background information for [Episode 20: The 37's] |
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background information for [Episode 20: The 37's] |
| 1898 | Born 24th July, in Atchison, Kansas, USA. |
| 1915-20 | During World War I, Earhart worked as a nurse’s aide in a military hospital in Canada. Afterwards she attended college, and later became a social worker. |
| 1920 | 28th December: Pilot Frank Hawks took her on her first aeroplane flight. Earhart later recalled: "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly." |
| 1921 | Began flying lessons. Within 6 months, had saved enough money to buy her first plane - a secondhand Kinner Airster, a two-seater biplane painted bright yellow named, for obvious reasons, Canary. |
| 1922 | Broke women's altitude record when she rose to 14,000 feet. |
| 1928 | First woman to fly across the Atlantic, in 20 hours 40 minutes (Fokker F7, named Friendship), with pilot Wilmer 'Bill' Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis E. 'Slim' Gordon. The team left Trepassey Harbour, Newfoundland, and arrived at Burry Port in Wales. Their landmark flight made headlines worldwide. When the crew returned to the USA they were greeted with a ticker-tape parade in New York and a reception held by President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. Bought an Avro Avian, a small English plane famous because Lady Mary Heath, Britain's foremost woman pilot, had flown it solo from Capetown in South Africa to London. 1928. Published book 20 Hours 40 Minutes, toured and lectured. Became aviation editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. |
| 1929 | Helped to organise the First Women's Air Derby (nicknamed "the Powder Puff Derby" by comic Will Rogers). In Columbus in Ohio USA, the last stop before the finish, Earhart was tied for first place. Co-leader Ruth Nichols crashed on take-off. Behind her in the line-up, Earhart leaped from her plane and pulled the shaken but uninjured Nichols from the wreckage. Earhart resumed the race and arrived in Cleveland in third place.
Upgraded from her Avian to a Lockheed Vega. Elected as an official for the National Aeronautic Association. She encouraged the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) to establish separate world altitude, speed and endurance records for women. |
| 1930 | Set women's speed record for 100 kilometres, loaded and unloaded. Set speed record of 181.18mph over a 3 kilometre course. |
| 1931 | Married George Putnam, a publisher and publicist (he later published her autobiography). Intent on retaining her independence, Earhart referred to the marriage as a "partnership" with "dual control". Set woman's autogiro altitude record with 18,415 feet (in a Pitcairn autogiro, the predecessor of the helicopter). |
| 1932 | First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, in 14 hours 56 minutes. It was also the 5th anniversary of Lindberg's Atlantic flight. Awarded the National Geographic Society's gold medal from U.S. President Herbert Hoover. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress. In a world dominated by men, Earhart said she felt the flight proved that men and women were equal in "jobs requiring intelligence, co-ordination, speed, coolness and willpower". First woman to fly solo non-stop coast to coast in the USA. Set women's non-stop transcontinental speed record, flying 2,447.8 miles in 19 hours 5 minutes. Elected president of the Ninety Nines, a new women's aviation club which she helped to form. |
| 1933 | Broke her previous transcontinental speed record by making the same flight in 17 hours 7 minutes. |
| 1935 |  First person to fly solo the 2,408-mile distance across the Pacific between Honolulu and Oakland in California USA. This was the first flight where a civilian aircraft carried a two-way radio. First person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City, in 13 hours 23 minutes. First person to fly solo non-stop from Mexico City to Newark in the USA, in 14 hours 19 minutes. |
| 1937 | Began flight around the world June 1937, with Fred Noonan as her navigator. First person to fly from the Red Sea to India. The tour was to circle the globe at the equator which no one had done before. Her burning desire for achievement made her shun newly-developed direction-finding techniques. 2nd July: contact lost, with she, Noonan and the plane vanishing in the Pacific en route from Lae in New Guinea to Howland Island. The American Motorsports Hall Of Fame & Museum says: "She missed tiny Howland Island in the Pacific, but landed permanently in legend." After her disappearance, a beacon was constructed on Howland Island as a guide for aircraft. |
[#20 The 37's] takes up Earhart's life at this point. The reason for her disappearance is that she was kidnapped from Earth, along with a number of other inhabitants, by members of the Briori species and taken to the Briori's Delta Quadrant planet (where the Voyager crew later find them). Several survived until the 24th century in stasis including Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan. Meanwhile the Briori enslaved the humans and their descendants until a revolt drove the Briori off the planet. The humans established a peaceful and prosperous colony which included many beautiful cities. In late 2371, the USS Voyager crew found and took aboard a 1930s pick-up truck and found that its radio was emitting a distress call. They tracked this to the planet where they found the 37's after tracing Earhart's downed Lockheed aircraft. They found the 37's in stasis and revived them. The 37's were eventually persuaded that they were in the 24th century, in the Delta Quadrant, on the other side of the galaxy from their homes on Earth. Their human descendants offered them the opportunity to settle on the planet, and all the 37's accepted the offer. It is hoped that Earhart, Noonan and the other 37's, lived long and prospered in their new home. SHIP'S LOGS: Episode Guide for [The 37's]
Earhart's convictions were strong, challenging prejudicial and financial obstacles awaited her. But the former tomboy was no stranger to disapproval or doubt. Defying conventional feminine behavior, the young Earhart climbed trees, "belly-slammed" her sled to start it downhill and hunted rats with a .22 rifle. She also 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.
After her first aeroplane flight late in 1920, she devoted the rest of her life to flying, becoming a pioneer not just in aviation achievements but in establishing greater recognition for the contribution of women in many areas of endeavour. It should be remembered that at that time, the world as regards jobs, status, salary and social standing belonged predominantly to men, far more so than today.
Earhart: "One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren't routine, often don't get a fair break... It has come down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs which produced the corollary that women are bred to timidity."
Earhart: "Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture."
Earhart: "[Women] must pay for everything.... They do get more glory than men for comparable feats. But, also, women get more notoriety when they crash."
Earhart: "...now and then women should do for themselves what men have already done - 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 form my wanting to do what I so much wanted to do."
Earhart: "Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn't be done."
Earhart: "No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves."
Earhart: "Adventure is worthwhile in itself."
Earhart: "Aviation exemplifies the possible relationship of women and the creations of science. Although women as yet have not taken full advantage of its use and benefits, air travel is as available to them as to men."
Fred Noonan, Earhart's navigator for the ill-fated round-the-world tour: "Amelia is a grand person for such a trip. She is the only woman flyer I would care to make such an expedition with. Because in addition to being a fine companion and pilot, she can take hardship as well as a man - and work like one."
For the round-the-world tour, undertaken in summer 1937 with Fred Noonan as navigator, Earhart chose as her aeroplane for the flight a Lockheed L-10-E Electra.
In 1932 it was decided that the reborn Lockheed should start fresh with the very latest type of aircraft. Initially it was to embody the usual low-drag and single engine design, but this changed after rival companies Boeing and Douglas produced new-style aircraft. In 1933 Boeing launched its revolutionary model 247 which was the first low-drag twin engine all metal transport, took 10 passengers in comfort, and was 50 m.p.h. faster than any other airliner in service. Soon afterwards Douglas introduced the DC-1 then the DC-2, which were faster with more payload. This forced Lockheed to rethink their new plane to design a twin engine transport, intent on surpassing the competition.
Accordingly, Lockheed's model 10 was laid out as a twin engine, all metal, ten passenger plane, with a crew of two and a toilet compartment. Baggage could be loaded into the nose, and sometimes also into the rear fuselage. There were also small baggage areas in the tops of each wing. It had an all-metal stressed skin fuselage, motor-driven retractable landing gear, and retractable flaps which the Boeing did not have. It was faster than the Boeing, and competitive with the DC-2.
The first Model 10 Electra was tested by Marshall Headle at Mines Field, Los Angeles, USA, in February 1934. Northwest Airways and Pan American placed the first orders and it first went into service with Northwest in June 1934, and within twelve months they operated a fleet of thirteen aircraft.
Eventually four main versions of the Electra were produced: the L-10-A (engines Pratt and Whitney Wasp Junior R-985SB/SB-3), L-10-B (Wright Whirlwind R-975-E3s), L-10-C (Wasp SC-1s) and L-10-E (Wasp R 1340 S3H-1 engines).
The Electra was an immediate success. At its introduction it was one of the fastest airliners available and orders flowed in from all over the world, with eventual sales to 23 airlines in 13 countries. The total number of Model 10A was 107 the model B was 19, the model C was 8, and the Model E was 15. In all, 115 went to airlines, 7 to the US Government, 2 to the Argentine Government, and 25 to private customers.
Operators:
 | During World War II many Electras were confiscated and used by U.S. Army Air Corps (UAAC) (pictured) and the Royal Air Force (RAF). Some of the 10 Polish LOT Electras were captured by the Nazis and used in different transportation units of the German Luftwaffe. |
Several Electras achieved fame. The first round-trip of the Atlantic by an airline was by an Eastern Airlines L-10 A in May 1937, carrying first film of the Hindenburg disaster, and returning to the US with films of the coronation of the British Empire's King George VI. And of course, it is well-known that it was a Lockheed Electra (model E) that Amelia Earhart chose for her ill-fated around-the-world flight in 1937.
Contrary to other statements, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was not flown to Munich in September 1938 to meet Germany's Adolf Hitler in a British Airways L-10-A, but in a L-14 (G-AFGN).
The Electra was finally replaced by the success of the Douglas DC-3 in airline service, but many Electras were used by companies as executive aircraft, and it was still in service as late as 1965 in regular service by Provincetown Boston Airline on the route between Boston and the island community on the tip of Cape Cod.
As of August 1998 there are three model 10-A's still airworthy, and one Model E. It is owned by Ms. Linda Finch in San Antonio Texas, and she flew her Electra on a successful re-creation of Amelia Earhart's around-the-world flight.
The above is, with minor edits, from FS Design Berlin. They designed the Lockheed L-10 (including model A and E) for Microsoft's Flight Simulator program and, therefore, images that I used to create the cockpit for the model E interface on the Episode Index for [#20 The 37's]. Note that FS Design Berlin have modernised the cockpit a bit. Note also, not mentioned by them, that Earhart's Electra had fewer fuselage windows than other Electras (not an issue as regards my interface). You can buy model kits with decals for various individual models including Earhart's plane. The image of the L-10-E model used as a divider on this page is a picture of a fully-constructed model kit.
 real L-10-A cockpit |
 virtual L-10-A cockpit in Microsoft's Flight Simulator Their Model E, which I use for my Episode Index interface, |
For detailed specifications of various L10 Electra models, see Flight Simulator online users club (membership required for full access).
The official Amelia Earhart website, run by the Earhart estate
This site features numerous pages about Amelia Earhart including a detailed biography, summary of achievements, over 20 close-up pictures of Earhart, quotes, links etc. This page uses the following from that website: title pictures of Earhart (several are also on other websites but these ones are conveniently the same size as each other), quotes (but one is from another source). I referred more to this website than the other sources when compiling the biography.
The Oxford Interactive Encyclopaedia, published on CD-ROM by The Learning Company under licence from Oxford University Press, England, incorporating parts from other dictionaries and encyclopaediae by the OUP.
The American Motorsports Hall Of Fame & Museum
The Chambers Biographical Dictionary, and a couple of other book and web sources which provided some of the same information as on the official Amelia Earhart website but re-worded.
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