Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan took off from Lae, New Guinea at 10:00 a.m. local time (00:00 GMT Greenwich Mean Time) July 2, 1937, where the present day Lae NDB is now located. They were heading east for Howland Island across the international dateline, some 2225 nautical miles away. The flight was going to take some 19 hours. Their Lockheed Electra 10E carried 1150 gallons of aviation gasoline and 64 gallons of oil. The movie of her and Fred taking-off from Lae are the last publicly acknowledged photos of them. Their fate is a matter of conjecture and there is some circumstantial evidence that they didn't die on July 2nd 1937.
This Howland Island scenery is meant to remember their effort and inspire others to continue in the search for evidence of their ultimate fate using Microsoft's Flight Simulator. Howland Island has always been part of flight simulator's default scenery. To find it required an effort to search for it using Latitude and Longitude, much the same way Fred Noonan had to do back in 1937.
The scenery is intended to appear as Amelia and Fred would have seen it on the morning of July 2, 1937.
Recently a flight simulator Sextant was added to Library files. Fred Noonan was an ex Pan Am navigator who used a sextant to establish celestial fixes during the night. He pioneered the Pan Am Clipper route to Manila.
The Howland Island scenery has a working NDB on 333 kcs. Amelia and Fred were expecting some assistance to find the island with direction finding equipment. Fred Noonan considered this piece of equipment essential to finding the island after using celestial navigation throughout the night. In flight simulator you will have the advantage of picking up the NDB signal from about 40 miles out. The NDB turns the tiny island into a target 80 miles in diameter. It would have been a lifesaver for Amelia and Fred.
You can use the GPS in flight simulator to plan your route all the way from the NDB (old airport) at Lae to the island and give you distance readouts at any point. Amelia Base KHAQ can be found under United States...Pacific Basin...Howland. To simulate Amelia and Fred's approach that morning you could use the GPS until the 180th meridian or 179 degrees west longitude and then turn off the GPS to use dead reckoning until you pick up the Howland beacon.
If you find Howland and land all right, refuel your airplane. Commander Thompson might ask you to fly a search pattern for Amelia. There is a cloud bank to the northwest.
At 20:13 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), not knowing if the Itasca had heard her, Amelia reported that they were on line 157 337. This was a sun line that passed through Howland Island at that time of the morning. That line of position (LOP) had an orientation of 157 by 337 degrees. They were somewhere on that line trying to find Howland without radio communication.
The Coast Guard Cutter Itasca reported the weather that morning as Wind: East, force 2..., which is a light breeze. Temperature: 81 degrees F. Sky condition: clear. Sea conditions: 1...moderate swell, sea calm.
The Amelia Earhart Society, AES, wishes to thank Al Heline for his historic contribution of Howland Island scenery to Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Daryll Bolinger
Howland Island as released in Microsoft's FS-2004 program is inaccurate in size and position. As released, it also projects that the island is populated with a mixture of hard wood and palm trees. Having personally flown over the island, though many years ago, I can assure you that this would be highly inaccurate. All of these inaccuracies have been corrected by the scenery project.
As there are no known photographs of Itasca City, the building and structures are 'period type' for the decade of the 30's. The radio station at Itasca City is equipped with an NDB station on 333.0 KC (KiloHertz to the younger set). This may not be historically accurate but will assist Flight Simmers in finding the island.
A sufficient quantity of fuel and oil is on the island for Amelia. This was all shipped in for her use, transported from the ship by hand and positioned near the taxiway. It is not a perpetual supply... In other words, it isn't for your consumption. There is no fuel available for the Flight Simmer. I hope you brought your own supply.
The USCG cutter Itasca is depicted as being just off shore of Howland Island. She is manned and the boilers are fired, ready to go. If you make an approach to the grass runway 09, the possibility exists that you might possibly fly through her smoke. Do not be alarmed, it will only last a second or two. If you cannot see smoke coming from the stack on the Itasca, recheck the location of your Effects files in the installation section.
The USCG cutter Swan is also on station on the 337/157 line northwest of the island. She too has an NDB transmitting on 444.0 KC (for Flight Simmers only).
A minor Note of Warning for those that elect not to follow the mowed grass of the runway and taxiway... Not all of the island is 'hardened'. That means that by taking a shortcut across the island instead of following the provided taxiways could result in your becoming stuck in quicksand, resulting in a crash of the aircraft. Bent props or airframes are not the responsibility of the scenery designer, only the 'pilot' that cannot drive the aircraft.
Installation
If you are using the default (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9) file structure, you may unzip the entire scenery set to your Addon Scenery directory. Please read the following for additional file relocation that may be necessary.
* A folder containing DOCUMENTATION is provided and contains this information. After reading it, there is no need to retain it.
* A folder containing EFFECTS files is provided. This folder may contain several files, which must be placed in your FS9 'Effects' sub directory. For information, this file provides the working elements of the special effects that are being used.
* Within the EFFECTS folder, there is a sub directory for TEXTURE(s) that are required for this scenery. Please move the file(s) to the TEXTURE sub directory that accompanies your EFFECTS directory.
* A folder containing SCENERY files is provided. This folder contains the numerous BGL files that are required to place the scenery. You may move the complete folder to your file structure by 'click and drag' or you may perform a 'select all' function and either cut & paste or copy the files to your scenery structure.
* A folder containing LANDCLASS files specific to the area of scenery is provided. It is suggested that a separate Scenery Library folder for LandClass files be used if you do not already have one. Simply move all LANDCLASS files to this folder. For those not informed, LandClass files provide trees where trees should be and towns where towns should be. They are of the BGL variety but as stated, should be in a folder of their own.
* A folder containing TEXTURES is provided. This folder contains all of the various texture files required to make the scenery look like it should. As with the SCENERY files, you may move the complete folder, do a 'click and drag' or perform a 'select all' function and either cut & paste or copy the files to your scenery structure.
Remember to ADD to your Scenery Library
This scenery will not be visible if you do not add it to your SCENERY LIBRARY within FS-2004 / FS9 program. To complete this:
* Start your Flight Simulator program and select SETTINGS screen that appears when you would normally select a flight. The SETTINGS tab can be found in the lower left portion of the window.
* This will open a SETTINGS window. From this window select SCENRY LIBRARY, which should be about in the middle of your screen and the lower part of the window.
* When the SCENERY LIBRARY window opens, you will see a line of buttons along the right side of the window. From this row, select ADD AREA.
* The ADD AREA window will then open allowing you to enter your file structure for the scenery.
* If you have used the usual installation, your file location will be C:\Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery\Howland Island. You can use your mouse and point to the Addon Scenery directory, then Howland Island sub-directory. This will show the name Howland Island in the SCENERY AREA TITLE window and you can press OK.
* You may also select whether you want to cache the scenery. You may select to cache or leave it as the default.
Most importantly, it must be pointed out that this FS-2004 scenery work is provide free to the Flight Simulation hobbyist and is created to be used without the necessity of purchasing add-on programs.
When we attack a project to improve the FS-2004 scenery, we do so with the best tools and information available including topographic maps, aerial and satellite photographs, ground level photographs and personal knowledge. Often we will find that the topography of an area, rivers, shorelines and other key points of FS-2004 scenery are completely wrong or incorrectly located. We make every attempt to correct these inaccuracies. In doing so, we often have to change the existing topographic 'mesh' to accurately represent what is actually there. This however has apparently presented a problem to a few flyers that have loaded other topographic mesh scenery, free or otherwise. You should be aware that if other terrain scenery is active, the possibility of conflict exists. As stated previously, we base much of our work on personal knowledge. We can also attest that some of the terrain mesh programs that are available are inaccurate. Recent changes in the patch for FS-2004 that pertain to terrain mesh are a step in the right direction and hopefully the day will come that it will not be necessary for us to correct the terrain characteristics. Until that day comes, the decision is being placed on your shoulders.
To have this scenery package function as intended, it may be necessary for the user to turn off other terrain scenery involved with this particular area of work.
Copyright and Distribution
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THIS IS FREEWARE SCENERY Copyright (C) 2004 James C. Bosworth & Al Heline
IT IS INTENDED FOR THE ENJOYMENT AND FREE USE BY THE FLIGHT SIMULATOR COMMUNITY AND MAY BE DISTRIBUTED TO, UPLOADED AND/OR DOWNLOADED TO THE INTERNET FOR FREE OF CHARGE USE BY THE PUBLIC, SO LONG AS ALL FILES REMAIN INTACT AND THIS TEXT FILE IS INCLUDED. HOWEVER, THIS SCENERY MAY NOT BE SOLD, UPLOADED OR DISTRIBUTED TO ANY PERSON, BBS, ORGANIZATION OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF ENTITY WHICH INTENDS TO OR IN ANY WAY PROFITS FINANCIALLY OR OTHERWISE FROM DISTRIBUTION OF THIS SCENERY. ALL RIGHTS, INCLUDING OWNERSHIP AND COPYRIGHT ARE RESERVED BY THE ABOVE.
AS STATED, THIS SCENERY IS OFFERED AS FREEWARE. EVERY ATTEMPT TO TEST THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE SCENERY HAS BEEN TAKEN, HOWEVER, WE CANNOT ASSURE THAT IT WILL WORK ON EVERY SYSTEM MANUFACTURED AND WE CANNOT ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED ON ANY SYSTEM.
This scenery was tested using Microsoft Flight Simulator 9, on a pair of home built computers - an Athlon K7 1.4GHz processor, Asus V7700-Pro GeForce2 64MB video card AND an Intel Pentium 4 -478 2.0GHz processor with 512MB of DDR memory feeding a PNY Verto GeForce4 Ti 4200 64MB DDR Ram video card. It was created with FS Architect 2002, GMAX, and Ground2K4.
We thank the following people for the use of their macro's and texture files:
Russel Dirks (who wrote EZ Landclass), Robert Palmer & Matthias Breuckner, Kern Pegg, Jimmy R Martin, John de Langristin, and Christian Fumey (author of Ground2K4 V5.1).
Without their products, this scenery wouldn't be possible.
