Amelia Earhart: Brave Aviator

A tomboy as a child growing up in the Mid-West, Amelia and her little sister Muriel (Pidge) spent long hours climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle and belly-slamming downhill on sleds. Uprooted many times due to an unstable family life with a history of alcohol abuse, Amelia saw her first airplane in 1907 when she was 10 at the Iowa State Fair. She described it as a "thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting."

Her love affair with flying began soon after her first ride in 1920 although she did think about flying professionally until 1925. Her first teacher was Anita Snook, a pioneer female aviator, and she pleased her instructor greatly when, some six months later, she flew her first plane to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a woman's world record.

Amelia Earhart is tragically more famous for her disappearance than for her many achievements in the field of aviation. Apart from being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, she was also the first woman to fly non-stop coast to coast (1932). In 1933, she broke her own transcontinental speed record by making the same flight in 17 hours, 7 minutes. She was also the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean between Honolulu and Oakland, California, which was also the first flight where a civilian aircraft carried a two-way radio.

It is unlikely that anyone will ever know what happened on that last flight in July of 1937. Although her legend continues to thrive, in Amelia's case, her truth is even larger to behold. She was truly a woman far beyond the times in which she lived.

Read her courageous life story.

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