Howland Island in memory of Amelia Earhart.”

That was where the famed aviator and author Amelia Earhart, and her navigator Fred Noonan, vanished July 2, 1937.

He told Stuie VK8NSB it was his belief that both were “safely on the beach on remote Gardner Island (Nikumaroro) and attempted to radio for help, but ran out of fuel and died”.

After taking off from Darwin on Sunday he was worked on the 20 metre band by Mike VK8MA who had him near Katherine on the away to Central Australia’s Uluru (Ayres Rock), involving a five hour flight.

Many VKs worked him on this leg. News of the event was well known with Facebook chatter, the WIA website, the Sunday morning VK1WIA broadcast and in general.

On reaching Uluru, Brian WB6RQN said: “I got some good shots of Ayers Rock. Now it's off to Birdsville for a quick lunch and then on to Bundaberg.”

The Australian flight plan ends in Sydney where a TV interview was planned. After Sydney across the Tasman Sea comes Auckland, then the Pacific for Suva, a fly-over of Howland Island which has no runway and where a flower reef will be dropped, to Hawaii, then ending the two month flight.

Earlier the flight has took him across the Atlantic Ocean from Miami, to South America, through Africa, India, South-East Asia, and to Australia.

Brian WB6RQN is on 14.210, 14.346, 18.117 or 7.130 using a 125 watt transmitter on SSB.

Jim Linton VK3PC


http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2017/july/busy-time-for-project-amelia-earhart-flyer.htm

 

Well, with due respect, this will not bring her back.

The entire AE incident had the effect of freezing progress in aviation, that only re-booted several years later with the war. One may justifiably argue that AE's efforts lifted aviation out of its canvas and barnstormer days. IF she had made it--it would have been a different world, where radar would have been developed at a higher level and training would have been common, as aviation would have not taken a step back...

Despite her ignorance and unjustified risks, the lady deserves our admiration.

IOW, it is possible that Pearl Harbor would have been a battle and not a massacre , and Japan would have proved overextended long before 1945. IF AE had made it...

Certainly Purdue University was using AE to bootstrap into a world center for aviation engineering. That did not happen, in 1937.

 

How did she impede aviation?

 

Aha! "Cherche' la femme!" I knew a woman was behind this somehow!

 

Didn't say that. Read again.

 

I spoke to Brian the other day on 20m, great signals. No matter what the
inspiration for his flight it is still a great adventure!!!

 

This is a great event, highlights amateur radio and W1YW post is slightly disappointing. Take about throwing the baby out with the bath water..!

 

What's disappointing is your negative read on a positive post. Read with comprehension.Try again.

 

Current flight schedule for Brian WB6RQN/ Aeronautical Mobile.
Primary Frequency: kHz USB 14346.0 kHz Voice and ALE
Other Voice and ALE Frequencies: kHz 21432.5 USB - 18117.5 USB - 7185.5 USB

Location : Date : Days : Airport ID​

• Ft. Lauderdale Executive : 31-May : 1 : KFXE
• St Thomas, VI : 1-Jun : 0 :
• Canefield Airport, Dominica : 1-Jun : 1 : TDCF
• Port of Spain, Trinidad : 2-Jun : 1 : TTPP
• Paramaribo, Suriname : 3-Jun : 1 : SMJP
• Fortaleza, Brazil : 4-Jun : 3 : SBFZ
• Natal, Brazil : 7-Jun : 1 : SBNT
• Dakar, Senegal : 9-Jun : 2 : GOOY
• N’Djamena, Chad : 11-Jun : 1 : FTTJ
• Khartoum, Sudan : 12-Jun : 1 : HSSS
• Muscat, Oman : 13-Jun : 1 : OOMS
• Karachi, Pakistan : 14-Jun : 2 : OPKC
• Kolkata, India : 16-Jun : 1 : VECC
• Chittagong, Bangladesh : 17-Jun : 1 : VGEG
• Rangoon, Myanmar : 18-Jun : 1: VYYY
• Bangkok, Thailand : 19-Jun : 2 : VTBD
• Singapore, Singapore : 21-Jun :7 : WSSL
• Bandung, Java, Indonesia : 29-Jun : 1 : WICC
• Darwin, Australia : 30-Jun : 2 : YPDN
• Ayers Rock, Australia : 2-Jul : 1 : YAYE
• Birdsville, Australia : 3-July : 0 : YBDV
• Bundaberg, Australia : 3-Jul : 2 : YBUD
• Gunnedah, Australia : 5-Jul : 0 : YGDH
• Warnervale, Australia : 5-Jul : 1 : YWVA
• Sydney, Australia : 6-Jul : 0 : YSBK
• Hamilton, NZ : 6-Jul : 8 : NZHN
• Suva, Fiji : 14-Jul : 2 : NFNA
• Howland Island overflight : 16-Jul : 0
• Kiritimati, Kiribati : 16-Jul: 1 : PLCH
• Kauai, HI, USA : 15-Jul : 2 : PHLI
• Honolulu, HI, USA : 17-Jul : 0 : PHNL
• Hilo, HI, USA : 17-Jul : 2 : PHTO
• Oakland, CA, USA : 19-Jul : 3 : KOAK
• Atchison, KS, USA : 22-Jul : 2 : KK59
• Oshkosh, WI, USA : 24-Jul : 5 : KOSH
• Kestrel Airpark, TX, USA : 29-Jul : : 1T7

Note: Dates and locations are approximate and subject to change without notice.

More information about: the WB6RQN Ham Radio flight.

 

Audio recording of WB6RQN / Aeronautical Mobile on 2 July 2017 flying over the outback of central Australia, on 14346.0 kHz USB voice, in QSO with several VK operators around Australia:
http://projectameliaearhart.org/wp/...nautical_Mobile_Australia_3JULy2017_rx_NZ.mp3
click to play audio


Recorded via a web SDR in New Zealand.

Brian WB6RQN/Aeronautical Mobile flying Spirit while operating HF radio.


Spirit in flight. HF antenna visible on belly.


Uluru Rock (aka Ayers Rock) from Spirit. photo ©2017 Brian Lloyd CC-BY 2.0


Control panel of Spirit. Micom 3 HF radio visible at upper right.

 

Last year, we had one of those pseudo science pieces crop up on QRZed , which focused on AE and the radio xmissions. The whole thing was a spoof. But it did interest people, including me, to explore more about AE and the times she lived in.

It is a fascinating story. If you go beyond the hero worship nonsense you will learn a lot--about people, perception, guts, carelessness, and fatalism. AE was a remarkable person. She was constantly reinventing herself--that's a virtue that you don't have much of in Australia. That's an observation, not an insult. The US has lots of it: in fact, it is the premise of our best novel (Great Gatsby).

It seems odd to celebrate a plane ride without celebrating AE and her reinvention. In some ways, its as if we missed the point. Check out the person, not the 1937 plane crash.

If you don't like the factual reality that I summarized--well, go ahead and dispute it. Let's see what you got. You might learn a lot about the causes of WWII, for example. Teach us something new.

73
Chip W1YW

 

The days of the great adventurers seems all but lost to memory. We started the 20th century in the horse and buggy era and were walking on the Moon before the end of 1969. Now that was quite an age. We really don't see that kind of "great adventurer" any more. Yes there are still a few who venture out to accomplish something no one has yet done, but it seems different some how in this technological era with GPS and satellite communications and tracking. Technology has the adventurers's backs these days, and help can be dispatched. The great adventurers of old were, in my opinion, in much greater peril if something went wrong, and it often did. Hero worship makes me want to puke. However, admiration for the age of great adventurers willing to push the edge way beyond what it had been at that time, and admiration for the adventurers themselves for giving it their best try, well that is worth having. Yes, some adventurers were too little experienced, too eager to get fame, too willing to take stupid chances, but they still inspired. Truth be known, I'm sure more adventurers were driven by their huge egos and their search for fame than by anything else. Yet they still inspired. I look at the years from 1969 to present, and when I compare it to the years from 1900 to 1969, I have to wonder where the hell that adventure spirit went. Apparently it died with my parents generation, and we Boomers and later generations have been too content to sit on our couches and accomplish nothing great. Kudos to the generations before ours who dared to venture out beyond their own little worlds and who encouraged the great adventures of what now seems the long ago past. Today we talk of going to Mars, but probably never will. Then they talked about sailing around the world or going to the Moon, and then they went out and did it!

 

W1YW, from what I've read AE and Noonan were actually very poor aviators when the skills and technical side is looked at. AE kept damaging her plane on takeoffs and landings, necessitating constant repairs. She kept landing her plane in the wrong locations-for example, she was due to stop at Miami Municipal Airport before leaving US territory, but landed instead at 39th Street Airport. With the previous sentence in mind, it's easy to see how she could have landed on the wrong island, and while doing so have damaged her plane to the point where it wouldn't fly. I personally agree with Brian Lloyd that she landed on Gardner Island aka Nikumaroro and due partially to the incompetence of the USAAC search teams-a pilot passed over Gardner and thought he saw signs of human habitation, but dismissed it as an indigenous settlement, however the island was uninhabited by natives at the time-she and Noonan starved to death. AE may have even managed to send out a mayday signal-at least one person in the mainland US made notes of what the person believed to be an AE mayday, and the notes contained info that the person could not have otherwise known-but for some reason the US military never heard the mayday. Incompetence all the way around. Really a sad case. That said, AE was a trailblazer, in a time when women were supposed to be barefoot and pregnant their whole lives.

 

First, I have a name. Are you bold enough to use it? Are you uncomfortable with blurting 'Nathan Cohen'? 'Chip'?

Next, I quote from my passage..."carelessness and fatalism..." That covers your above, don't you think?

Its dumb that the 'women's movement' has taken --sole-- possession of AE. AE was a remarkable PERSON. She was an inspiration, in part, for ALL PEOPLE.

Plenty of men--including myself-- have been brought up to see women on equal terms. In fact, it is unnatural to see otherwise.

I think a MAN doing this flying trip is the perfect example of seeing women on equal terms, and celebrating men AND women of remarkable bent.

THAT, IMO, is how this flight should be seen and enjoyed.

 

Been Following you all the way Brian .... Hope to meet you in Wisconsin ...... Best of Luck to you & GB ...... 73's ..... Andy WX8NN