When dreams took wings: The final flight of Amelia Earhart

On 2 July 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, Papua New Guinea for Howland Island, some 2,556 statute miles away in the Pacific Ocean.  They were on the last legs of their attempt to make a world flight. Their plane never reached the island. Instead, it ran out of fuel and ditched in the ocean.

The world had already been circumnavigated in June 1931 by Wiley Post and his navigator, Harold Gatty in their Lockheed Vega. In July 1933, Wiley Post repeated the attempt solo and in a shorter time. In October 1934, the Macpherson Air Race from Mildenhall, England to Melbourne proved, among other things, that a transport aircraft, the Douglas DC-2 (the predecessor of the legendary DC-3 Dakota) could reach Melbourne in four days. From October 1936, fare paying passengers could fly across the Pacific in Pan American Boeing Clippers. Alternately, they could fly over the Atlantic abroad Imperial Airways Short Empire flying boats.  By July 1937, there was very little left for Amelia and Noonan to prove.

Why did they take such immense risks for so little reward? Yet, despite their failure, there is still some public interest in Amelia even decades after the event. In view of this interest, let us look at the life and brief flying career of Amelia Earhart.

 

 

PART I: THE EARLY YEARS

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on 24 July 1897 to Edwin Stanton Earhart, a small town lawyer and Amy Otis, the daughter of Judge Alfred Gideon Otis. Another daughter, Muriel, was born 2½ years later. The family resided in Atchison, Kansas.

Edwin worked for the Rock Island Line, a railroad company as the head of the claims department in 1909. However, he tended to overpay claims.  He also liked to drink. The result was that he lost his job. Later, he found a minor clerkship with the Great Northern Railroad. But this caused the family serious financial problems.

Although his daughters were close to their father, his declining career created a chasm between them. Amelia eventually lost her trust and respect for her father.

Her maternal grandmother, Amelia Josephine, died in 1911 and left her estate to be shared among her four children. In June 1916, her mother, Amy obtained her share of the inheritance. By then, there was only about $60,000 left in the trust fund. The family invested some of it in a gypsum mine but it failed. The family fortunes declined even further. However, this meant that Amelia could now enrol in Orgontz College, Rydal, Pennsylvania for a nursing course.

In April 1917, America entered the First World War. Amelia joined the local Red Cross. She travelled from Orgontz to visit her sister in Toronto. She worked for the Voluntary Aid Detachment at the Spadina Military Hospital, Toronto until the Armistice in November 1918.

In the winter of 1918, she went to the nearby airfield at Armour Heights, Toronto. She watched the training aircraft land and take off. She felt the first stirrings of interest in aviation. At that time, civilians were not allowed to be taken up.

In 1919, she enrolled as a medical student in Columbia University, Massachusetts but left the following year after completing only one semester.

In December 1920, Amelia went with her father to Daugherty Field, Long Beach for an aerial meet. She asked her father to enquire how much it cost to learn to fly. The answer was about $1,000, a princely sum in those days.  The next morning, her father paid $10 to a pilot, Frank Hawks, to take Amelia for a ten minute flight. She later recalled that “as soon as we left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly.” She had found her destiny at the age of twenty three.

PART II: THE PILOT

That same month, Amelia and her father approached Neta Snook at Kinner Field, Los Angeles to teach Amelia how to fly. It was unusual to find a female flying instructor in those days. The fee was one dollar per minute in the air and payment had to be made daily. Amelia persuaded Neta to accept Liberty Bonds as payment. . On 3 January 1921, Amelia turned up for her first flying lesson.

Since she was short of money, she worked at some “twenty eight jobs” as diverse as “driving a truck, selling sausages and working in a photographic laboratory” to earn a living. She was working for a telephone company when she bought a Kinner Airster biplane in July 1921.  She paid $2,000 for it which was four times the normal price. Neta Snook estimated that she gave Amelia about 5 hours instruction in the Canuck and 15 hours in the Kinner Airster.

In 1923, she became engaged to Sam Chapman, only to call it off in 1928. In 1924, her father won an uncontested divorce from her mother. Amelia sold her Kinner Airster to help solve her family’s financial problems.

PART III: THE RECORDS

George Palmer Putnam was the son of the publisher who founded G.P. Putnam’s Sons Publishing Company. In 1919, George joined the company. The publishing business grew under his control.

In April 1928, Putnam proposed to sponsor a flight by the first woman to fly across the Atlantic from America to Europe. The plane available was a Fokker F7. Amy Phipps Guest leased the plane to make the Atlantic crossing herself but her family vehemently objected.  So she had to look around for a suitable candidate to replace her. Captain Hilton Railey arranged for Amelia to be interviewed as a candidate by George Putnam. The interview went well but Amelia thought Putnam was brusque.

There were other women who wanted to make the attempt. The leading contender was Ruth Nichols but she was sick and needed time to recover. In October 1927, Ruth Elder took off with George Haldeman as the pilot. But her Stinson Detroiter was forced down in the Azores due to engine trouble.  Amelia had to act fast to beat the competition.

On June 17-18 1928, she became the first woman to cross the Atlantic but only as a passenger or she later called it as “a sack of potatoes.” She tried to give credit to the pilot, Wilmer Bill Stultz and the mechanic, Louis Slim Gordon. But the press ignored them and focused all the attention on her. She purchased an Avro Avian biplane.

On 18 August 1929, she helped to organize the first Woman’s Air Derby from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland, Ohio. She purchased a Lockheed Vega to take part in the race and won third place. In 1930, she and Elinor Smith founded the Ninety Nines, the first organisation for women pilots. It was so called because there were 99 members out of 120 women pilots in the country.

Her father died of cancer on 23 September, 1930. In October 1930, she obtained her transport pilot’s license. George Putnam divorced his first wife, Dorothy Binney, in December 1929. George and Amelia married on 7 February 1931.

PART IV: THE ADVISER

On 20 May 1932, she flew across the Atlantic solo in her Lockheed Vega. In October 1934, she wanted to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean. Her husband recruited Paul Mantz to assist them with the technical preparations.

Mantz joined the Army flight training program in November 1927. He was dropped after six months for not following orders. But they rated him as an excellent pilot. Mantz provided flying instruction and charter flights in San Francisco. He also knew stunt pilots who flew for the movie industry. He started an aircraft maintenance business at Union Air Terminal. He owned United Air Services, located near the Lockheed factory at Burbank, California.

On 11 January 1935, Amelia became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California in her Lockheed Vega. She commenced her lecture tours at $250 per lecture.

In July 1936, Purdue University financed the purchase of the Lockheed Electra 10E for $80,000. She named it “The Flying Laboratory” and made preparations with Paul Mantz and Harry Manning for the world flight.

PART V: THENAVIGATOR

Captain Harry Manning worked abroad ships for the shipping line, the United States Line. He had flown his own aircraft for some years before he met Amelia. He had some experience in radio operations and navigation. Amelia initially chose him as the navigator for her round the world flight. He obtained three months leave of absence from his employer for this purpose.

On February 17, 1937, Amelia was flying from Cleveland to Burbank with Putnam, Manning and their mechanic, Ruckins McKneely. Manning wrote a note to Amelia saying that they were in southern Kansas. But they were actually in the neighbouring state of Oklahoma.  Although the error was only marginal, Putnam was not pleased.

On March 10, 1937, Amelia flew with Manning, Mantz, Joseph Gurr and Putnam from Burbank to San Francisco Bay.  The purpose was for Gurr to check the radios while Manning used only celestial observations for navigation. He got a celestial fix on their position within a 10 per cent margin of error. This meant that they could miss the Burbank airport by as much as 30 miles. After they landed, Mantz and Putnam were concerned because the navigation error was 20 miles. If Burbank had been a small island on the ocean, they would have missed it. Mantz said that navigating a ship at sea was different from navigating an aircraft over the ocean.

When Putnam voiced his concerns to William Muller of the Bureau of Air Commerce, Muller suggested that they contact Fred Noonan. Noonan was the chief navigator for Pan American Airways for seven years until his recent resignation. Noonan agreed to navigate for Amelia. He planned to start a school for navigation. He hoped that the publicity generated from the trip would help his school.

PART VI: THE FIRST CRASH

Amelia and Putnam initially planned to make her world flight attempt from the west to the east.  The Electra flew from Oakland on 17 March 1937 for Honolulu, Hawaii.

On 20 March 1937, Amelia took off from Honolulu. Manning and Noonan were abroad. The aircraft was gathering speed about a thousand feet down the runway when the right wing dropped. Amelia corrected by reducing power on the opposite engine which caused the plane to swing to the left in a ground loop. The plane crashed on its belly as the right wheel and undercarriage were torn away. Fuel poured out though the drain well in the damaged belly but there was no fire. Amelia had cut the switches.

Paul Mantz felt that Amelia had been too tired to leave immediately. He observed that she was not a natural pilot. She had enthusiasm and determination to learn how to fly but that did not make her a good pilot. He had told her many times that when taking off, she must use the rudder pedals to keep the plane straight and the throttles must be pushed forward together. If there was any jockeying, she tended to correct any swing of the aircraft by increasing power in the opposite engine to straighten up. This would only increase the chances of a ground loop. He said that Amelia did not seem to understand the importance of this principle.

Neta Snook, who was Amelia’s first instructor, also said that Amelia lacked the inherent ability that made the difference between a brilliant pilot and an average pilot.

After the crash, Harry Manning told Amelia that his leave of absence would soon be over and he could not accompany her any more. Later he would reveal that he had no faith in her ability.  Mantz also chose not to continue the flight with Amelia. Fred Noonan replaced Manning as the navigator.

The Electra was not insured as no insurance company wanted to insure it. Lockheed’s assistant chief engineer, James Gerschler, estimated the repairs to cost $12,500. This was a serious financial setback for Amelia and George Putnam. So it was imperative for them to make a second attempt, this time from west to east to take advantage of the prevailing winds.  Amelia and Putnam had to mortgage their house to raise funds for her expenses during her flight.

PART VII: THE WORLD FLIGHT

Amelia and Noonan left on May 21, 1937 from Oakland to Miami for their round the world flight. She did not inform Paul Mantz who first heard about it on the radio. He was angry at her subterfuge. He said that he had not yet checked her radio equipment, fuel consumption and the optimum power settings for each leg of the journey. He blamed George Putnam for pushing her too hard to meet her schedules.

Joseph Gurr worked for United Airlines at Burbank. He was hired to check on the radio equipment after his normal work was over. He said that Amelia was too casual regarding safety preparations and radio equipment. He finally got her to attend a session on radio procedures and how to use the direction finding equipment. He realised from her hesitancy in turning the knobs that she was not familiar with usage of the radios. In that case, she should have allotted more time for her practice sessions. But after only an hour, she had to leave.

The Bendix radio receiver had five bands numbered 1 to 5. The first 3 bands of the radio receiver matched the direction finder loop so Amelia could get a bearing on bearings 1, 2 and 3. But bands 4 and 5 were out of the design range of the direction finder. The direction finder loop could not process the radio signals to get the bearings. It was logical to assume that bands 1 to 5 on the radio corresponded to bearings 1 to 5 on the direction finder loop. They did not. The Bendix engineer, Cyril Remmlein briefed Manning on the use of the Bendix RA-1 receiver. But Manning was no longer on her team. Her ignorance would be fatal.

The maritime European nations needed their land based stations to communicate with ships at sea. They used Morse code which overcame the lingual barriers between the various countries. But the United States had a large interior and ships could not communicate with stations deep inland. So aircraft used voice communication by short range radios.  Amelia was familiar with this radio system only. She never learned to operate radios using the Morse code. However, voice transmissions over the radio were not as powerful as the telegraph using the Morse code.  This would make a difference on her last flight.

On 7 June 1937, Amelia and Noonan were flying from Natal, Brazil to Dakar, Senegal.  At 3.36 pm, Fred Noonan scribbled a note telling her to turn south for Dakar, about 79 miles away. She scribbled a reply “What put us north?” and turned north instead of south. She apparently did not trust Noonan’s navigation due to the overcast sky, thinking he could not get a sextant shot to work out their position. She eventually landed at Saint Louis, Senegal. If she had followed Noonan’s calculations, they would have landed at Dakar, about 163 miles south.  Amelia was generous enough to later admit her mistake. But this incident did not augur well for their relationship. If a pilot did not trust her navigator, then there is no team spirit anymore.

Although Noonan had a drinking problem, his skill and competence as a navigator are not in question. There were three chronometers in the aircraft.  He was confident of his ability to find the island which was a mere speck in the ocean. Howland Island was only two miles long, less than one mile wide and merely twenty feet high.  He had flown with Pan American Clippers as their chief navigator on their survey flights in the Pacific. So he was not only an experienced navigator, he knew that particular area very well.

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