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Woman in the Clouds
 
THE SKY OVER Los Angeles, California, was blue and endless in October of 1922. One could see clearly for miles in any direction. It was a perfect day for an air show.
 
Rogers Air Field in Los Angeles was crowded with spectators. Stands had been set up on the field, and they were filled with people waiting to see daredevil pilots in small planes swoop around the sky. Airplanes were a new and dangerous mode of transportation, and air shows were a great way to interest the public in flying.
 
Among the crowd at the airfield were two young women and an older man. The man was Edwin Earhart, a Los Angeles attorney. The young women were his two daughters, Amelia and Muriel. Amelia, the older girl, had invited her father and sister to the air show.
 
As they reached the stands, Amelia produced a pair of tickets and handed them to her father and sister. “These are for you,” she told them. “I can’t sit with you.”
 
Edwin and Muriel were startled. What did Amelia mean? They bombarded her with questions as they settled into their seats, but Amelia answered none of them. She merely waved at them, smiling, and disappeared in the direction of the planes on the field.
 
Twenty-five-year-old Amelia was a tall, slender young woman with short, tousled blond hair, steady gray eyes, and a firm, straight nose. As usual, she was dressed in shades of her favorite color, yellow. When she smiled, a large space showed between her two front teeth.
 
Amelia had been interested in flying for a number of years. Just a year and a half before, early in 1921, she had actually learned how to fly. She was one of the first women in the United States to learn this dangerous and exciting skill.
 
Aviation — the production and flying of craft that are heavier than air — had begun in 1903, on a windy hill in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It was then that two brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, tested their homemade airplane. While Wilbur watched on the ground, Orville lay flat on the wing of the plane as it lifted into the air. The plane soared for just twelve seconds, and traveled a distance of only one hundred and twenty feet before landing in the grass.
 
But twelve seconds was all the world needed. Man could fly! Almost at once, others began to copy the Wright brothers’ method of building planes. They, too, wanted to fly.
 
The first “flying machines” were a far cry from the sophisticated airplanes of today. They were small craft that ran on just one motor. Early planes had an open cockpit that could fit two people at most. They usually had two sets of wings, one above the other; these planes are known as biplanes. Planes with just one set of wings are called monoplanes.
 
For over ten years, aviation pushed forward in small, isolated steps. A builder would make a plane and fly it himself. Then someone else would build a plane, incorporating the first builder’s ideas and adding his own. It was a long, slow process.
 
Aviation took a great leap forward when World War I broke out in Europe in 1914. For the first time, man fought not only on horseback, on foot, and on ships, but also in rolling tanks on the ground, and in the air. Lighter-than-air balloons with rigid frames called zeppelins dropped bombs over Europe. German designers engineered planes that could be used to take photographs from the sky. British airplane builder T.O.M. Sopwith designed the Sopwith Camel, a plane that could be used as a fighting craft.
 
Daring young pilots used the tiny planes to fight other daring pilots in the skies over Europe. At first the pilots used pistols in the air, but later engineers mounted machine guns in their planes. Combat between these fighter planes was called “dogfighting,” and the pilots loved it. Each time they scored a “kill,” or shot down a plane, they marked it on the side of their planes. When a pilot had scored five kills he was called an ace.
 
Aces were daring heroes, and they dressed the part. They wore dark goggles, high black boots, worn leather jackets, and silk scarves tossed over their shoulders. They were romantic, and they knew it. To them, nothing made life more worth living than being able to jump into the cockpit of a little open plane and head for the skies!
 
Flying fighter planes was so thrilling that when the war ended in 1918 fliers did not want to return to the ground. Flying had changed their lives. They were reluctant to go back to the small towns of America they came from and resume work there. Instead, they decided to keep flying.
 
Many of these pilots became “barnstormers.” These men owned small planes, which they flew into different American communities. In their silk scarves, leather jackets, and goggles, they were an impressive sight. Barnstormers would soar high in the air, showing their wide-eyed audience all the glory of flight. After a suitable demonstration they would invite spectators to fly with them — one at a time, and for fees of about five dollars for ten or fifteen minutes in the air. At night, barnstormers would tie down the planes near a barn in order to avoid damage to the craft in case of a storm. The next morning, they would be on their way to a new community full of new admirers.
 
Barnstormers also participated in air shows. They flew together, thrilling audiences with their dangerous stunts. “Wing walking,” for instance, was a stunt in which one pilot flew the plane high above the ground while another walked on the wings. Or a barnstormer might attempt to move from one plane to another while the planes were both in the air, hovering almost wing to wing. This type of flying was exciting — and extremely dangerous. Not surprisingly, many barnstormers were killed in accidents in full view of their audiences.
 
Finally, in the 1920s, a board that would later become the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was created to regulate flying. This board sought to introduce flying to the public as an alternate means of transportation. Planes were faster than trains or automobiles, and the regulatory board wanted to assure the public that they were also very safe. Pilots now had to have licenses in order to fly. The board refused to permit barnstorming, which they considered too dangerous. They continued to allow air shows, however, in order to remind the public that flying was both fun and safe. They wanted very much to keep flying in the public eye.
 
At this time, flying was a rarity. There was no such thing as commercial aviation. No one flew as a passenger in order to get from one place to another. Flying was simply a thrilling indulgence, like driving a race car. No ordinary person would climb into a plane as a means of transportation.
 
That was how matters stood in October 1922. Few pilots held licenses, and even fewer were women. Amelia Earhart, who received her license in 1921, was one of the amazing women who took to the skies.
 
Amelia had become a familiar figure on the airfields around Los Angeles. Like many fliers, she wore the aviator’s dramatic uniform: a brown leather coat that was scuffed and faded, tight-fitting breeches, a long white silk scarf, dark goggles, and knee-high black laced boots.
 
Amelia was at ease with the men at the airfields. She was not a society girl who was afraid to get her hands dirty. Amelia worked alongside the men, and she was interested in learning everything she could about airplanes. She was kind and friendly, interested in others, and possessed an amazing degree of courage.
 
Edwin Earhart and his daughter Muriel were surprised on that October day when Amelia left them in the stands at Rogers Air Field. Soon they heard the announcement that Miss Amelia Earhart would attempt to break the current women’s altitude record. She would try to fly higher in the sky than any woman had ever flown before!
 
The Earharts strained their eyes as a small, single-engine airplane skimmed along the ground in front of them and lifted into the air. The plane climbed and climbed, until the Earharts and the other onlookers had to crane their necks and strain to see through the high clouds. Soon they could no longer see even the reflection of the sun on the plane’s wings. All they could do was listen for the steady hum of the engine. As the hum grew fainter and fainter, Edwin looked apprehensively at his younger daughter. Was Amelia all right? Was the plane still flying safely?
 
Suddenly the plane reappeared out of the clouds. With the sun shining on its silver wings, it looped downward and landed neatly on the grass. Amelia, smiling and very composed, stepped out of the cockpit. The men on the field rushed over to the plane to read an altitude-measuring instrument that had been fastened to the cockpit. They gasped. Amelia had flown up to 14,000 feet to set a new altitude record for women!
 
This was the first of many records Amelia would set in her short but amazing career as a flier. As one of the most well-known pioneers of aviation, she would stand at the forefront of a group of courageous fliers who transformed public thinking about flying. She encouraged women to become a part of aviation by demonstrating again and again just how much she herself could achieve.
 
Amelia’s desire to reach out to new boundaries was the motive behind everything she did. She refused to accept the limitations that restricted other people’s lives. As a result, she pushed back boundaries for everyone. She knew that flying was unspeakably risky, but she chose to do it anyway. She did not let the fear of failure, or even death, deter her from exploring new possibilities. She knew that someone would be the first to move ahead in aviation, and she always wanted to be that someone.