"The Fun Of It"

CLXXXV

She didn’t like him. 

Amelia Earhart’s favorite plane, her “Little Red Bus,” the Lockheed Vega

After being contacted by G.P. Putnam’s Sons and asked if she wanted to fly across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart had met briefly with an office assistant in Boston and was then invited to New York to meet G.P. Putnam.

Amelia Earhart owned this 1923 Kissel (which she pronounced “Kizzle”) Roadster. Named “The Yellow Peril” she drove her mother from Los Angeles to Boston in the car by way of British Columbia in an era when most roads were unpaved. The road trip was considered quite as daring as flying in those days

Putnam had left her cooling her heels in the anteroom to his office for hours before she was summoned into the Presence. He rose briefly, shook her hand perfunctorily, gave her a keen glance, and then sat down. After only a few questions he nodded his approval to the man she’d met in Boston. Amelia Earhart would be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. 

The contract worked out by G.P. Putnam’s Sons’ lawyers was generous in some regards, stinting in others: Amelia would be the “Commander” on board the aircraft, named Friendship (the name had been chosen by Amy Guest who owned the plane). As Commander, Amelia would keep the Flight Log, but do little else; not checked out either in multiengine planes nor on instruments she would not be doing any flying (Amelia argued this point and won a concession; with two experienced pilots --- Wilmer “Bill” Stultz and Louis “Slim” Gordon --- aboard, Amelia convinced George Putnam that she could take the right-hand seat under supervision, if conditions permitted, but as it transpired, the weather was too poor to allow her to take the yokes). She could however, set the course and determine a landing site (this was less than it seemed: the most effective course had already been determined, and the destination was London).  She would receive no remuneration for the flight itself, but would be entitled to the lion’s share of any promotional monies earned either before or after the flight. Amelia did not balk at the lack of salary; she understood that being “Lady Lindy” (as much as she despised the moniker) could earn her enough to make back every penny lost or unearned over the years.

Amelia Earhart in the 1920s, around the time George Putnam met her

She knew that George Putnam stood to make more and better than she by promoting what was essentially a “stunt” --- she was livestock as far as the flight was concerned --- but she didn’t care much. Putnam puzzled her, though; he was cool with her almost to the point of rudeness. 

In fact, George at first didn’t like her. She seemed a little too self-assured, a little too proper, even for a lady pilot. He was concerned that she wouldn’t handle the spotlight very well, and it worried him because he knew she was going to be a celebrity the moment she landed in England. If she froze out the Press, or melted down in front of them, that would spell the end of “Lady Lindy” and probably his own role as a promoter now and forever.

 

Amelia’s flying autobiography (published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, of course) was whimsically and perhaps tellingly titled The Fun of It

George was also irritated because she had a --- strangely --- close resemblance to Lindbergh, whom George cordially disliked. Although Lindy was publicly promoted as a very modest man, George knew that he could be an egotistical martinet who had to always be right. George, who had bent railroad magnates to his will at twenty-three, had struggled mightily to convince Lindbergh to publish WE. This Earhart woman’s insistence on flying a plane she was not qualified to operate smacked of the same kind of monumental ego. It took George time to learn that Amelia was guarded on first personal acquaintance with anyone, but that she had no anxiety before crowds. It took him more time to learn that she was warm, funny, and supremely self-confident, especially when it came to things she believed in. 

Neta Snook could have told him --- and warned him. After Earhart’s disappearance, Snook wrote a memoir of their flying days together titled prosaically, I Taught Amelia To Fly.  With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, Snook recalled several problematical moments with her famous student.

Amelia, Snook said, had excelled in ground school but had done less well in flight school. Snook told of one bright morning when the two women went aloft in a trainer: 

They had barely cleared the airfield when Neta hollered to Amelia, “Did you check your fuel gauge?”

“Mr. Kinner [the owner of the airfield] always fuels up the planes the night before,” Amelia answered blithely.

At that, Neta took the controls, landed the plane, and proceeded to excoriate Amelia, for as it turned out, the gasoline truck had never called at the airfield the previous day. Amelia had gone aloft without even glancing at the few instruments she had. 

Amelia in front of The Canary. Note the three cylinder engine.  Amelia survived several crash-landings in this plane

On another occasion, Amelia had flown her open-cockpit plane into a storm cloud. Cold, wet, and pummeled by hail, she decided to drop down out of the storm which she did by putting the plane into a spin. It was an unbelievably foolish thing to do since there was no way for Amelia to judge where the hard deck --- the ground --- was from inside the cloud. Fortunately, she broke free of the storm and recovered from the spin with plenty of clearance. Neta always suspected that the spin had been accidental and that Amelia was excusing herself. 

Even when she set the Women’s Altitude Record, it seemed like a chance event. Neta was to write that Amelia had no “feel” for flying, no real innate talent other than her enthusiasm, which was boundless. Sour grapes, perhaps, but other contemporary sources paint a similar picture. It took Amelia almost 48 hours before she soloed, and even her choice of airplane --- the yellow Kinner Airster she named “The Canary” raised eyebrows. A very basic plane, the Airster was inexpensive to buy and maintain (no doubt a primary consideration in its purchase), but it was underpowered, the three-cylinder engine clogged easily, and it was not a forgiving plane, especially for a tyro.    

The Lockheed Electra Model 10E preparing to lift off on March 20, 1937. The plane ground-looped moments later

 

So although Amelia Earhart was to make many flights between her 1928 crossing of the Atlantic in Friendship and her final flight, experienced pilots tended to question “Lady Lindy’s” skill set.

A plane ground-looping. A ground loop can be anywhere from dramatic to deadly

Even that final flight had to be postponed under uncertain circumstances.

On March 17, 1937, Amelia flew from Oakland to Honolulu, successfully completing the first leg of her circumnavigation. After some major adjustments to the plane and refueling, she attempted a take off on March 20, 1937. Co-pilot Paul Mantz was aboard, as were Navigators Fred Noonan and Harry Manning.  

The Electra ground-looped violently. A tire blew (though whether this caused or was caused by the ground loop is still debated), a landing gear strut collapsed, and the freshly fueled plane scraped along the ground, throwing sparks. The plane was badly damaged. No one really knows what happened, but one theory is that the fully-loaded plane was unbalanced   

No one was injured, though Mantz subsequently dropped out of the project, claiming that the whole thing was due to pilot error.     

Paul Mantz atop the cockpit right after the ground loop. He and Harry Manning both dropped out of the planned circumnavigation after the accident\