by Susan Butler
Now Amy Mollison was studying celestial navigation to prepare herself for her own globe-girdling flight; she thought she would be ready in 1938.
Amelia planned to do it around the earth’s waist. It was the longest way to do it, of course, 27,000 miles, and would involve crossing the equator four times. But it had never been done that way at all, meaning Amelia had no need to hurry to beat someone else’s time. “My frosting on the cake,” she called the flight one day. Why circle the globe at all? Her explanation was clearly rendered, carefully thought out:
Here was shining adventure, beckoning with new experiences, added knowledge of flying, of peoples—of myself. I felt that with the flight behind me I would be more useful to me and to the program we had planned at Purdue.
Then, too, there was my belief that now and then women should do for themselves what men have already done—and occasionally what men have not done—thereby establishing themselves as persons, and perhaps encouraging other women toward greater independence of thought and action. Some such consideration was a contributing reason for my wanting to do what I so much wanted to do.
Of course there was more to it than that—more than the fact that she had already flown the oceans and there was “just” the world left; more than the fact that the achievement would have been the capstone of her career, that she would be the first woman to fly the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the world. Her internal clock was urging her on: her fortieth birthday was coming up July 24, 1937. She had to rack it up by then, then she could relax and turn her mind to less taxing but no less interesting tasks. She was very aware of time breathing down her neck—she always had been. In Boston in 1926, having passed her twenty-ninth birthday, highly aware of how close she was to hitting thirty, with her career still going nowhere, she had been so driven, she had lied on her job application to the WEIU. Now, no one realized that she was about to turn forty because of the one lie she always told—the lie about her age. She had been habitually taking off one year since she was a student at Columbia. Her friends would have better understood the pressure she felt if they had known her real age. 1936 had seen only a series of shakedown flights. Now she was ready, the plane was ready, and she was restless to start.
19
The Plan
• • • • Many people, over the years, have thought that Amelia’s desire to fly around the world was foolish. Even Hilton Railey, who had helped her cope with her first Atlantic passage in 1928, didn’t understand it. “She was caught up in the hero racket which compelled her to strive for increasingly dramatic records,” he wrote soon after she died, trying to exonerate her from her decision, to make it seem as if it were external forces that had pushed her on. Louise Thaden, however, who was close to Amelia, was closer to the truth when she observed that “it is the only major flight she ever attempted for purely selfish reasons. She wanted to fly around the world, because it would be fun.”
There was no doubt what women across the country thought of Amelia’s proposed circumnavigation when they found out. In the spring of 1937 McCall’s kicked off a new series of covers to sell the magazine—a gallery of great women, starting in March with Anne Lindbergh, followed by Katharine Cornell in April. They put Amelia on the cover of the May issue, roughly coinciding with the beginning of her trip. It was a wonderful likeness: the smile, the tousled hair, the white silk scarf. “Amelia Earhart has dared to blaze the earth’s uncharted skyways, spanning a continent, an ocean’s vastness, the globe we call the world. She is America’s Number One Aviatrix and it is fitting therefore, that her portrait be included in McCall’s gallery of Great American Women,” ran the text.
Purdue also liked the idea. The Purdue Research Foundation statement was that they expected the flight would “develop scientific and engineering data of vital importance to the aviation industry.” She had asked for a formal leave of absence from the university in April 1936, and they open-handedly gave it to her, authorizing Elliott to grant her a leave “at such time and for such duration as may be necessary to permit her to make proper preparations for said flight, and to undertake same.” They must initially have been worried that they might be criticized for backing such an undertaking, for they concluded that the university and the PRF could “become associated in the cooperative research project without fear of correctly being charged with sponsoring a publicity stunt.”
Purdue had already been involved in practical flight research in scientific aeronautics, doing experimental work in aviation for the Department of Commerce, putting down a runway system composed of various types of runway materials to determine their suitability for airport purposes. Experimental work was also under way in applying television and shortwave radio to low-visibility flying.
Originally, Amelia intended to work within this aeronautical program with the Electra, then afterward fly around the world testing the effects of long-distance flights on pilots and equipment, in a “flying laboratory.” But then she decided she wanted to do the flight first, then hang up her spurs and work with Purdue. By August reporters were sniffing around, looking for a story, asking questions. Amelia told them: “I’m nearly sold on the idea of flying around the world because I’d like to do it, but I’m a busy person this year. I have a lot of things to do. Next year? Well, one never knows.”
Even as she prepared to take leave from Purdue, she made some parting shots to keep women focused on their future.
The most important subject today is modern economics. I am referring to social economics. When women really know about economics, take the long view of the subject, they will abandon this sentimental attitude about protective legislation for women, minimum hours and minimum wages for women. Limited hours and limited pay only prolong the infantile period of women and work to the disadvantage of those who want to progress. Wages should be based on work, not sex nor any other consideration. The problem should be, not minimum scales for women but minimum scales for everybody
While Amelia tended to her new plane, the university considered plans for expanding the PRF into a permanent Amelia Earhart Fund for Aeronautical Research, or possibly funding a two- or three-year scholarship to be given to a girl interested in aviation, as well as working with Amelia’s proposed future experimental flights.
As always during preparation for a flight, Amelia’s life went on as before. George tended to getting the new house finished and furnished. He arranged for a leading mail-order house to lavishly equip the kitchen—in return for permission to advertise the fact. The furnishings were contemporary in feeling—simple pieces of good quality and clean lines. Amelia must have been thinking of returning to her first love, the piano, for there was a piano in the living room. It was a light, cheery house, with sliding-glass doors and tall windows. The stone patio faced a golf course, but was separated from it by shrubs and a low stone wall.
Amelia had sent out from Rye the most precious of her books, some dating from her school years; an Ivanhoe she had doodled in, books of verse, a three-volume edition of Kipling, the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a signed first edition of Lazarus Laughed by Eugene O’Neill. There were books on aviation as well, including Air Babies by her friend Elvy Kalep, and many others. All were arranged on the shelves of her study. During her flight, Amy was going to live in the house. A special luxurious bathroom was installed for her, “The bathroom is a Roman dream of elegance, of which I am particularly envious,” wrote George.
Besides her usual lecturing, Amelia was dealing with her mother and Muriel. Although Amelia was always scolding her mother for being such a soft touch for all her relatives, in fact Amelia was an even softer touch. She had just discovered, to her chagrin, that although she herself was helping out Nancy Balis’s sister and husband—Amy was sending them money as well. Muriel’s marital problems, of several years’ duration, had worsened. Amelia and George continued to help Muriel in spite of their strong negative feelings about her husband, Albert. Amelia made no bones about calling Albert not only a bad businessman but
a selfish person who neglected his family. At one point, while Amy was staying with Muriel and him, he would have had Amy paying room and board, if Amelia hadn’t squashed the idea. Albert habitually put his own activities and interests before Muriel’s. Unable to meet the payments, they had lost the house that Amelia and George had helped them buy. Then Albert lost a substantial amount of additional money that they had given him. (“I am deeply sorry to hear further reports of your unhappy domestic situation. I had hoped that the money which George and I advanced would help Albert grow up. However, it appears just to have aggravated the petty side of his nature and made him really mean. I was so hopeful he would make good, I did not exact any moral guarantee,” wrote Amelia.)
Moreover, Muriel’s dependence on Albert ran against everything Amelia believed in; visiting her sister in recent years had been enough to set her teeth on edge. Because of Albert’s injudicious spending, Muriel was always doing housework—sometimes with Amy’s help—much to Amelia’s irritation. In the fall of the previous year Amelia had accepted a dinner invitation from Muriel—and then reneged, put off by the idea of her sister slaving over preparing a dinner. She wrote to Amy to apologize: “Please tell Pidge when I wrote her about cancelling a dinner she was planning in Cambridge, I did not mean that George and I would not eat at home with just the family if she wishes. That is, if she will have a maid come in for whom I will gladly pay.” Her sister exemplified everything in male-female relations that Amelia hated: housework, dependency, unquestioning obedience to a husband. All the things from which Amelia was trying to free women still bound her sister. It made her, in the case of the dinner, unreasonable, for it would have brought no pleasure to Muriel to have had a maid come in and cook the meal.
Now Amelia decided to do as much as possible for her sister before her trip. She wrote Muriel in January, deeply worried, advising her not to sign any legal papers, not to move out of her house, “no matter how tough things may get,” and to come out to California so that they could talk. Muriel did. It was the first time in years that the two sisters had spent time together. For the moment all was well. It was as much as Amelia could do for Muriel before she left.
The effort to help her sister didn’t deflect Amelia from her flight preparations. The living room of the North Hollywood house, according to Muriel, “was just completely covered with equipment. They had three different types of rubber rafts they were testing, one that you had to inflate yourself; another that was supposed to be automatic; then there was still another shape that could be used upside down as well as rightside up, and it still wouldn’t capsize; and all things of that kind.”
There was so much to consider. The Department of Agriculture was supplying the Electra with aluminum cylinders to take air samples at various altitudes in different parts of the world. For her own part Amelia intended to keep an accurate record of every detail to establish the fatigue point on long-distance and high-altitude flights: she planned to track the performance of the plane, and the magnetic, meteorological, and radio variables of the upper air in different parts of the world—data sorely needed before international air travel could become safe.
She wanted of course to find out whether altitude affected digestion, and whether some foods were easier to digest than others. “Also I should like to know the rate at which fatigue is induced by the myriad instruments a modern pilot must use. Are men and women different in their reactions to air travel? If so, how?” Eye fatigue was also on her mind. (Her red-rimmed eyes had been commented upon several times after long-distance flights.) To prevent eyestrain—another “vital aspect”—she was planning to take a “battery” of sunglasses made up especially for her. All aspects of mental and physical fatigue, a pilot’s major problem, interested her. She originally planned to test the products of several manufacturers, including a sort of fog-dispelling product that she was supposed to use over San Francisco.
Planning for the flight actually started even before Amelia accepted delivery of the Electra. Everything had to be thought out in advance and dealt with. The nitty-gritty work—requiring hundreds of phone calls and letters and cables—was done by George, whose job it was to turn all Amelia’s needs and requests into reality. Among other things, he had to organize caches of gasoline and oil—more than thirty—at various points along the route. He did this through their friend Count Jacques de Sibour, a pilot (as was his wife), whose book he had published who now worked for Standard Oil. Then they had to decide at what stops the plane would be overhauled—no plane could go 27,000 miles without considerable maintenance—and send the necessary engine parts and mechanics to those places. But that was the easy part.
The hard part was to figure out the logistics and involve the U.S. government in the project. That required Gene. George worked through Gene’s department (The Bureau of Air Commerce) and, whenever necessary, through Gene personally. Would Gene find out about the navy field in Honolulu? asked George in August. We need, he said, “an exact description of the new runways, the total length of the pavement, the extra run and the nature of the approaches ... what the condition will be as of, say, February. I do so hope you can get the information from the Navy Department.”
Every country over which Amelia was going to fly and/or in which she would land had to grant permission. Here the crucial person was Gene’s assistant, J. Carrol Cone, in charge of regulations. George gave Cone the proposed route of the flight, and Cone set up the permitting procedures. The original proposed route was San Francisco—Honolulu; Honolulu-Manila; Manila—Allahabad; Allahabad—Karachi; Karachi—Aden; Aden—Khartoum ; Khartoum—Dakar; Dakar—Natal; Natal—New York. Cone informed George that he had passed the information on to the Department of State, and that department would seek the necessary permits. He also, almost apologetically, informed George that Amelia’s license had lapsed, and that the department wouldn’t concern itself about it but that she should renew it.
The next request to Gene: would the Bureau of Air Commerce ask the navy for relevant weather data over the Pacific? Forthwith. Six days later the information—“Climactic Features of the Pacific Island Region”—and the relevant hydrographic charts were in the hands of the bureau, even though the navy was not too happy about it and asked that it be returned when Amelia was finished with it....
The job of seeking international permissions devolved onto the chief of protocol, Richard Southgate. Lest Southgate have any thought of shrugging off the gargantuan task, George, probably at Amelia’s suggestion but quite possibly on his own, wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt asking for her help. Eleanor had her secretary, Malvina Schneider, write a superbly manipulative letter to the chief of protocol: “Mrs Roosevelt, upon her return to Washington the other day, found Mr. George Palmer Putnam’s letter to her and learned that you had kindly consented to take care of the things he wished done in the State Department.... She is sure you will be very nice to him.”
Every single country over which Amelia planned to fly had to be contacted by the State Department—and notified that the installation of the necessary fuel tanks meant that the weight of the plane, when fully fueled, would exceed by several thousand pounds the approved gross weight for commercial aircraft of this type, and that as a result a certificate of airworthiness could not be granted, although the bureau “considers the plane to be satisfactory for the purposes of this flight.” As 1936 turned into 1937, the letters turned into day letters and telegrams, which were so numerous and so expensive, the State Department opened a charge account for George; just these costs alone mounted into hundreds of dollars. The arrangements dragged on interminably. The State Department file, declassified in 1972, is three inches thick. Every single country to be overflown had to signify its assent. Every single one did—except the Sultan of Muscat. “There is no hope of permission being obtained from the Sultan at present for private flights over that territory,” George was informed, so the route had to be changed.
George was so deep into handling Amelia’s correspondence that he n
ow took on the job of telling Amy what was happening. “Dear Mrs. Earhart,” he wrote in January, “Amelia is feeling grand. Her plane and her plans are developing splendidly. Incidentally, so is our house. In the final stages now.”
In its later version, the proposed route, in its first leg, was from Oakland to Honolulu, then to New Guinea and Port Darwin in northern Australia (instead of Manila); the second leg extended from Australia to the west coast of Africa by way of Arabia; the third leg was the South Atlantic; the fourth was from Brazil north to home.
The biggest problem that Amelia had to solve was how to fly the long stretch of the Pacific Ocean. The absolute maximum range of the Electra was 4,000 miles; but Honolulu to Tokyo was 3,900 miles; and Honolulu to Manila was 5,800 miles. No matter what route she took, Amelia would have to refuel along the way. Pan American had established fueling stations at Wake, Guam, and Midway, but these were fueling stations for seaplanes, useless to Amelia in the Electra. The best solution seemed to be to do an aerial refueling over Midway Island. That would involve the navy. So George went to work to enlist its cooperation. He started at the top, with the secretary of the navy, to whom he proposed the project. The navy, according to internal memos, had done this once, in San Diego in 1930, when “a fleet patrol plane in flight was fuelled successfully, both by day and by night.” Just once—but then, Amelia was not an ordinary personage. If the navy had done it once, that was enough, thought Admiral Cook, and he decided that subject to successful completion of preliminary preparations and trials, the navy could refuel Amelia’s plane; A PBY-1 seaplane could be used. No modifications of the plane would be necessary; all that was required would be to make up the necessary hoses and a suitable reel, similar to a target reel, to raise and lower the hose. Cook bumped his report up to Admiral Standley, chief of U.S. Naval Operations. And there it sat.
