Amelia Earhart Read Online Free PDF Page A

Though the Ludington Line went out of business, a short time later the principals Earhart, Collins, and Vidal, along with an investor named Sam Solomon, developed yet another airline. It was initially named National Airways but soon came to be called Boston-Maine Airways. Earhart was named vice president. During the incorporation, Vidal was named director of the Bureau of Air Commerce in Washington, D.C. In time, Boston-Maine Airways grew to be part of the Delta Air Lines system.
    As president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt sponsored a number of new airports and airways facilities. He also saw the need for a more sophisticated radiotelegraph communications and navigation system. In addition, Roosevelt was also instrumental in establishing strategically placed airports and landing strips, along with communications facilities, throughout much of the world where the United States had interests.
    In 1933, a cadre of Hawaiian businessmen sponsored a flight from Hawaii to the West Coast of the United States, offering a prize of $10,000. Earhart professed interest. It would be another challenge, another payday, and another opportunity to remain in the public eye.
    In 1934, Earhart hired Paul Mantz as her technical adviser. His job was to prepare her Vega for the flight from Hawaii to California. Mantz came with a hefty set of credentials: he owned United Air Services, he had an excellent pilot rating in the army (though he had been discharged for not following orders), and he was a stunt pilot for motion pictures. Like Earhart, Mantz owned and flew a Lockheed Vega.
    Recent flying regulations required any aircraft crossing oceans to have a radio transmitter powerful enough to maintain continuous communication. For the Vega, Earhart required a two-channel, 3,105-kilocycle radio for airway and nighttime communications and 6,210 kilocycles for long-range daytime transmissions. The 6,210-kilocycle transmitter had a longer range. Such systems required an effective antenna. For the Vega, Mantz installed a state-of-the-art trailing wire antenna that could be reeled in and out much like a fishing line.
    During the Christmas holidays of 1934, Earhart, along with Mantz and his wife, took a liner to Hawaii. Her Vega was strapped to the tennis deck of the ship and offloaded onto a barge for transportation to Fleet Air Base in Pearl Harbor. From here it was flown to Wheeler Field for a final checkup before undertaking the transpacific flight.
    At 4:44 p.m. Hawaiian Standard Time on January 11, 1935, Earhart took off from Wheeler Field. One hour later, she reeled out the trailing wire antenna and broadcast her first message on 3,105 kilocycles. Putnam was listening to the transmission in Honolulu and responded that her signal had less volume than it should have and was difficult to understand. Throughout the flight, Earhart transmitted on both 3,105 and 6,210 kilocycles with mixed results but was by and large pleased with the system. Radio communication difficulties were to plague Earhart in the future.
    Eighteen hours and seventeen minutes later, Earhart landed at Oakland. A crowd estimated to number five thousand was there to welcome her. At the time, Earhart was the only woman to have flown across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii and the only pilot to accomplish it solo. Once again, she made the front pages. The flight, Earhart knew, would guarantee her a positive image and an enduring position in aviation. With encouragement from Putnam, she was beginning to entertain the notion of one of the greatest adventures ever—an around-the-world flight.
    More flights followed, more praises heaped upon her. Putnam set about the task of raising money to purchase a newer and better aircraft, one that could make an around-the-world voyage.
    In the meantime, Putnam’s cousin, Palmer, was forced to declare bankruptcy, one of the results being that he still owed G. P. $75,000 that would never be paid. Though still employed by Paramount