Nov 19/25- at sea enrichment lecture on Amelia Earhart’s disappearance
Amelia Earhart was born in 1897 in Kansas, was raised by grandmother. She was a tomboy. Moved to Toronto where she trained as a nurse. There she met pilots that had returned from WW1 but that did not peak her interest in flying. What did was when she was treated to a flight and was then sold. In 1921 she got her pilots licence ….was one of only 16 in US. Another one that made waves in flying at the time was Lindberg who flew 33 hours nonstop across Atlantic to Paris. She was invited to join 3 male pilots on a trans-Atlantic flight. It took them 20 hours 40 minutes but ended up in Wales. She was a feminist…. got married. He proposed 6 times till she agreed but refused to take his name and told him that she would need time away from him. She was the 1st woman to fly across US received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross and the French Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor, the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society, the Harman Trophy, and was posthumously inducted into both the National Aviation Hall of Fame and the National Women’s Hall of Fame. …… amongst others.
She became quite political… was friends of Eleanor Roosevelt.
She became known as the 1st lady of flight.
In 1932 she flew from Harbour Grace, NFLD, heading east…. Destination Paris. She wanted to emmulate Lindbergh. There was no radar, no radio communication at the time. She encountered terrible mechanical issues, storms, icing, etc. Landed in Derry Ireland.
She wanted to fly around the world at the equator, something had never done. The plane had 2 engines and crew to begin. She was testing the affect on the human body after that long hours of flying. In March 1937 they left from Oakland west 2400 miles to Honolulu …. For 16 hours with the goal to an island in Kiribati. The Electra plane had tragic things go wrong including the landing gear collapsing and so had to be repaired. She restarted going from west to east with only Fred Noonan as her navigator, from San Diego. They crossed Caribbean Sea to the coast of South America, across to Africa at the narrowest distance of Atlantic. From there followed land (as shown in picture of route) to
Papua New Guinea. She had flown 25 sectors over a calendar month. Goal was to land on July 4th in San Diego. Leaving New Guinea headed to Howland Island, a tiny speck…. an 18 hour flight. On the day she left a wire below aircraft could be seen in a photo but a picture taken of the plane when it took off on the runway, the wire was missing.… the radio communication wire. They didn’t see the first navy ship USS Ontario that was placed as a navigation aide. Smoke from navy ship USCG Itasca as a “flag” to get their bearings. They could hear her communications but she couldn’t hear them. They had flown 2200+ knotical miles and over 20 hours before running out of fuel.
Last communication heard from her (picture). The search became a needle in haystack….
Gardener Island maybe??? Bones were found of a male of 5’8” or maybe female of 5’7”, piece of aluminum from a plane was also found as well some other debris.
She has been an inspiration for women pilots. There is now equality in the air.
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