Let us go back about
110 years ago when a
young girl asked why not.
While at an air show in
the early days of
aviation a girl asked
why she couldn’t
be one of those daring young aviators in the sky
above her?
Keeping
in mind her love of the adventure she saw in the freedom of flight,
she knew on her first flight that this was where she belonged in the
sky, flying her own aircraft. She would go on to fly in and pilot
numerous aircraft in her lifetime.
Not
only was she the first female to be a passenger to fly across the
Atlantic Ocean, she was also the first female pilot to fly across the
Atlantic Ocean.
She
was a member of the National Woman’s Party and an early supporter
of the Equal Rights Amendment. Who knows what might have happened if
things had had a different outcome?
She
became one of the most notable females in American and world history
when she and Fred Noonan attempted a clandestine flight around the
globe. The fight had a number of drawbacks that every pilot today
would take for granted. Even the compass they had to rely on was not
like the compass that navigators today use. Fred Noonan was one of
the best navigators she could have chosen, you see he was one of the
team that helped to navigate the flight paths that Pan Am Clippers
used to reach the Orient. This was still the time that dead reckoning
was the only form of navigation there was. There was no GPS, no radio
navigation signal, and what there was, was not in any way as helpful
as they are today.
It was July 2, 1937, on
the leg from Lae,
New Guinea to Howland Island, desperately trying to reach
the safety of
Howland Island. It
is a widely
held belief that
they ran out of fuel and
crashed into the Pacific Ocean never to be heard from
again.
There
have been many searches for the Pilot and her navigator, starting
with the largest search and rescue mission for a Civilian aircraft
ever launched by F.D.R. There were many more private missions
launched in the years following their disappearance. Even with
today’s modern technology, still no substantiated, beyond the
shadow of a doubt, evidence of them has ever been found. She was
declared dead in absentia on Jan. 5, 1939.
Not
only was she a pioneer in aviation, she was and is to this day an
inspiration for girls and boys to reach for the skies. Who was she:
Amelia Earhart, American born of part German descent. She has become
what is known as a Legend. (24 July 1897 – 2 July 1937).
