Tomorrow Is Take Off Day

Tomorrow, seventy-five years ago, Amelia Earhart will leave Miami to officially begin the flight from which she will never return.
"Prior to that dawn of June first, when A.E. took her silver plane up into the sunrise at Miami, she confided a secret," wrote C. B. Allen of the New York Herald Tribune. "Amelia Earhart's equatorial flight around the world was to have been her last great aerial adventure - a final fling at spectacular flying."  Amelia herself remarked that, "I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system and I hope this trip is it." She asked that these remarks not be made public until she had completed her journey.  Of course, those who have read But This Is Different http://butthisisdifferent.com know that many years would pass before Amelia completed that journey.
And on this date seventy-five years ago, Amelia took time for last minute plans. Small, almost invisible, islands in the South Pacific are hard to find -- especially if they aren't any any maps.

This Date She Just Wanted Time To Sit In The Sun

As the time for take off grew nearer seventy-five years ago, what Amelia Earhart wanted more than anything was time for a swim and a sun bath.  "I just don't get the chance," she was heard to remark.  Reports do indicate that she got several sun burns from sitting in the pilot's cabin of the all metal Lockheed Electra while testing its instruments and engines.  Those exposures to the sun, she was heard to say, were "... not the same thing at all as a good sun bath; I want to soak up a little sunshine, not be fried by it."  Of course, as told in But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com, Amelia would soon have all the time in the world for swimming and soaking up a little sunshine.  Until that time, though, the best she could hope for was a little time to stretch and rest.

She Is Counting The Days

 In Miami, Amelia is counting the days until she leaves for her around the world flight.  On But This Is Different' Island of Nani, another person is also counting the days as she, too, makes final preparations as told in http://butthisisdifferent.com.

And perhaps both women are growing anxious to carry out their well planned conspiracy.

 

"The most effective way to do it, is to do it." - Amelia Earhart

Memorial Day 1937

It was May 30 that year and the Chicago Police Department shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators during the 'Little Steel Strike'. History records the incident as the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937.  As her preparations to leave Miami near completion, Amelia doubtless heard the news and recalled a piece she had written when she wrote for Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Amelia Impresses The Men

Reports indicate that one of the best times Amelia had while in Miami was when she visited the Pan American airways' international air terminal and maintenance base at Dinner Key Marina.  There she was taken for a tour of the huge hangar/workshops where the company's Sikorsky Clipper ships were taken out of the water after each flight for a complete inspection.  Her guide, W. G. Richards (the airline's chief mechanic) was captivated by Amelia and her 'amazing efficiency apparent in every department of the maintenance base ..'.  Of course, Amelia expertise at airplane mechanics will serve her well on the remote island of Nani as told in But This Is Different - http://butthisisdifferent.com.  Proving herself not only as a pilot for as a woman was very important to Amelia both in Florida and on Nani.

"[Women] must pay for everything.... They do get more glory than men for comparable feats. But, also, women get more notoriety when they crash." - Amelia Earhart

 

Pan American Airways' Sikorsky Clipper Ship

Amelia Prepares At Miami's Pan Am Terminal

 
Seventy-five years ago, Amelia Earhart and her mechanic Bo McKneely worked with the mechanics of Pan American Airways to make sure her Electra was ready for the flight around the world.  C. B. Allen, aviation correspondent for the Herald Tribune, reported that " ... no one could fail to be impressed by the calm, unhurried manner in which Amelia went about the preparations for the flight.  She knew her stuff.. knew exactly what she wanted done."  Amelia relationship with Pan American Airways plays a large part in another version of her adventure as found in But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com.  

"The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship." -- Amelia Earhart

Somewhere In The South Pacific Someone Else Is Making Plans

On this date seventy-five years ago Amelia Earhart is making public preparations for her around the world flight.  Privately, however, is there another woman somewhere in the South Pacific arranging for Amelia's very secret and never to be discovered landing?  Find out in the pages of But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com.
And who is this woman photographed on that hidden island in the South Pacific?

Amelia Earhart Is In Miami

Once safely on the tarmac of the correct airport, Amelia will not leave Miami until June 1.  During this stay the public preparations will continue.  The Lockheed will be checked and rechecked for air worthiness.  Charts will be reviewed and re-reviewed.  Weather forecasts will be carefully studied.  And of course, she will want to make absolutely certain that her navigator, Fred Noonan, directs her to the correct landing site on each leg of the journey to avoid another misadventure like yesterday's when she briefly landed at the Eastern Air Lines 36th Street Airport which was closed with no one in the control tower.  She taxied up, realized Fred's error, took off and six minutes later landed at the Miami Municipal Airport.  While the mechanic Bo McKnelly stayed with the Electra in a hangar, Amelia, Noonan, and Putnam went to a hotel.
Even though her navigator directed her to the closed airport, Amelia must surely have noticed on approach that the control tower was closed.  How distracted was she with her private plans, the island of Nani, and Pilapan?  The only place you can discover her distraction is But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com.

"My ambition is to have this wonderful gift produce practical results for the future of commercial flying and for the women who may want to fly tomorrow's planes." - Amelia Earhart

In the photograph Amelia continues to make public plans for her around the world flight.

 

 

May 23 - Amelia Earhart Flies From New Orleans To Miami

Before she leaves New Orleans, Amelia sends a telegram to her navigator's wife reassuring her that Fred is only drinking milk.  History indicates that Noonan was an alcoholic subject to frequent relapses. Fully aware of his history, Amelia nevertheless chose him as her navigator.  In But This Is Different she will put Fred's fragile sobriety to her own uses.  To learn more about this, visit http://butthisisdifferent.com.
As evidenced in the photograph of the Lockheed's first moments on the ground in Miami, the crowds were not yet large.  In part this may be because Amelia first landed at the wrong airport.

May 22 - Amelia Leaves Tucson, Lands In New Orleans

In her own words:  "The next morning at Tucson a dense sandstorm blocked our way.  But despite it we took off, leap-frogging at 8,000 feet over El Paso with a seemingly solid mass of sand billowing below us like a turbulent yellow sea.  That night we reached New Orleans ...."  The four stayed in the hotel at the Shushan Airport, constructed on a man-made peninsula in Lake Pontchartrain.  When the airport opened in 1934 its opening ceremonies hosted the Pan-American Air Races which, ironically, banned women from participating.
In the photograph is the Shushan Airport where, during her over night stay, Amelia might very well have yearned for her secret destination where another waited for her as told in But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com.

Amelia Leaves Burbank And Heads For Tucson

On this date seventy-five years ago and just several minutes ago (2:25 PM or 1425 Pacific Time), Amelia Earhart took off from her home field in Burbank, California, headed for Tucson, Arizona.  Crowded into the Lockheed, in addition to Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan, were her husband George Putnam and a mechanic named Bo McKneely.  The mechanic was needed to make sure the repairs made after the Lockheed's Hawaii event were holding and Putnam because, well, he could.
History does not tell us where Amelia landed in Tucson.  There was no newspaper coverage of the landing nor are there records of her arrival and departure in the archives of Tucson International Airport or the Pima Air and Space Museum.  Viki Matthews, a spokeswoman for the Tucson Airport Authority, is quoted from the archives of the Tucson Citizen, "The only thing we can come up with is maybe she came onto a small airstrip at Ryan Field or someplace like that. There were so many airstrips and places a plane could land all over Tucson in those days."
We do know that on the ground in Tucson an engine fire caused some minor damage to rubber fittings but was cleaned up in a few hours.
Amelia, it seems, is no stranger to secrets.  To learn more about her secrets read But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com.

"I lay no claim to advancing scientific data other than advancing flying knowledge. I can only say that I do it because I want to." -- Amelia Earhart

 Amelia and mechanic Bo McKneely inspect the Lockheed.

Today's The Day, Amelia

Not quite confident that the Lockheed Electra was fit for the flight after the damage it sustained in Hawaii, Amelia leaves Burbank today and flies to Oakland.  She then flies from Oakland back down to Burbank.  The is a secret test run before the world watches her begin her around the world flight. She lands in Burbank at what is now Bob Hope Airport (called Union Air Terminal on this date seventy-five years ago) at about six in the evening.  Apparently satisfied that the Electra can make the trip, she goes to the home she shares with her husband G. P. Putnam on Valley Spring Lane in Toluca Lake.  Tomorrow she will officially begin her almost flight around the around.  Only she and one other person on this date seventy-five years ago know her true destination.  Of course, you can easily find it out by reading But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com.

"Adventure is worthwhile in itself." -- Amelia Earhart

 

 

Amelia Earhart is at the controls and the Lockheed Electra is leaving Oakland.

Tomorrow Is Amelia's Big Day

The clock is ticking.  Amelia has just hours to go before she begins her second attempt - this time heading east - at flying around the world.
Me, I put off packing until the last minute and then take way too much.  To plan something like this -- something verified by history and something quite different existing in But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com, Amelia must surely be packing her suitcase today.  And come tomorrow she will doubtless locate her Lockheed Electra and begin one of the most famous journeys history has to tell.

"Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture." -- Amelia Earhart

 

 Amelia can't overpack.  The Lockheed won't hold much besides fuel and its two member crew.

Amelia's Lockheed Is Where?

With just two days to go, we discover that Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra -- which is supposed to take off from Oakland to fly east around the world -- is in Burbank under repair.  On the first leg of her first attempt to fly around the world, Amelia left Oakland on March 17, 1937, and headed west.  Her departure from Hawaii to, yes, Howland Island, was delayed three days because of problems with a propeller hub's variable pitch mechanism. These repairs were done at the Navy's Luke Field on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor.  When she could finally resume her flight, a tire blew during take off and the right landing gear collapsed.  The Lockheed sustained significant damage and was shipped back to the Lockheed facility in Burbank for repairs.  Some blame the damage on pilot error and others on mechanical failure.  Whatever the reason, here it is two days before departure and the Lockheed Electra is still in Burbank!

"Flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price." - Amelia Earhart

 

Amelia's Badly Damaged Lockheed sits on Luke Island

 

Barely Three Days Left To Go

In less than three days, seventy-five years ago, Amelia Earhart will take off from Oakland and head east in her famous and presumably unfinished attempt to fly around the world.  The time for public planning is wrapping up.  Her secret plans can be discovered in the reading of But This Is Different http://www.butthisisdifferent.com.

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward." -- Amelia Earhart

 

Amelia Earhart possibly making her private flight plans.

 

Amelia Has Four Days To Go

Doubtless at this time, Amelia's focus was divided between making sure the Lockheed was ready for the flight and wondering if her secret plan would actually work.  It's all there for you to discover in But This Is Different at http://butthisisdifferent.com.  Step into this speculative world for a completely different story of Amelia's final attempt at flying around the world.

Meanwhile, back in Oakland, Amelia's Electra, designated NR16020, was a modified Lockheed Model 10E with a range of more than 4,000 miles, a cruising speed of approximately 190 miles per hour, and able to climb to over 19,400 feet above sea level. She had multiple modifications made to the plane so it could handle long-distance flights. She added more fuel tanks for a total of six in the wings and six in the fuselage, increasing the total carrying capacity to 1,150 gallons of fuel. Basically, she turned it into a flying fuel tank with barely enough room for her navigator. She also modified the electronic equipment, adding a Western Electric radio and a Bendix radio direction finder—cutting-edge technology at the time. These numerous modifications made Earhart’s Electra a one‐of‐a‐kind aircraft.

 

 

Five Days To Go

With just five days before she begins her final attempt to fly around the world, Amelia Earhart took time out for a hair cut.  Perhaps she anticipated the thousands of fans and reporters who would meet her at each stop or perhaps she looked forward to meeting someone else on the island of Nani.  Want to know more?  Read But This Is Different http://butthisisdifferent.com and learn another way of looking at this remarkable and haunting disappearance.

"...decide...whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying...." -- Amelia Earhart

 

 

Six Days To Go

Amelia has only six days until she leaves Oakland, headed east, to fly around the world.  Doubtless her public plans focus around exact routes, lodging when on the ground, maintenance of the Lockheed Electra, and keeping her navigator sober.  Privately we know from allegedly fictional account of her flight But This Is Different http://butthisisdifferent.com she is making very different plans as is the icon of the Museum of Natural History Margaret Mead.

"Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization." - Amelia Earhart

 

 

On This Day In 1937

On this day in 1937 Amelia Earhart was seven days away from beginning her second attempt to fly around the world.  Her first attempt ended in Hawaii when her Lockheed had to be shipped back to Oakland for repairs.  For the second attempt she decided to fly east instead of west.  Common wisdom tells us that the flight ended in disaster.  I know differently and so will you by visiting http://butthisisdifferent.com and reading But This Is Different.

"Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others." ~ Amelia Earhart (George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart papers, Courtesy of Purdue University Libraries, Karnes Archives & Special Collections)