The Flying Flappers and "Mr. Gallagher's Pasture, Ma'am."

CLXXXVII

 

Amelia’s autogyro altitude record remains unbroken

In 1931, Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly an autogyro from New York to Los Angeles and back again. That hadn’t, in fact, been her plan. She had expected to fly the helicopter-airplane hybrid out to Los Angeles and come home on the train. But for once, George’s Intelligence network had failed him, and someone had beaten her to California by scant hours. Completely caught by surprise, George wired her immediately: RETURN FLIGHT NEW YORK. There was a lot riding on recapturing the headlines, not least of all was a sizeable Beech-Nut Gum endorsement. Amelia didn’t mind a bit. She reprovisioned, refueled and returned. Later, she admitted to a friend that the autrogyro was her favorite type of aircraft to fly.

Amelia, flanked by mechanic Ed Gorski (L) and pilot-instructor-explorer Bernt Balchen in front of the Vega

During the winter of 1931-1932 she took intensive practice in instrument flying with Bernt Balchen, the Polar explorer / pilot who had worked with Admiral Richard E. Byrd. Amelia had decided that on the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic she would replicate his feat and become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. 

She had her reasons. The first was the most basic. She just plain wanted to be the first woman to solo across the Atlantic. Her famed 1928 flight by now galled her. She had been the first woman to fly the Atlantic in an airplane, true, but as a passenger. She hadn’t actually done any piloting. Plus, she needed to counter the by-now known and rising doubts about her skills in the cockpit. Crossing the Atlantic would silence her critics for good.

The feat would make her only the second person to cross the Atlantic alone. In the five years since The Spirit of St. Louis had landed at Le Bourget, no one had duplicated Lindbergh's flight. Many had tried, though, and the bottom of the Atlantic was strewn with the bones of at least twenty men. The seeming impossibility of the crossing had made Lindbergh more and more into a demi-god. If Amelia could cross, she would indeed be “Lady Lindy.” 

Most people thought she couldn’t do it. Mary, Lady Heath, her old friend and now nemesis, argued that women simply didn’t have the stamina to make the flight. Amelia wanted to snub her. Men, of course, argued that she should just stay home. But what really motivated her was Elinor Smith. 

A grown-up Elinor Smith, known as “The Flying Flapper” or “The Gibson Girl of The Air”

There was more than one “Flying Flapper”: Ruth Elder was another one of Amelia’s fellow aviatrices

Ruth Nichols maintained her friendship with Amelia despite the pressure of competition; she was the first pilot to land in all (at the time) 48 States, and she co-founded the Ninety-Nines

Since rebuffing George and Amelia, the adoring teenager had grown into a beautiful young woman. As she matured she adopted the dress of the liberated woman of her time, taking to short skirts, high heels and cloche hats. Affecting a kind of snarky and saucy tone, she became the Gibson Girl of the Air; most newspapers called her “The Flying Flapper.” Cuter, younger, more feminine than the tomboyish Amelia, and unmarried, she became, briefly, a magazine heartthrob. She had already tried to make the solo transatlantic flight in 1931, but had been turned back by weather; another competitor, Ruth Nichols, had crash-landed safely before she’d even reached the sea. Both women intended to go again in 1932. Amelia (and George) planned a transatlantic flight as quickly as they could. They had no intention of seeing Amelia knocked off her throne as “First Lady of The Air.”

The Lockheed Vega 5B in which Amelia crossed the Atlantic. It is a permanent display at the National Air and Space Muiseum

They had “the Little Red Bus” rebuilt yet again with larger wings and bigger and more fuel tanks. They installed a full bank of instruments. They also had a 500 horsepower Wasp engine installed. Without any preannouncement, Amelia set off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland, on May 20, 1932, five years to the day after Lindbergh. 

The flight went well for the first two hours. Then, unaccountably, Amelia’s altimeter quit. This was an annoying inconvenience, but little more, since the plane had an air-pressure barograph aboard. Amelia knew that air pressure at sea level was 14.7 pounds per square inch. Therefore, as the numbers on the barograph rose it meant the plane was descending; and as the numbers dropped the plane was ascending. Since she was flying over water, sea level was sea level. The only real danger she faced was dropping down to the deck in bad weather, but even the best altimeters of the time weren’t sensitive enough to distinguish easily between 20 feet and two feet. Nor could they stop her from running into surface vessels in the fog at low altitudes. She shrugged, and flew on. 

Sometime during the sixth hour of the flight, Amelia was startled by a sudden change in the sound of the engine, which had been droning contentedly. More startling, she saw flames in front of her. The sun had long since gone down, and she felt like she was suddenly staring into the open maw of a furnace. 

Undoubtedly, she knew an elongated moment of fear, but soon she understood what she was seeing and hearing. The weld on the engine exhaust pipe had failed and opened a gap into the internal combustion chamber of the engine. What she was seeing was perfectly normal, the engine burning its fuel.*

 

Through the darkness

This was more dangerous than the busted altimeter; potentially, fumes could build up to be ignited by heat causing a spontaneous combustion.** 

What might happen then was the unanswerable question. Flames might spurt out of the engine compartment and back along the cowling. The engine might burp and quit. The whole shebang might go bang. Or maybe none of that would happen. Amelia later admitted that she considered turning for home at that moment, but then realized that if the plane went down in mid-ocean it wouldn’t matter much which direction she was flying. She decided to keep going eastward toward the sunrise; with any luck at all, she’d make a European landfall and put down safely.  

Thoroughly adrenalized, she suffered none of the sleepiness that had afflicted Lindbergh during WE’s flight. It was a good thing, because she ran into a nasty storm that caused her to spin out. She lost 2,500 feet of altitude (based on air pressure) during the spin, but recovered and nursed her plane on.*** 

The Vega suffered heavy icing conditions and she flew low, at 2,000 to 3,000 feet. She must have feared that rain or ice might douse the fire in her engine, but that might happen anyway. Did she wonder how the plane, checked out by the careful Bernt Balchen, had started falling to pieces so early into the flight?

Amelia asked for a glass of water, gulped it down, and announced, “I have just flown across the Atlantic Ocean.” That's when the excitement began

Eventually, she spotted land. Although she still had some 200 gallons of fuel, she was not willing to risk flying on to London or Paris (her alternative official destinations) in the somewhat crippled plane, and put the Vega down in a big field fourteen hours and 56 minutes into the flight. Exiting the cockpit, she asked a pop-eyed farmhand where she was.

In true Irish fashion he answered, “You’re in Mr. Gallagher’s pasture, Ma’am.” She had reached County Derry, Ireland. 

Like Lindbergh the man, “Lady Lindy” would be feted and bemedaled and lionized by an adoring international public for her singular accomplishment. She had finally and without doubt, earned her sobriquet.    

The Vega in Mr. Gallagher’s pasture. The site, in Ballyarnet, is now The Amelia Earhart Centre, an aviation museum

*The same thing occurs in the cars we drive every day. We don’t get to watch the combustion because a firewall separates the engine compartment from the passenger compartment.

**The same thing can happen in a car and does, when it backfires. It’s usually a harmless event, but Earhart had no idea what else might go wrong with her long-suffering airplane.

*** Although Amelia called the Vega “her Little Red Bus” it had no name as did the Spirit of St. Louis. George didn’t want the plane sharing top billing with Amelia.