20 Hours Gmt Amelia example essay topic

Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 at her grandparents' home in Atchison, Kansas. It was not till 1908 that the girls moved to Des Moines to be with their parents, Amelia was 10 years old when she saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair. It would be more than a decade before Amelia's interest in aviation would be awaken. Amelia began to realize that her father was a drunkard as well as to neighbors and friends around them. In 1914 Amy and the girls left Edwin after he was fired from The Rock Island RR, and went to live with friends in Chicago.

After visiting her sister in 1917 at a college preparatory school in Canada, Amelia decided to train as a nurses aid in Toronto and served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse at a military hospital until the Armistice in November 1918. In the fall of 1919 Amelia enrolled as a pre-med student at Columbia University. In 1920 she decided to join her mother and father in California. They had recently reunited and were encouraging the sisters to join them. Several months after her arrival in California Amelia and her father went to an "aerial meet' at Daugherty Field in Long Beach. She had become very interested in flying.

The next day, given a helmet and goggles, she boarded the open-cockpit biplane for a 10 minute flight over Los Angeles. Amelia had heard of a woman pilot who gave flying instructions and shortly afterwards began lessons with Anita "Neta's nook at Kinner Field near Long Beach. She had several accidents during this period, some could be attributed to unreliable engines and slowness of the planes. By October 1922, Amelia began participating in record breaking attempts and set a women's altitude record of 14,000 feet, broken a few weeks later by Ruth Nichols.

In 1925, Amelia took a position at Denison House in Boston as a "novice' social worker and was later employed as a staff member. She joined the Boston Chapter of the National Aeronautic Association, and invested what little money she had in a company that would build an airport and market Kinner airplanes in Boston. During this time she took full advantage of the circumstances to promote flying especially for women. She regularly became the subject of columns in newspapers. On April 27, 1926 her life was to change forever a phone call from Captain H.H. Railey asked, "how would you like to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic?' H.H. Railey had been asked by George Palmer Putnam, a New York publisher, to find the woman to make a trans-atlantic flight. No woman had so far flown across the Atlantic.

A week later, Amelia met with George Putnam in New York. George was said to have been so impressed by her at the meeting that he decided Amelia should be the woman to make the flight. Amelia accepted the offer although she would only be a passenger on the flight. Since she had no experience of multi-engine or instrument flying. On Sunday, June 3, 1928 after waiting several days for the weather to clear, the Friendship left for Halifax, Nova Scotia. Bad weather conditions again delayed the flight out of Halifax till June 18.

Flying through dense fog for most of their journey, they landed at Burry Port in South Wales and not in Ireland as had been planned with little fuel remaining. Amelia was distressed that Stultz and Gordon were ignored by reporters. It was the woman they had come to see or rather "the girl' as they insisted on calling her. Even President Coolidge had gave his personal congratulations to Amelia. On to London, then to the States to a full calendar of tours.

Amelia was in great demand on the lecture circuit and pictured frequently in the newspapers. Behind the scene, George Putnam kept Amelia's name in the forefront of everyone's mind and in the pages of newspapers across the country. Amelia flew a solo flight from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast in September 1928 to attend the National Air Races. Returning to New York, she began a series of lecture tours organized by George to publicize her new book about the Atlantic flight, "20 hours, 40 minutes'. Often George accompanied her on these trips... They had become "close' and found many similar interests in life.

This had become reason for some gossip in aviation circles, as George was married at the time. Amelia organized a cross-country air race for women pilots in 1929, the Los Angeles to Cleveland Women's Air Derby. Charter membership included 99 applicants. She was to serve as its first President. articles for Cosmopolitan and other publications, with speaking engagements in. In 1930 she broke several women's speed records in her Lockheed Vega aircraft. After turning down George's purposal of marriage several time, they finally married on February 7, 1931.

Amelia and George had talked casually about a solo flight across the Atlantic. She was now ready to make the flight as the pilot rather than a passenger, as was the case in the 1928 flight. On May 20, 1932, exactly 5 years after the Lindbergh flight, Amelia's modified Lockheed Vega began the journey. She had broken several records on this flight, the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo and only person to fly it twice, the longest non-stop distance flown by a woman, and a record for crossing in the shortest time.

George joined Amelia in London, and after spending several weeks touring Europe they returned to New York to a ticker tape parade. President Roosevelt presented Amelia with the Special Gold Medal from the National Geographic Society. Honors of all kinds continued to be heaped on Amelia and keys of various cities bestowed. Amelia was voted Outstanding Woman of the Year which she accepted on behalf of "all women'.

In 1935, Amelia began to formulate plans for an around-the-world flight. The Lockheed Electra 10 E was chosen as the plane for the flight. The flight would be two major firsts she would be the first woman, and she would travel the longest possible distance, circumnavigating the globe at its waist. Fredrick Noonan, a former navigator on the Pan American Pacific Clipper, was chosen as the navigator because of his familiarity with the Pacific area. The first leg of the journey would be from Oakland to Hawaii on March 17, 1935. As Amelia was taking off from Luke Field near Pearl Harbor she over compensated for a dropped right wing and the plane swung to the left out of control.

The undercarriage collapsed and the aircraft slide along the runway on its belly. Fortunately there was no fire but a great deal of damage was done to the plane. The Electra was shipped back to California for repairs as Amelia continued to make plans for another attempt at the around-the-world trip. Amelia decided since the next attempt would be later in the year, that it would be safer to reverse the original flight plan and fly eastwards due to weather conditions in the Caribbean and Africa.

After delivery of the rebuilt Electra, Amelia departed from Los Angeles, California for Florida on May 21, 1937. On June 1, 1937 Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan departed Miami, Florida bound for California by traveling around the world. The first destination was San Juan, Puerto Rico to the northeast edge of South America and then on to Africa and the Red Sea. The flight to Karachi was another first no one had previously flown non-stop from the Red Sea to India before. From Karachi the Electra flew to Calcutta on June 17 from there, on to Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore and Bandoeng. Monsoon weather prevented departure from Bandoeng for several days.

Repairs were made on some of the "long distance' instruments which had given trouble previously. During this time Amelia had become ill with dysentery that lasted for several days. It was June 27 before Amelia and Noonan were able to leave Bandoeng for Port Darwin, Australia. At Darwin the direction finder was repaired, and the parachutes were packed and shipped home they would be of no value over the Pacific. Amelia reached Lae in New Guinea on June 29. At this point they had flown 22,000 miles and there were 7,000 more to go all over the Pacific.

Amelia cabled her last commissioned article to the Herald Tribune. Photos show her looking very tired and ill during her time at Lae. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca had been standing off Howland Island for some days to act as a radio contact for Amelia. Radio communications in the area were very poor and the Itasca was overwhelmed with commercial radio traffic that the flight had generated. Amelia left Lae at precisely 00: 00 hours Greenwich Mean Time on July 2. It is believed that the Electra was loaded with 1,000 gallons of fuel, allowing for 20-21 hours of flying.

At 07: 20 hours GMT Amelia provided a position report placing the Electra on course at some 20 miles southwest of the Nukumanu Islands. The last weather report Amelia was known to have received was before take-off. The head wind speed had increased by 10-12 mph, but it is not known if she ever received the report. At 08: 00 GMT Amelia made her last radio contact with Lae. She reported being on course for Howland Island at 12,000 feet.

There is no real evidence as to the precise track of the aircraft after Nukumanu. No one saw or heard the plane fly over. Several short transmission were received by the Itasca with varying signal strengths but they were unable to get a fix on her location because they were too brief. At 19: 30 GMT the following transmission was received from the Electra at maximum strength At 20: 14 GMT the Itasca received the last voice transmission from Amelia giving positioning data. The Itasca continued to transmit on all frequencies until 21: 30 hours GMT when they determined that Amelia must have ditched at sea and began to implement search procedures.

It has been determined that the plane went down some 35-100 miles off the coast of Howland Island. A life raft was stowed on board but no trace has ever been found the raft. Some experts felt that the empty fuel tanks could keep the plane afloat for a period of time. President Roosevelt authorized a search of 9 naval ships and 66 aircraft at an estimated cost of over $4 million. On July 18 the search was abandoned by ships in the Howland area. George continued to seek help in the search, but by October he too abandoned all hope of finding them alive.

Amelia Earhart had lived a great life and was awarded in history as one of the greatest women to ever live. She had accomplished many things as a pilot that no women had ever sccopmlished before. Though her love for flying finally killed her in a mysterious plane accident, her memories and accomplishments still live on with us today.