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#21
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To follow up on a message I sent you about an hour ago. I sent an
email to a friend (Jay Apt) who did four shuttle missions. In his reply he said that the commander of the shuttle sits in the left front seat and physcially flies the spacecraft on descent and landing. The "pilot" sits in the right seat and is effectively the copilot. (Sounds like an "interesting" way of naming the positions to me.) Another example of political correctness, no doubt. Airlines, as you know, typically call the copilot a "first officer." Derived from the nautical "first mate," I suppose. vince norris |
#22
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Vince,
Rick, a retired USAF friend passes his copies of _Air Force_ magazine on to me when he finishes them; the one he gave me yesterday, the November 2004 issue, has an article on Byrd and Balchen. I thought it might present some new evidence, but I found nothing startling in it. It did say that Byrd and Balchen had become "estranged" and that Bennett had told Balchen that he and Byrd had not reached the North Pole. What is amazing to me is that Byrd and Balchen are buried within several feet of each other at Arlington National Cemetery. Byrd attacked Balchen pretty viciously prior to the end of Byrd's life, apparently because Balchen had gotten publicity for his rescues in Greenland (including landing a PBY, gear up on the ice cap to pick up downed flight crew) and in Alaska. Balchen never publicly said anything negative about Bryd as a person, yet wsa the victim of some nasty smears by Byrd and then by Byrd's estate, which forced Balchen to delete the performance data on the Fokker 3m from his autobiograhy under threat of being suied by Byrd's estate (which had a lot more money than a retired Colonel could lay his hands on). Seems to me that the possibility that Byrd never intended to fly to the Pole, that the whole expedition was a hoax, is just too wild to have any credibility. That leaves us with three possibilities: 1. Byrd intended to fly to the pole, but after the oil leak developed, he aborted the attempt and circled for 15 hours. 2. Byrd intended to fly to the pole, even after the the oil leak, but made some kind of error in dead reckoning, and failed to reach the Pole although he thought he had. Perhaps he recognized this at some point and "adjusted" the data. 3. Byrd reached the Pole. It seems to me that 2 is much more likely than 1; and 3, although questionable, cannot be ruled out entirely. It is virtually impossible to imagine that Byrd, an Annapolis-trained navigator, would have neglected to calculate, while planning the flight, an ETA at the Pole and an ETA back at Spitzbergen. Now, if he *knowingly* turned back before reaching the pole, wouldn't he have made certain he did not arrive back at Spitzbergen too early? It would have been pretty dumb not to do that, wouldn't it? He could have instructed Bennett to throttle back, or to circle. Consider that Bennett had no navigational gear in the cockpit. How in the world would he, Bennett, know they had not reached the Pole, unless Byrd had told him, either (a), explicitly, or (b) by tipping him off by requesting he circle or otherwise delay their arrival back at Spitzbergen? There is no way, just by looking out the windshield, that Bennett could know whether he is is, or is not, over the Pole. I suspect Byrd turned back too early, possibly because of concern about the oil leak. ......... there were weather reporting stations in the Arctic Sorry, Rick, I still remain stubbornly skeptical about wind reports. It's about 700 miles from Spitzbergen to the Pole, and it's all water or ice. Rarely if ever would the winds be the same over such a large area. I doubt very much there was a single weather reporting station anywhere along that route, or even near it, much less one capable of measuring winds at altitude. ...and there is a historical record of the location of the highs and lows,.... Modern weather reporting and forecasting developed during World War I (which is why the use of the word "front" came about. It got sophisticated fairly rapidly with the ability to identify low and high pressure centers by the end of the war, based on widely scattered reporting stations. The next big bumps in weather technology came about during the space age. Without having it in front of me, the university that got involved in this issue had a meteorology professor publish the information that was available for the area at the time (remember there were reporting points all around the artic in the Soviet Union, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Spitsbergen, Norway, Finland, etc.). While the data isn't perfect by any means, there was nothing to show that there was enough instability in the area, with a fast moving front that would cause a strong tailwind for both portions of the trip, north and south. Had there been, the weather would probably also not have been VFR. (The weather forecasting was sophisticated enough to predict whether the weather would be VFR for the routes used both by Byrd and Amundsen.) I keep thinking the meteorologist report and speed calculations was included in Montague's book. He was a reporter who covered a lot of the long distance/exploration flights in the '20s and '30s and was one who was suspicious of Byrd's claims. ... both Fokker and Balchen wrote of frustration with Byrd not going when the weather was reported to be good and then, three weeks after Lindbergh went, abruptly decided to go when the weather forecast was awful, making the public comment that "modern airliners must be able to fly in all kinds of weather". Now that raises an interesting question in my mind! Do you suppose Byrd was deliberately waiting for BAD weather, to prove that "modern airliners" can fly in all kinds of weather? Doubtful, Byrd's repeated public pronouncements prior to Lindbergh taking off was that he was waiting for very good weather because safety was paramount. He kept saying that for a while after Lindbergh made it, but then made the "modern airliners" comment and launched when the forecasts were awful. No one writing about the flight has ever provided a theory for Byrd's behavior in delaying departure for so long and then abruptly going when he did. Interetingly, Byrd had had a hill built of dirt so the Fokker could start its takeoff roll with an assist. The tailskid was tied with a rope to allow Acosta (pilot flying for takeoff) to get full power before the airplane moved. The rope broke at about half throttle, yet Acosta managed to recover from the surprise and make a masterful takeoff of a horribly overloaded airplane. There is a web site on Byrd that gives the names of those who served with him in Antarctica (I found it on google by typing in: Byrd Balchen "South Pole" After several ties, I've been unable to get that site. Could you possibly send the URL? I've been looking again and haven't found it yet. I did find: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020594/fullcredits that might be of assistance. I'll keep looking and if I can locate that site again, I'll post it. Ah, ha! Just found the one I wanted, from Congressional Gold Medal recipients, it's the one I referenced: http://www.congressionalgoldmedal.com/RichardEByrd.htm Hope that helps. All the best, Rick |
#23
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What is amazing to me is that Byrd and Balchen are buried within
several feet of each other at Arlington National Cemetery. Possibly arranged by some bureaucrat who was unaware of any animosity between the two, and thought it would be appropriate to bury them close to each other. Balchen ..... was the victim of some nasty smears by Byrd and then by Byrd's estate, which forced Balchen to delete the performance data on the Fokker 3m from his autobiograhy under threat of being suied by Byrd's estate (which had a lot more money than a retired Colonel could lay his hands on). I'm not a lawyer (I understand you are), but it's my impression one cannot libel dead person; thus Byrd's estate did not have a case. I suspect Byrd turned back too early, possibly because of concern about the oil leak. That is certainly a reasonable suspicion. Modern weather reporting and forecasting developed during World War I (which is why the use of the word "front" came about. Never heard that before! There is a web site on Byrd that gives the names of those who served with him in Antarctica (I found it on google by typing in: Byrd Balchen "South Pole" Ah, ha! Just found the one I wanted, from Congressional Gold Medal recipients, it's the one I referenced: http://www.congressionalgoldmedal.com/RichardEByrd.htm That's dated 1930, so it wouldn't have anything about later trips. But fortunately, an old friend of mine remembered the name of that navigator; it's Bob Spann. Googling, I found a site that lists Antarctic peaks: http://geonames.usgs.gov/stategaz/ANTARCTICA.TXT and there I found: Spann, Mount 00014312 8203S 04121W A mountain, 925 m, marking the N extremity of the Panzarini Hills and the Argentina Range, at the NE end of the Pensacola Mountains. Discovered and photographed on Jan. 13, 1956 in the course of a USN transcontinental nonstop plan flight from McMurdo Sound to Weddell Sea and return. Named by US-ACAN for Staff Sgt. Robert C. Spann, USMC, navigator of the P2V-2N Neptune aircraft during this flight. So he wasn't a M.Sgt, and I couldn't remember his name, but I got part of it right, anyway. vince norris |
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