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"Decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying." Amelia Earhart.
Amelia Earhart was the first woman to ride across the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane. Later, on the anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's historic flight, May 13, 1932, she became the first woman to make that flight alone. Despite desperate difficulties during the flight, she broke the time record, setting a new one of thirteen hours and thirty minutes. In 1935 she became the first woman to fly the Pacific when she flew from Hawaii to California.
Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas. She was not impressed with airplanes as a child. Commenting on her first view of an airplane, she said, "It was a thing of rusty wire and wood and looked not at all interesting." About ten years later she saw a stunt plane exhibition and was hooked. She found the thought of flying a plane exhilarating.
On December 28, 1920, a pilot named Frank Hawks took Earhart on her very first plane ride. She was hooked. Earhart got her pilot's license in 1921 in Los Angeles when she was 24. She took flying lessons from Neta Snook and bought her first airplane. It was a Kinner Airstar.
She was invited to ride as a passenger with Wilmer Stultz and Lou Gordon on a trans-Atlantic flight. She accepted and this 20 hour flight made her the first woman to cross the Atlantic in a plane.
In 1924 Earhart sold the Kinner Airstar and worked as a social worker for four years. She then bought another plane, an Avro Avian and was the first woman to make a solo-transcontinental flight. From this point on she was a full time aviator. She drove herself to break record after record for airplane flights.
In 1931 Earhart married G.P. Putnam, and retained her own name. Putnam worked with Earhart in planning stunts and setting new records. She was not a conventional woman for her times. She did things her own way. She found flying to be an enriching experience and once said, "… the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the esthetic appeal of flying."
In 1932 Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She was only the second person to accomplish this feat. She made her flight in a Lockheed Vega on the anniversary of Charles Lindberg's historic flight. On the flight from Newfoundland to Ireland she broke his time record with a total flight time of 13 hours and 30 minutes. Later than year she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross from the United States Congress, The Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover.
In 1936, Earhart got a Lockheed 10E "Electra airplane from Perdue University and began to plan what was to have been the first flight around the globe on the equator. Other flights had encircled the Earth, but her flight was to be the longest, at 29,000 miles.
The first effort began in Oakland California on March 17, 1937. She and navigator Fred Noonan got from Oakland California to Honolulu, Hawaii, but from there damage resulting from a tire blow out and subsequent damage to the plane required that it be shipped to California for repairs.
The next trip started in Miami. Earhart and Noonan successfully traveled 22,000 miles with numerous stops in South America, Africa, and Asia for refueling and repairs. They landed in Lae, New Guinea on June 29. The last leg of the trip was a 7,000 mile stretch across the Pacific Ocean.
On July 2, 1937, Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae headed toward a tiny Island called Howard Island. Their last navigational readings were captured about 800 miles into the flight. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter called the USCGC Itasca was waiting near Howard Island to guide Earhart's plane toward the island. Earhart and Noonan had left behind some radio equipment which would have improved reception, and there were six hours of frustrating radio transmissions before contact was lost. Extensive searches didn't turn up any evidence of the lost plane. Theories have abounded ever since that Earhart and Noonan somehow made it to Saipan and have been sighted there in the years since. It has been speculated that she was a spy attempting to gain reconnaissance on Japan for the World War II effort. However, most researchers believe this unlikely. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan are believed to have run out of fuel over the Pacific Ocean and died at sea.
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