Warbird Information Exchange

BREAKING NEWS
ANNOUNCING
The Plan for Niku VIII

What will it take to find whatever remains of the Earhart Electra? After more than a year of data analysis and operations review we believe we have the answer. ...

This is what Niku VIII will look like:

Dates: Thirty day expedition, mid-August to mid-September 2014. Exact dates to be determined.

The plan for Niku VIII is built on the hard data gathered and the hard lessons learned during Niku VI and Niku VII. In the days and weeks to come we’ll be putting out detailed information and answering questions about all aspects of the search in TIGHARNews and on the TIGHAR website and Facebook page. As always, our ability to do this work depends entirely upon your contributions, large and small.

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

It's vacation time again Must be summer in the islands.

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www.spiritof44.com

I can't answer that but another years pay for a couple of people is a great start.

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Always looking for WW2 Half-Tracks and Parts.

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but instead of spending millions chasing a needle in a haystack, what if they devoted their resources to saving planes that were already accessible? Think of all the projects that are being done on a shoestring that would benefit from even a portion of the cash expended on these boondoggles.

But, playing devil's advocate, let's say they finally find Earhart's Electra or parts thereof. What then? It's not like there was a pot of gold hidden on her plane and there is certainly no prize for finding it, other than finally being able to answer the question where the Electra went down. Earhart and Noonan are still every bit as dead as they were before the plane was found. All it answers is the "where" question of her final flight. It doesn't tell us how or why, although we pretty much know the answers to both.

Is it just me or does everyone scoff when they read "Latest Breaking News from Tighar'?

I'm with you on that one SaxMan. Save the ones that have already been found...........as long as the gov't of PNG or the US Navy does not get in the way.

Oops, did I say that out loud?

Chappie

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Brrring. Dispersal? TWO SECTIONS SCRAMBLE!!

I can not imagine why anybody would donate even 1 cent to such an shady organisation as TIGHAR. I certainly would not, and would beat any of my friends on his or her head who dared to donate.

Michael

The usual routine with this website when the Tighar business crops up again and again are the 'whys' as to the motives of people who would support such endeavors as this Earhart thing. Simple answer is always the same. There are many more people who have an interest, and are willing to part with vast amounts of money, to support an Earhart project such as what Tighar offers than there are folks who want to see another warbird restored.

Some of us warbird enthusiasts (myself included) tend to be a bit narrow minded about the rational others use in deciding to support Tighar. Not everyone with deep pockets has an interest in or cares about warbirds. There's a vast amount of people who follow, support and pursue answers to many areas of unsolved history which I'm sure most of us here find none the least interesting and rather pointless.

Many folks find great interest in the 'journey to the result' just as much as the 'result at the end of the journey'. Even though I don't lose much sleep concerning Tighar or any other groups efforts finding concrete evidence of Earhart's final resting place, I do have to admit I certainly do encourage efforts by folks to search for answers to questions about history.

I'm quite convinced there are many Earhart fans and Tighar supporters who question why we warbird enthusiasts spend the time and money we do on our obsession just as much as we do their quest for answers. It's the old 'to each his own' deal.

As for a group such as Tighar and the decision for someone deciding to financially support their efforts. All I can say is that I've seen and been exposed to many shady outfits that would make this Tighar group look like a Fortune 500 company. I say let em go try once again to find this needle in a haystack and best of luck to them. If certain people want to financially support this deal and it's something they enjoy supporting let em! It's their money. And if you still feel strongly about people only being ripped off by groups such as Tighar, it might be best to look elsewhere in your own world as to who is ripping you off ... But we better not go there as politics are verboten on this site.

People do strange things with their money ever day and there are some extremely wealthy people who tend to do extremely strange things with their money. There's a few examples here on WIX alone.

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Zero Surprise!!...

do you really want people like that recovering warbirds?

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-recovering Viper crew chief
-AWACS driver/soon-to-be A-26 driver
-displaced Philadelphian

Let us start a betting pool on the liklihood of there being a Niku IX, one or two years after a "tantalizing" Niku VIII.

... And I am sure we will be getting even closer to the answer with Niku X, where we will be promised the retrieval of a PHYSICAL PART, as shown by a fuzzy and seagrowth-overgrown image taken during Niku IX...

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Kevin McCartney

Why not? ... Perhaps Tighar's credibility being questioned as a legitimate research and recovery enterprise is not unusual, but I've seen nothing to suggest that their performance and results in fundraising has been nothing short of outstanding. Perhaps a bit pompous in their fundraising tactics but nothing unusual or out of the ordinary in this day and age of procuring funds for projects. I've yet to see or read evidence of Tighar forcing money out of people's pockets. Of course gullible people are penny a dozen.

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Zero Surprise!!...

Why not? With TIGHAR's ability to repeatedly raise large sums of money year after year, they should be able to hire the best in the business to do the recovery and preservation work. If they were to change directions and actually recover something (like the "R" in their name says!), the big question would be, "What should they go after?" To drum up interest among potential financial backers, the recovery subject would have to be truly rare, something that either doesn't currently exist "in captivity" or is individually historically significant because of the special mission it was performing when it was lost or being the mount of a certain pilot whose story is of greater than normal interest. Investors want results, and they are more interested when the fruits of their investment will cause a media splash. The prospect of funding the recovery of "just another" Corsair, Hellcat, Lightning, Mustang, Flying Fortress, etc, will not drive the investors to shell out big money because there are plenty of those types preserved already. It had better be something "extra special". For example, a TBM at the bottom of Lake Michigan which was lost in a training accident is of little interest when compared to finding and recovering one of the lost TBMs from Flight 19. You see where I'm going with this?

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

It's "everyone" on this forum. I don't think you will find any credibility from folks here, me included....

Just have to find a few deep pockets every year.....

? ... that's debatable as there are many folks here who are quite credible. Did you mean something different there?

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Zero Surprise!!...

You bring up a lot of valid points. Still, if I was a supporter of TIGHAR (and that would be a huge "if"), maybe I'd have contributed to Niku 1, or Niku 2, or maybe even Niku 3 if I was really into it. But now were up to Niku 8, and these guys are no closer to finding Amelia Earhart than they were at Niku 1. At some point, a reasonable person would say "You know, maybe there are better ways of spending my money than backing these guys".

I guess it all comes down to salesmanship. You have a "holy grail" that you dangle in front of your investors, and then after each expedition you come back to them "We came S-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O close, but we ran out of time. Just wait until next time!"

I guess it frustrates me because I am aware of so many great projects that are just crawling along because of a lack of deep pockets to support them, the same deep pockets that are only too willing to be reached into to support a wild goose chase. Maybe the best way is to beat TIGHAR at their own game and sell these projects better (the Flight 19 suggestion is a good one....maybe we could get a flying PBM out of that deal, too).

Here is a press picture that was recently for sale on Ebay:



But might be old news to most of you.

Laurent