a friend of Putnam helped with the planning for the big flight that so few people knew about. Always optimistic, Earhart decided against packing a parachute - too heavy, she said. Her ultra-modern Lockheed Vega 5B was modified to accommodate the extra fuel required for the long flight.
Earhart and Balchen took pains to make sure she began the flight well rested. She even let Balchen fly her to Newfoundland, a decision that turned out to be auspicious.
“Any Landing on Land Is Good”
If meticulous planning could guarantee a good flight, Earhart would have arrived in France safely and on time. But she didn’t, and the foremost problem was the weather, or more precisely, the weather information. “Doc” Kimball, a well-known weatherman, told Earhart at the start of her flight that the weather would be all right, not the best, but all right. He knew a storm was in the making, but he expected it would be to the south of her route. Kimball’s information was disastrously misleading. Earhart would run into monstrous weather - high winds, icing conditions, and near-zero visibility - after only a few hours of flying.
Her plane had started giving her trouble before the severe weather hit. The altimeter stopped working, forcing her to guess how far above the water she was flying by looking outside. Her guesswork was useless once the conditions interfered with her sight.
Another potential disaster appeared when Earhart saw flames coming from her exhaust manifold. It wasn’t necessarily catastrophic, but she had to make a judgment call: Fly on consuming fuel or turn back? She chose to keep going.
The real trouble appeared when she found herself in the storm she had been warned about. Assuming that the information she had been given about the location of the storm was reliable, she reasoned that she had strayed from her course. Then, her visibility got so poor that she had to fly on instruments, a skill she had mastered only recently.
Running low on fuel in a plane with a faulty engine and being forced to stay close to the water makes for a grueling flight. Earhart had no choice but to fly under those conditions for hours. Somehow she escaped the storm and finally saw land. It wasn’t France, as she had planned, but she was grateful to land anywhere. She found herself in Ireland near Londonderry.
Earhart’s account of the landing near a field of flax sounded as if nothing at all had gone wrong: “I pulled up in a farmer’s back yard.” And when a farmhand asked how far she had flown, she simply said, “from America.” When Earhart’s sister Muriel heard about the landing in Ireland, her reaction was sage and succinct: “Any landing on land is good.” A year later, the Ulster-Irish Society of New York presented Earhart with a roll of fine linen, woven from the flax of the field where she had set down.
Never a complainer, Earhart emphasized the successful aspect of the adventure when she spoke of her epic flight. But in photos taken soon after her landing, she appeared exhausted. After calling her husband, she spoke to the British press. Cool and unflappable as always, she dryly explained her motives for the flight:
When there is a traffic jam on Fifth Avenue, men always comment, Oh, it’s a woman driving, Mrs. Putnam said. And I have gone up in the air with a mechanic who didn’t know the controls from an altimeter, and when I came down I heard people say he did most of the flying.
So I determined to show them. [But] outside of demonstrating that a woman can fly the Atlantic alone, I don’t see that I have added anything to the science of aviation or anything else.
Woman really is capable of standing strain better and longer than man. Give her time to work up a problem before her and she will stand the gaff as well and better than any man.
But what I did was not a great draft on my strength. I have danced all night lots of times and flying all night isn’t very much. . . .
“Flying All Night Isn’t Very
Earhart and Balchen took pains to make sure she began the flight well rested. She even let Balchen fly her to Newfoundland, a decision that turned out to be auspicious.
“Any Landing on Land Is Good”
If meticulous planning could guarantee a good flight, Earhart would have arrived in France safely and on time. But she didn’t, and the foremost problem was the weather, or more precisely, the weather information. “Doc” Kimball, a well-known weatherman, told Earhart at the start of her flight that the weather would be all right, not the best, but all right. He knew a storm was in the making, but he expected it would be to the south of her route. Kimball’s information was disastrously misleading. Earhart would run into monstrous weather - high winds, icing conditions, and near-zero visibility - after only a few hours of flying.
Her plane had started giving her trouble before the severe weather hit. The altimeter stopped working, forcing her to guess how far above the water she was flying by looking outside. Her guesswork was useless once the conditions interfered with her sight.
Another potential disaster appeared when Earhart saw flames coming from her exhaust manifold. It wasn’t necessarily catastrophic, but she had to make a judgment call: Fly on consuming fuel or turn back? She chose to keep going.
The real trouble appeared when she found herself in the storm she had been warned about. Assuming that the information she had been given about the location of the storm was reliable, she reasoned that she had strayed from her course. Then, her visibility got so poor that she had to fly on instruments, a skill she had mastered only recently.
Running low on fuel in a plane with a faulty engine and being forced to stay close to the water makes for a grueling flight. Earhart had no choice but to fly under those conditions for hours. Somehow she escaped the storm and finally saw land. It wasn’t France, as she had planned, but she was grateful to land anywhere. She found herself in Ireland near Londonderry.
Earhart’s account of the landing near a field of flax sounded as if nothing at all had gone wrong: “I pulled up in a farmer’s back yard.” And when a farmhand asked how far she had flown, she simply said, “from America.” When Earhart’s sister Muriel heard about the landing in Ireland, her reaction was sage and succinct: “Any landing on land is good.” A year later, the Ulster-Irish Society of New York presented Earhart with a roll of fine linen, woven from the flax of the field where she had set down.
Never a complainer, Earhart emphasized the successful aspect of the adventure when she spoke of her epic flight. But in photos taken soon after her landing, she appeared exhausted. After calling her husband, she spoke to the British press. Cool and unflappable as always, she dryly explained her motives for the flight:
When there is a traffic jam on Fifth Avenue, men always comment, Oh, it’s a woman driving, Mrs. Putnam said. And I have gone up in the air with a mechanic who didn’t know the controls from an altimeter, and when I came down I heard people say he did most of the flying.
So I determined to show them. [But] outside of demonstrating that a woman can fly the Atlantic alone, I don’t see that I have added anything to the science of aviation or anything else.
Woman really is capable of standing strain better and longer than man. Give her time to work up a problem before her and she will stand the gaff as well and better than any man.
But what I did was not a great draft on my strength. I have danced all night lots of times and flying all night isn’t very much. . . .
“Flying All Night Isn’t Very
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