The
Transatlantic Flight
Two
days after the initial meeting, on May 15, 1928, Amelia
was told that she had been selected as the woman commander
of the upcoming transatlantic flight. Amelia had made
it clear from the start that the role of mere passenger
just for the purposes of publicity did not appeal to her
and she requested an active role in the actual flight.
She had no experience with multi-engine flying or with
instrument flying, so it was agreed that, weather permitting,
she would be allowed to fly part of the time.
The chosen aircraft was a
tri-motor Fokker F7 named "Friendship."
The plane was fitted with pontoons, equipment Amelia
had never used. She only saw the plane once before
their flight, as she was too well known around the
airfields and couldn't risk starting rumors about
the secret project. |
|
Her
personal preparations were minimal. She packed a small
knapsack with a toothbrush and comb, two handkerchiefs
and a tube of cold cream. She also packed a borrowed camera,
a pair of binoculars and a log book that had been a gift
from her future husband, George Putnam, who was publicizing
her flight. George also included a thermos of coffee,
sandwiches and a crate of oranges.
Weather delayed the beginning of the flight from Boston
to Newfoundland. Finally, on June 3rd, the Friendship
took off for Trepassey only to be turned back by weather
near Halifax, Nova Scotia. The next day, the Friendship
and crew successfully landed in Newfoundland only to encounter
gales or fog for days that prohibited their takeoff for
Europe. The telegrams that follow tell the story of the
wait.
George,
knowing that Amelia had not packed a change of clothing
wired:
SUGGEST YOU GO INTO RETIREMENT TEMPORARILY WITH NUNS AND
HAVE THEM WASH SHIRT ETC --STOP
Amelia answered:
THANKS FATHERLY TELEGRAM NO WASHING NECESSARY SOCKS AND
UNDERWEAR WORN-OUT SHIRT LOST TO SLIM AT RUMMY CHEERIO
AE
After a week of anxious waiting, the weather cleared.
The group of three, Amelia, Lou Gordon and Bill Stultz,
made plans to begin their journey. They had received news
that Mabel Boll was prepared to make the flight and indeed
was ready to take off in the single engine plane called
the "Columbia." On June 12, George sent three
weather forecasts spaced an hour apart. Stultz tried for
four hours to take the Friendship off, but was unsuccessful.
The crew calculated the fuel as closely as possible as
every ounce of weight counted.
With the competition close behind, alternatives were
considered:
IF IN MORNING YOU CAN POSSIBLE TAKE OFF EVEN MINIMUM GAS
IRELAND FAR BEST BET *STOP* SUGGEST TRY TAKEOFF AWAY FROM
HILLS...IF THIS FAILS REDUCE GAS AND GO FOR AZORES SURELY
NOTIFY ME SO ARRANGE GAS WEATHER REPORTS *STOP* PROBLEM
THERE NAVIGATION DANGER MISSING ISLANDS HOPE YOU HAVE
SEXTANT FOR OBSERVATION SENDING POSITION RADIO IF FORCED
DOWN *STOP* MABEL SENDS WORD HERE NO START TOMORROW *STOP*
WEATHER REPORT BOTH FOR IRELAND AND AZORES PM DARN SORRY
BUT YOU WILL EMERGE ON TOP WE ALL KNOW YOU ARE DOING YOUR
BEST
Finally, on June 17, favorable weather, seas and tides
allowed the Friendship to take off after two unsuccessful
attempts. Leaving no margin for error, they left with
700 gallons of fuel after originally planning to carry
850. Only a few villagers came to witness the takeoff
after watching so many failures. Amelia later confided
to George that that hour seemed to be the most dangerous
hour of her life.
"Earhart
Plane Soaring Over Atlantic; Reported Nearly Half Way
to Ireland After Eight Hours" was the headline
of the New York Times on the morning of June 18, 1928.
However, the agreeable weather that allowed the take
off of the Friendship did not last long. Soon, they
were in thick clouds. They flew blind in the fog until
sufficient fuel was burned to allow them to gain enough
altitude to rise above the cloud cover. As dawn neared,
they decided to descend to 5,000 feet where they flew
in fog and rain once more. The radio was useless, so
contact with ships and land was impossible. Although
they had been flying by instruments, they were not sure
of their position.
Just
before 9 AM, Greenwich Mean Time, they spotted three ships
on a course parallel to theirs. After some discussion,
they decided to remain on course even though they calculated
that by now they were down to an hour's fuel supply. The
S. S. America, an oceanliner, appeared about three miles
off course, so the crew detoured, using precious fuel,
and circled the ship. Amelia scribbled a note and wrapped
it in one of the oranges George had provided and dropped
it in an attempt to contact the ship. The seas were too
rough to attempt a landing, so the crew returned to the
original course. Another long half hour passed before
they spotted a small fleet of fishing boats. Then, in
another hour, a gray shape loomed in front of them in
the heavy mist. It was land! They flew along the coastline
in an attempt to match land configurations to charts.
Dangerously low on fuel, they had no idea where they were.
Stultz decided to land.
They set down in moderate
rain and taxied to a mooring buoy. In the distance,
they saw a small town with houses and a muddy beach.
Evidently, people here were not excited about an itinerant
transatlantic aircraft. Eventually, some of the villagers
came out to the Friendship and assisted them to shore.
The Friendship had landed at Burry Port, South Wales
and not in Ireland as they had thought. |
|
When
they discovered that there was a woman on board, they
more than made up for the lack of enthusiasm they had
earlier shown. Soon, a crowd of over 2,000 people had
gathered, busying the local constabulary. After welcome
warm baths, they faced the growing crowd of reporters.
Soon, preliminary stories were filed and the crew was
allowed a quiet night's sleep. They awoke to a wave
of congratulatory telegrams, including one from President
Coolidge:
TO THE FIRST WOMAN SUCCESSFULLY TO SPAN THE NORTH ATLANTIC
BY AIR THE GREAT ADMIRATION OF MYSELF AND THE UNITED
STATES
|
At 11 AM they took off for Southampton for a short
stay, and then London, the final destination of
the flight. The entire flight from Trepassey to
Burry Port had taken 20 hours and 49 minutes officially.
Amelia later authored a book that chronicled her
life and the record of her flight and titled it
"20
Hours and 40 Minutes," shortening
the flight slightly.
|
|
After
the transatlantic flight, Amelia was in demand on the
lecture circuit. George often scheduled as many as thirty
lectures in thirty days in different cities. She opened
buildings, gave interviews and numerous speeches that
would finance future aviation projects. Although the schedule
was hectic, it gave Amelia the opportunity to associate
with many of the elite pilots of the day such as Charles
Lindbergh and Commander Richard Byrd.
The
Transcontinental Flight
As a break from the hectic lecture schedule, Amelia
and George planned a "vacation" in California.
Their vacation conveniently coincided with the National
Air Races. Amelia was excited about the trip because it
finally gave her the opportunity to fulfill her dream
of flying across the United States, the flight she had
wanted to do four years earlier when she moved from California
to Boston. George was not as excited about the trip as
Amelia. He was not a flyer and was prone to air sickness,
anxiety and fear of heights.
The first leg of the transcontinental flight went well
until landing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As Amelia landed
the plane, she hit an unmarked ditch, causing a ground
loop that nearly flipped the aircraft. Repairs were slow
and soon reporters learned of her transcontinental attempt.
Oddly enough, she was the first woman to attempt an east
to west flight. Needless to say, George completed the
trip by train.
At this point in time, there were few organized airports
in the Midwest. Also, there were also no standardized
maps of country roads and small towns. Amelia had a hand
drawn map pinned to her shirt, but it tore and blew away.
Short of fuel, she was forced to land on the main street
of a small town. She finally arrived in California in
mid September.
Near the end of September, she set out on her return journey
to the east coast. She had a rough forced landing in Utah
and her aircraft had to be shipped to Salt Lake for repairs.
She arrived in New York on October 16 as the first woman
to make the round trip transcontinental flight.
The
Development of Flight for Women
Amelia became heavily involved
in promoting flying for women. Many women were now beginning
to fly the newer, larger aircraft and the opportunities
were expanding for them. Amelia herself learned to fly
larger aircraft, although the skill did not come quickly
to her. In fact, after training with a Bellanca, the trainer
saw such serious faults in her piloting skills that they
refused to sell her one of their aircraft. She and George
purchased a Lockheed Vega so that she could fly in the
competitions in the top classes instead of the classes
for the smaller planes she had flown to this point.
|
Air
Derby Contestants
|
She
helped to develop a women's flying league that sponsored
its first derby in August of 1929. The Air Derby was
held in nine stages. The first stage was held from
Santa Monica to San Bernadino. From there on, the
course of the derby was a grueling sunup to sundown
endurance contest. |
During the second leg, Marvel Cronon did a nose dive
into the ground. Her body was found entangled in her
parachute. Clair Fahy's plane was forced down in thick
mesquite because of a wing brace failure. Thea Rashe
was forced down due to sand in her fuel tank. Sabotage
was suspected in these 3 incidents and the press was
in a frenzy. Many people were demanding that the derby
be stopped, but the derby organizers and the flyers
were not among the objectors. The derby continued with
many forced landings, which was not unusual for these
times. Ruth Elder landed in a field of cattle and upon
exiting her airplane, she exclaimed, "I certainly
hope these are all cows." Margaret Perry took ill
during the derby and was hospitalized in Texas with
typhoid fever. Blanche Noyes looked back to see her
plane on fire, landed in a field, threw sand on the
fire to put it out and took off again to finish her
day. The press was critical saying, "Women have
proven conclusively that they cannot fly!" However,
a higher percentage of the women finished this derby
course in less time than any men's race to date. Louise
Thadden took first place in her Travel Air, with Gladys
O' Donnell a close second in her clipped wing Waco and
Amelia took third place with her Lockheed Vega.
"Finishing
a race, as in anything else, is as important as
starting, and sixteen of the women crossed the
white line at the end. This was the highest percent
of "finishers" in any cross country
derby, up to that time, for men or women."
Selection from The
Fun Of It, Written by Amelia Earhart
1932.
Marriage
During the fall of 1930, Amelia planned to marry her
publicist, George Putnam. They had planned to marry quietly
and obtained their marriage license on November 8th. But,
somehow the news leaked to the press and there was no
hope of a quiet wedding. They applied for a waiver to
their license and waited for the publicity to settle down.
Finally, on February 7, 1931, they married. Amelia wore
a simply cut brown suit with brown shoes and no hat. They
borrowed George's mother's wedding ring for the ceremony
because their schedules were so busy that they did not
have the time to purchase their own. Amelia retained her
name, which was rare in those days, for purposes of publicity.
Autogiros
During December of 1930, Amelia made a test flight
of an autogiro. At this point in time, she was the only
woman to fly one. She set an altitude record at 19,000
feet in one on April 8, 1931. During May and June of that
year, she attempted a transcontinental flight in one with
dozens of publicity stops. She was hoping to be the first
to succeed at transcontinental flight in an autogiro,
but was disappointed to find that another pilot had completed
the flight a week earlier. So, she prepared her "flying
windmill" to make the return flight.
She
demonstrated the unusual autogiros often. In September,
at an airshow in Detroit, she crashed on landing.
|
George wrote, "As I swung round I saw the
giro, its rotors splintered, disappear in a cloud
of smoke. I vaulted the rail and raced for the wreck.
Never have I run so fast, until one of those guy wires
caught my pumping legs exactly at the ankles. I did
a complete outside loop, up into the air and over,
landing full on my back...Coming to my senses, some
of them at least, I saw AE emerge from the welter
of dust (it wasn't smoke) and wave her hands in the
air to show she was unhurt." George cracked three
ribs in the accident. Amelia was unscathed. |
|
The 2nd Transatlantic Flight
One morning, over breakfast, Amelia quietly, and unexpectedly,
said to George, "Would you mind if I flew the Atlantic?"
He knew she meant a solo flight. Several other women were
considering and preparing for this flight, including Elinor
Smith. The Vega was in top condition but secrecy was a
must. Publicity stated that Amelia's Vega was being prepared
for a polar flight. The fuselage was rebuilt to carry
fuel instead of passengers. The wings were strengthened
to carry fuel, as well. They prepared to carry 450 gallons
of fuel for a 3200 mile range. The Vega received a new
500 hp Wasp engine to replace the older Wasp and a date
was set to correspond to the five year anniversary of
Lindbergh's flight, which would have been May 20 to 21,
1927 (1932).
No one had successfully flown the Atlantic alone since
Lindbergh's accomplishment, although there had been several
successful crewed flights. Amelia, and several other women
pilots, felt that it was important to establish that a
woman could fly the Atlantic alone, especially after a
Liberty Magazine article titled, "Why I Believe Woman
Pilots Can't Fly the Atlantic" by Lady Heath. This
article hit the newsstand the day Amelia took off. Lady
Heath's accompanying note read "...do make an appeal
if you can for women not to fly the Atlantic, even if
you can't use my scribble. It is madness for them to attempt
it and at least the first dozen will be drowned..."
Amelia planned to vary Lindbergh's route to shorten it
slightly. Her mechanics were concerned that she might
not be able to endure the longer distance. The plan was
to take off from Newfoundland instead of New York, as
Lindbergh did, and consider the British Isles as the prime
destination, Paris as a provisional destination and, after
landfall, to land anywhere if she felt unable to continue.
The Vega was equipped with a drift indicator, aperiodic
and gyroscopic compasses. The fuel system was rigged to
balance the weight of the aircraft as the fuel was consumed
for optimum weight distribution. The developer of this
ingenious system was Major Edwin Aldrin, father to Apollo
XI astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. At one point in time, Amelia
was quoted, "I do not believe in luck. The best mascot
is a good mechanic." Amelia practiced instrument
flying as much as possible. She practiced "until
I felt really confident of my ability to handle the ship,
without looking outside the cockpit, that is, flying it
solely with instruments."
The weather, again, played a determining role in the timing
of this flight. Seven women had already died in their
attempts at crossing the Atlantic due to either weather
or mechanical failures. For the most part, their fate
was unknown. The weather outlook on the 18th and 19th
of May was poor. In fact, the report was disappointingly
poor on the morning of the 20th. At about 2:30 PM, there
was a sudden opening, so Amelia quickly gathered a few
things and arrived at the airport at 2:55 PM. The Vega
was airborne by 3:15 PM, headed for Harbour Grace, Newfoundland.
Amelia later wrote of this time, "the actual doing
of a dangerous thing, it seems to me, may require little
courage. The preparation for it-the acceptance of the
inevitable risks involved-may be a far greater test of
morale."
Amelia and her mechanics arrived in Harbour Grace without
incident and Amelia actually napped. At 6:30 PM, after
the mechanics had made their final inspections and checked
the latest weather reports, she was awakened to begin
her flight. Her mechanic, Bernt Balchen, recalled in his
diary, "She listens calmly, only biting her lip a
little, as I go over with her the course to hold, and
tell her what weather she can expect on the way across
the ocean. She looks at me with a small lonely smile and
says, 'Do you think I can make it?' and I grin back: 'You
bet.' She crawls calmly into the cockpit of the big empty
airplane, starts the engine, runs it up, checks the mags,
and nods her head. We pull the chocks, and she is off..."
She took off at 7:12 PM, local time, exactly on the anniversary
date of Lindbergh's historic flight.
At first, the flight was uneventful. But, three hours
into the flight, the altimeter failed. This was very unusual
and forced Amelia to rely on her barograph and keep track
of her ascent and descent to determine her altitude. She
really had no accurate way of knowing her exact altitude,
which is important to instrument flying.
Four hours into the flight, she ran into a severe lightening
and thunder storm. She figured that the severity of the
storm had to have pushed her off course. Then, a seam
in the exhaust manifold failed due to a bad weld. Flames
from fuel combustion were very visible in the darkness
of night. She mentioned that, "she was sorry she
had looked at the break at all because the flames appeared
so much worse than they did in the daytime."
Later,
she flew into clouds and decided to climb out of them.
She climbed, slowly, for nearly a half hour before a
thin film of ice appeared on her windshield. Instantly,
the Vega was in a spin. She worked the controls to pull
the aircraft out of the spin and finally regained control.
The warmer temperatures at a lower altitude had melted
the ice, but not before she was dangerously close to
disaster. "How long I spun, I do not know. I do
know that I did my best to do exactly what one should
do with a spinning plane and regained flying control
as the warmth of the lower altitude melted the ice.
As we righted and held level again, through the blackness
below I could see the whitecaps, too close for comfort."
With no accurate idea of her altitude, she flew halfway
between the fog and the ice until dawn.
| About
two hours before her estimated landfall, she noticed
a fuel leak from the cabin fuel gauge. It was dripping
onto her shoulder and she was concerned about fire
with the manifold exposed and the fumes from the fuel.
The split in the manifold was slowly growing, causing
even more concern. At this point, she decided to put
down at the first available opportunity. Warned of
storms to her south, she altered her course slightly
north thinking that she would see the southern tip
of Ireland. She actually landed in Teelin Head, County
Donegal on the northwest tip of Ireland and nearly
missed Ireland altogether. She was unable to find
an airfield, so she located a suitable pasture, circled
several times and landed, hoping to avoid any cows.
She landed safely, cut the switches, climbed out of
the Vega and asked, "Where am I?" The farm
hand, Danny McCallion, answered, "In Gallagher's
pasture." |
AE
With Gallaghers
|
She had made her historic flight in 14 hours and 50
minutes, breaking the previous record of 16 hours and
12 minutes by a team of pilots. She became the second
person to make the flight solo. Charles Lindbergh was
the only other to make the solo flight until then. She
was the first woman to cross the Atlantic solo. She became
the first person to fly it twice. And she set the distance
record for women.
