Science Reporter, OCTOBER 2016 34 FEATURE ARTICLE M OST aviation enthusiasts and professionals have heard and been inspired by the life of the most popular female American aviator Amelia Earhart (1897-disappeared in 1937). She was one of the first female pilots in aviation history who created several aviation records. Her life is one of the biggest mysteries. She was born on 24 July 1897 in Atchison, Kansas State in the United States and was the elder of the two sisters, Amelia and Muriel. She was born to a railroad aĴorney and spent her childhood in various American towns. She was preĴy adventurous and preferred to play outside and explore things. Child Earhart’s first flight ended dramatically. She emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as a sled with a bruised lip, torn dress and a “sensation of exhilaration”. She exclaimed, “It’s just like flying!” At the age of ten, Earhart saw her first aircraĞ at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. Earhart graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1916. She had a tenuous childhood with her father turning into an alcoholic and retiring early from his railroad job. Nevertheless, throughout her troubled childhood, she continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management and mechanical engineering. A spirited adventurer, the first person to fly solo both in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Amelia Earhart’s life was inspiring and her death, a mystery. SWATI SAXENA During the Christmas vacation in 1917, Earhart visited her sister Muriel in Toronto, Canada. World War I was raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. AĞer receiving training as a nurse’s aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Volunteer Aid Detachment at Spadina Military Hospital. Her duties included preparing food in the kitchen for patients with special diets and handing out prescribed medication in the hospital’s dispensary. When the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing duties including night shiĞs at the Spadina Military Hospital. She became a patient herself, suffering from pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis. She was hospitalized in early November 1918 owing to pneumonia and discharged in December 1918, about two months aĞer the illness had started. Amelia Earhart in her flying suit (Ref.: National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution)
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Science Reporter, OCTOBER 2016 34
FEAT
UR
E A
RTIC
LE
MOST aviation enthusiasts and professionals have heard and been
inspired by the life of the most popular female American aviator Amelia Earhart (1897-disappeared in 1937). She was one of the fi rst female pilots in aviation history who created several aviation records.
Her life is one of the biggest mysteries. She was born on 24 July 1897 in Atchison, Kansas State in the United States and was the elder of the two sisters, Amelia and Muriel. She was born to a railroad a orney and spent her childhood in various American towns. She was pre y adventurous and preferred to play outside and explore things.
Child Earhart’s fi rst fl ight ended dramatically. She emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as a sled with a bruised lip, torn dress and a “sensation of exhilaration”. She exclaimed, “It’s just like fl ying!”
At the age of ten, Earhart saw her fi rst aircra at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. Earhart graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1916. She had a tenuous childhood with her father turning into an alcoholic and retiring early from his railroad job. Nevertheless, throughout her troubled childhood, she continued to aspire to a future career; she kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male-oriented fi elds, including fi lm direction and production, law, advertising, management and mechanical engineering.
A spirited adventurer,
the fi rst person to fl y solo both in the Atlantic and Pacifi c
Oceans, Amelia
Earhart’s life was
inspiring and her death, a mystery.
UCC
UUUSWATI SAXENA
During the Christmas vacation in 1917, Earhart visited her sister Muriel in Toronto, Canada. World War I was raging and Earhart saw the returning wounded soldiers. A er receiving training as a nurse’s aide from the Red Cross, she began work with the Volunteer Aid Detachment at Spadina Military Hospital. Her duties included preparing food in the kitchen for patients with special diets and handing out prescribed medication in the hospital’s dispensary.
When the 1918 Spanish fl u pandemic reached Toronto, Earhart was engaged in arduous nursing duties including night shi s at the Spadina Military Hospital. She became a patient herself, suff ering from pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis. She was hospitalized in early November 1918 owing to pneumonia and discharged in December 1918, about two months a er the illness had started.
Amelia Earhart in her fl ying suit (Ref.: National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution)
Science Reporter, OCTOBER 201635
FEATURE ARTICLE
She had pain and pressure around one eye and copious mucus drainage through the nostrils and throat. In the hospital, in the pre-antibiotic era, she had painful minor operations to wash out the aff ected maxillary sinus, but these procedures were not successful and Earhart subsequently suff ered from worsening headache a acks. Chronic sinusitis was to signifi cantly aff ect Earhart’s fl ying activities in later life, and sometimes even on the airfi eld she was forced to wear a bandage on her cheek to cover a small drainage tube.
Learning to fl y in California, she took up aviation as a hobby, taking small jobs to pay for her fl ying lessons. She was the sixth woman to be issued a pilot’s license by the world governing body for aeronautics – the Federation Aeronautique.
In 1922, with the fi nancial help of her sister, Muriel, and her mother, Amy Otis Earhart, she purchased her fi rst airplane, a Kinner Airster. Amelia moved back to East US where she was employed as a social worker in Denison House, in Boston, Massachuse s. It was there that she was selected to be the fi rst female passenger on a transatlantic
fl ight in 1928 by her future husband, the publisher, George Palmer Putnam. In 1931, Earhart powered a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro and set a world altitude record of 18,415 feet.
She was selected
to be the fi rst woman on a transatlantic fl ight as a passenger. At the time, it was thought that such a fl ight was too dangerous for a woman to conduct herself. Therefore, pilot Wilmer “Bill” Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis E. “Slim” Gordon accompanied her.
On 17 June 1928, they took off from Trespassey Harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F.Vllb/3m named “Friendship”. Approximately 20 hours and 40 minutes later, they touched down at Burry Point, Wales, in the United Kingdom. Due to the weather, Stultz did all the fl ying. Even though this was the agreed upon arrangement, Earhart later confi ded that she felt she was just a baggage. She still had the desire to try fl ying transatlantic fl ight on her own.
Earhart and Putnam got married on 7 February 1931 in Putnam’s mother’s home in Connecticut. Earhart referred to their marriage as a partnership with dual control. On the day of their wedding, she wrote a le er to Putnam telling him, “I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly.”
Nearly four years a er her “Friendship” fl ight across Atlantic Ocean, she got the opportunity to fl y solo and became the fi rst female aviator to do so in 1932. On the morning of 20 May 1932, she took off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, with that day’s copy of the local newspaper to confi rm the date of the fl ight. Earhart’s nearly 15-hour fl ight established her as an international hero. She won many honors, including the Gold Medal from the National Geographic Society presented by
President Hoover, the Distinguished Flying Cross from the U.S. Congress, and the Cross of the Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French government.
That same year, Amelia developed fl ying clothes for the Ninety-Nines. The Ninety-Nines Inc. (h p://www.ninety-nines.org) is an international organization for licensed women pilots from 35 countries. It was started in 1929 and Amelia was one of its founding members and its fi rst president – the organization currently has more than 5000 members.
Earhart actively became involved in the promotions, especially women’s fashions. For years she had sewn her own clothes, and now she contributed her input to a new line of women’s fashion that embodied a sleek and purposeful, yet feminine, look. Her
“Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.”
“Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.”
“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart as a child (Courtesy: Wikipedia)
Kinner Airster two seated single engine bi-plane designed by Bert Kinner in 1920. Picture shows pilot Neta Snook (left) and Amelia Earhart (right)
with Kinner Airster. (Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia)
Science Reporter, OCTOBER 2016 36
FEATURE ARTICLE
fi rst clothing creation was a fl ying suit with loose trousers, a zipper top and big pockets. Vogue advertised it with a two-page photo spread. Then, she began designing her own line of clothes “for the woman who lives actively.”
In 1935, Amelia became the fi rst person to fl y from Hawaii to the American mainland. By doing so, Amelia became not only the fi rst person to solo anywhere in the Pacifi c, but also the fi rst person to solo both the Atlantic and Pacifi c Oceans. She was the author of several best-selling books such as 20 Hrs. 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship, The Fun of It and Last Flight (her last book).
In 1935, Amelia joined the faculty of Purdue University as a female career consultant. It was the purchase of a Lockheed Electra, through Purdue University, that enabled Amelia to fulfi ll her dream of circumnavigating the globe by air. She received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record. During an a empt to make a circumnavigational fl ight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10 Electra, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacifi c Ocean near Howland Island.
On July 2, a er completing nearly two-thirds of her historic fl ight – over 22,000 miles – Amelia vanished along with her navigator Frederick Noonan. She wrote to her husband George Putnam in a le er: “Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.” These courageous words concluded her own dramatic and personal story of the historic fl ight in 1937 that ended with her tragic disappearance somewhere in the Pacifi c.
A great naval, air and land search failed to locate Amelia, Noonan, or the aircra , and it was assumed they were lost at sea. To this day, their fate is the subject of unending speculation. Some theorized the pair ran out of fuel looking for Howland Island, and had to ditch in the Pacifi c. Others thought they might have crash-landed on another small island. Earhart was legally declared dead in 1939.
On completing each stage of the fl ight she sent back not only dispatches and personal le ers, but her diaries, charts, and the running log that she le in the cockpit. These and many other
incidents as described by friends and family were published in 1937 in the book mostly wri en by Amelia herself. It was appropriately titled Last Flight.
Walter Boyne rightly said in this book’s preface: “Amelia Earhart came perhaps before her time but the image this book conveys so well, that of the smiling, confi dent, capable, yet compassionate human being, is one of which we can all be proud.”
As a tribute to Amelia, George Putnam authored her biography, entitled Soaring Wings in 1939. Later in 1989, British author Mary S. Lovell published Amelia Earhart’s story in a book titled The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart which vividly captures the drama and mystery behind the most infl uential woman – from her tomboy days at the turn of the century and her early fascinations with fl ying, to the unique relationship she shared with G. P. Putnam, the fl amboyant publisher and public relations agent who became both her husband and her business manager.
New research strongly suggests that a piece of aluminium aircra debris recovered in 1991 from Nikumaroro, an uninhabited atoll in the southwestern Pacifi c republic of Kiribati, does belong to Earhart’s Lockheed Electra.
Fokker V.VIIb 3-m used in the transatlantic fl ight in 1928. Fokker F.VII, also known as the Fokker Trimotor, was an airliner produced in the 1920s by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. (Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia)
Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro plane produced in the United States in 1930s. (Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia)
A wax fi gure of Amelia Earhart at Madame Tussauds
Science Reporter, OCTOBER 201637
FEATURE ARTICLE
According to researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircra Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the last, fateful fl ight taken by Earhart 77 years ago, the aluminium sheet is a patch of metal installed on the Electra during the aviator’s eight-day stay in Miami, which was the fourth stop on her a empt to circumnavigate the globe. TIGHAR researchers went to Wichita Air Services in Newton, Kans., and compared the dimensions and features of the Artifact 2-2-V-1, as the metal sheet found on Nikumaroro was called, with the structural components of a Lockheed Electra being restored to airworthy condition. The rivet pa ern and other features on the 19-inch-wide by 23-inch-long Nikumaroro artifact matched the patch and lined up with the structural components of the Lockheed Electra.
The breakthrough would prove that, contrary to what was generally believed, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, did not crash in the Pacifi c Ocean, running out of fuel somewhere near their target destination of Howland Island. Instead, they made a forced landing on Nikumaroro’s smooth, fl at coral reef. The two became castaways and eventually died on the island, which is some 350 miles southeast of Howland Island.
In her memory, Amelia’s house in Atchison, Kansas has been converted into a museum and is currently maintained and run by the Ninety-Nines organization. As a tribute to Amelia Earhart and to support and promote women contributions to aerospace sciences research, Zonta International foundation off ers Amelia Earhart International Fellowship to women doing PhD in Aerospace engineering all across the globe.
The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. has a section on Amelia Earhart displaying her personal belongings, photographs, news articles and Lockheed Vega 5B aircra . She made two of her records in this aircra : fi rst solo, nonstop fl ight by a woman across the United States and the fi rst woman (and the only person since Charles Lindbergh) to fl y nonstop and alone across the Atlantic Ocean. Earhart sold her 5B Vega to Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute in 1933 a er purchasing a new Lockheed 5C Vega. The Smithsonian acquired it in 1966.
Dr. Swati Saxena is a two-time recipient of Amelia Earhart International Fellowship given to women in Aerospace Engineering by Zonta Foundation. She has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the Penn State University, USA. Address in India: C/o Dr. Ashok Saxena, 204, Narain Towers, Agra-282002; Email: [email protected]
Amelia Earhart in front of her Lockheed plane
Lockheed Vega 5B aircraft displayed in Smithsonian National Air and Space Musuem, Washington DC. Gift of the Franklin Institute. (Photo Courtesy: The Smithsonian)
Above: Shareable Social Media Image of Amelia from Zonta Foundation website
Amelia developed fl ying clothes for the Ninety-Nines. The Ninety-Nines Inc. is an international organization for licensed women pilots from 35 countries. It was started in 1929 and Amelia was one of its founding members and its fi rst president – the organization currently has more than 5000 members.
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