Amelia Earhart – Burry Port, S. Wales 1928

It’s amazing to think that biplanes were still quite prevalent at the end of the 1930’s – essentially Great War technology, and yet before the end of the Second war, we had jets most of the way to Mach 1, Ballistic missiles and the A-Bomb – a mere five years or so. There is no doubt that the Americans were ahead of the game in terms of Civil Aviation in the 1930’s, which I think was driven to a great extent by the sheer distances, greater space for runways and a greater prevalence of paved surfaces in the U.S. In the U.K, with much shorter routes, less land and almost no paved runways, (Not to mention worse weather..!) there simply wasn’t the impetus, with the exception of some of the Imperial Airways routes. The UK had the larger Commercial monoplanes just about appearing before the war broke-out.
In any case, the Americans had large stressed-skin monocoque aircraft, with retracts, VP airscrews and flaps. They were not just for show either, they were in regular service years before the war. It’s a little arbitrary, but I tend to think of 1930 as being a watershed. In the 1920’s, most a/c were still essentially ‘First Generation’. At the start of the 1930’s, all these older norms started to be phased-out. This is why for me, the 1930’s ‘Second Generation’ developments are so fascinating, as they were the first ‘modern’ aircraft.
The other facet of the 1930’s is the flying itself. This moved-on from very basic piloting skills to the use of early R/T, RNav and the genesis of RADAR etc. All the big records were set and the pioneering flights made, so that, by the outbreak of the war, all the records had been set and the airways were open for business.
Of course, quite a few of these pioneers and record setters met sticky, or at least tragic ends. Some, like Black, were killed flying in the 1930’s, Mollison and Scott took to the bottle, Johnson was killed in a silly accident during the war, to name but a few.
By the end of the war, young aircrew, with relatively little experience – but much better training – were routinely carrying out long-distance, long endurance flights that, only a scant few years earlier, would have made them national heroes. Such things are perhaps a real measure of progress.
To that extent, AE doubtless found greater fame in her demise than she would ever have otherwise had. I’m quite baffled however, as to why the likes of TIGHAR are so obsessed. All the fact are available and she is well documented and her fame firmly marked. We know, give or take a bit where she ditched, and as the search for MH370 in the Indian Ocean has recently illustrated, such vast expanses can easily swallow the largest of a/c – without trace. So, no mystery at all really in AE’s case.
What is clear though, is that she was a good pilot – and consistently so. Sadly, on that fateful leg of her flight, she made a bad call in leaving some of the radios behind. Noonan seems to have been an excellent navigator, but to expect to find a tiny island – in all the vastness of the Pacific, primarily by DR and luck……… Yep, a bad and fatal call.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY8EuvWnDMw

O-ooh WRONG.

The Avian at Jackson is regrettably NOT Lady Heath/Earhart’s machine!:(

see http://www.ameliaflight.com/avroavian.po

for more details.

Roger Smith.

Well, gosh I looked “7083” up on the FAA site and the Avro 594 Mk. IV still exists with:

YELLOWSTONE AVIATION INC of JACKSON, WYOMING.

That’s wonderful! :applause:

Roger Smith.

Am enjoying the book and am about 2/3 through. Thanks snoopy for the correction – I made the mistake three times.

Yes the inter-war years I find most interesting – in fact Mary Lovell quotes Harry Bruno from his book “Wings Over America” – ‘In the ten years which followed the first flight of the Wright brothers at Kittyhawk[1903], airplanes changed only a little, but the decade after the Lindbergh flight to Paris [1927] saw practically every new plane rendered virtually obsolete within six months of it’s creation.’

Am finding I knew nothing of AE before her last flight. One thread of the story I have found particularly interesting is that following the 1928 Atlantic flight she purchased Avro Avian G-EBUG from Lady Mary Heath (that Lady Heath had flown solo from South Africa to England) and had it shipped to the US with “Friendship”. AE apparently went to a lot of trouble to get it certified and used it extensively in America for record flights. She sold it 12 months later as she wanted a Lockheed Vega for air racing. There is a photo of the Avian (having done a ground loop at Pittsburgh) showing it with it’s British registration but the “G” on the rudder replaced with “7083”. I wonder what the eventual fate of this historic machine was? (will have to google some more I guess).

Roger Smith.

Three Cheers For The ‘Golden Age’.

Presume you mean ‘AE’….. 😉 Nice to see a post up about the interwar period. Much as the war years are interesting, that focus tends to leave the interwar years rather neglected. Most of the easily available literature and film cover the ’39-’45 period. However, the bedrock of aeronautical excellence was laid down well before the war, driven by record-setting, racing and the emergence of serious commercial aviation. There were some towering figures, many of whom, and their exploits, would be quite unknown to many. The meteoric progress of aviation really started to deliver during the 1930’s, and of course, AE was deeply involved.
I always get the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the Americans remember this period more actively than we do in the UK. That’s a pity, because Britain was right at the heart of this era of rapid progress and pioneering flights.
As an aside – I haven’t managed to get around to reading either of Mary Lovell’s books you mention, but did read the superb West With The Night. Whoever actually wrote the tome, it’s still superb! Although it was a little disappointing in terms of it’s aviation content, it was very revealing in terms of BM character and also her network of contacts. BM herself seems to have been a rather larger than life character who lived her life just how she wanted and wasn’t in the least bit bothered about the chattering classes. She was taught to fly by none other than Tom CB, and of course knew the Blixens of ‘Out Of Africa’ fame, as well as many others in that circle in those heady days of Empire.