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Posted on 05/18/2023 7:32:43 PM PDT by Ozguy1945
On the 20th of May, 1932, 34 year old Amelia Earhart left Newfoundland to successfully attempt the world’s first female pilot solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. She landed in Ireland the next day, after surviving strong northerly winds, icy conditions and mechanical problems.
When President Hoover presented the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society to Earhart, her modesty looked to me like An Epitome Of Cool.
Hoover: “The whole of America is proud of you and your performance.”
Earhart: “I do thank you sincerely. I fear my exploit was not worth so great an honour.”
When Canadian Joni Mitchell wrote the song, "Amelia", which might be considered a homage to Earhart, Mitchell wrote during years when what was called liberation had in some ways dampened women's self-confidence.
Compare the song’s wonderfully sad poetic flights of words with the real flying heroine’s more grounded thoughts:
Earhart: "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. ......... You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward ......... The most effective way to do it, is to do it."
Mitchell: "The drone of flying engines Is a song so wild and blue It scrambles time and seasons if it gets through to you Then your life becomes a travelogue Full of picture post card charms Amelia, it was just a false alarm."
Mitchell's flights in the sixties and seventies were defined by grappling with loneliness. Earhart's solo efforts were built on collaboration and modest acceptance of even presidential recognition.
Times change.
(Excerpt) Read more at freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com ...
When I purchased Mitchell’s album, Hejeira, back in the day, I was at first disappointed in the lack of percussive efforts by John Guerin and the others who backed Joni live and in studio. But it did not take lone for the album to sink deeper into my hearing. The black and white cover reflects the stark instrumentation and melancholy to such an extent I prefer to listen to it on cold, cloudy, rainy days. Will never appreciate it enough.
Earhart was a mediocre pilot who died because she wouldn’t take measure of her limitations. The only reason she’s remembered as a heroine (instead of a reckless trust fund baby) is that her husband was a rich publicist, who spent the rest of his life lionizing her.
That’s from one of my favorite Joni Mitchell albums; Hejira.
The word Hejira is an old Arabic word that can mean
‘migration or mass movement’. It is said to Joni, Hejira meant ‘the journey within the journey’.
Hejira is a great recording, mainly due to the four blended tracks of Jaco Pastori’s bass lines.
Song for Sharon is an epic. Most thoughtful people can find something to identify with in this ode to change, fate and loss. Just hearing the intro tells you this will be a very special story, the kind she had not wished to speak about...until now.
Hard to top those two in the way of songwriting and musicianship.
Not really she did have a drunk as a navigator, her husband Putman was an ahole. Could you have done anything she did ummm
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Amelia Earhart who was not a great pilot decided to take off on a around the world flight with an alcoholic as her navigator....
I read a really interesting book years ago about Earhart and the various trips she made.
IIRC the navigator was relatively new, and something about the radio had changed that neither was experienced with. It could be switched from voice or to just morse code (or maybe not morse code but some sort of beacon). There were pros and cons with each, so they would use voice on the hour, and the beacon on the half hour. It was critical when they approached Howland Island. They would know when they were near the longitude of the island based on their speed, but not their latitude. To get that they would head south and note the strength of the radio signal. If it got stronger they kept going. If it got weaker they would turn north.
But - there were problems with the radio on shore for one of the transmissions so they used a ship in the harbor that was from Hawaii.
The book theory was that the plane’s radio switch may have either been in the wrong position at the critical times, and/or the times were not in sync between the plane, land or ship. My memory is foggy, but the plane was supposed to use the time from it’s last departure as a reference. IIRC Howland Island was something like 4 hours different but the on the hour and the half-hour would have still been constant.
BUT - the navy ship was on Hawaii time, which was something like 6 1/2 hours off! So when Earhart was listening for a voice radio, they were transmitting the beacon and vice versa!
As is typical with most accidents, they are due to cascading failures.
Based upon the investigation of Earhart’s missing, they changed things so everyone (planes, ships, ports, etc.) to Greanwich Mean Time so every one would be on the same time.
originaly the round the world flight was to fly to hawaii first, there was a crash in oakland in 1936, so the plane was returned to burbank and repaired at lockheed. as an aside my grandfather and great grandfather worked at lockheed. my father who was 8 at the time and his sister who was 14 at the time got to go on a flight with Earhart, their instructions were to never repeat a work she spoke, AE swore like a longshoreman..
in 1937 the round the world flight continued except the flew east and the rest is history.
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