In Apollo 11 there were 3 Astronauts and 1 of them is always left out even though he had the most important job of waiting for the 2 that went to the surface all alone. If you don't know who I'm talking about I rest my case. It's Michael Collins by the way.
All thanks to AI, I think he probably outsources everything to a Chinese and Indian video editing sweatshop and he usually stands in a studio and the entire environment in the back is cgi including the grass lands he is standing on cuz all those places he gets to access is insane cuz no one can enter those places but how him lol something to think. He's fooling a lot of people. Thankfully an old head like me who is 45 yrs old can spot these classic tactics 😊
I have a bone to pick with public education. They way Amelia's story was told essentially boiled down to: "she disappeared mysteriously over the Pacific ocean and nobody know what happened". The full story is so much more interesting.
My public education included a filmed dramatization of the actual communications between Itasca and Earhart. It was clear to everyone in the classroom there were radio issues. It was also understood her amateur understanding of radio technology - that there was literally a communication breakdown somewhere. It did not attempt to lay 'blame" or make conclusions - just that during the attempt great effort was put into guiding her flight but through accident or bad luck or the enormity of the challenge with the technology of the era, that it failed. And that she likely had to make a water landing and was probably killed or dead from exposure not long after. Public education typically sucks when it comes to history - I learned far more reading in the library than was ever presented in class - but in the case of Earhart and her disappearance, it got a pretty fair and unusually intesnive treatment for elementary school in the mid 1970's.
There might be a reason they don't tell the full story. I thought she was a role model for all women who bravely died pushing the envelope of what's possible. Now I learned that she died because she was too incompetent to use radio.
The absolute minutia of every significant historical event is really hard to cover. How detailed you get into what topics also depends on your teacher, school, state, textbook supplier, and other factors.
As a pilot who's been lost before as well as one who's flown over large bodies of water in single engine aircraft, I have at least a basic understanding of just how challenging what she attempted was and how your mind can start to run away with incorrect or fatalistic assumptions if not trained or rested properly. My heart sank for her as the story progressed. She had a lot of odds stacked against her and she has my deepest sympathy and respect.
Agree, the Pacific is vast, the understanding of radio waves before WW 2 was limited as was the equipment. Much was learned during WW 2. Dad spent his adult life flying in the Canadian Arctic he was a very good navigator he could find the trappers cabin at night on the vast tundra, lake shore, or where it was.
As a student pilot, I kept getting both amazed and mortified more and more about what early aviators had to do to find their way. In a more amusing note, while VORs are going out of fashion in lieu of GPS, they're not THAT different than what they had finding the dips in signal with their loop antenna.
About 20 years ago in my country, a 737-300 lost their navigation and communication (according to national transportation safety board, both device was malfunctioned) in the middle of sea. The pilot decided to turn to the right which according to map, land should be somewhere to the right. But they could only guessed since they had no devices to measure how much degree they were turning. Their only hope was they could spot a land then try to figure from the land features to guess where they were at. They ended up landing on small airport around 800 kilometer away from their origin and destination.
I'm amazed at how ill-prepared the expedition to cross the Pacific was. Amelia Earhart certainly had ambition and bravery, but it seems she was seriously lacking in her understanding of risk and how to mitigate that risk with redundancies. Instead of resolving uncertainties and potential issues before takeoff, she just hoped for the best.
She was brave and everything, but her behaviour seems incredibly stupid. It blows my mind how you can go on a journey like that and be lacking this amount of certanity and understanding...
It's common when you make mistakes but get away with them. You start to belive that it always be that way or even that you are special. It's even worse if other people praise you for your acheivments and bravery.
@@cyrkielnetwork The problem with complacency is that it DOESN'T get you every time. Also it's crazy that she didn't check her equipmet once in the air after takeoff.
We must remember that aviation in the 1930s was an ENTIRELY different beast than what we know today. Obviously in equiment and knowledge, but even more important in mentality. Today it is the best regulated, best trained and best controlled sector short of nuclear technology. There is an in depth investigation into ANY relevant accident or almost accident with recommendations published to reach everyone. Every failure has been analysed, chewed through by multiple experts. And even then, we have tragic accidents like Air France 447. A situation where a minor malfunction combined with misinterpretation leads to a desaster and the death of hundreds of people. That was just 15 years ago. In an era where communication was a challenge under the best conditions, technology often unreliable and understood by very few, training scarce and daring counted for much it is perfectly understandable how Earhart ended up with her plan. Nobody of her peers would have acted much differently.
This story is a chilling reminder of how small errors can cascade into tragedy, especially in high-stakes situations. It makes you think about all the "what ifs" and how important clear communication and shared responsibility are. RIP Amelia Earhart.
We call it the "swiss cheese effect" in aviation (and probably lots of other places). Sometimes the mistake makes it through all the holes and doesn't get stopped by the cheese, and that's when there's an accident.
SMALL errors? And she stacked up a whole slew of large risks on top. The possibility of the outcome realized was predictable, at some fairly high percentage.
@dannymaxx510 I have only heard the Swiss cheese effect in discussions about aviation safety, but I bet it is a common engineering term too. I just started to think about the Therac-25 incident
Noonan the Navigator was not sitting beside her in the cockpit. He was actually sitting behind her with a large fuel tank between them...they used a fishing line with pulleys to send notes with navigation numbers and fuel burn rates between each other
The last message of the video was truly a powerful one. As an engineer, it resonated with me. You have to have proper knowledge to take on the responsibility.
Amen from another engineer. Knowledge seems to be in good supply. Responsibility seems to have fallen off. But to be fair, it seems that taking a stand for engineers is a greater risk than in days gone by. Just seems so to me.
amount of miscommunication and small errors is mindboggling, but understandable for the times and how difficult it was to properly communicate across distances.
I wouldn't call it mind boggling. Communication wasn't everywhere, and was "primitive" today. The margin for error was small, and this was a VERY risky trip from start. Just over confident and adrenaline fueled.
@@musafirgauravv AI must have been gotten really good to umm... what did the AI do again, can you elaborate?? If it's done the whole thing it certainly wouldn't look this good at the current level of AI; if they just did the animation well I've got bad news for you buddy, 3Blue1Brown did a video on how to make these style of animations using Manib(m). Nevertheless, I still wanna know what you meant when you said it was made by AI
About 20 years ago in my country, a 737-300 lost their navigation and communication (according to national transportation safety board, both device was malfunctioned) while it was in the middle of sea. The pilot decided to turn to the right which according to map, land should be somewhere to the right. But they could only guessed since they had no devices to measure how much degree they were turning. Their only hope was they could spot a land then try to figure from the land features to guess where they were at. They ended up landing on small airport around 800 kilometer away from their origin and destination.
"When attempting any challenging endeavor, you need someone with the right knowledge who will also take responsibility for getting things right." This is so true. Too many projects fail due to unknowledgeable people in charge or knowledgeable people not taking enough responsibilities.
I still have a lot of respect for Earhart and what she accomplished. But it is shocking how sloppy she was about such critical communication issues. Maybe she was just used to either being over land or flying over oceans but knowing that a huge continent would eventually appear even if she was off course. But trying that over the largest expanse of water on Earth was downright crazy.
@@MrJdseniorI feel like you have to be to try something like that. People at the frontier are a little nuts. Imagine being the first person to strap themselves to an ICBM and orbit the earth? Imagine being the first person to make it to mars? There’s always the risk of death. There’s a reason the first astronauts were fighter pilots and test pilots
@@berengerchristy6256Of course, you need to have a certain level of risk taking in order to try this, but the smart ones do everything they can to reduce the inherent risk, control for the variables that they can to give the best possible chance of success.
@@berengerchristy6256 there's always risks for any great historical achievement. However, sometimes there's completely UNNECESSARY risks, and completely stupid decision making (even based on the limitations of the time); that Amelia demonstrated on the most dangerous leg of her journey.
Hitting a tiny island in the middle of he biggest ocean in the world would seem to be daunting enough for her to take a few extra precautions. I think she was always going to push the envelope until it pushed back.
Industry I worked in for many years, we always trained, "Okay, but what do you do if THAT doesn't work.... and if THAT doesn't work? What if..." Seems like she relied on things working just right and didn't really have any backup plan.
Not entirely true. The video mentions they had dead reckoning, celestial navigation, and multiple radio systems. They had backup plans, but they didn't do the due diligence to ensure each plan was fully baked and operable, that all parties involved were well informed and prepared.
@@error.418 I think celestial navigation is a bit overrated in aircraft. At the start of WW2, the RAF bombers could barely find the right city to bomb using celestial and dead reckoning, in fact they often found the wrong city. In fact Switzerland was bombed several times, and that's not even the right country.
@@dougerrohmer Oh I'm making no comment as to what is viable, just that they did have multiple methods. I also have no clue if it's reasonable to compare Noonan's abilities with those of WW2 bomber pilots.
I think it's very much a sign of the times. Just look at workplace death rates throughout the last century. Today, we do what you say, having backups for backups. Back then, "try not to die" was sort of the equivalent of current OSHA standards. And @error.418, having a backup plan that isn't tested and confirmed is virtually the same as not having a backup plan. It's the difference between going on a summer camping trip and bringing jackets vs. saying "ah, it shouldn't rain I think"
Look up Prof Reason Swiss Cheese model of accident prevention. At every event of the story, I hear how she slipped thru another hole in the Swiss Cheese. But this was in the early days of aviation and radio. Accident investigators note all the mistakes they can find and try to write regulations to avoid other accidents. As they say, the regulation rules are written in blood. Lookup Mentour channel, Gimli Glider episode.
Hey thank you guys. I did my first ever Research paper on this exact topic in the late 90's. at the time No one really knew what happend and the military didnt share information. thanks for completing something i been tring to look in to for 30 years
Wow, learned a lot of interesting things from this video. 1. More details about Earheart's disappearance than just "she vanished without a trace." And 2. A whole lot more about old radio communication and equipment. I never understood what that loop antenna was for or the field with the 5 large antennas in it. Didn't know those were primarily for navigation. Very interesting. Thank you.
I wonder what Manning's private thoughts may have been after the flight went missing? "Whew, glad I didn't go I thought this might have happened." Or, "Had I gone, this never would have happened." I suppose he was interviewed, and someone here may have read something about what he may have said, if any thing.
IMO, it seems like he left the mission because he knew there were flaws in the plan, and perhaps Earhardt wasn't willing to listen to him about it? Either way, after the previous crash which he'd been in, he was probably thinking "I'm not surprised"... Edit to clarify this is my opinion not something I've read.
@@deehaws4334 It's a fairly well educated guess. If I were in a car wreck with someone I would certainly never let them drive me anywhere again. Doubly so for an airplane. Airplane problems may occur less frequently, but when problems do occur it's fairly rare that one simply walks away from the incident unharmed.
Even today, with the most precise and highly calibrated sextants, a position error of two miles is considered extremely good, and 10 miles is more common. So you are not at an intersection of two lines, unless you drew the lines with sidewalk chalk. Navigators always draw a position circle, called a circle of error. The important question is not "where are we" but rather, "how large is the circle of error?"
Navigators? Is it just not safe to rely on GPS? GPS truly is a marvel that we all take for granted, myself included. Is it a bad idea to rely on it in at sea?
GPS is more than adequate. Even integrated conditions in the south Indian Ocean the maximum sort of error you might experience would be a range of about 100 m. Typically GPS has you within 1 to 3 m. OP is talking about navigation without GPS
@@Tyler-z8rGNSS (of which GPS is one such system) uses trilateration to calculate your location - which is not much different to what is discussed in the video but in 3 dimensions instead of 2. Think of it as plotting multiple spheres, your location is most likely within the area they all overlap. As such, the accuracy and precision (please note, they're not the same thing) is still within a certain radius. Both will likely improve with more satellites visible to the receiver but there is still a "circle of error" as the OP of this comment said.
Well actually, you typically do not (in my experience) navigate on a chart by using a "circle of error." You navigate on a chart using either a "fix" or a running fix or estimated and assumed position. Which are all single points. An estimated/assumed position incorporates your idea of vagueness and uncertainty but is nevertheless represented as a single point. I've never seen or used a navigational chart by advancing a series of circles. If you draw a circle on a chart (which navigators do not usually do) then you cannot thereafter advance your position, you are just advancing ever widening circles which is not common and probably does not work. I'm nitpicking here, but since your circle of error is essentially unknowable while underway, navigators do not go around questioning how large their circle of error is, either. Today's sextants give better positions primarily due to better timekeeping devices and better optics. Large sextant position errors -say over two or three miles- is primarily due to being bounced around by waves, or lousy viewing conditions. I'm sure you'd agree. Not that anyone still uses celestial navigation much these days, although you still master it (somewhat) to earn your Coast Guard licenses.
It also helps if you use 3 stars per fix--as that "circle of error" can be more precisely known by the triangle it forms. Of course for Fred, that morning, he was using only the Sun, which didn't tell him if he was north or south of Howland--unless he had a super-precise compass, and precise magnetic variation charts. Performing a "landfall procedure" at 1,000' made it impossible to see the island unless they got within a few miles of it. Sextant errors on aircraft can usually range as a high as a dozen miles. Celestial navigation from an airplane is much more difficult than from a ship.
I will be sending this to my friends who are getting into ham radio. This is one of the clearest demonstrations of the basic principles of radio waves and equipment I think I've ever seen. Makes it very accessible. Thank you for this.
This radio direction finding demonstration is a BEAUTIFUL explanation and demonstation of one of the simplest, most basic, and most comon methods of radio direction finding in existance. Most now days are higher tech, but use exactly the same ultimate method. As a licenced ham for 30 years, I've built and used several antennas of this type, though now days I prefer to use doppler based methods.
I’ve been getting into learning about ham radio and I heard that they have field days and contests in order to test their equipment and make sure they know how to communicate effectively, because you can’t just assume everything will work the first time in an emergency if you don’t test yourself often.
@@drivers99 There are two big activities hams do for this reason, one is the anual "Field Day" contest which you mentioned, and the other, relevant to the demonstration in the video, is hidden transmitter hunting, commonly known as "Fox Hunting" in which someone hides a radio transmitter, and others attempt to find it with whatever direction finding equipment they have. The hunt might cover a small city park, or an entire large city, depending on the teams, and the gear to be used. The hidden transmitter could range from someone in their car transmitting with 50 watts, to a tiny microcontroller based transmitter powered by a hearing aid battery and hidden in a camera film can under a log in a city park.
I'm a pilot. I've been flying for 8 years. I've studied sense and loop antennas. I've taught other pilots about sense and loop antennas. And I've never understood them as well as I do now! Your videos are great, thank you for your dedication and effort.
Perhaps I'm too timid, but I'm often surprised at the unnecessary risks she took on the most dangerous and difficult leg of her entire journey. I believe she even ditched her life-raft at Lae. Howland Island is also pretty unique among other Pacific islands, as it isn't part of a large atoll, (which are numerous) nor has any terrain that rises more than a few feet above sea level (like many other volcanic islands)--so spotting it from 1,000' MSL was also nearly impossible, without flying within just a few miles from it. The Itasca itself would have been more easily spotted in a way. Plus the typical weather there consists of numerous low-level cumulus clouds, (typical of oceanic low-pressure equatorial areas) that cast shadows that resemble the size and shape of the island itself.
And on top of that she timed it, so she would be looking to land at Howland at night, making visually spotting the island even more impossible. It was a worthy endeavor, but it was incredibly badly planned and executed, she made so many bad decision and assumption, she pretty much set herself up for failure.
@@dfuher968 Yes, her most dangerous and difficult leg was very poorly planned and executed... didn't turn around when not receiving any radio responses halfway there, while also encountering overcast clouds most of the way. I believe they planned to use the rising sun and sextant as part of their "landfall procedure". In any case her last transmission was around 10:30am local time, which meant the sun was at too high an angle to provide a very accurate Line of Position. In one of my videos, I demonstrate a Landfall procedure to Howland Island using a setting sun--albeit a little too low an angle due to incalculable atmospheric refraction.
Wow, after listening to you two I would say I'm surprised nobody called the whole thing off, but life experience has taught me someone (or multiple someones) almost certainly tried. Or at least tried to get her to stop tossing vital gear overboard.
This is the same effect that allows for polarized light. It’s just operating at much higher frequencies. The elegant parallels among EM phenomena were a big reason I got hooked into electronics engineering.
Have you heard what really happened? That she flew into the Bermuda triangle and flew through a portal into the land of Gielinor where she died attempting to get a firecape?
@@Tyler-z8r 1) A.E.'s messages got ignored by men in power (US Navy) because they were jealous 2) A.E.'s ignored advices from experts and made mistakes, but in mechanical - not navigational ones.
@@Tyler-z8r She was abducted by aliens who took her to another quadrant and populated a planet with human slaves. Those slaves had a rebellion and took over. Then later on, Captain Janeway met Amelia on that planet.
I was just thinking that a lot of the errors here sound like exactly the sort of things in Mentor Pilot videos that get pilots killed. Improper and insufficient preparation and "flying by the seat of the pants" until something goes wrong and not enough redundancy to recover.
Amelia Earhart had only 500 hours flying time when she attempted this crossing. She had had numerous crashes and "mishaps" prior. (I have 350+ and no crashes.) She had businesses that were pumped up by her bold exploits. As pointed out in the video, she did not seem to understand the radio, and coordination of life-dependent factors was poor. There's a saying in aviation that 1 mistake rarely kills you, but as the holes in the swiss cheese line up.... The FAA says there are 5 things that often kill pilots: Anti-authority, Impulsivity, Invulnerability, Macho, Resignation and she seems to have had 2 of those.
What a lot of people who have never had flight lessons dont know is that ground speed and air speed are two different things. You can be travelling at 100 knots in the air but only at 60 over the actual ground. A lot of people would assume that planes would fly with wind pushing them, like a tailwind but that planes actually take off INTO The wind to increase lift as more air flows over the wings. And when youre flying you can be flying with either a headwind or a tailwind which can change your speed massively without you even realising it. Luckily modern aircraft have instruments for this but they didnt always. This made navigation in early airplanes very difficult using dead reckoning. Airplanes are crazy things.
I genuinely do not understand how the Veritasium team has managed to keep up even a small fraction of their editorial quality while pumping out so many of these videos. It's incredible.
It's stunning that neither person on the airplane had enough of an understanding of radio to either properly plan for the use of the equipment prior to the flight or to troubleshoot the issues that developed in-flight. That should have been priority one of the flight crew, as they had a snowball's chance of finding their landing site without radio direction finding.
There was radio operator on the first attempt which ended with a crash. He did not join the second attempt, it is unclear if this was due to other commitments or self-preservation.
I love her story/ life. When I think about this portion, I see over confidence, lack of preparation, and bad luck. It happens. If people didn't push boundaries, where would we be? I really want to find her plane! 😊✌️
5:00 - Minor nit. The names of both Eugene Vidal's employer and job are both off. There is no "Bureau Of Commerce". It's "Department Of Commerce". But Vidal wasn't its head (whose title is "Secretary Of Commerce"). The Department Of Commerce had or has an Aeronautics Branch. Vidal started there in June 1933 as assistant director for Air Regulation. Earhart's connections resulted in President Franklin Roosevelt promoting him in September 1933 to Director of Aeronautics (within the Department Of Commerce). In 1934 Vidal's unit's name was changed from "Aeronautics Branch" to "Bureau Of Air Commerce". He was the father of Gore Vidal.
He never said the guy was appointed anywhere, just that she tried to get him appointed. Also names in the past are different then now. Things change....
@@mellie4174 My original comment, if you could've been bothered to read it, went into the name-changes. There never was a Bureau of Commerce, and so saying someone got appointed to be its director is just wrong. There's a DEPARTMENT of Commerce, but it has a Secretary, not a Director. Also, reread my comment for whether Vidal DID get appointed or not. He did. Did you READ it?
Another perfect example of the Swiss Cheese Model: how a number of individual mistakes could never have a significant impact, a multitude combined end in a catastrophe.
Exactly. And as the boss of the trip, Amelia should be held responsible. Communication is a two way thing, everything should be verified. So if you send a telegram and it is received, you should acknowledge. If you do not receive an acknowledgement, you should resend and highlight the lack of acknowledgement and maybe mention that you are best buds with the prez. Never use slang or abbreviations, don't assume that the other end is using the same version of technobabble as you, so you can't get the frequency/wavelength thing wrong. Etc.
The problem with acknowledgement is making sure you acknowledge the acknowledgement, and so on. At a certain point, you can probably surmise all parties are in agreement...
21:58 I may have missed it, but I believe you failed to mention that during the repair process, Lockheed replaced her Western Electric 20B receiver with an early experimental version of the Bendex RA-1, at the time no one had ever used that receiver before and it would be years before the commercial version was available.
@@cadenbiglerMost likely. As part of the new reciever and transmitter, Joseph Gurr had modified the new system to transmit and recieve at 500 KHz. Derek is incorrect at 27:07 in that she was told she still had the capability to send and recieve at 500 KHz even without the trailing wire, but the modifications were made on an already experimental system and had never been fully tested.
yes we came across this in our research. We thought about mentioning her limited training with the new loop - I don't even think they had a user's manual. But we left this detail out of the script. Another interesting note - the loop on the Itasca may have been very similar (or in fact identical) to Earhart's.
Hubris was what ultimately got her killed. Had she tried to replace Capt. Manning with someone else who could assists with radios and navigation, she could have safely finished her journey. Even today in highly automated commercial airplane cockpits with all modern guidance systems, for long journeys there will be a 3 person crew. That she attempted to circumnavigate the world as a two person crew is beyond reckless.
Sounds like piss poor planning, preparation and coordination. Earhart was famous for lack of preparation. Flying over the pacific without a life raft was mindbogglingly irresponsible (read that stupid).
i agree with the comment piss poor and reckless . i mean the radio being critical and she doesn't know how it works or what frequencies to use when both their lives depended on it. wow
A truly idiotic comment. The Electra was a tiny flying gas station. There was literally no room for anything other than "more gas". This wasn't some sort of huge plane with tons of room for rafts & parachutes & such. Trying to make it one would have REDUCED the odds, not increased them, because she'd have had even less time to find Howland Island.
i feel like this is one of the reasons people now are told to confirm they have received the message through the radio. If that was a standard thing before, she might have realized she wasn't getting a response and turned around after the first checkup before she even got too far, but I'm guessing since radio was pretty new at the time people were probably more okay with people not responding on the other end. kind of like how you don't expect someone to tell you they received your sentence every time you share a thought in a phone call.
No, she was just an idiot. Doing radio checks was common practice back then BECAUSE radio was relatively new. Since it was going to be a major part of her navigation to a tiny FLAT island in the middle of the Pacific, checking her radio reception should have been top priority. However, she also ditched her life raft in Lae (before her most dangerous leg of her journey); so she wasn't the most rational "hero".
@@SkyborneVisions I'm guessing the other end didn't acknowledge her messages either. Her acknowledging messages wouldn't help if she was the one who can't receive messages.
@@michawhite7613 If she couldn't receive messages, then it doesn't matter if the other side was acknowledging her messages or not. Her messages weren't being acknowledged period so she should have turned back after realizing that she wasn't getting the messages. She also obviously didn't know how to switch her receiver to her locating antenna either so even if she could've received the messages through it instead of her normal receiver, she wasn't going to. And the safest thing she could've done was turn back. Even with all that went wrong on the mission.. it still could've been successful if the frequency she told them to broadcast was correct. But being unable to receive communications is just an insane handicap that was just unnecessary for the journey. It was already dangerous enough as it was, no need to accept that sort of handicap. And it was basically that handicap that killed both her and her companion. It wasn't just her life in her hands, it was also her partner's.
@@michawhite7613 The other end wouldve acknowledged her messages but she couldnt hear them and she couldnt use her better morsecode antenna because she didnt bring her morse code guy thats the whole point of this video
@@michawhite7613 If both ends had agreed to acknowledge radio messages, then she would've known that either she wasn't being heard, or that she wasn't receiving. In either case, she would've known before it was too late that she had a problem and to turn back.
The "guy" was a grown man a professional who took his own decisions in life I'm sure. His job in that plane was as important as the pilots. Not every adventure has a good ending . He knew the possible outcomes for his life.They trusted each other but things didn't work out .
@@jhoughjr1 it's still taught that there's a guy, but he wasn't the famous one, so he's kind of a foot note, and the story of Amelia Earhart just isn't that important historically, so it's kinda just mentioned once and forgotte in school.
I never would've guessed that Amelia Earheart could have saved herself by simply switching to her loop antenna for all communications. I'm not a pilot by any means, so it wouldn't be as obvious for me, lol. Nonetheless, may she rest in peace.
Idk if it would be obvious to most pilots at the time. Clearly her biggest mistake was attempting this without having someone with deep knowledge on radio technology on board. She had that one guy, but he either left or was "fired" as Derek mentioned in the video.
@@KendraAndTheLaw You think? 3 of last 4 recent comments are all negative comments no? Who knows how much more of your 52 are also hate comments. At least be truthful to yourself when insulting a whole group, you said it with hate. ( Thanks for adding words to my vocab btw, real sleek using wimmen instead of women aren’t ya? Good thing I have google )
As a retired broadcast engineer after 40 years in the industry and an Amateur Radio Operator for over 45 years, in a short explanation he did not too bad. One must take into account the year which determines what technology was available. The differences between night and day propagation on the different frequencies. The level of experience of the operators. It is truly complicated.
It is still commonly believed that Earhart was an excellent pilot. However, other pilots who had watched her fly were quite critical of her for her lack of skill and knowledge. Other women pilots who had flown in races against her described her sloppy flying to include problems taking off and landing. At the end of one cross country race, she bounced so far down the runway that spectators thought she was going to crash at the end of the field. The crash in Hawaii was another example of these shortcomings. Her and Noonan's deaths were a direct result of her believing her own publicity and her hubris.
Dang. The detail in this video is absolutely wild. Having wheel in the Electra 10-E is incredible. I dont think anyone else would put that much detail in.
she just became stubborn, fired her best navigator and blamed crash on him, when he was the one who saved them, and then thought she could handle radio signals on her own.... stubborness took over her consciousness and when this happens, we have seen many stories of this what happens next
@@jhoughjr1 duh, you never blame the person who eff'd up, WHO DOES THAT, that called accountability. Surely she was a strong independent woman in the time period.
Your videos usually have a good bit of great info. That one was 35 minutes of amazing information. Thank you, I didn't have a clue about all the limitations of navigation at the time of her flight.
There is an old grainy video of her takeoff on that leg of the trip that shows a puff of smoke coming from underneath the plane, apparently corresponding to damage to the receiving antenna. That would explain why she apparently could not receive subsequent voice transmissions.
These type of stories always humble me and help me realise what amazing communication capabilities we have nowadays. There is so much we take for granted, and besides basic concepts I have no idea how they really work and how small changes or mistakes in interpretation can have a big impact. I will think about this the next time I complain the WiFi on the plane doesn’t work.
5:20 So she had the President build an entire airfield just for her, in a totally remote place, and she didn't even wind up using it? That'd be hilarious if it weren't, you know, SAD
@jadegecko - We don't know for sure that that is the story. Even the telegram could have been part of cover. FDR says to Earhart "It'd behoove the U.S.A. to have runways on Howland Island, just in case. The world is uncomfortable just now, and I'm worried. The best way for the U.S. to get those runways built is if a nice girl sends a telegram to the President and asks for them so she can land her plane while on a peaceful publicity-stunt. Then Congress will green-light this without fear of international reaction or provocation". That MIGHT be what happened.
Dude, I’ve been an aviation nerd for as long as I can remember…I’m a certified pilot and (I thought) a major geek when it comes to this sort of stuff. But in all the tellings I’ve heard of this story, I never knew that there was a level of incompetence at play. I always thought it was just one of those unlucky tragedies that dot the course of aviation history. It really changes the complexion of the story…this entire thing was COMPLETELY avoidable.
That was a fun afternoon. The receiver is one I built about 8 years ago using a design by Nick Roethe DF1FO. This video only includes audio from one ear - the other ear has a "whoopee" tone that makes it much easier to DF, but Earhart didn't have that
Always wondered how they got lost with radio navigation available. And just 8 years later to lose 5 TBM Avengers with even better radio gear, is beyond bewildering! I used to love tuning AM stations along my route of flight, and following the needle from city, to city, while listening to the oldies! You should do an episode on Flight 19....
Yeah Flight 19 is pretty solved tbh. Squad leader had a catastrophic and almost unfathomable loss of situational awareness, and in the days before CRM (which basically applies here even though they were in separate aircraft), his subordinate squad mates couldn't correct him.
Big points for including The Secret Life of the Radio, but please link to Tim's channel where he has cleaned up the original episodes and re-published them. Also, he's still at it, making stuff and making videos about how to make stuff. Also, there are plenty of hacks to reduce the need for full-length antennas when transmitting. Take the ELF band, for which you'd need antennas several thousand km long; add a big inductor to the start and you don't need the full length. And it's not as simple as efficiency in conversion to RF; you can't really make that claim without talking about Q. Source: I'm a ham with a small back yard that can operate just fine on 80M with a too-short antenna and a variable coil.
I am floored by how well presented and carefully researched this video is. I learned so much about not only the history of the event, but useful information to tuck away for later if ever I am marooned at Sea with just a radio.
This iis an amazing realization! Great job putting this together. I'm a ham radio operator and I cannot fathom the number of mistakes in this undertaking. It's just incredible that people were not more diligent in helping one another.
34:15 Um, the only person with the responsibility of getting things right for your safety when you’re attempting such a dangerous stunt is YOU. She made 100 errors and there is nobody to blame but her.
I once launched a jet from the deck of a US Navy aircraft carrier in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and flew away at high altitude for about 90 minutes before we had to turn around to find the ship and land on it. We never saw any sign of land for all that time. I was left with an awesome feeling of how vast the oceans are, and how tiny we are in comparison. I can easily imagine the desperation of Amelia Earhart flying low and slow over the ocean with such primitive radio and navigation equipment.
Even with today's technology, I can't imagine flying over the Pacific but to do that in an era with no GPS and better communication systems is pure nightmare fuel.
This video has me thinking that Earhart's flight was very poorly coordinated. A lot depended on telegrams never acknowledged. She sent telegrams and just assumed they were received and understood by the radioman on the ships that needed this critical information. All that should have been coordinated before she took off.
I wonder on how of all topics you manage to come up with something so interesting and every time it's a surprise. The open ground experiment was really amazing and had me thing how hard would it be in a plane over an ocean to do the same! Thanks
This reminds me; when I first started flying in the mid '50s, radio navigation was via the A and N quadrants. Thank God by the end of the '50s VOR stations came out around the country and we could navigate to each 360 degree point on the compass.
I agree with the conclusion about her lack of radio knowledge and lack of responsibility from the others not guiding her correctly that caused the tragedy. Well done Veritasium.
She had a truly bad bad record of flying. she was a celebrity 1st, "Pilot" close second. Just glad she didn't let her ego kill more than 2 people. credit for having the balls to do all this, sure, but some people just cannot get the hang of whatever profession they want to master. its the ones that recognize they are likely much better at something else that get way ahead.
One detail about HF transmissions, the interaction ionosphere is actually a refraction as the concentration of the charged particles increased. It is idealized as a reflection because it's simpler to think of.
Once again, your excellent, exhaustive analysis is the best, bar none. Amelia Earhart ran afoul of Murphy's Law, gone wild. I can't help but think her decision to remove the sound insulation must have caused mental and physical exhaustion just when she could not afford to make mistakes.
Derek has basically described the swiss cheese model of aviation. This story is like so many others in aviation, that all the holes have to line up just right. With several things going wrong, her margin for error was reduced to the point that any one of those things was enough to tip over the edge and lead to disaster.
I used to feel bad for Amelia Earhart because she died all alone trying to fly across an ocean. After hearing all that she seemed like someone who may have been ambitious but was hard headed in doing what she wanted. She flew across the Atlantic, a great feat for its time, but to have the audacity to demand a runway be built on a small island in the middle of nowhere is a bit much. Also with the lack of communications early on in the trip should have been a red flag but went ignored.
The ultimate irony is the majority of Earhart's immortal fame comes from the mystery of her failure. Had she successfully made the journey she wouldn't be nearly as much of a household name. Next to no one knows who Wiley Post is.
I disagree that the ship captain was to blame and feel it is unfair people try to pin it on him. I can see how, from his perspective, advising Earhart in any way would seem foolish. For one, she is the pilot that has already made a series of unbelievable flights - maybe she truly does know something he doesn't. In addition to that, who was he to give advice to someone attempting something truly dangerous and life-threatening? Though his ship was involved, he was still essentially a third party. I wouldn't want to become the guy that gave bad advice and caused her to fail either.
Your comment confused me for a second, because my first thought was that those are clearly letters, not numbers (37 would be ...-- --...). But you are right, it spells out thirty seven.
Here before the title and thumbnail change. "Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight - And One Thing That Could Have Saved Her" Edit - Now it's "How Physics Doomed Amelia Earhart" and it's on it's third thumbnail
It's amazing to me how these channels can work on a video for months but have no confidence in the title at all. It's like they have more faith in the algorithm than they do in their own creativity, even though no one has any clue how the algorithm actually works.
@@LimeyLassen Its because they have no idea how the algorithm works that they have to try several different titles and thumbnails to see which one works best.
One word: preparedness. If you want a fantastic example of preparedness, look at how Amundsen organized his South Pole expedition. Leftover fuel cans were found over 50 years later and were completely full. He marked his supply depots with rows of red flags for 1200 m in _each_ direction (E and W as he was travelling S and then N on the way back). He got to the 1200 m by taking the largest possible error on navigation, and then doubling it. They had enough food to miss a depot and still make it to the next one. His entire team were expert skiers and dog-sledders, so everyone could do everyone else's job. All this in 1911.
33:52 The Commandant Thomson took the expression "strong and independent woman" too literally. He just did not want to be the first one to get cancelled back then for mansplaining 😢 What a tragedy!!
The most tragic part, I think, is that given that everything was against her, it being possible would've never the story even more amazing. A story of the best of the best coming together and beating all odds through sheer skill and determination. But instead, it was a story of a completely preventable disaster, a story that never even got a proper ending as we never found her.
those monthly kits are so good for kids. i don't know anything about your sponsor. but my kits were early '60s tube electronics! subsequent kits would use stuff from earlier kits. they got me a couple others too, but that's the one i really remember best and was the most organized
If you ever feel forgotten, just remember there was another person in the plane when Amelia Earhart went missing (Fred Noonan).
Right!? I didn't even realize he was with! I used to think she was alone.
In Apollo 11 there were 3 Astronauts and 1 of them is always left out even though he had the most important job of waiting for the 2 that went to the surface all alone. If you don't know who I'm talking about I rest my case.
It's Michael Collins by the way.
He was an experienced airline pilot and expert navigator... but you do see his elbow in some of the animated shots.
Yeah, and he had an amazing career and history of his own.
🤣🤣
The sheer amount of veritasium content released recently is a true blessing
They are freaky 😲
All thanks to AI, I think he probably outsources everything to a Chinese and Indian video editing sweatshop and he usually stands in a studio and the entire environment in the back is cgi including the grass lands he is standing on cuz all those places he gets to access is insane cuz no one can enter those places but how him lol something to think.
He's fooling a lot of people.
Thankfully an old head like me who is 45 yrs old can spot these classic tactics 😊
@@muazunais2378 Take your meds
yeah less than a week since last upload
@@muazunais2378 1/10 trolling attempt. You made it WAY too obvious.
I have a bone to pick with public education. They way Amelia's story was told essentially boiled down to: "she disappeared mysteriously over the Pacific ocean and nobody know what happened". The full story is so much more interesting.
My public education included a filmed dramatization of the actual communications between Itasca and Earhart. It was clear to everyone in the classroom there were radio issues. It was also understood her amateur understanding of radio technology - that there was literally a communication breakdown somewhere. It did not attempt to lay 'blame" or make conclusions - just that during the attempt great effort was put into guiding her flight but through accident or bad luck or the enormity of the challenge with the technology of the era, that it failed. And that she likely had to make a water landing and was probably killed or dead from exposure not long after. Public education typically sucks when it comes to history - I learned far more reading in the library than was ever presented in class - but in the case of Earhart and her disappearance, it got a pretty fair and unusually intesnive treatment for elementary school in the mid 1970's.
There might be a reason they don't tell the full story. I thought she was a role model for all women who bravely died pushing the envelope of what's possible. Now I learned that she died because she was too incompetent to use radio.
We have worked out a lot more of the details since I was in school. And schools are slow to get updates on ALL the things they have to educate upon.
The absolute minutia of every significant historical event is really hard to cover. How detailed you get into what topics also depends on your teacher, school, state, textbook supplier, and other factors.
@@PaulNechifor That's the wrong lesson to take away from this, mate
As a pilot who's been lost before as well as one who's flown over large bodies of water in single engine aircraft, I have at least a basic understanding of just how challenging what she attempted was and how your mind can start to run away with incorrect or fatalistic assumptions if not trained or rested properly. My heart sank for her as the story progressed. She had a lot of odds stacked against her and she has my deepest sympathy and respect.
Agree, the Pacific is vast, the understanding of radio waves before WW 2 was limited as was the equipment. Much was learned during WW 2. Dad spent his adult life flying in the Canadian Arctic he was a very good navigator he could find the trappers cabin at night on the vast tundra, lake shore, or where it was.
As a student pilot, I kept getting both amazed and mortified more and more about what early aviators had to do to find their way.
In a more amusing note, while VORs are going out of fashion in lieu of GPS, they're not THAT different than what they had finding the dips in signal with their loop antenna.
About 20 years ago in my country, a 737-300 lost their navigation and communication (according to national transportation safety board, both device was malfunctioned) in the middle of sea. The pilot decided to turn to the right which according to map, land should be somewhere to the right. But they could only guessed since they had no devices to measure how much degree they were turning. Their only hope was they could spot a land then try to figure from the land features to guess where they were at. They ended up landing on small airport around 800 kilometer away from their origin and destination.
She put this odds in place herself
@@noisycarlos VORs are much more advanced than what they were using. That is the difference--a very significant difference.
I have seen SO MANY Earhart documentaries over the years. I have never seen one that painted so clear a picture of what went wrong. Fantastic job.
Well yea, they were there.
I'm amazed at how ill-prepared the expedition to cross the Pacific was. Amelia Earhart certainly had ambition and bravery, but it seems she was seriously lacking in her understanding of risk and how to mitigate that risk with redundancies. Instead of resolving uncertainties and potential issues before takeoff, she just hoped for the best.
It had worked out before, so she thought shes doing good enough.
She was brave and everything, but her behaviour seems incredibly stupid. It blows my mind how you can go on a journey like that and be lacking this amount of certanity and understanding...
It's common when you make mistakes but get away with them. You start to belive that it always be that way or even that you are special. It's even worse if other people praise you for your acheivments and bravery.
@@cyrkielnetwork The problem with complacency is that it DOESN'T get you every time. Also it's crazy that she didn't check her equipmet once in the air after takeoff.
We must remember that aviation in the 1930s was an ENTIRELY different beast than what we know today. Obviously in equiment and knowledge, but even more important in mentality. Today it is the best regulated, best trained and best controlled sector short of nuclear technology. There is an in depth investigation into ANY relevant accident or almost accident with recommendations published to reach everyone. Every failure has been analysed, chewed through by multiple experts.
And even then, we have tragic accidents like Air France 447. A situation where a minor malfunction combined with misinterpretation leads to a desaster and the death of hundreds of people. That was just 15 years ago.
In an era where communication was a challenge under the best conditions, technology often unreliable and understood by very few, training scarce and daring counted for much it is perfectly understandable how Earhart ended up with her plan. Nobody of her peers would have acted much differently.
The hands on radio demonstration really helped me understand what all the documentaries on this subject have always described. Thank you!
+
I wondered how direction trackers worked, and that demonstration was great.
This story is a chilling reminder of how small errors can cascade into tragedy, especially in high-stakes situations. It makes you think about all the "what ifs" and how important clear communication and shared responsibility are. RIP Amelia Earhart.
We call it the "swiss cheese effect" in aviation (and probably lots of other places). Sometimes the mistake makes it through all the holes and doesn't get stopped by the cheese, and that's when there's an accident.
SMALL errors? And she stacked up a whole slew of large risks on top. The possibility of the outcome realized was predictable, at some fairly high percentage.
@dannymaxx510 I have only heard the Swiss cheese effect in discussions about aviation safety, but I bet it is a common engineering term too. I just started to think about the Therac-25 incident
@@savagesarethebest7251 Only on over lightened components.
Yeah, like, what if she'd gotten another radio operator to fill in.
Noonan the Navigator was not sitting beside her in the cockpit.
He was actually sitting behind her with a large fuel tank between them...they used a fishing line with pulleys to send notes with navigation numbers and fuel burn rates between each other
Typical backseat driver trying to man-splain a map to her.
Imagine the last note Noonan must've passed to Earhart...
"Empty"
@@ccengineer5902i bet you it's going to be a harsher word if i knew i was going to die
Sometimes he was back there and sometimes he was right beside her. Either way, they had to pass notes.
@@noahway13Please say this is satire
This is legitimately one of your best videos yet. Such a good balance of science and stakes with a story that is so infamous.
The last message of the video was truly a powerful one. As an engineer, it resonated with me. You have to have proper knowledge to take on the responsibility.
Get it. Resonated.
Amen from another engineer. Knowledge seems to be in good supply. Responsibility seems to have fallen off. But to be fair, it seems that taking a stand for engineers is a greater risk than in days gone by. Just seems so to me.
@@mrcat5508😊
@@mrcat5508As an amateur radio operator, it resonated with me too.
Clearly you were on the same wavelength as the message
amount of miscommunication and small errors is mindboggling, but understandable for the times and how difficult it was to properly communicate across distances.
Especially given it was relatively new technology for the time.
I wouldn't call it mind boggling.
Communication wasn't everywhere, and was "primitive" today.
The margin for error was small, and this was a VERY risky trip from start.
Just over confident and adrenaline fueled.
Especially with poor planning and recklessness. She was an accident waiting to happen
@@volvo09golden age of radio
Just goes to show, wimmen shouldn't fly. I say that with love.
Vertitasium must have hired so much (many) more people recently, the amount of videos recently at this production quality is astonishing
there's an open job listing for Veritasium for a writer/researcher that's been up for a few months now
I don't like correcting people's grammar online but it's *many, not much.
*many more people
AI bro
@@musafirgauravv AI must have been gotten really good to umm... what did the AI do again, can you elaborate?? If it's done the whole thing it certainly wouldn't look this good at the current level of AI; if they just did the animation well I've got bad news for you buddy, 3Blue1Brown did a video on how to make these style of animations using Manib(m). Nevertheless, I still wanna know what you meant when you said it was made by AI
@@matercan5649 Empty vessels make the most noise, hence why they can't back up their statement.
The absence of communication was dooming before it started. A very sad story :(
About 20 years ago in my country, a 737-300 lost their navigation and communication (according to national transportation safety board, both device was malfunctioned) while it was in the middle of sea. The pilot decided to turn to the right which according to map, land should be somewhere to the right. But they could only guessed since they had no devices to measure how much degree they were turning. Their only hope was they could spot a land then try to figure from the land features to guess where they were at. They ended up landing on small airport around 800 kilometer away from their origin and destination.
@@gorilladisco9108 it was a they/them pilot?
@@jotrutch they landed safely
"When attempting any challenging endeavor, you need someone with the right knowledge who will also take responsibility for getting things right." This is so true. Too many projects fail due to unknowledgeable people in charge or knowledgeable people not taking enough responsibilities.
@@ben-z similarly her grandson Dale didn't know not to hit the wall at Daytona in his NASCAR
I still have a lot of respect for Earhart and what she accomplished. But it is shocking how sloppy she was about such critical communication issues. Maybe she was just used to either being over land or flying over oceans but knowing that a huge continent would eventually appear even if she was off course. But trying that over the largest expanse of water on Earth was downright crazy.
And a LOT of other things. Yes, she was a bit sporty.
@@MrJdseniorI feel like you have to be to try something like that. People at the frontier are a little nuts. Imagine being the first person to strap themselves to an ICBM and orbit the earth? Imagine being the first person to make it to mars? There’s always the risk of death. There’s a reason the first astronauts were fighter pilots and test pilots
@@berengerchristy6256Of course, you need to have a certain level of risk taking in order to try this, but the smart ones do everything they can to reduce the inherent risk, control for the variables that they can to give the best possible chance of success.
@@berengerchristy6256 there's always risks for any great historical achievement. However, sometimes there's completely UNNECESSARY risks, and completely stupid decision making (even based on the limitations of the time); that Amelia demonstrated on the most dangerous leg of her journey.
Hitting a tiny island in the middle of he biggest ocean in the world would seem to be daunting enough for her to take a few extra precautions. I think she was always going to push the envelope until it pushed back.
Industry I worked in for many years, we always trained, "Okay, but what do you do if THAT doesn't work.... and if THAT doesn't work? What if..." Seems like she relied on things working just right and didn't really have any backup plan.
Not entirely true. The video mentions they had dead reckoning, celestial navigation, and multiple radio systems. They had backup plans, but they didn't do the due diligence to ensure each plan was fully baked and operable, that all parties involved were well informed and prepared.
@@error.418 I think celestial navigation is a bit overrated in aircraft. At the start of WW2, the RAF bombers could barely find the right city to bomb using celestial and dead reckoning, in fact they often found the wrong city. In fact Switzerland was bombed several times, and that's not even the right country.
@@dougerrohmer Oh I'm making no comment as to what is viable, just that they did have multiple methods. I also have no clue if it's reasonable to compare Noonan's abilities with those of WW2 bomber pilots.
I think it's very much a sign of the times. Just look at workplace death rates throughout the last century. Today, we do what you say, having backups for backups. Back then, "try not to die" was sort of the equivalent of current OSHA standards.
And @error.418, having a backup plan that isn't tested and confirmed is virtually the same as not having a backup plan. It's the difference between going on a summer camping trip and bringing jackets vs. saying "ah, it shouldn't rain I think"
Look up Prof Reason Swiss Cheese model of accident prevention. At every event of the story, I hear how she slipped thru another hole in the Swiss Cheese. But this was in the early days of aviation and radio. Accident investigators note all the mistakes they can find and try to write regulations to avoid other accidents. As they say, the regulation rules are written in blood. Lookup Mentour channel, Gimli Glider episode.
A nice reminder why redundancy is the number one rule for NASA.
Not just NASA, but yup.
And number 2. 😁
@@robthaham3408 😂
Thats why they have killed more crews than anu other space agency
@@Semystic wait till we bring out the triple redundancy systems
Hey thank you guys. I did my first ever Research paper on this exact topic in the late 90's. at the time No one really knew what happend and the military didnt share information. thanks for completing something i been tring to look in to for 30 years
Wow, learned a lot of interesting things from this video. 1. More details about Earheart's disappearance than just "she vanished without a trace." And 2. A whole lot more about old radio communication and equipment. I never understood what that loop antenna was for or the field with the 5 large antennas in it. Didn't know those were primarily for navigation. Very interesting. Thank you.
I wonder what Manning's private thoughts may have been after the flight went missing? "Whew, glad I didn't go I thought this might have happened." Or, "Had I gone, this never would have happened." I suppose he was interviewed, and someone here may have read something about what he may have said, if any thing.
IMO, it seems like he left the mission because he knew there were flaws in the plan, and perhaps Earhardt wasn't willing to listen to him about it? Either way, after the previous crash which he'd been in, he was probably thinking "I'm not surprised"...
Edit to clarify this is my opinion not something I've read.
She probably got rid of the one antenna that does Morse code against his wishes and he decided it ain’t worth it
@@ExhaustedOwl it is your guess
@@deehaws4334 It's a fairly well educated guess. If I were in a car wreck with someone I would certainly never let them drive me anywhere again. Doubly so for an airplane. Airplane problems may occur less frequently, but when problems do occur it's fairly rare that one simply walks away from the incident unharmed.
Even today, with the most precise and highly calibrated sextants, a position error of two miles is considered extremely good, and 10 miles is more common.
So you are not at an intersection of two lines, unless you drew the lines with sidewalk chalk. Navigators always draw a position circle, called a circle of error. The important question is not "where are we" but rather, "how large is the circle of error?"
Navigators? Is it just not safe to rely on GPS?
GPS truly is a marvel that we all take for granted, myself included. Is it a bad idea to rely on it in at sea?
GPS is more than adequate. Even integrated conditions in the south Indian Ocean the maximum sort of error you might experience would be a range of about 100 m. Typically GPS has you within 1 to 3 m.
OP is talking about navigation without GPS
@@Tyler-z8rGNSS (of which GPS is one such system) uses trilateration to calculate your location - which is not much different to what is discussed in the video but in 3 dimensions instead of 2. Think of it as plotting multiple spheres, your location is most likely within the area they all overlap.
As such, the accuracy and precision (please note, they're not the same thing) is still within a certain radius. Both will likely improve with more satellites visible to the receiver but there is still a "circle of error" as the OP of this comment said.
Well actually, you typically do not (in my experience) navigate on a chart by using a "circle of error." You navigate on a chart using either a "fix" or a running fix or estimated and assumed position. Which are all single points. An estimated/assumed position incorporates your idea of vagueness and uncertainty but is nevertheless represented as a single point. I've never seen or used a navigational chart by advancing a series of circles. If you draw a circle on a chart (which navigators do not usually do) then you cannot thereafter advance your position, you are just advancing ever widening circles which is not common and probably does not work. I'm nitpicking here, but since your circle of error is essentially unknowable while underway, navigators do not go around questioning how large their circle of error is, either. Today's sextants give better positions primarily due to better timekeeping devices and better optics. Large sextant position errors -say over two or three miles- is primarily due to being bounced around by waves, or lousy viewing conditions. I'm sure you'd agree. Not that anyone still uses celestial navigation much these days, although you still master it (somewhat) to earn your Coast Guard licenses.
It also helps if you use 3 stars per fix--as that "circle of error" can be more precisely known by the triangle it forms. Of course for Fred, that morning, he was using only the Sun, which didn't tell him if he was north or south of Howland--unless he had a super-precise compass, and precise magnetic variation charts. Performing a "landfall procedure" at 1,000' made it impossible to see the island unless they got within a few miles of it. Sextant errors on aircraft can usually range as a high as a dozen miles. Celestial navigation from an airplane is much more difficult than from a ship.
I will be sending this to my friends who are getting into ham radio. This is one of the clearest demonstrations of the basic principles of radio waves and equipment I think I've ever seen. Makes it very accessible. Thank you for this.
This radio direction finding demonstration is a BEAUTIFUL explanation and demonstation of one of the simplest, most basic, and most comon methods of radio direction finding in existance. Most now days are higher tech, but use exactly the same ultimate method. As a licenced ham for 30 years, I've built and used several antennas of this type, though now days I prefer to use doppler based methods.
I’ve been getting into learning about ham radio and I heard that they have field days and contests in order to test their equipment and make sure they know how to communicate effectively, because you can’t just assume everything will work the first time in an emergency if you don’t test yourself often.
@@drivers99 There are two big activities hams do for this reason, one is the anual "Field Day" contest which you mentioned, and the other, relevant to the demonstration in the video, is hidden transmitter hunting, commonly known as "Fox Hunting" in which someone hides a radio transmitter, and others attempt to find it with whatever direction finding equipment they have. The hunt might cover a small city park, or an entire large city, depending on the teams, and the gear to be used. The hidden transmitter could range from someone in their car transmitting with 50 watts, to a tiny microcontroller based transmitter powered by a hearing aid battery and hidden in a camera film can under a log in a city park.
I'm a pilot. I've been flying for 8 years. I've studied sense and loop antennas. I've taught other pilots about sense and loop antennas. And I've never understood them as well as I do now! Your videos are great, thank you for your dedication and effort.
Perhaps I'm too timid, but I'm often surprised at the unnecessary risks she took on the most dangerous and difficult leg of her entire journey. I believe she even ditched her life-raft at Lae. Howland Island is also pretty unique among other Pacific islands, as it isn't part of a large atoll, (which are numerous) nor has any terrain that rises more than a few feet above sea level (like many other volcanic islands)--so spotting it from 1,000' MSL was also nearly impossible, without flying within just a few miles from it. The Itasca itself would have been more easily spotted in a way. Plus the typical weather there consists of numerous low-level cumulus clouds, (typical of oceanic low-pressure equatorial areas) that cast shadows that resemble the size and shape of the island itself.
And on top of that she timed it, so she would be looking to land at Howland at night, making visually spotting the island even more impossible. It was a worthy endeavor, but it was incredibly badly planned and executed, she made so many bad decision and assumption, she pretty much set herself up for failure.
@@dfuher968 Yes, her most dangerous and difficult leg was very poorly planned and executed... didn't turn around when not receiving any radio responses halfway there, while also encountering overcast clouds most of the way. I believe they planned to use the rising sun and sextant as part of their "landfall procedure". In any case her last transmission was around 10:30am local time, which meant the sun was at too high an angle to provide a very accurate Line of Position. In one of my videos, I demonstrate a Landfall procedure to Howland Island using a setting sun--albeit a little too low an angle due to incalculable atmospheric refraction.
Wow, after listening to you two I would say I'm surprised nobody called the whole thing off, but life experience has taught me someone (or multiple someones) almost certainly tried. Or at least tried to get her to stop tossing vital gear overboard.
This is the same effect that allows for polarized light. It’s just operating at much higher frequencies. The elegant parallels among EM phenomena were a big reason I got hooked into electronics engineering.
Im an EE too. The EM field makes everything tick
I've heard so many conflicting stories about Amelia Earhart. I needed this video.
Have you heard what really happened? That she flew into the Bermuda triangle and flew through a portal into the land of Gielinor where she died attempting to get a firecape?
@@Tyler-z8r🤡
@@Tyler-z8r
1) A.E.'s messages got ignored by men in power (US Navy) because they were jealous
2) A.E.'s ignored advices from experts and made mistakes, but in mechanical - not navigational ones.
@@Tyler-z8r She was abducted by aliens who took her to another quadrant and populated a planet with human slaves. Those slaves had a rebellion and took over. Then later on, Captain Janeway met Amelia on that planet.
Didn't expect a new mentour pilot video on a Wednesday
😂
Lol
okay
I was just thinking that a lot of the errors here sound like exactly the sort of things in Mentor Pilot videos that get pilots killed. Improper and insufficient preparation and "flying by the seat of the pants" until something goes wrong and not enough redundancy to recover.
I would love to hear Peter do his show on this. I suggest we all get these two great commentators together to produce a show.
Amelia Earhart had only 500 hours flying time when she attempted this crossing. She had had numerous crashes and "mishaps" prior. (I have 350+ and no crashes.) She had businesses that were pumped up by her bold exploits. As pointed out in the video, she did not seem to understand the radio, and coordination of life-dependent factors was poor. There's a saying in aviation that 1 mistake rarely kills you, but as the holes in the swiss cheese line up.... The FAA says there are 5 things that often kill pilots: Anti-authority, Impulsivity, Invulnerability, Macho, Resignation and she seems to have had 2 of those.
Wow, I racked up 400 hours and an instrument rating back when I was flying, and I always considered myself a low-time pilot...
Poor planning and get-there-itis.
Honestly the way she speaks she sounds a little loopy
She missed Europe and almost missed Great Britain as well when she crossed the Atlantic.
What a lot of people who have never had flight lessons dont know is that ground speed and air speed are two different things. You can be travelling at 100 knots in the air but only at 60 over the actual ground. A lot of people would assume that planes would fly with wind pushing them, like a tailwind but that planes actually take off INTO The wind to increase lift as more air flows over the wings. And when youre flying you can be flying with either a headwind or a tailwind which can change your speed massively without you even realising it. Luckily modern aircraft have instruments for this but they didnt always. This made navigation in early airplanes very difficult using dead reckoning. Airplanes are crazy things.
I genuinely do not understand how the Veritasium team has managed to keep up even a small fraction of their editorial quality while pumping out so many of these videos. It's incredible.
It's feels good when Derek says more about them at the end of the "show" and not "video"
I thought so too..but then an advert still comes on in another minute
What difference does it make?
@@paulelderson934 self respect, feelings of grandeur and self importance
Except he did say "video".
"This video is sponsored by KiwiCo. More about them at the end of the show".
@@peetsnortYeah advert may be annoying but everyone in this world works for money. They need more profit to make more videos.
It's stunning that neither person on the airplane had enough of an understanding of radio to either properly plan for the use of the equipment prior to the flight or to troubleshoot the issues that developed in-flight. That should have been priority one of the flight crew, as they had a snowball's chance of finding their landing site without radio direction finding.
There was radio operator on the first attempt which ended with a crash. He did not join the second attempt, it is unclear if this was due to other commitments or self-preservation.
Seems incredibly irresponsible.
@@tarnvedra9952he figure out she was a crap pilot
@@tarnvedra9952 yeah he saw her woman driving skills and bailed
I love her story/ life. When I think about this portion, I see over confidence, lack of preparation, and bad luck. It happens. If people didn't push boundaries, where would we be? I really want to find her plane! 😊✌️
5:00 - Minor nit. The names of both Eugene Vidal's employer and job are both off. There is no "Bureau Of Commerce". It's "Department Of Commerce". But Vidal wasn't its head (whose title is "Secretary Of Commerce"). The Department Of Commerce had or has an Aeronautics Branch. Vidal started there in June 1933 as assistant director for Air Regulation. Earhart's connections resulted in President Franklin Roosevelt promoting him in September 1933 to Director of Aeronautics (within the Department Of Commerce). In 1934 Vidal's unit's name was changed from "Aeronautics Branch" to "Bureau Of Air Commerce". He was the father of Gore Vidal.
He never said the guy was appointed anywhere, just that she tried to get him appointed. Also names in the past are different then now. Things change....
@@mellie4174 the names this commenter gave are the names as they were at the time. there is no, nor ever was, a "Bureau of Commerce"
@@mellie4174 My original comment, if you could've been bothered to read it, went into the name-changes. There never was a Bureau of Commerce, and so saying someone got appointed to be its director is just wrong. There's a DEPARTMENT of Commerce, but it has a Secretary, not a Director. Also, reread my comment for whether Vidal DID get appointed or not. He did. Did you READ it?
Very interesting! Can I ask why you know all of this?
Another perfect example of the Swiss Cheese Model: how a number of individual mistakes could never have a significant impact, a multitude combined end in a catastrophe.
This crash really was a “perfect storm” of various small systems going wrong
Absolutely. It’s never one single thing.
Some of the swiss cheese holes were about as big as the cheese itself though...
I can smell the Mentour Pilot on you ;)
@@SkyborneVisionsexactly
The lack of communication before the lack of communication was dooming. Very sad story :(
Exactly. And as the boss of the trip, Amelia should be held responsible. Communication is a two way thing, everything should be verified. So if you send a telegram and it is received, you should acknowledge. If you do not receive an acknowledgement, you should resend and highlight the lack of acknowledgement and maybe mention that you are best buds with the prez. Never use slang or abbreviations, don't assume that the other end is using the same version of technobabble as you, so you can't get the frequency/wavelength thing wrong. Etc.
Yes i guess telegrams were not very dependable
The problem with acknowledgement is making sure you acknowledge the acknowledgement, and so on. At a certain point, you can probably surmise all parties are in agreement...
@SlyAceZeta the classic goodbye problem, internet protocol has the same issue
21:58 I may have missed it, but I believe you failed to mention that during the repair process, Lockheed replaced her Western Electric 20B receiver with an early experimental version of the Bendex RA-1, at the time no one had ever used that receiver before and it would be years before the commercial version was available.
Did that have any impact?
@@cadenbiglerMost likely. As part of the new reciever and transmitter, Joseph Gurr had modified the new system to transmit and recieve at 500 KHz. Derek is incorrect at 27:07 in that she was told she still had the capability to send and recieve at 500 KHz even without the trailing wire, but the modifications were made on an already experimental system and had never been fully tested.
Lockheed only merged with Martin in 1994. It was pure Lockheed back then. And Martin Marietta was created in 1961.
@@freeculture Thank you, I updated this.
yes we came across this in our research. We thought about mentioning her limited training with the new loop - I don't even think they had a user's manual. But we left this detail out of the script. Another interesting note - the loop on the Itasca may have been very similar (or in fact identical) to Earhart's.
Hubris was what ultimately got her killed. Had she tried to replace Capt. Manning with someone else who could assists with radios and navigation, she could have safely finished her journey. Even today in highly automated commercial airplane cockpits with all modern guidance systems, for long journeys there will be a 3 person crew. That she attempted to circumnavigate the world as a two person crew is beyond reckless.
Sounds like piss poor planning, preparation and coordination. Earhart was famous for lack of preparation. Flying over the pacific without a life raft was mindbogglingly irresponsible (read that stupid).
these are some really nasty comments sir @veritasium
@@Granola-ld1by Yep, and all of them true.
Funny it didn't occur to me that that would be a very obvious thing to not remove from the plane!
i agree with the comment piss poor and reckless . i mean the radio being critical and she doesn't know how it works or what frequencies to use when both their lives depended on it. wow
A truly idiotic comment. The Electra was a tiny flying gas station. There was literally no room for anything other than "more gas". This wasn't some sort of huge plane with tons of room for rafts & parachutes & such. Trying to make it one would have REDUCED the odds, not increased them, because she'd have had even less time to find Howland Island.
i feel like this is one of the reasons people now are told to confirm they have received the message through the radio. If that was a standard thing before, she might have realized she wasn't getting a response and turned around after the first checkup before she even got too far, but I'm guessing since radio was pretty new at the time people were probably more okay with people not responding on the other end. kind of like how you don't expect someone to tell you they received your sentence every time you share a thought in a phone call.
No, she was just an idiot. Doing radio checks was common practice back then BECAUSE radio was relatively new. Since it was going to be a major part of her navigation to a tiny FLAT island in the middle of the Pacific, checking her radio reception should have been top priority. However, she also ditched her life raft in Lae (before her most dangerous leg of her journey); so she wasn't the most rational "hero".
@@SkyborneVisions I'm guessing the other end didn't acknowledge her messages either. Her acknowledging messages wouldn't help if she was the one who can't receive messages.
@@michawhite7613 If she couldn't receive messages, then it doesn't matter if the other side was acknowledging her messages or not. Her messages weren't being acknowledged period so she should have turned back after realizing that she wasn't getting the messages. She also obviously didn't know how to switch her receiver to her locating antenna either so even if she could've received the messages through it instead of her normal receiver, she wasn't going to. And the safest thing she could've done was turn back.
Even with all that went wrong on the mission.. it still could've been successful if the frequency she told them to broadcast was correct. But being unable to receive communications is just an insane handicap that was just unnecessary for the journey. It was already dangerous enough as it was, no need to accept that sort of handicap. And it was basically that handicap that killed both her and her companion. It wasn't just her life in her hands, it was also her partner's.
@@michawhite7613 The other end wouldve acknowledged her messages but she couldnt hear them and she couldnt use her better morsecode antenna because she didnt bring her morse code guy thats the whole point of this video
@@michawhite7613 If both ends had agreed to acknowledge radio messages, then she would've known that either she wasn't being heard, or that she wasn't receiving. In either case, she would've known before it was too late that she had a problem and to turn back.
Until now
I thought she died alone
Thank you for share this story
My thoughts to that guy who trusted her with his life on this adventure
Wow ive know her and grege noonan since the 80s when i was a kid.
Guess she dont need no man these days
The "guy" was a grown man a professional who took his own decisions in life I'm sure. His job in that plane was as important as the pilots. Not every adventure has a good ending . He knew the possible outcomes for his life.They trusted each other but things didn't work out .
@@jhoughjr1 it's still taught that there's a guy, but he wasn't the famous one, so he's kind of a foot note, and the story of Amelia Earhart just isn't that important historically, so it's kinda just mentioned once and forgotte in school.
I never would've guessed that Amelia Earheart could have saved herself by simply switching to her loop antenna for all communications. I'm not a pilot by any means, so it wouldn't be as obvious for me, lol. Nonetheless, may she rest in peace.
Idk if it would be obvious to most pilots at the time. Clearly her biggest mistake was attempting this without having someone with deep knowledge on radio technology on board.
She had that one guy, but he either left or was "fired" as Derek mentioned in the video.
@@Tyler-z8r Ooh, I didn't put the time frame into consideration, so your explanation does add sense into the situation. Thanks!
Wimmen should not fly. I say this with love.
@@KendraAndTheLaw You think? 3 of last 4 recent comments are all negative comments no? Who knows how much more of your 52 are also hate comments. At least be truthful to yourself when insulting a whole group, you said it with hate. ( Thanks for adding words to my vocab btw, real sleek using wimmen instead of women aren’t ya? Good thing I have google )
or just turning back at the first mismessage she got
As a retired broadcast engineer after 40 years in the industry and an Amateur Radio Operator for over 45 years, in a short explanation he did not too bad. One must take into account the year which determines what technology was available. The differences between night and day propagation on the different frequencies. The level of experience of the operators. It is truly complicated.
It is still commonly believed that Earhart was an excellent pilot. However, other pilots who had watched her fly were quite critical of her for her lack of skill and knowledge. Other women pilots who had flown in races against her described her sloppy flying to include problems taking off and landing. At the end of one cross country race, she bounced so far down the runway that spectators thought she was going to crash at the end of the field. The crash in Hawaii was another example of these shortcomings. Her and Noonan's deaths were a direct result of her believing her own publicity and her hubris.
Dang. The detail in this video is absolutely wild. Having wheel in the Electra 10-E is incredible. I dont think anyone else would put that much detail in.
That's because nobody has the financial budget this channel has.
@@mr.shannon6137 🤣
10:28 I love how Derek makes that face as thinking of the irony of watching this video wirelessly as he discusses how Hertz doubted his technology
One needs Responsibility and Knowledge to battle the chaos of the Universe. Beautifully put.
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
this is really one of those stories that just invokes a feeling a despair. so many small things going slightly wrong one after the other
That is the most in-depth video I have ever heard on Amelia! Thank you!
The ring antenna and the association with it and the origin of the radio is mind-blowing, and sooo cool!
she just became stubborn, fired her best navigator and blamed crash on him, when he was the one who saved them, and then thought she could handle radio signals on her own.... stubborness took over her consciousness and when this happens, we have seen many stories of this what happens next
just look at one of the latest. the oceangate . again ego comes before a big fall. i think his conclusion is so very flawed to blame the the navy
"She flew over the ice wall." -☝️🤓
@@JT-91u blame everyone but the woman these days.
Look around its true.
It cant be she messed up. Shes the first woman to do something!
@@jhoughjr1 duh, you never blame the person who eff'd up, WHO DOES THAT, that called accountability. Surely she was a strong independent woman in the time period.
its because she was drunk on the attention and influence she had
Your videos usually have a good bit of great info. That one was 35 minutes of amazing information. Thank you, I didn't have a clue about all the limitations of navigation at the time of her flight.
The list of assumptions leading up to the disaster is anxiety inducing.
There is an old grainy video of her takeoff on that leg of the trip that shows a puff of smoke coming from underneath the plane, apparently corresponding to damage to the receiving antenna. That would explain why she apparently could not receive subsequent voice transmissions.
I love how as soon as I started my ATPL (Airline Transport Pilot Licence) Veratasium makes this video. More relevant than ever!
Im doing my ppl at the moment. Good luck with your ATPL ✈️
These type of stories always humble me and help me realise what amazing communication capabilities we have nowadays. There is so much we take for granted, and besides basic concepts I have no idea how they really work and how small changes or mistakes in interpretation can have a big impact. I will think about this the next time I complain the WiFi on the plane doesn’t work.
Just heart-breaking. So well done in this video.
5:20 So she had the President build an entire airfield just for her, in a totally remote place, and she didn't even wind up using it? That'd be hilarious if it weren't, you know, SAD
@jadegecko - We don't know for sure that that is the story. Even the telegram could have been part of cover. FDR says to Earhart "It'd behoove the U.S.A. to have runways on Howland Island, just in case. The world is uncomfortable just now, and I'm worried. The best way for the U.S. to get those runways built is if a nice girl sends a telegram to the President and asks for them so she can land her plane while on a peaceful publicity-stunt. Then Congress will green-light this without fear of international reaction or provocation". That MIGHT be what happened.
Dude, I’ve been an aviation nerd for as long as I can remember…I’m a certified pilot and (I thought) a major geek when it comes to this sort of stuff. But in all the tellings I’ve heard of this story, I never knew that there was a level of incompetence at play. I always thought it was just one of those unlucky tragedies that dot the course of aviation history. It really changes the complexion of the story…this entire thing was COMPLETELY avoidable.
That was a fun afternoon. The receiver is one I built about 8 years ago using a design by Nick Roethe DF1FO. This video only includes audio from one ear - the other ear has a "whoopee" tone that makes it much easier to DF, but Earhart didn't have that
Thanks for your help Clifford!
Always wondered how they got lost with radio navigation available. And just 8 years later to lose 5 TBM Avengers with even better radio gear, is beyond bewildering! I used to love tuning AM stations along my route of flight, and following the needle from city, to city, while listening to the oldies! You should do an episode on Flight 19....
There the fault lay with the squadron leader. The subordinates knew they got it wrong, but discipline was stronger.
Yeah Flight 19 is pretty solved tbh. Squad leader had a catastrophic and almost unfathomable loss of situational awareness, and in the days before CRM (which basically applies here even though they were in separate aircraft), his subordinate squad mates couldn't correct him.
Big points for including The Secret Life of the Radio, but please link to Tim's channel where he has cleaned up the original episodes and re-published them. Also, he's still at it, making stuff and making videos about how to make stuff.
Also, there are plenty of hacks to reduce the need for full-length antennas when transmitting. Take the ELF band, for which you'd need antennas several thousand km long; add a big inductor to the start and you don't need the full length. And it's not as simple as efficiency in conversion to RF; you can't really make that claim without talking about Q.
Source: I'm a ham with a small back yard that can operate just fine on 80M with a too-short antenna and a variable coil.
I am floored by how well presented and carefully researched this video is. I learned so much about not only the history of the event, but useful information to tuck away for later if ever I am marooned at Sea with just a radio.
This iis an amazing realization! Great job putting this together. I'm a ham radio operator and I cannot fathom the number of mistakes in this undertaking. It's just incredible that people were not more diligent in helping one another.
The quality of his videos keeps getting better
It helps to have a team of writers, planners, and animators, rather than one person trying to do it all. Good teamwork makes the dream work.
Jesus Christ was a scientist 😊
@@JohnHausserWhere did you get that???
@@JohnHausser ? no??
Sheesh, gonna have to rewatch this to understand the radio frequencies bit. I never knew it was so complicated, especially over long distances.
9:25 Tim Hunkin is awesome. He still makes such videos on UA-cam. His channel has his old awesome videos and new ones. Thank you for referencing him.
34:15 Um, the only person with the responsibility of getting things right for your safety when you’re attempting such a dangerous stunt is YOU. She made 100 errors and there is nobody to blame but her.
I once launched a jet from the deck of a US Navy aircraft carrier in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and flew away at high altitude for about 90 minutes before we had to turn around to find the ship and land on it. We never saw any sign of land for all that time. I was left with an awesome feeling of how vast the oceans are, and how tiny we are in comparison. I can easily imagine the desperation of Amelia Earhart flying low and slow over the ocean with such primitive radio and navigation equipment.
Even with today's technology, I can't imagine flying over the Pacific but to do that in an era with no GPS and better communication systems is pure nightmare fuel.
This video has me thinking that Earhart's flight was very poorly coordinated. A lot depended on telegrams never acknowledged. She sent telegrams and just assumed they were received and understood by the radioman on the ships that needed this critical information. All that should have been coordinated before she took off.
Telegraph messages were expensive at the time.
Agreed - those frequencies should have been known well in advance. Something, something.. piss poor performance.
I wonder on how of all topics you manage to come up with something so interesting and every time it's a surprise.
The open ground experiment was really amazing and had me thing how hard would it be in a plane over an ocean to do the same!
Thanks
This reminds me; when I first started flying in the mid '50s, radio navigation was via the A and N quadrants. Thank God by the end of the '50s VOR stations came out around the country and we could navigate to each 360 degree point on the compass.
I agree with the conclusion about her lack of radio knowledge and lack of responsibility from the others not guiding her correctly that caused the tragedy. Well done Veritasium.
Superb artists behind the explanation.
Beautiful work. No ai could do this - for many years.
Amazing work!
She had a truly bad bad record of flying. she was a celebrity 1st, "Pilot" close second. Just glad she didn't let her ego kill more than 2 people. credit for having the balls to do all this, sure, but some people just cannot get the hang of whatever profession they want to master. its the ones that recognize they are likely much better at something else that get way ahead.
One detail about HF transmissions, the interaction ionosphere is actually a refraction as the concentration of the charged particles increased. It is idealized as a reflection because it's simpler to think of.
Understanding refraction helps one to understand critical frequency, MUF, skip zone distance. All part of choosing the best frequency to use.
You'll note how we animated it as a refraction and said "are *effectively* reflected back"
Once again, your excellent, exhaustive analysis is the best, bar none. Amelia Earhart ran afoul of Murphy's Law, gone wild. I can't help but think her decision to remove the sound insulation must have caused mental and physical exhaustion just when she could not afford to make mistakes.
Derek has basically described the swiss cheese model of aviation. This story is like so many others in aviation, that all the holes have to line up just right. With several things going wrong, her margin for error was reduced to the point that any one of those things was enough to tip over the edge and lead to disaster.
I used to feel bad for Amelia Earhart because she died all alone trying to fly across an ocean. After hearing all that she seemed like someone who may have been ambitious but was hard headed in doing what she wanted. She flew across the Atlantic, a great feat for its time, but to have the audacity to demand a runway be built on a small island in the middle of nowhere is a bit much. Also with the lack of communications early on in the trip should have been a red flag but went ignored.
Henhen - And she didn't die alone. Fred Noonan was her navigator.
@@jaspermcjasper3672 yeah she isn't some sort of Lone hero failed in the journey because of bad luck, she failed because of her own incompetence
yo my heart was racing for the last third of this video. very well done.
The ultimate irony is the majority of Earhart's immortal fame comes from the mystery of her failure. Had she successfully made the journey she wouldn't be nearly as much of a household name.
Next to no one knows who Wiley Post is.
He's the guy you died with Will Rogers, which actually makes him kind of famous.
I disagree that the ship captain was to blame and feel it is unfair people try to pin it on him. I can see how, from his perspective, advising Earhart in any way would seem foolish. For one, she is the pilot that has already made a series of unbelievable flights - maybe she truly does know something he doesn't. In addition to that, who was he to give advice to someone attempting something truly dangerous and life-threatening? Though his ship was involved, he was still essentially a third party. I wouldn't want to become the guy that gave bad advice and caused her to fail either.
So much quality content in such a shortspan is truly amazing, thank you so much derek hope everything is going well for ya
At 11:02 the Morse code says 37
How random!
Missed opportunity for a hidden 42
damn i got 37'd
Your comment confused me for a second, because my first thought was that those are clearly letters, not numbers (37 would be ...-- --...). But you are right, it spells out thirty seven.
Moreover, it says "thirty seven"
Everyone remembers her for getting lost, but no one ever hears about the first person to ever solo circumnavigate the world...Wiley Post
He wasn't transgender or a woman so is removed from history
He crashed killing both himself and Will Rogers. Way different from Earhart I guess.
Not as interesting. Can't make conspiracy theories about people that are at home.
It seems obvious to test all critical systems just after take off. How could she not know the receiving antenna was broken and returned immediately?
FAA was in its infancy. Perhaps such procedure was not regulated back then.
It was likely broken during the over-gross-weight takeoff...
Leaving the ad/ plug for the end of the video… much respect dude
Incompetence: When you earnestly believe that you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do.
Here before the title and thumbnail change. "Amelia Earhart’s Final Flight - And One Thing That Could Have Saved Her"
Edit - Now it's "How Physics Doomed Amelia Earhart" and it's on it's third thumbnail
Always appreciate these kinds of comments haha
It's amazing to me how these channels can work on a video for months but have no confidence in the title at all. It's like they have more faith in the algorithm than they do in their own creativity, even though no one has any clue how the algorithm actually works.
@@LimeyLassen Its because they have no idea how the algorithm works that they have to try several different titles and thumbnails to see which one works best.
It’s a good day when veritasium uploads
YES
GPS is such a blessing. Genuinely one of the greatest inventions.
Yeah. Often under appreciated
The 34:00 minutes point is brilliant. Thank you 🙏
One word: preparedness. If you want a fantastic example of preparedness, look at how Amundsen organized his South Pole expedition. Leftover fuel cans were found over 50 years later and were completely full. He marked his supply depots with rows of red flags for 1200 m in _each_ direction (E and W as he was travelling S and then N on the way back). He got to the 1200 m by taking the largest possible error on navigation, and then doubling it. They had enough food to miss a depot and still make it to the next one. His entire team were expert skiers and dog-sledders, so everyone could do everyone else's job. All this in 1911.
RIP Fred Noonan
Back when Veritasium Vsause and Minute Physics used to upload was a good time, Big 3 of Yt science
33:52 The Commandant Thomson took the expression "strong and independent woman" too literally. He just did not want to be the first one to get cancelled back then for mansplaining 😢 What a tragedy!!
The most tragic part, I think, is that given that everything was against her, it being possible would've never the story even more amazing. A story of the best of the best coming together and beating all odds through sheer skill and determination. But instead, it was a story of a completely preventable disaster, a story that never even got a proper ending as we never found her.
those monthly kits are so good for kids. i don't know anything about your sponsor. but my kits were early '60s tube electronics! subsequent kits would use stuff from earlier kits. they got me a couple others too, but that's the one i really remember best and was the most organized