Thank you for all the work you put into this. The original passenger's writing is an excellent find. The narrator is wonderfully matched with the well-chosen photographs, some from the period, some far more recent, all beautiful and informative. I've wanted to know more about the Pacific Clipper aircraft for decades. :)
As you'll recall, Fred Noonan was also Amelia Earhart's navigator. The guy was the best of his day and how he got lost on Earhart's last flight still begs an explanation.
Most prominent story I've heard over the years was that he was a really heavy drinker, argumentative and unreliable. There was a lot of resistance to Amelia taking him as the navigator because of his "history". Whether that's an "urban legend" or true, I don't know, it's just the reason always put out.
Charles and Anne Lindbergh were instrumental is seeking out suitable islands in the Pacific for Pan American's clippers. The islands had to be within flying range of the clippers and were often uninhabited. Everything had to be brought in by ship: fuel, oil, materials and workmen to build hotels, make or clear channels for the clippers to use, radio equipment and towers, food, and so forth. There are some great coffee table books with excellent photos and accounts of the life of these clipper services.
The S-42 was a lovely plane, but it didn't have the range to fly most legs of the route with passengers. S-42s were used to link Manila to Hong Kong. One of these was destroyed by Japanese planes on the first day of the war.
I really enjoyed this segment, the audio description was excellent but for one mispronunciation which I do not recall at the moment but perhaps somebody else will do that. Thanks
yikes!! that is the area where they think Earharts plane went down---this has only been established in recent years using cross referencing radios from her mayday calls picked up from different ships--they said she probably crashed (ran out of gas)landed on a atoll and then the plane eventually got washed out to sea!!!! somebody has gone into this area and found minor pieces of the plane,human bones-they heard her radio call for about two weeks but could not deciper her location
now that's when flying was an adventure! pilots actually flew the plane, nothing like today, fly by wire... a lost art,no disrespect to today's pilots, just me rambling. lol
seaman roam all over the globe using the sun/stars--fred did do it too but had gotten so far off track they ran out of gas,cloudy conditions was probably a factor,no ability to navigate--people have reported over the years of simple compasses going nuts in this area --on one of these tiny islands they have found the possible remains of the plane,human bones including a womans
@@dethray1000 - you have to put the disappearance into perspective: It was in July 1937 and from 1941 till 1946 WWII was raging across the Pacific Islands which were littered with bodies ships, boats and aircraft. It's not as if Earhart and Noonan's bones and remnants of their airplane were the only things to be found.
You are wrong about that pronunciation. The two C’s are pronounced separately as they are in different syllables. It’s similar to the words “success “ or “access”. That is why the O has its secondary sound rather than primary (long) sound because it is following the rule that a vowel before a double consonant has its secondary ( short) sound. This is true for every vowel except O which has many exceptions. If you think “occidental “ is pronounced “ossidental” I would suggest you have a hearing deficit or neurological hearing problem you should have checked.
