Writing Visions

"The clouds are tinted pink with the setting sun. Bill just got the time. "OK" sez he. 10:20 London time my watch. Pemmican (dried jerky) is being passed or just has been. What stuff! The pink vastness reminds me of the Mojave desert ... Bill gets position, we are out 1096 miles at 10:30 London time ... the view is too vast and lovely for words. I think I am happy — sad admission of scant intellectual equipment. I am getting housemaid's knee kneeling here at the table gulping beauty."
                                           -   from the flight book of Amelia Earhart.


On June 18, 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. She flew from Newfoundland to Wales in a plane called the "Friendship." Even though she did not fly the plane, she received media attention. Wilmer Stulz flew the plane with Amelia as co-pilot.

Amelia had a job as a social worker in Boston when publisher George Palmer Putnam thought her trip would make a great book. He urged her to take the trip. Earhart wrote about the experience in the book, 20 HOURS, 40 MINUTES. She married. Putnam in 1931.

She piloted her own flight across the Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Ireland, in 1932. She made the trip in the record time of just under 15 hours, and she wrote about it in THE FUN OF IT.

In 1937, as Earhart neared her 40th birthday, he wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. On June 1st, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miami and began the 29,000-mile journey. By June 29, when they landed in Lae, New Guinea, all but 7,000 miles had been completed.

At 10 am local time, zero Greenwich time on July 2, the pair took off. Despite favorable weather reports, they flew into overcast skies and intermittent rain showers. As dawn neared, Earhart called the ITASCA, reporting "cloudy, weather cloudy." The ITASCA sent her a steady stream of transmissions but she could not hear them.

At 8:45 Earhart reported, "We are running north and south." Nothing further was heard from Earhart.

A rescue attempt became the most extensive air and sea search in naval history thus far. On July 19, after spending $4 million and scouring 250,000 square miles of ocean, the United States government reluctantly called off the operation.

Many theories abound but no proof of her fate exists.

Remember Amelia Earhart for her courage, vision, and groundbreaking achievements, both in aviation and for women. She wrote to her husband, "I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."

What visions do you have about your life? Do you have a Hero to emulate. Write about it.