Amelia Earhart






Hello! Welcome to the area of out site that talks about one of the most amazing female pilots of the early twentith century. Below you can see a map of the route she took on her last flight.






Early Life

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24,1898, in the home of her grandparents in Atchison,Kansas. Though Amelia and her younger sister attended private schools and enjoyed many luxeries most of their wealth came from their mother's parents. In fact, Amelia's grandfather dislike his son-in-law and Edwin Stanton Earhart never met the standards set by his wife's father. Eventually he failed at his private law practice.

In 1908 the Amelia and her sister moved away from their grandparents and joined their parents in Des Moines, a few years after Edwin had taken a job with a railroad company. It when Amelia went to the Idaho state fair, when she was ten years old, that she was first saw a plane. And surprisingly,she was not impressed.




Early Flights

Nearly ten years later Amelia's love for flying finally emerged. It was at an aerial meet in Long Beach that Amelia first became fascinated.

"I did not understand it at the time, but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by."


The next day Amelia took a ten minute flight over Los Angeles. It was then that she knew she had to fly. Amelia heard of a woman piolet who offered lessons, and she soon began to learn how to navigate the skies. After six months of saving she bought her first plane, naming it " The Canary ".

By October 1922, Amelia began participating in record breaking attempts and set a women's altitude record of 14,000 feet. The record was broken a mere few weeks late by Ruth Nichols.
It was on April 27, 1926 that her life truly changed forever, when she got a phone call from Captain H.H. Railey. On the other end of the phone a voice echoed, "How would you like to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic?"




The Famous Female Pilot



Since she had no experience of multi-engine or instrument flying Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon piloted the tri-motor Fokker named the "Friendship" and Amelia had the official title of "commander" of the flight. On Sunday, June 3, 1928 after waiting several days for the weather to clear, the "Friendship" left for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Bad weather conditions again delayed the flight out of Halifax until June 18. Flying through dense fog for most of their journey, they landed at Burry Port in South Wales.

Amelia then began to tour and give lectures. Amelia also organized a cross-country air race for women pilots in 1929, the Los Angeles to Cleveland Women's Air Derby.
Amelia had talked casually about a solo flight across the Atlantic. She was then felt ready to make the flight as the pilot rather than a passenger, as was the case in the 1928 flight. By early 1932 no other person had successfully flown solo across the Atlantic since Lindbergh. On May 20, 1932, exactly 5 years after the Lindbergh flight, Amelia began the journey. Since she did not drink coffee or tea, she kept awake by using smelling salts on long trips. She broke several records on that flight such as the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo, only person to fly it twice, the longest non-stop distance flown by a woman, and a record for crossing in the shortest time.

Later 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. Amelia departed from Los Angeles, California for Florida on May 21, 1937. At 20:14 GMT, on July 2, the last voice transmission from Amelia giving positioning data was received. Frequencies were transmitted until 21:30 hours GMT when it was determined that Amelia must have ditched in the south Pacific and plans of search procedures began.

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