"The route will be unique."

CXCIII

The “Flying Laboratory” passing the Golden Gate Bridge during the first Worldflight attempt, March 17, 1937

Slowly but surely, the Worldflight was coming together. As the U.S. State Department worked overtime to arrange Amelia’s free passage through a score of different airspaces, Amelia handpicked a flying crew.

George Putnam, Amelia Earhart, and Paul Mantz standing in front of the Electra

First among them was Paul Mantz. Although Mantz had no intention of circling the globe with Amelia, he was given the option to remain with the flight as long as he so chose. As 1936 began to wind down, he was still particularly concerned about Amelia’s handling of the dual-engined Electra. She still gunned it on takeoff, and in flight he felt she messed with the engines too much, constantly jockeying them for maximum effect. Mantz had trouble understanding why. Keeping everything in a comfortable equilibrium was the best way to keep the ship at peak function. Throttling up and down and tweaking the engines constantly could lead to trouble --- and did.

The Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine came standard on the Lockheed Electra, though Earhart’s “Special” had the largest Wasps available

Piston engine misfires, backfires, flame-outs, fires and explosions were fairly common in the 1930s, common enough that the big aircraft developers had designed fire-control systems inside their commercial engines (they remain an industry standard). Amelia had had to pull the fire handle on the Electra during flight testing. Fortunately, the fire damage was minor and easily repaired.  

Engine fires are dire. This B-17 caught fire on the ground and was utterly consumed

Like most pilots who had graduated from single-engine to multi-engine planes, Amelia spent time learning how not to overcorrect the engines in relation to each other. Overcorrection could lead to mechanical problems, but mostly it was a distraction to the pilot, and Paul Mantz soon realized that Amelia had more than enough to distract her.

The Bendix radio equipment of the Electra prior to installation

Aside from the technical instruction Amelia was receiving in long-distance multiengine flying she was also receiving instruction in the use of the complicated on-board fuel system and instruction in the use of the complex communications devices installed on the Electra. She was studying routes, learning the rudiments of overwater navigation, and learning a few key phrases in a dozen languages. She was working diligently with George and the State Departments of several nations to obtain whatever permissions she needed to circle the world. She was writing lengthy letters by the dozen each night to various agencies, both foreign and domestic.

Amelia Earhart’s letter to President Roosevelt asking him to intercede in the development of the Howland Island airstrip. Roosevelt notated the letter for his aides: “Do what we can. Contact Mr. Putnam.”

Aside from the complicated planning for the trip, Amelia was maintaining her usual schedule of class lectures, exam grading, personal correspondence, and public appearances. Since she wanted no one to know of the Worldflight before it lifted off she maintained the same frenetic pace she always had, plus.

In 1936, Amelia visited her birthplace of Atchison, Kansas to great popular acclaim

How did she do it? She didn’t sleep much. In one complaining letter to a friend she admitted to not sleeping more than four hours per night for months at a time. It was a killing pace, but she became inured to being aware of her own exhaustion.

Caught on film at a public appearance, Amelia looked enervated

Amelia became ill. She began to tell people about seeming abdominal problems, and about sudden menstrual issues. Was it pregnancy? Was it menopause? The mystery remains unanswered.

Amelia in a rare moment of relaxation, 1936

At such a rate, mistakes were invariably made. Calls, wires and letters went unanswered, unmade, and unsent. Priorities were frequently confused. Amelia left a training session on the functionality of her new radio equipment in mid-class to give a lecture. She was not present for the checklisting and testing of the Electra’s safety equipment, nor its loading aboard ship. Always concerned about weight, she seems to have offloaded her Very’s pistol and emergency flares unknowingly.

A Very flare pistol c. 1940

Arguments began to break out. Paul Mantz showed up to instruct. Amelia had forgotten to tell him she’d rescheduled their cockpit time. Even at the impressive rate of $100 per day, Mantz’s temper became frayed at her seeming disinterest. Complaining to George in her stead, Paul received a stony lecture about being an “employee” that was not calculated to pour oil on troubled waters. George was angry at Mantz anyway. Whether or not they were the imaginings of an enraged spouse, Mantz’s wife’s accusations of a tryst between Paul and Amelia made George unhappy, and in Amelia’s absence he gave into his usually well-suppressed suspicions. Paul began a slow but definite withdrawal from the project.   

Another 1936 newsreel clip of Amelia. Public Relations fodder, this shot seems adventurous but Earhart looks noticeably weary with a haunted look in her eyes

Paul was not the only member of the team who became irritated at Amelia. Captain Harry Manning, her navigator, was becoming increasingly disagreeable toward her.

The basic primer on Celestial Navigation that Amelia Earhart would have used

The President of United States Lines, Manning was famous for saying, “People bore me.” A brilliant man with no small talk, Manning was both a shipmaster and a Master Navigator like Harold Gatty and Fred Noonan, but had not made the jump into aviation as they had. He saw Amelia Earhart’s circumnavigation as a new opportunity. At first, he had found Amelia fascinating and daring, but his positive attitude toward her began to change as time passed. Although the Worldflight had no scheduled departure date as of yet, it was a fair bet that the attempt would take place in the Spring or Summer of 1937. Yet the weeks passed without Amelia buckling down to the single-minded task of flying around the world.  Instead, she maintained her frenetic public schedule and piled the Worldflight on top of it all.

Admiral Harry Manning (1897-1974) eventually became Commander of the United States Merchant Marine. During World War II, the German-born Manning served in the U.S. Navy. After the war, he commanded the liner S.S. United States which still holds the transatlantic speed record for ocean liner crossings. Although he admired Amelia Earhart he felt that she was putting herself and her crew at great risk during the Worldflight due to her disorganized approach to necessary preparation. Scheduled to fly as Navigator, he withdrew from the project

Manning was stunned. Flying around the world was no “stunt.” It was an endeavor that took intense focus and concentration and reserves of stamina. Instead of building these reserves within herself Amelia seemed to be burning the candle at both ends.

The Fairchild-Maxon Line-of-Position computer was crude and bulky compared to today’s GPS systems, but it worked amazingly well during Howard Hughes’ 1938 Worldflight in a Model 14 Super Electra. Hughes also had a radioman and two Navigators aboard, all cross-checking each others’ work. Earhart could not afford the Fairchild-Maxon, learned to use her advanced Bendix radio poorly, and had only a single Navigator aboard during her final flight

Manning did not suffer fools gladly. Neither did Amelia. When she grew stressed or tired she often became singularly irritable, and the increasing grittiness in her attitude was matched by Manning’s. Finally, things came to a head as she struggled to solve a celestial navigation problem that Manning had assigned her. She asked snappishly of Manning why she had to be bothered learning to navigate when he had been hired to do the job for her.

The rudiments of Celestial Navigation can be learned in an hour. Becoming a skilled Navigator takes years. Critical to Celestial Nav are two pieces of irreplaceable equipment --- the sextant and the chronometer

Manning stopped the lesson right there, and lectured Amelia on the necessity of a captain knowing the basics of every task aboard ship. He told her pointblank that if he became ill or incapacitated en route, or if any of her new fancy electronic gizmos blew a fuse she might have to fall back on her own skill set to survive. And then he added a dire warning, telling her that although a transatlantic voyager need only point a vessel toward the sun and follow its track to make a safe landfall (assuming there was enough fuel and enough fair weather to go around), the Pacific was a different and more deadly ocean. All the other oceans combined could fit neatly inside the Pacific Basin. Every spot of land on the planet could be placed within that same basin more than twice over. Distances were vast. Landfalls were miniscule. A traveler could move forward on the same course for days and see nothing but blue water. Navigation had to be pinpoint. These weren’t “problems” he was handing her they were her means to survive a long-distance endurance flight.

Navigation equipment has evolved dramatically over the years to ensure pinpoint accuracy, but the equipment has not itself changed since the days of seafaring. Troublingly, since the advent of GPS, few Navigators learn to take a sight the old-fashioned way. Knowing how can save lives if the power goes out

Amelia answered that she had made the Oahu to California flight successfully. Manning pointed out that two square mile Howland Island was not North America.

The sheer size of the Pacific Ocean is nearly incomprehensible. The largest single feature on Earth, it covers 65 million square miles, a full 35% of the planet’s surface, and contains 1,875,621,572,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water. The entire Pacific is not even visible in this enhanced photo taken from space

Although the lessons went on, there had been a breach between Manning and Earhart that was irreparable. Although he stayed with the project, Amelia and George quickly hired a second Navigator, and one with extensive Pacific experience, Fred Noonan.    

Amelia and Fred Noonan (b. 1893)