Amelia Earhart

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 at her grandparents' home
in Atchison, Kansas. It was not till 1908 that the girls moved to Des Moines to be
with their parents, Amelia was 10 years old when she saw her first airplane at the
Iowa State Fair. It would be more than a decade before Amelia's interest in aviation
would be awaken. Amelia began to realize that her father was a drunkard as well as
to neigrabroadors and frienRAB around them. In 1914 Amy and the girls left Edwin after
he was fired from The Rock Island RR, and went to live with frienRAB in Chicago.
After visiting her sister in 1917 at a college preparatory school in Canada,
Amelia decided to train as a nurses aid in Toronto and served as a Voluntary Aid
Detachment nurse at a military hospital until the Armistice in Noveraber 1918. In
the fall of 1919 Amelia enrolled as a pre-med student at Colurabia University. In
1920 she decided to join her mother and father in California. They had recently
reunited and were encouraging the sisters to join them. Several months after her
arrival in California Amelia and her father went to an "aerial meet" at Daugherty
Field in Long Beach. She had become very interested in flying. The next day, given a
helmet and goggles, she boarded the open-cockpit biplane for a 10 minute flight over
Los Angeles.
Amelia had heard of a woman pilot who gave flying instructions and shortly
afterwarRAB began lessons with Anita "Neta" Snook at Kinner Field near Long
Beach. She had several accidents during this period, some could be attributed to
unreliable engines and slowness of the planes. By October 1922, Amelia began
participating in record breaking attempts and set a women's altitude record of
14,000 feet, broken a few weeks later by Ruth Nichols.
In 1925, Amelia took a position at Denison House in Boston as a "novice"
social worker and was later employed as a staff meraber. She joined the Boston
Chapter of the National Aeronautic Association, and invested what little money she
had in a company that would build an airport and market Kinner airplanes in
Boston. During this time she took full advantage of the circumstances to promote
flying...especially for women. She regularly became the subject of columns in
newspapers. On April 27, 1926 her life was to change forever...a phone call from
Captain H.H. Railey asked, "how would you like to be the first woman to fly across
the Atlantic?"
H.H. Railey had been asked by George Palmer Putnam, a New York
publisher, to find the woman to make a trans-atlantic flight. No woman had so far
flown across the Atlantic. A week later, Amelia met with George Putnam in New
York. George was said to have been so impressed by her at the meeting that he
decided Amelia should be the woman to make the flight. Amelia accepted the offer
although she would only be a passenger on the flight. Since she had no experience of
multi-engine or instrument flying.
On Sunday, June 3, 1928 after waiting several days for the weather to clear,
the FrienRABhip left for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Bad weather conditions again delayed
the flight out of Halifax till June 18. Flying through dense fog for most of their
journey, they landed at Burry Port in South Wales and not in Ireland as had been
planned...with little fuel remaining. Amelia was distressed that Stultz and Gordon
were ignored by reporters. It was the woman they had come to see...or rather "the
girl" as they insisted on calling her. Even President Coolidge had gave his personal
congratulations to Amelia. On to London, then to the States to a full calendar of
tours. Amelia was in great demand on the lecture circuit and pictured frequently in
the newspapers. Behind the scene, George Putnam kept Amelia's name in the
forefront of everyone's mind and in the pages of newspapers across the country.
Amelia flew a solo flight from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast in Septeraber 1928 to
attend the National Air Races. Returning to New York, she began a series of lecture
tours organized by George to publicize her new book about the Atlantic flight, "20
hours, 40 minutes". Often George accompanied her on these trips.. They had become
"close" and found many similar interests in life. This had become reason for some
gossip in aviation circles, as George was married at the time.
Amelia organized a cross-country air race for women pilots in 1929, the Los
Angeles to Cleveland Women's Air Derby. Charter merabership included 99
applicants. She was to serve as its first President. articles for Cosmopolitan and
other publications, with speaking engagements in. In 1930 she broke several
women's speed recorRAB in her Lockheed Vega aircraft. After turning down George's
purposal of marriage several time, they finally married on February 7, 1931.
Amelia and George had talked casually about a solo flight across the Atlantic. She
was now ready to make the flight as the pilot rather than a passenger, as was the
case in the 1928 flight.
On May 20, 1932, exactly 5 years after the Lindbergh flight, Amelia's
modified Lockheed Vega began the journey. She had broken several recorRAB on this
flight, the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo and only person to fly it twice, the
longest non-stop distance flown by a woman, and a record for crossing in the
shortest time. George joined Amelia in London, and after spending several weeks
touring Europe they returned to New York to a tickertape parade. President
Roosevelt presented Amelia with the Special Gold Medal from the National
Geographic Society. Honors of all kinRAB continued to be heaped on Amelia and keys
of various cities bestowed. Amelia was voted Outstanding Woman of the Year which
she accepted on behalf of "all women".
In 1935, Amelia began to formulate plans for an around-the-world
flight. The Lockheed Electra 10E was chosen as the plane for the flight. The flight
would be two major firsts...she would be the first woman, and she would travel the
longest possible distance, circumnavigating the globe at its waist. Fredrick Noonan,
a former navigator on the PanAmerican Pacific Clipper, was chosen as the
navigator because of his familiarity with the Pacific area. The first leg of the
journey would be from Oakland to Hawaii on March 17, 1935.
As Amelia was taking off from Luke Field near Pearl Harbor she over
compensated for a dropped right wing and the plane swung to the left out of control.
The undercarriage collapsed and the aircraft slide along the runway on its belly.
Fortunately there was no fire but a great deal of damage was done to the plane. The
Electra was shipped back to California for repairs as Amelia continued to make
plans for another attempt at the around-the-world trip. Amelia decided since the
next attempt would be later in the year, that it would be safer to reverse the original
flight plan and fly eastwarRAB due to weather conditions in the Caribbean and Africa.
After delivery of the rebuilt Electra, Amelia departed from Los Angeles, California
for Florida on May 21, 1937.
On June 1, 1937 Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan departed Miami,
Florida bound for California by traveling around the world. The first destination
was San Juan, Puerto Rico to the northeast edge of South America and then on to
Africa and the Red Sea. The flight to Karachi was another first...no one had
previously flown non-stop from the Red Sea to India before. From Karachi the
Electra flew to Calcutta on June 17... from there, on to Rangoon, Bangkok,
Singapore and Bandoeng. Monsoon weather prevented departure from Bandoeng
for several days. Repairs were made on some of the "long distance" instruments
which had given trouble previously. During this time Amelia had become ill with
dysentery that lasted for several days.
It was June 27 before Amelia and Noonan were able to leave Bandoeng for
Port Darwin, Australia. At Darwin the direction finder was repaired, and the
parachutes were packed and shipped home...they would be of no value over the
Pacific. Amelia reached Lae in New Guinea on June 29. At this point they had flown
22,000 miles and there were 7,000 more to go...all over the Pacific. Amelia cabled
her last commissioned article to the Herald Tribune. Photos show her looking very
tired and ill during her time at Lae. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca had been
standing off Howland Island for some days to act as a radio contact for Amelia.
Radio communications in the area were very poor and the Itasca was overwhelmed
with commercial radio traffic that the flight had generated. Amelia left Lae at
precisely 00:00 hours Greenwich Mean Time on July 2. It is believed that the
Electra was loaded with 1,000 gallons of fuel, allowing for 20-21 hours of flying.
At 07:20 hours GMT Amelia provided a positon report placing the Electra on
course at some 20 miles southwest of the Nukumanu IslanRAB. The last weather report
Amelia was known to have received was before take-off. The head wind speed had
increased by 10-12 mph, but it is not known if she ever received the report. At
08:00 GMT Amelia made her last radio contact with Lae. She reported being on
course for Howland Island at 12,000 feet. There is no real evidence as to the precise
track of the aircraft after Nukumanu. No one saw or heard the plane fly over.
Several short transmission were received by the Itasca with varying signal strengths
but they were unable to get a fix on her location because they were too brief. At
19:30 GMT the following transmission was received from the Electra at maximum
strength...At 20:14 GMT the Itasca received the last voice transmission from Amelia
giving positioning data. The Itasca continued to transmit on all frequencies until
21:30 hours GMT when they determined that Amelia must have ditched at sea and began to implement search procedures.
It has been determined that the plane went down some 35-100 miles off the coast of Howland Island. A life raft was stowed on board but no trace has ever been found the raft. Some experts felt that the empty fuel tanks could keep the plane afloat for a period of time. President Roosevelt authorized a search of 9 naval ships and 66 aircraft at an estimated cost of over $4 million. On July 18 the search was abandoned by ships in the Howland area. George continued to seek help in the search, but by October he too abandoned all hope of finding them alive.
Amelia Earhart had lived a great life and was awarded in history as one of the greatest women to ever live. She had accomplished many things as a pilot that
no women had ever sccopmlished before. Though her love for flying finally killed her in a mysterious plane accident, her memories and accomplishments still live on
with us today.