Kind: captions
Language: en
as the sun rose on July 2nd 1937 Amelia
aart knew she was in trouble over the
radio she called we must be on you but
cannot see you gas is running low been
unable to reach you by radio we are
flying at 1,000
ft beneath her was water in every
direction as far as the eye could see
she got herself into this predicament
through A Series of Unfortunate Events
and bad decisions
many of them could have been avoided
with a better knowledge of physics but
even so there was one thing she could
have done in this moment one switch she
could have flipped that would likely
have saved her life and Changed
History this video is sponsored by kiwo
more about them at the end of the
show Amelia aart was vying to become the
first female pilot to fly around the
world I hope to accomplish something
really scientifically worthwhile for
Aviation and she wasn't taking any
shortcuts other successful
circumnavigations had followed a
northern route mostly staying close to
land but a heart's route would be the
longest by following a path close to the
equator this meant the last part of her
journey was the hardest crossing the
full width of the Pacific Ocean the
starting point for this Crossing was Lei
a city on on the Eastern side of New
Guinea at the time it was one of the
world's busiest airports a hub of
traffic from Asia and Australia at 10:00
a.m. on a hot July day airheart piloted
her locki Electra down the runway and
took off on what would be her final
flight the Pacific Ocean is huge it's
way bigger than the Atlantic I mean if
you look at the globe from that side you
see almost no land the problem was in
1937 most planes could only fly a
maximum of a few thousand kilom so
airheart removed everything unnecessary
from her plane she ripped out the
insulation to reduce weight but that
made the engine noise so overwhelming
she had to communicate with her
Navigator sitting right beside her using
written notes she packed almost nothing
telling her husband extra close clothes
and extra food would have been extra
weight and extra
worry she replaced the passenger seats
with fuel tanks effectively turning her
plane into a flying gas can but even so
the Electra's maximum range was between
6600 and 7200 km in perfect weather it
could be just enough to reach Hawaii
from Lei or she might come up
disastrously
short so aart needed a place to stop and
refuel along the way now it might seem
like there's no land here but if you
zoom in there is this tiny Island
halfway between Australia and Hawaii
Howland Island is just over 2 km long
and less than 1 km wide the US had
claimed it as part of the guano Islands
Act of 1856 but in 1937 it was barely
inhabited with just a handful of
colonists it would be an ideal to refuel
if only it had a
Runway fortunately for aart by the time
of her round the world flight she was
already
famous in 1928 she became the first
female passenger to cross the Atlantic
by airplane this made her an
International Celebrity she said she
could and she did
[Music]
it but she wanted to fly herself saying
maybe someday I'll try it alone so in
1932 she attempted to Pilot a plane solo
across the Atlantic heading for Paris
she brought with her only a toothbrush
one container of soup and three cans of
tomato
[Music]
juice but storms ice and dense fog
battered her small plane a seam in the
exhaust manifold cracked and Flames from
the engine spewed out into the night gas
leaked down her neck from a broken tank
and after 14 15 hours she landed in a
pasture in Northern Ireland her face was
so covered in grease a farmand couldn't
tell if she was a man or a woman he
asked if she had flown far from America
she replied I wish I could have done it
faster these Adventures brought her into
the orbits of powerful people like the
first lady Elanor Roosevelt I'm Mrs
Roosevelt won't you go for a ride
tonight over walkington it rning lovely
from the air at night and using her new
connection she lobbied the president to
hire her friend Eugene Vidal to head the
Bureau of Commerce Vidal had promised
aart a runway on Howland Island but red
tape stalled progress only months before
her planned takeoff so airheart wrote
directly to President Roosevelt she
explained that the airst strip funds
required immediate approval writing
please forgive Troublesome female flyer
for whom this Howland Island project is
key to world flight attempt the
president resident approved the project
4 days later and three runways were soon
cleared so she had a place to land but
how would she find this tiny Speck of an
island in a vast
ocean well flying with her in the
Electra was her Navigator Fred Nunan and
he would calculate the flight plan they
knew the direction of Howland so they
could use the onboard Compass to set
their bearing toward it they knew their
air speed and could figure out their
ground speed by subtracting or adding
the wind and then they could calculate
how long it should take to reach the
island this method is known as dead
reckoning but they wouldn't aim directly
at the island because if they did that
and they didn't see it at the prescribed
time they wouldn't know in which
direction they were off so instead they
intentionally picked a point either
north or south of the island let's say
they picked South they estimated the
trip would take 18 hours so they would
fly through day and night and once they
had traveled for the calculated length
of time they could confidently turn
north and spot the
island before takeoff the ground crew
estimated they would encounter a
headwind of 24
kmph but just 20 minutes after takeoff
lay radioed air heart to warn that the
headwinds would be stronger she didn't
acknowledge their message
knowing the correct wind speed was
critical because it would affect how
long it would take to reach the island
if it took longer aart would have to
turn later so she couldn't rely on dead
reckoning alone to reach
Howland as an independent check on their
location Nunan would take measurements
of the sun moon and stars this is known
as Celestial
navigation he had an almanac that listed
58 navigation stars and the point on
Earth each one would be directly
overhead for the day and time of his
measurement if they found themselves
directly under a navigation star well
then they would immediately know their
position but generally they would not be
that lucky so Nunan would measure the
angle above the Horizon to a navigation
star and use that to work out how far
away they were from the point on the
Earth where that star would be directly
overhead so he could trace out a circle
on the globe of possible location
and then he would measure the angle to
another navigation star and draw out a
second Circle and now they must be at
one of these two Circle
intersections normally the circles were
so large that only one of the
intersections would be a plausible
position that way they could continually
update their location and adjust
bearings as needed but even with
Celestial navigation errors could
accumulate over long trips earlier in
the journey when air heart across the
Atlantic they missed their intended
airport in hazy conditions nunan's
calculations were reasonable but small
errors put them off course luckily in
Africa there were plenty of other places
to land safely the same could not be
said for
Howland so for the flight across the
Pacific Airhart commandeered three US
Navy and Coast Guard ships the atasa
would be stationed at Howland Island the
Ontario would be half way along the
Route and the swan was positioned midway
between Howland and Hawaii the atasco
would send out smoke signals as airheart
approached to help her spot the island
but even more importantly All Ships were
equipped with
radio now in 1937 radio was still fairly
new tech German physicist Heinrich Herz
discovered radio waves in the late 1880s
he excited electrons to oscillate back
and forth in his transmitter and a few
meters away his receiver was a loop of
wire with a small Gap in it when Herz
looked at it through a microscope in the
dark he saw faint Sparks jumping across
the Gap the Sparks were strongest when
the receiving Loop was flat if it was
vertical then no sparks were observed
this demonstrated that radio waves are
transverse waves with electric and
magnetic fields oscillating
perpendicular to each other and
perpendicular to the direction of the
wave motion when the receiving Loop was
aligned with the direction the wave was
traveling the changing magnetic field
through the loop induced an EMF that
created the
spark but if the loop was facing the
transmitter then there was no change in
magnetic flux through the loop and so no
spark was
observed now Herz couldn't see the
future he had ushered in he said I do
not think that the Wireless Waves I have
discovered will have any practical
application but within a few years years
people started sending messages using
radio and by the 1920s Radio
Entertainment broadcast took off ships
and planes routinely used radio to send
Morse code and some including airheart
could send and receive voice
messages in fact airheart had five radio
antennas around the plane each for a
specific purpose the largest antenna
could be reeled in and out like a
fishing line behind the plane it was 76
M long which was necessary to
efficiently send and receive Morse code
via the 4 or 500 khz radio waves used by
ships and remote stations ideally an
antenna should be at least a quarter of
the wavelength of the radio wave it's
transmitting or receiving this improves
the efficiency of the conversion from
electrical energy to radiated
electromagnetic energy air heart's
trailing antenna was only around an
eighth of the wavelength but it was
connected to a high power transmitter so
its signals could still be detected over
1,000 km away next were two antennas for
voice Communications on higher
frequencies a transmitting V antenna on
the roof of the plane and a receiving
antenna along its
belly higher frequencies were useful for
two reasons first they require smaller
antennas which save weight and can be
better accommodated on small sparse
planes and second highfrequency radio
waves can travel long distances by
bouncing off a layer of the atmosphere
called the
ionosphere starting about 50 km above
Earth's surface radiation from the Sun
splits electrons off molecules forming a
layer of ions and free
electrons radio waves with certain
frequencies interact with these free
electrons and are effectively reflected
back to Earth it's as if they've bounced
off a big wobbly mirror in the
sky this effect is called skipping and
it scatters radio waves all over the
place
these radio waves can then reflect off
the ocean and back off the ionosphere
making multiple hops to travel thousands
of
kilm during the daytime the intense
radiation from the Sun means the
ionosphere starts lower in denser
atmosphere and because of this lower
frequency radio waves are more likely to
be absorbed than
reflected so aviators would typically
use the higher 6210 khz to skip their
signals during the day and then the
lower 3105 k at night once the bottom of
the ionosphere had lifted into thinner
[Music]
air 4 hours after takeoff airheart
radioed an update to lay on her daytime
frequency of
6210 she reported her altitude at 7,000
ft and speed at 140 knots before
concluding with her typical sign off
everything okay but she never
acknowledged calls from Lei about the
headwind they radioed again at 11:20 and
1220 but never got a response from
airart in all likelihood she never heard
them she did radio 6 hours into her
flight to report stronger headwinds but
she makes no mention of Lay's earlier
warnings it's possible the receiving
belly antenna was broken fell off or
something in the receiving Electronics
wasn't working but her ability to
receive voice messages was clearly
impaired 9 hours into the flight aart
expected to come upon the Ontario she
listened for morse code NS on 400
khz but she heard
nothing the original plan was that the
Ontario would wait for her to radio them
to request that they start transmitting
but the day before takeoff aart realized
she had made a mistake the Ontario had
told her they wouldn't be able to
receive any highfrequency signals which
meant no voice communication so she sent
an urgent telegram asking the Ontario to
transmit the morse code ends repeatedly
10 minutes after each
hour the purpose of the morse code from
the Ontario was actually to allow Amelia
airheart to make use of her two final
antennas so she had a loop antenna just
like this one and a sense antenna these
were designed to allow her to locate the
source of radio waves this was the final
and most critical way that airheart
planned to stay on course and locate
Howland Island she wrote I doubt if I'd
try the flight to Tiny Howland Island
without it supplementing Fred nunan's
skill all right so I have an antenna
here and I'm aligning it vertically in
this tree how are we how are we there so
the Ontario was sending out Morse code
signals on their antenna and here we
have a transmitter tuned to about 3.6
MHz
I'm going to put on uh this
blindfold and use the loop antenna to
try to locate the transmitter and
because I already know where the
transmitter is we'll spin me around a
few times to really disorient me so uh
Clifford oh
sorry are you
going all right whoa I'm a bit
dizzy so the radio waves are going to be
emitted in all directions radially away
from the antenna the electric field will
will be oscillating up and down and the
magnetic field will be oscillating back
and forth so if I hold up this Loop like
this sort of parallel to the direction
that the waves are traveling then the
magnetic field is going to be changing
through the loop and because of that
it's going to create uh an EMF and
current and I can pick that up because
I'm tuned to the right frequency here so
I got a fairly strong signal woo it's
very strong but if I rotate the loop
like that
well now the magnetic field is
oscillating back and forth but not
changing through the loop itself because
it's parallel to the loop and so in this
orientation I'm going to get a null
reading if I turn it this way there's a
null but if you turn at
90° now all the magnetic field is
passing through this Loop and so I can
hear a maximum here so this is what
airheart wanted to measure using her
loop antenna to detect the repeated n
Morse code from the Ontario she would
turn it until she found the null and
then she would know the direction to the
ship something that's interesting is if
I turn it away we get another null
because again there's no magnetic flux
passing through this Loop now the first
time she picked up the signal she would
probably be heading straight towards the
ship or close enough so she would know
that it's roughly that way but there's a
chance that she's gone past it and if
you go past it well then you also get a
null but the ship is behind you not in
front of you so that's where the sense
antenna comes in the sense antenna gives
you a cardioid pickup pattern so it has
a single null instead of two nulls and
so that allows you to determine whether
it is in front or behind you if you walk
a bit you'll know if it's getting weaker
or stronger all right I feel like I've
picked the wrong the wrong direction
I'll try the I'll try the sense antenna
to to see if I can figure it out with
the sense antenna the only null points
directly away from the transmitter so
it's easy to use the sense antenna to
check which null is correct but then
only use the loop when navigating
because it gives a sharper null I I
think using the sense antenna that
the uh the transmitter is right in front
of me now I'm looking for another null
here oh there's a null
give it a
go there
there definitely louder
louder oh it's funny cuz you move a
little bit and then you start hearing
signal again this does not feel like I'm
walking in the right direction well
that's either the right way to go or
it's the wrong way to go oh no trying to
fly a plane and do this would
be very hard especially with the sound
of that engine
would have been
roaring
oh feel like it's getting
loud it's really loud here it drops out
right there I mean there's a null here
and I was convinced this was the right
way yeah this is a clear null right
here whoa loud loud loud feel like I got
to be close
[Music]
it's got to be like right
here this worked amazingly well did
didn't it I had no idea I was that close
that's impressive on the nail that's
awesome now aviators could have used
where the signal is loudest and try to
go uh in that direction but it's
actually easier to get a precise null a
point where the signal drops out the
loud section could range for quite a
distance and so you wouldn't really know
where it is but the null is more precise
so that's why they would look for the
point where the signal drops out if
airheart could home in on the Ontario
using her radio Direction finding Loop
that would ensure she was on course and
eliminate any navigation errors that may
have occurred to that point but her
telegram asking the Ontario to transmit
10 minutes after each hour didn't make
it to the ship in time and since
airheart couldn't talk to the Ontario
they never sent out any signals so they
passed like ships in the
night by this point aart was around
halfway to Howland with no other Landing
strips within a th000 km she would have
to find the tiny island or return to lay
now but multiple delays had already
plagued her
journey in fact this was not air heart's
first attempt to fly around the world
earlier that year in March of 1937 she
had taken off from California for Hawaii
heading west instead of East on board
were Fred Nunan and another crew member
Harry
Manning as a Merchant Marine Captain he
was an expert in radio Morse code and
traditional navigation he was also a
pilot the flight to Hawaii was
successful thanks in part to Manning
using the loop antenna to home in on a
radio beacon on the destination
[Music]
Island 3 days later the trio set off for
Howland Island but just as they were
taking off the plane drifted to the
right aart corrected by throttling back
the left motor but it was too much the
plane turned to the left and the right
wing dipped down going up on one wheel
the right landing gear collapsed then
the left plane skitted out on its belly
spinning around to face the way it had
come
thankfully no one was hurt but the
Electra took months to repair and during
that time the seasonal winds shifted so
on her next attempt airheart would have
to fly East instead of West and most
importantly Captain Manning left the
crew officially the Press reported that
he needed to return to the merchant
marines but rumors spread that he had
lost confidence in aart or that aart
believed Nunan was a better Navigator
ler than Manning and she could operate
the radio on her own whatever the case
when aart took off again 3 months later
she was accompanied only by
Nunan and now they had made it 80% of
the way around the world and in the dark
of night aart had to make the critical
decision whether to keep going or turn
back the lack of signal from the Ontario
must have been concerning but maybe they
never got her
telegram and she knew that at Howland
the itasa would be transmitting the
letter A over Morse code every half hour
even if they didn't hear from her and
they could send and receive voice
signals they promised to be ready on a
range of different frequencies so she
flew
on around 6:15 a.m. local time radiomen
aboard the atasa heard airheart clearly
please take a bearing on 3105 we'll
whistle into the mic we are about 200
miles out she then began to
whistle but the men were confused they
expected air heart to take a bearing on
them not the other way around and while
they had told her that they had radio
Direction finding equipment the signal
needed to be lower frequency between 270
and 550
khz her voice frequency would skip off
the ionosphere and reflect off the ocean
scattering in all directions so there
would be no way to find a null because
the signal would be coming literally
from
everywhere in the Electra airart heard
only
static by now she must have been worried
that they hadn't heard anything from
either ship almost blind from the Rising
Sun and deaf from the Roar of the
engines aart Twisted the radio dial
listening for aasa's
response
nothing she may have expected Howland to
have a highfrequency radio direction
finder called an Adcock antenna array
these systems solve the skipping problem
with five vertical antennas at the
corners and center of a square the
direction of the radio wave can be
calculated from the slightly different
arrival times and Signal strengths at
each antenna but these antennas were
massive so they were really only
installed at larger
airports now as it happens there was a
portable high frequency radio direction
finder on Howland Island but the
operator reported that air heart's
Transmissions didn't last long enough
for him to take a bearing and trying to
conserve his low battery he missed parts
of the later
Transmissions around 6:45 aart again
asked them to take a bearing on 3105 khz
and report back in a half hour but a
bearing taken now and reported back in a
half hour would be at best outdated and
at worst misleading
this confusion likely had to do with
time zones airheart was using Greenwich
civil time but the atasa set their
clocks to their current position which
was GCT minus 11.5 hours and to make
matters worse Howland Island used Hawaii
time which back in those days was GCT
minus 10.5 hours so the three parties
attempting a Rond Vu on a tiny island in
the middle of the Pacific were on three
different time zones and Cru
a heart's hours didn't even line up with
the others aart told the atasa she would
be using GCT but somehow it never made
it to the
radiomen so when the atasa heard air
heart's request it was 6:45 a.m. but in
the cockpit it was 6:15 p.m. so aart
likely didn't say in a half hour but on
the half hour which for her was only 15
minutes away and also it was a
pre-arranged time that airart would be
listening for
them aart was careful to set times she
would transmit and times she would
listen for the ship because she could
only Power one antenna at a time and the
ships used the same antenna for
receiving and transmitting so if they
both broadcasted at the same time they
would miss each other's messages if
airheart sent another message at a
quarter after the hour the atasa blocked
it with their own message cannot take a
bearing on 3105 very good please please
send on 500 or do you wish to take a
bearing on us go ahead please there was
no response but she couldn't transmit on
500 khz anyway because she had removed
the long trailing antenna that could
transmit lower frequencies since it
could only be used for morse code
something neither She nor Nunan were
particularly well versed in she saw it
as dead weight after Manning left so
after the Hawaii crash it was removed
during repairs so she had no way of
sending radio waves that would allow the
atasa to take a bearing on
her but she could take a bearing on the
atasa using her loop antenna if they
sent her the right
frequency before the trip the ataska had
asked aart to specify the frequency they
should broadcast airheart was unsure so
she consulted a radio expert in Lei and
they recommended the atasa send Morse
code a just repeated dashes on the half
hour at 750
but at that time it was typical to talk
about radio waves using their wavelength
so the expert had meant 750 m or 400 khz
but airheart made a terrible mistake
relaying this plan to the atasa she
requested the signal be sent on 7500 khz
instead of 750 m or 400 khz but she did
explicitly say if frequencies mentioned
unsuitable inform me but no one ever
corrected
her at 7:42 a.m. air heart's voice came
through so loud men even went above deck
to see if they could hear a motor or
spot the plane she said we must be on
you but cannot see you but gas is
running low been unable to reach you by
radio we are flying at 1,000 ft on
Howland the highfrequency radio
direction finder was so low on battery
the radio man didn't even hear air
heart's message much less take a bearing
on it 10 minutes later Airhart said we
are circling but cannot hear you go
ahead on
7500 the atasa immediately sent A's on
7500 khz in the Electra airheart heard
the stutter stop of A's filling the
cabin the relief of finally hearing
something must have been overwhelming
she quickly turned her radio Direction
finding Loop to locate the null but the
signal never dropped out out the
frequency was too high so the radio
waves from the atasa were reflecting and
arriving from different directions
Joseph gurr a radio mechanic who worked
on air heart's plane later said that
they knew there were limitations to high
frequencies which had a tendency to skip
and bend creating a false radio
Direction
bearing without a minimum she was still
lost aart frantically called atasa we
received your signals but unable able to
get a minimum please take a bearing on
us and answer with voice itasa attempted
to explain the problem your signals
received okay it is Impractical to take
a bearing on your voice no response
without the belly antenna she probably
never heard any of their
Communications and it wouldn't have
mattered if the ataska had sent low
frequency signals because air heart's
Loop was tuned to pick up 7500
khz so why didn't the atasa correct the
frequency she suggested Commander
Thompson of the atasa was aware of her
radio Direction finding limits he had
received messages both from ahart's
husband George putam and the Coast
Guard's San Francisco division stating
aart could only take bearings on
frequencies between 200 and 1500 khz but
he either thought airheart knew more
about her radio equipment or that it
wasn't his place to make suggestions and
take more responsibility for her flight
when she asked the ataska to tell her if
these frequencies weren't suitable she
could have been referring to the ship's
capabilities rather than her own the
atasa said they'd be ready on the
frequency she wanted and more instead of
giving specific
suggestions San Francisco's Coast Car
division tried to get Commander Thompson
to take more responsibility for air
heart's radio communications by
suggesting they directly tell airheart
which frequencies to use but Thompson
essentially told them to butt out the
atasa communicated directly with
airheart from then
on the Radioman continued to try to
reach aart and just before 9:00 a.m.
ahart's voice suddenly burst through
again we are on the line 157 337 we will
repeat this on 6210 khz we are running
online North and South her voice was
desperate it sounded as if she was about
to burst into tears or
scream this was the last message the
itasa
heard there are a number of conspiracy
theories about what happened to aart
after that but the evidence seems clear
she ran out of fuel Somewhere over the
Pacific and crashed into the
sea 2 hours after her last message the
atasa left Howland to search north and
west for the
Electra other Navy and Coast Guard ships
and planes joined the search for over 2
weeks to that point in US history
it was the most intensive and expensive
search and rescue operation costing
around $4 million which is almost 100
million in today's
money no one has ever found a trace of
Nunan aart or her
Electra all of these mistakes could have
been resolved if Airhart had two-way
communication but her belly antenna
somehow malfunctioned some theories
suggest it fell off during takeoff in
New Guinea but but without physical
evidence it's impossible to
say but airheart did confirm receiving
signals on her loop antenna her Loop
could only Direction finded with lower
frequencies but it could receive signals
on a wide range if she had switched to
using the loop for all Communications
she could have received itasca's voice
messages and then the itasa could have
requested she'd take a bearing on a
lower frequency which would have guided
her safely to Howland
[Music]
Island when I began researching this
video I expected to find that Amelia
aarts demise was inevitable that what
she was trying to do was just so
difficult that nothing could have saved
her but instead I found the opposite
there were at least a half dozen things
that if they went differently would have
allowed her to land safely so to me this
story comes down to two things knowledge
and responsibility
aart lacked knowledge of radio systems
which would have allowed her to specify
the right direction finding frequency
but Commander Thompson of the atasa had
that knowledge he knew her Direction
finding limits but he didn't take on the
responsibility to correct her when
attempting any challenging Endeavor you
need someone with the right knowledge
who will also take responsibility for
getting things right that's what you
need to battle the inherent chaos and
disorder of the universe otherwise what
you get is
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