First Women Aviator

"Never interrupt someone doing something you said can't be done", this is a quote by Amelia Earhart, she was the first women aviator who flew over the the Atlantic and Pacific ocean and I am going to tell you all about her. She was born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24th 1897. She had a younger sister called "Muriel" and she lived with her grandparents in their big house with a library, piano, and yard with a barn. She and her sister rode horses, had mudball fights, played basketball and tennis and also rode bikes.

Their mom also made them bloomers to wear instead of skirts and dresses. A girl playing sports back then was very unusual but Earhart didn't mind. In 1909 only six years after the Wright brothers made the first airplane, that was also the time when Amelia's parents took Amelia and her sister to the Iowa state fair. That was also where Amelia saw her first airplane and the adults said "look dear it flies!" but Amelia was not impressed, her interest in airplanes only came later.

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In the fall of 1917 when Amelia was 19 years old she enrolled herself for the school of Pennsylvania, she did not mind on going far away from home because she thought of it as starting of a new adventure. The students in Ognotx and teachers admired Amelia, she was shy but charming. She was a good athlete, she was also a practical girl cause on her letter home to her mom she said she did not need money for spring clothes, cause they were running short of money and she already had a lot of clothes.

While Amelia was at Ognotx, USA entered World War 1 during Christmas break of 1917, Amelia went to Toronto, Canada, cause Muriel studied there and their mom joined them. In Toronto, Amelia saw many soldiers who were injured in the war and Amelia wanted to help. In a week Amelia made a decision that she would not go back to Ognotx however she would stay in Toronto, train to be a nurse's aide and work in a hospital. People who knew Amelia were not surprised cause Amelia always acted on what she believed in.

Amelia worked in the hospital until the war was over, then she came back to USA, she wanted to study science, maybe she would become a doctor. She decided to enroll in Columbia University in NYC. After sometime in Columbia Amelia quit, after she quit she moved in with her family in Los Angeles. Amelia saw a young man named Sam Chapman. Sam asked Amelia to marry him, but Amelia knew that Sam would not want her to have a career. Amelia said no to the proposal. On Christmas day in 1920, her life changed. 23-year old Amelia and her dad were in Long Beach, California. They were all looking at the sky, why? Cause there was an airshow taking place. As pilots raced their airplanes and did tricks in the air . As they did that Amelia was fascinated and also had a question, how much would it cost to take flying lessons? Three days later Amelia and her dad went to Rogers' Flying Field. It was there where she took her first plane ride. It was a 10-minute ride and Amelia sat behind the pilot and she wore goggles to protect her eyes, as soon as the plane rose up in the air she was hooked right away. She later said " As soon as we left the ground, I knew I, myself, had to fly".

From that day on Amelia had a goal to become a pilot. Nearby Kinner Airfield, a women named Neta Snook gave flying lessons. Neta agreed to give flying lessons to Amelia to fly for $1.00 a minute, in 1921 that was a lot of money but Amelia was willing to pay. Neta said that Amelia was naturally good at flying. Neta and Amelia became very good friends. At 24, Neta was only one year older than Amelia. When the weather was good, Amelia flew and when there was bad weather she wouldn't waste any time so she studied planes and flying by reading about them. Her first airplane was a yellow biplane called "The Canary". On December 15th, 1921, Amelia took the test for her licence. It was a little less than one year since she took her first lesson, but she passed. Now Amelia Earhart was an airline pilot. She started being in airshows, since all of the pilots in the airshow were men Amelia got a lot of attention, but she didn't want any attention, but she worked in the shows to get money.

Amelia's teacher Neta Snook got married and as Amelia feared Neta's flying days were over. So now Amelia's new goal was to find a new instructor. Then she had met Monte Montijo who had flown in the army and had done stunt flying in movies. Monte taught Amelia a lot, even doing loops in the air. Now she felt like setting a record. Amelia wanted to see how high she could . She didn't tell anyone that she was doing this. She had an instrument in her plane that calculated how high she went. In the early 1920 planes didn't fly as high as they do today. One reason was that the cockpits were open. At high altitudes there is not as much oxygen to breathe. Amelia knew this but she was willing to take the risk. It took two tries before she made it to 14,000 feet, more than two and a half miles high. Then the planes engine began to fail, she brought the plane down fast and just barely able to make a safe landing. But there she had her record.

Amelia valued flying but she realized that she could not make a living out of it because there was not any big airlines or airplanes, people didn't travel by air and never expected to take a ride in a plane. In 1924 Amelia for a moment gave up her dream and sold " The Canary" for a car. You might think that she would buy something practical like a Ford. She didn't. She bought a fancy yellow convertible. If couldn't fly in air she would at least felt like she was flying on the ground. She named her car "Yellow Peril". Her and her mother drove across the country, headed for the east coast. She headed back for Columbia University but like again she dropped out, the problem was money. Sam Chapman followed Amelia to the East and proposed, this was tempting cause now Amelia was 28 years.

Most people Amelia's age were already married. If Amelia married Sam then she didn't have to bother about money, but Sam would want Amelia to stay home and have children, it was Amelia's decision. Amelia told her sister that she didn't want to marry him and didn't want to marry anyone. She couldn't imagine losing her freedom. So she rejected the proposal and got a job in Boston. She was working at Denison House where she took care of poor children. Amelia really liked her job but now flying was only limited to the weekends, but she watched other pilots in interested. In 1927 a man named Charles Lindbergh announced that he was the first pilot to fly across the Atlantic ocean. It took him more than 33 hours to fly from Long Island, New York to Paris, France. A woman named Amy Guest wanted to be the first woman to fly across the world. Anyhow, Amy wasn't a pilot so she would be the first passenger. George Putnam a book publisher in NY who was going to manage her attempt but Amy's family didn't let go, so Putnam wanted another woman, and this time pilot. Putnam asked a friend for a woman pilot and then that friend told Putnam, "Amelia Earhart".

Amelia met with George and Amy in NY, both thought she was perfect for the job. The job was actually not virtually as good as it sounded. Amelia would not get paid, a man named Wilmer Stultz would fly the plane and get $20,000. And despite the fact Amelia was called "the captain" she was honestly just the passenger. So this leads us to the question, why did Amelia agree. Firstly, no woman had flew across the Atlantic and the experience alone was enough to make her go. The flight was very dangerous, Lindbergh had made his trip safely but 14 others had died trying, and three of them were women. Still there were two woman pilots who were trying to get there and Amelia wanted to be first. But Amelia discovered another problem, the pilot flying the plane, Stultz, drunk too much.

If Wilmer got drunk, she knew he wouldn't be able to fly the plane. But if they didn't take off soon they would lose the record. On the 16th of June Amelia told Wilmer to get ready, they were leaving next day no matter what. The next day Amelia sent a cable to Putnam back in Boston that said " Violet. Cheerio! A.E.". Violet was a code word that meant that they were taking off. Through the long flight Stultz and co-pilot "Slim" Gordan would take turns flying. Amelia took notes in her journal, after 20 hours would they be able to find land for fuel? The answer was yes. The plane touched down in Burry Port, South Wales 20 hours and 40 minutes after taking off from the Canadian coast. They had done it, on June 18th, 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic ocean.

There was another surprise for Amelia. Her trip made her an instant hero even though she didn't fly the plane, people still thought she was very brave. In London she had tea with royalty and in her return to America there were parades and speeches, everyone wanted to hear about this fearless female. And by 1928, Amelia was granted the best female pilot in America. She got a nickname called "Lady Lindy" . And got married to George Putnam.

Amelia wanted to fly all around the world, although people hd already flew around the world, Amelia wanted to fly closest to the equator, this would make a longer and harder trip, this around the world trip would be 29,000 miles. A special plane was needed. A new Lockheed model called the Electra. The plane was large enough to carry ten passengers but Amelia had the seats removed so she could fit fuel tanks. This allowed the plane to fly 3,000 miles but refueling. Amelia and George hired navigators to fly with Amelia, they would help her stay on track. On March 17th, 1937, the Electra took off from Oakland, California.

Amelia and her two navigators arrived in Honolulu about 16 hours later. The first leg of the trip was a success. Then Amelia had an accident, as she was taking off from Honolulu, the plane rolled out of control, the landing gear lapsed and a wing was torn open. Thankfully no one got hurt, but the $100,000 plane was badly damaged. Almost two months went by before the plane was ready to fly again. Because of the delay one of the navigators could not continue that left only one man, Fred Noonan. And because of the weather patterns, the flight path was also reversed. Amelia would now fly from west to east. On May 21st, Amelia took off from Oakland, California and headed east to Miami, Florida. The whole world was watching.

The trip started well. From Miami, Amelia flew to Puerto Rico, then along the east coast of South America to Venezuela, then to Surinam and Brazil. The Electra was holding-up pretty good. But there was not much room to move so the only way for Amelia to communicate with Fred was by passing notes with a fishing pole. It was better than climbing over extra fuel tanks. Amelia flew over 40 hours and 400 miles in the first week, and that was just the beginning. She flew over the Atlantic and over Africa. In the time-span of 3 weeks she had flown 20,000 miles in 135 hours. Amelia was getting tired and couldn't wait until they reached their final destination. On the 1st of July, Amelia reached New Guinea she'd then go to Howland Island and then Honolunu,Hawaii, then finally they would reach Oakland, they're very last stop. There were 7,000 miles left on this 29,000 mile trip.

On July second, Amelia took off from New Guinea, the trip to Howland would take about 19 hours. Howland was a small island in the Pacific. It was only 2 miles long and three fourths of a mile wide. It would be very hard to find but it was the only place to descend and refuel. Amelia had to depend on Fred to find the tiny strip of land. To help Amelia and Fred a U.S Coast Guard ship was sent to Howland. It would send out a signal guide to the Electra for landing. On July second Amelia took off from New Guinea and had radio contact with New Guinea for the next 7 hours. Amelia was supposed to reach Howland the next morning, but in the night the coast guard ship heard short messages from Amelia but they couldn't tell what saying.

The captain was worried, Amelia also wasn't able to hear the messages the Coast Guard ship sent her. At 7:42 am the Coast Guard ship got a brief message, Amelia said " We must be on you but cannot see you as the gas is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio". Again the ship tried to respond but Amelia couldn't hear them. At 8:45 am another message came in from Amelia, the last thing she said was " We are running north and south". Amelia was frantically searching for Howland island but never found it. Right away a rescue mission begun, more than 4,000 men searched the Pacific and 65 flew in to help search for Amelia and Fred. Since then no one had heard from Amelia Earhart, and people are still looking for her.

Who knows? Perhaps someday, someone will find the remains of the Electra. If that happens or not it doesn't change the fact that Amelia Earhart was one of the worlds proudest women aviators. She didn't just fly planes, she didn't just break records. She opened doors for women. She was a pioneer who said " You can do anything you decide to do". If there is is anything that I would like to follow from Amelia is that she worked for her passion and believed in what she thought was right. I hope you learn a little about Amelia Earhart by reading this. Thank You