Amelia Earhart, something not commonly known

[New Englander]

There's been a lot of media attention due to another failed attempt to find her plane.

So while perusing the museum info thanks to Dave Downs. I came upon this. I knew she had set some other records but was unaware of this one:

On April 8, 1931, Amelia Earhart, flying a Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro, reached an altitude of 18,415 feet (5,613 meters) over Bucks and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania. The duration of the flight originating from Pitcairn Airfield, her second of the day, was 1 hour, 49 minutes. Throughout the 1930s, the Pitcairn team would develop and manufacture many different models of autogiros at Willow Grove, perfecting the technology which would later be used in the development of the modern helicopter.

 

[twostepn2001]

And on June 12th of 1931 she crashed another autogyro here in Abilene, Texas. She was on a national tour to show that woman could fly a autgyro safely. Guess she proved her point. She survived the crash safely....lol 

 

And a few years prior, Charles Lindberg landed in Abilene 4 months after his flight cross the Atlantic. 

[New Englander]

7 minutes ago, twostepn2001 said:

She survived the crash safely....lol

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. If the plane can be used again it's a better one!

[dale560]

2 hours ago, New Englander said:

There's been a lot of media attention due to another failed attempt to find her plane.

So while perusing the museum info thanks to Dave Downs. I came upon this. I knew she had set some other records but was unaware of this one:

On April 8, 1931, Amelia Earhart, flying a Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro, reached an altitude of 18,415 feet (5,613 meters) over Bucks and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania. The duration of the flight originating from Pitcairn Airfield, her second of the day, was 1 hour, 49 minutes. Throughout the 1930s, the Pitcairn team would develop and manufacture many different models of autogiros at Willow Grove, perfecting the technology which would later be used in the development of the modern helicopter.

 

When was the first production helicopter available. Was it during ww11

[New Englander]

Sikorsky flew one in the late '30s that the military bought during WWII. I think there was one in Germany too.

[lorenzo]

Ok well since you brought this up,  

I’ve done a lot of research on Amelia Earhart. I read every book I can get my hands on and she is one of my all-time heroes.
 

back in the 80s I became curator of around 300 negatives of photographs taken in the 20s 30s and 40s and several reel’s of 8 MM film . They were from a local Nebraska man named Billy Wolff who was a Harley Davidson Dealer in that era. He also promoted a lot of bicycle related activities and parades for children as well as motorcycle rallies, motorcycle races, motorcycle hill climbs, and aviation shows.

In the collection of negatives, I came across some pictures of Amelia Earhart when she flew into arrow airport in Lincoln for an airshow with her navigator Fred Noonan. Here is a picture of her walking out to the airplane and here is a picture of the actual negative I have of the photo. 
by the way, the Auto gyro was in no way shape or form a helicopter and the rotating blades above the pilot were not even mechanically driven. They simply rotated with the forward motion of the plane and helped with lift so it could take off on a much shorter runway.

[lorenzo]

Also there that day was another notable aircraft. Pictured in center is Billy Wolff sitting on the tire of a Gee Bee, a far more interesting and famous aircraft .

[acem]

Those pics remind me of barnstorming.

When I was a kid the od timers used to talk about the barnstormers.

The auto gyro was not a helicopter but they look similar.  Some auto gyros don't have wings which makes them look alot like a helicopter.

[Lars (midessa)]

My opinion(strictly mine), is as great of a person/flyer she was, somewhere on the that fight, she f-up. Nobody is perfect. There has been more money made, keeping the illusion alive about her, than if she would have completed the flight. 

[lorenzo]

2 hours ago, Lars (midessa) said:

My opinion(strictly mine), is as great of a person/flyer she was, somewhere on the that fight, she f-up. Nobody is perfect. There has been more money made, keeping the illusion alive about her, than if she would have completed the flight. 

Truth be known she was not a great pilot and very in experienced with the type of radio she had in the Lockheed Electra of her last flight. Her navigator was a known alcoholic and may have been drunk as a skunk when she needed him most.

[New Englander]

Helicopters are infinitely more complicated than gyros. The aerodynamics of powered rotors not to mention anti-torque make them so. There are a handful of manufactures making new one with some amazing performance. One of the below is what I think is in the hangar across from me. A retired captain has it and from seeing it fly it seemed fast so I looked it up: VNE (velocity, never exceed) is 140 MPH, quite a bit faster than most light helicopters. The M.A.S.H. Bell 47s are about 100 MPH, older Hillers around 80.

One of the problems with a helicopter is retreating blade stall. The blade(s) moving opposite direction of flight begin to aerodynamically stall causing a roll in that direction. Non-rigid rotor systems have lead-lag issues plus ground resonance issues. Helicopters have collective control that change all blade pitch at once, Cyclic control that change the disc direction, anti torque pedals to control the tail rotor, etc. Gyro has stick and rudder. Gyro rotor is powered only to pre-rotate, then power has to be disconnected.

 

[acem]

Don't forget the one in The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2.

[5288IH]

On 11/1/2026 at 1:46 AM, New Englander said:

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. If the plane can be used again it's a better one!

They actually did that with the British Thunderbolt submarine, one admiral commented that is one thing that you cannot use again, proved him wrong

[New Englander]

19 hours ago, Lars (midessa) said:

My opinion(strictly mine), is as great of a person/flyer she was, somewhere on the that fight, she f-up. Nobody is perfect. There has been more money made, keeping the illusion alive about her, than if she would have completed the flight. 

Maybe. Charles Lindbergh's legacy has lived on even though he was a pacifist (reformed) and never really screwed up. Yes she wasn't a very experienced pilot she learned fast and set many records. The planes of the day were not all that reliable or easy to fly. Being conventional gear (tail draggers) they wanted to swap ends on landing. 

Having flown the Pacific many times and seeing just how vast it is I appreciate the folks who did it with little more than a sextant. 

[New Englander]

Ground loops on TO are not common but here's what happened to Amelia and the Lockeed Electra. In this picture you can see the direction finder loop. Apparently there was some confusion on frequencies with the CG cutter that was supposed to transmit the signal. Unlike more modern automatic direction finders that was a manual loop. I've actually used one! The loop is rotated so you'll get a null when the open end of the loop faces the station, any other position will give an increasing strength. NDBs or NonDirectionalBeacons have mostly been shut down in the US. Crossing Russia the controllers would turn them on in sequence when needed as they were always worried about invasion or something. Once when landing in Africa in a country not yet aligned to WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984) our navigation system could get us to the listed coordinates but they were off a bit. No worries, they had an NDB approach except it wasn't working and not notamed in-op. We found the airport not too far away and landed. The NDB transmitter needed a tube!

EDIT: I removed the ADF from my plane as there's little use except listening to talk radio. They work good on 50,000 watt commercial broadcast stations.

From Pearl Harbor Museum:

Simply but sadly put, Amelia Earhart ground-looped her Lockheed Electra on take-off. To begin her departure, she had taxied her aircraft to the Northeast end of the island (the nearest end to the current bridge). After lining up with the runway, she revved the engines on the powerful Electra. The aircraft started veering to the right. Earhart adjusted he throttles to correct the drift, but she overcorrected. It had rained heavily the night before, and the field was slick. The plane spun left into a full ground loop. All of the aircraft’s weight was put on the right landing gear as the left wing lifted the left landing gear off the runway. The combined weight of the heavily packed Electra and its three crew members was too much. The right landing gear collapsed. The Electra spun on the ground in the shower of sparks shown in the movie. The aircraft was salvageable, but not quickly. Amelia Earhart could not go on to her next landing, tiny Howland Island. She left that afternoon on the Steamship Malolo to return to California and plan her next attempt.

Edited November 2 by New Englander

[TroyDairy]

Wonder why she has became such a ledgend?  100 tried things and crashed and we only speak of her. 

[lorenzo]

20 minutes ago, TroyDairy said:

Wonder why she has became such a ledgend?  100 tried things and crashed and we only speak of her. 

Mostly being a women aviator in that golden era and a wealthy husband to keep funding it.

[twostepn2001]

l'm kind of surprised no one has brought it up yet, but there was a woman that actually flew around the world SOLO with no navigator. Jerrie Mock, a pilot with less than 350 total flying hours flew a Cessna 180 to achieve it. From March 19th to April 17th 1964. And during that same flight, she became the first woman to solo cross the Pacific. And her plane is hanging in Smithsonian Institute.

[lorenzo]

28 minutes ago, twostepn2001 said:

l'm kind of surprised no one has brought it up yet, but there was a woman that actually flew around the world SOLO with no navigator. Jerrie Mock, a pilot with less than 350 total flying hours flew a Cessna 180 to achieve it. From March 19th to April 17th 1964. And during that same flight, she became the first woman to solo cross the Pacific. And her plane is hanging in Smithsonian Institute.

Yes, many women pilots achieved great things but in 1937 it was a bit more unusual.

[twostepn2001]

5 minutes ago, lorenzo said:

Yes, many women pilots achieved great things but in 1937 it was a bit more unusual.

Yeah l agree with you. But the point l wanted to make was that Jerrie Mock did it in a single engine, not a twin. She did it completely by herself without a navigator in the right seat. And she wasn't sponsored by a rich husband publisher. She did it with money she got on a loan. And the most important thing was that she survived the flight. Again, l'm not making any digs at Amelia Earhart, just pointing out that the woman who actually did what Amelia failed to do is basically lost in the history books. 

[Dave Downs]

I may have told this story before……

1965, I’m working at the local airport as a line boy on weekends for flying time; mow the lawn, clean the rest rooms and fuel planes. Brand new Beech Bonanza lands and taxies up to the fuel pumps. I go over to the plane and am somewhat surprised that a ‘little old lady’ gets out and asks me to top off the main tanks. I look in the cockpit and notice that there is only one seat, for the pilot, the rest of the interior is filled with fuel tanks with radios strapped to them. 
 

The ‘little old lady’ was Louise Sacchi, 340+ solo ocean crossings, both Atlantic and Pacific in single engine and light twin aircraft. She wrote a book - Ocean Flying.

[7and8and1456]

Earhart's airplane has not been found but there were enough artifacts found on the island in ( I think 1939) that should be convincing enough that she crash landed there and died as a castaway there. There were some human bones and part of a skull found there that some, at the time, said were Earhart's. Others said they weren't . There were also the following found there: The metal pull tab of a zipper that was of the same type that was common of the 1930's. Two pieces of glass the same size as would  have been common on a woman's "compact" make-up container gizmo. A small glass medication type bottle that had some dried material remaining in it that was identified as a product that was used in the 1930's as a Freckle treatment cream.  Earhart had freckles and reportedly did not like them. The bottle had some remnants of a paper label affixed on it with the letters "uc" were visible. Such cream was sold in pharmacies. Earhart lived in Toluca Lake,  California.  

[New Englander]

12 hours ago, Dave Downs said:

I may have told this story before……

1965, I’m working at the local airport as a line boy on weekends for flying time; mow the lawn, clean the rest rooms and fuel planes. Brand new Beech Bonanza lands and taxies up to the fuel pumps. I go over to the plane and am somewhat surprised that a ‘little old lady’ gets out and asks me to top off the main tanks. I look in the cockpit and notice that there is only one seat, for the pilot, the rest of the interior is filled with fuel tanks with radios strapped to them. 
 

The ‘little old lady’ was Louise Sacchi, 340+ solo ocean crossings, both Atlantic and Pacific in single engine and light twin aircraft. She wrote a book - Ocean Flying.

I've heard ferry pilots asking for a position report from the aircraft in the flight levels. I remember one being a woman's voice but Louise had retired back in the early '80s I think  and I wasn't flying the Atlantic until mid '80s.

There's some info in the FBO building in Gander or otherwise I would not be aware of her.

[twostepn2001]

21 hours ago, Dave Downs said:

I’m working at the local airport as a line boy on weekends for flying time; mow the lawn, clean the rest rooms and fuel planes.

l did the exact same thing except for me it was a few years later, 1967-68. Even hauled the hay that the "manager-operator" cut and baled. And had to rake and keep the pea gravel in shape in the landing zone for the local skydiving club. One memorable thing for me was l got a ride in a Cavalier P-51. Congoleum Carpet built a carpet factory in our town. They were based out of Georgia and occasionally would fly in a big shot to the plant in Oklahoma. lf they were bringing in more than one person they had Beech Baron. Anyway, l would give the pilot a ride into town in my trusty 'ol wore out Chevy pickup. After relentless pestering, he finally gave me a ride around the pattern a couple of times. 

[New Englander]

On 11/3/2026 at 5:42 PM, Dave Downs said:

Louise Sacch

I said I was only vaguely aware of her probably due to something I saw on a wall in the Gander FBO, so I looked it up. Here's some from the local historical society:

 http://www.ganderairporthistoricalsociety.org/_html_trans/Streets/Louise.Sacchi.htm