20 Hrs. 40 Min./Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
MY OWN PLANE
IN the war some students were soloed with as little as four hours’ training. That meant they were considered competent to go up in their planes alone after this amount of instruction. Obviously these were exceptional students. In civilian flying, ten or twelve hours, I imagine, would be about the minimum training. But these hours usually mean simply routine instruction in straight flying, comparable to the novice driving his automobile along the level uncrowded country highway. For the automobilist beginner the problem comes when he first meets traffic, and a big truck, say, suddenly cuts in ahead of him. Can he handle the emergency, or will he crash? And what will the beginner do when his car, or the other fellow's, skids on the wet pavement for the first time? The answer is that good driving results from experience and the requisite of having met many varied situations.
And so with planes. Straight flying is, of course, the necessary basis; but it is the ability to meet crises, large and small, which counts. And the only way to train for that is, as I have said, to have actual instruction in stunting and in meeting emergencies. To gain experience after the beginner has soloed, and while he is at home in a plane he knows intimately and upon a field familiar to him, he should play around in the air for four or five hours alone, practising landings, take-offs, turns and all the rest of it where he is perfectly safe and can come down easily any time.
Then he should have three or four more hours' instruction in emergency situations. This feature is too often overlooked. As I visualize it, the beginner should go up with an instructor with dual controls again and should get himself into—and out of—one scrape after another, including forced landings. After he has done so repeatedly, he will have confidence and a real feeling of what must be done, and done instantly, under any given set of circumstances. More of this sort of follow-through training and there would probably be fewer of the accidents which too often are beginners’ bad luck.
I had rolled up the tremendous total of two and one-half hours’ instruction when I decided that life was incomplete unless I owned my own plane. Those were the days of rather heavy, under-powered ships which lifted themselves from the ground with a lumbering effort. The small sport planes were just beginning to appear, most of them in experimental stages. The field where I flew was owned by W. G. Kinner of the Kinner Aeroplane and Motor Corporation, who was then developing one of the first sport planes made.
I watched that plane at work in those days when I was cutting my aviation eye teeth. Little by little I became able to distinguish the different makes of planes, and the finer points of their performance. I realized that the small plane took off more quickly, climbed more steeply, was faster and easier to handle than its bigger brothers with their greater horse power and wing spread.
After two and one-half hours I really felt myself a competent judge of planes! A few hundred solo hours since then have modified greatly that initial self-confidence! The fact that wise pilots with a thousand hours or so warned me against this little fellow, influenced me not. I wanted that sport plane that hopped off like a sandpiper and actually seemed to like it. And I set about buying it. My pilot friends came to me quietly. "Look out for the motor," they said. 
MY CABBAGE PATCH LANDING, CALIFORNIA, 1921
"I WAS FOND OF AUTOMOBILES, HORSEBACK RIDING, AND ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE THAT IS ACTIVE AND CARRIED ON IN THE OPEN"
The small air-cooled motor I speak of was the first in this country. The man who had built it was not well known then. He was one of a number of able experimenters who were working out their own private ideas, often in the face of all sorts of sacrifices. The name of the builder of this original air-cooled engine is Charles L. Lawrence, famous today as the creator of the Wright Whirlwind which carried Lindbergh, Byrd, Chamberlin, Maitland and others on their famous flights, and with which our own Friendship was equipped.
The idea of an air-cooled engine appealed to me. The elimination of the water cooling system meant simplification and a notable decrease in weight. Thanks largely to the lightness of the engine and resulting light plane, it was possible for me to pick it up by the tail and move it around the field easily, whereas with the Canucks and the others it took at least a man, or a dolly, and great effort. I was won by the motor, despite some weaknesses, and I have never regretted that first enthusiasm. So I said "no" to my pessimistic pilots, and "yes" to Mr. Kinner.
The price was $2000. After talking it over with my father he agreed that I needed the plane and that I should have it, and promised to help out in paying for it. But I am afraid my salesmanship was faulty for he did not stay "sold." I signed the sales contract and plunked down all my available capital to seal the bargain before I knew of his indecision. Consequently, there wasn't any backing out even if I had wanted to—which I emphatically did not.
To pay for that plane I got the first job I ever had, the telephone company taking me on as unskilled labor. I was associated with the office boys at the back of the office, an association which I was told was one of the worst in the organization. We did things to the mail, opened it, sorted it, distributed it. I also filed letters and then tried to find them again. I liked the job and the boys, who were very funny and not the criminals they were pictured.
Perhaps this move on my part doesn't seem very convincing, for obviously my salary as playmate of office boys would have to run on for a long time before it would wipe out the balance of the $2000. But it did help my credit immensely! I think it made my flying companions believe I was in earnest.
It also affected mother to the extent that she finally wiped out my indebtedness, on condition I resign and stay home a little. By the way, she has remained sold, and it was her regret she wasn't with me on the trans-Atlantic flight, if I would go.
There was a partnership of interest, and of near poverty, between many of us in those days. Aviation demanded much from its devotees—and there was plenty of opportunity for sacrifice. Many of the pioneers sank their teeth into aviation's problems at the very beginning—or was it the other way about?—and simply wouldn't let go.
So I owned my own plane. Immediately I found that my whole feeling toward flying had changed. An added confidence and satisfaction came. If I crashed, it was my own responsibility and it was my own property that was being injured. It is the same sort of feeling that obtains, I think, in driving. There is a freedom in ownership which is not possible with a borrowed car.
Of course I had shouldered a new responsibility. I had an expensive, inanimate object on my hands. I wanted it to look all right on the outside and be all right on the inside. Few words are more expressive than "care and upkeep." Fortunately in their obligations I was remarkably lucky. The plane was an experiment for Kinner, a model for production. Obviously he wanted to have demonstrated exactly what it could do. When I was around, I was informally a sort of demonstrator—we agreed that he could use it for demonstration in return for free hangar space, and I was given much mechanical help, and other assistance in addition to hangar space. It was this situation, I suppose, which really made it possible for a "telephone girl" to carry on. At any rate, to me the important fact is, that I secured many free hours in the air and much kindly help.
Demonstrating has other advantages; it means an effort to sell someone something. And selling involves debating the virtues of the thing to be sold, the prospective purchaser usually being on the silent end of the debate. So I found myself studying the virtues of my plane, and in so doing, those of others.
The first thing most people want to do when they get a new car is to take someone out driving in it; a desire which seems to apply equally to a plane. Somehow I have always felt a little differently. It isn't that I am not proud of my possession, but that I always have a suspicion that my pride may run away with my prudence. If it be car or plane, my inclination is to be absolutely sure of myself before I whisk anybody else's body around in it. Consequently my air passengers were few.
As a matter of fact, I have never asked any men to take a ride. I think I have always feared that some sense of gallantry would make them accept, even though they did not trust me. So my male passengers have always had to do the asking.
There were plenty of potential joy riders around the fields in those days. Many of them had drifted into aviation after the war—or rather had not drifted out. They wanted to be near planes, and accepted any opportunity to take a ride no matter who the pilot or what the machine. From this gang have graduated many of the men who are today the real working human backbone of the industry.
From them were recruited the gypsy flyers who barnstormed their way around the country and whose activities actually figured largely in the development of American aviation. It was they who kept alive public interest. Mostly they flew wrecks, old war crates tied together with baling wire. Anything that would get off the ground—most of the time—was good enough for them. Many of them, of course, paid a heavy price for their devotion.
I didn’t like public flying. It didn’t coincide with my ideas of what I wished to do with my plane. It was hard enough to keep out of the papers anyway in those days if one flew. The slightest mishap was called a crash and disasters were played up lugubriously.
For me flying was a sport and not a circus—I used to sneak away to a secluded field and practise, with no one to bother. I appeared in public only on special occasions. For instance once I was invited to take part in a meet held by the Aero Club of Southern California at Pasadena. It was purely a public demonstration, a sort of circus, yet it was for a purpose—to raise money for the Club and to arouse local interest in flying.
I was asked to do a little stunting, the usual thing on occasions of this kind. The little plane looked well in the air, so I accepted. The minute I flew up to the field I began to feel like a clown, although happily there were two of us female freaks to divide the honors and the odium.
There was plenty of chatter about two 
"LADIES' DAY"
Sykes in the New York Evening Post
BRYNJULF STRANDENAES PAINTS A PORTRAIT
"aviatrixes," but the chatterers never knew that they came near having something actually to talk about. For, as I reached the field, after flying from my own hangar, a spark plug blew out. Luckily I was over the field just then as otherwise I might have made my landing in a treetop. One cylinder dead in eight is not so serious a matter as one in three. I had only three and wished for eight just then.
It happened that my own engine was on the repair bench and the boys at the field, determined to get me to the meet, had worked all night switching the motor from the Goodyear pony blimp over to my plane. In the blimp the motor had been run at a low speed and as a result when I turned it up to my requirements one of the spark plugs could not stand the strain. After a new extra long plug was inserted I started out again.
It was a beautiful day with splashes of clouds which sailed up over the mountains from the desert westward. They made a perfect background for the audience below and a perfect playground for anyone in the sky. Speaking seriously, the most effective stunting, from an artistic point of view, should be staged against just such a sky. Alternate white and blue with irregular outline brings out the full grace of the maneuvering plane.
A good deal of air racing was going on then all over the country. But my feeling toward it was similar to my feeling toward any other public flying. It was not for me. I wasn't good enough. I remember one funny offer. A group of people wanted to stage a race and seemed to think that I was timid about entering. So they suggested that I let their own pilot fly most of the race, then come down and let me get aboard, out of sight of the audience, and finish up as the "lady flyer" who had piloted the plane to victory.
Another proposal I remember.
"How would you like to make some easy money?" I was asked.
"How?"
"Bringing some stuff across the border."
Stuff—liquor, aliens or dope?
"Liquor?" I guessed.
My philanthropic friend shrugged his shoulders. "A woman can get by where a man can't. No one would ever suspect you. There's not a thing to be afraid of. You could do it easy."
It was a pretty compliment, but I declined.
One day I went up with my plane to establish its ceiling—that is, to see how high it would go.
There is a point in altitude beyond which, of course, a given plane cannot climb, just as with automobiles, there is a limit to the grade that can be negotiated and a speed that can be attained. In flying, an added factor is entailed, in the rarification of atmosphere with height, which affects plane, motor and personnel.
To make the record official I asked the representative of the Aero Club of Southern California to seal my barograph. This instrument records altitude in ink on a revolving drum. When sealed it is impossible for the flyer to alter it.
It was a good day and I climbed easily for about 13,000 feet. Thereafter I began to have trouble. My spark control lever became disconnected and I could not regulate the spark in my engine. As a result a terrific vibration and knocking started. I thought the engine would jump out of its frame. There wasn't anything to do but come down, although I was still climbing fifty feet a minute.
As soon as the official read my barograph there was great rejoicing, for apparently I had established a woman's altitude record. The news got in the papers. One clipping read:
- Miss Amelia Earhart, local aviatrix, established a new altitude record for women yesterday under the auspices of the Aero Club of Southern California.
- Flying her own Kinner Airster, containing a 60-foot power motor, she ascended more than 14,000 feet.
- Her sealed barograph registered little vibration until about 12,000 feet, where Miss Earhart said something went wrong with the motor. At the time she was climbing easily, about 50 feet a minute, which would have continued perhaps for several thousand feet more if the engine difficulty had not arisen.
Although my figure of 14,000 feet was not extraordinary, the performance of my engine was interesting. With the little Lawrence power plant of less than 60 h.p. I had gone up much farther than some of the higher powered planes which should have been more efficient.
A little while later I made another attempt. The weather was pretty good at the start. At 10,000 feet I ran into clouds. At 11,000 feet sleet, and at about 12,000 feet dense fog. This was an entirely new experience, and very disquieting. For the first time in my life, I had that strange feeling experienced by the flyer in fog.
Under such circumstances it is impossible to tell what the plane is doing. It may be upside down or turning giant circles. Without instruments the pilot simply does not know his position in space—there are no outside landmarks with which to check. Of course, if one is really upside down for any length of time one's feet drop back from the rudder and the safety belt tightens; or if in a skid a side blast of wind gives a belated warning, etc.
It was extraordinarily confusing and, realizing I could not go farther, I kicked the ship into a tail spin and came down to 3000 feet where I emerged from the fog and landed.
I remembered one of the old-timers came up and looked at my barograph record. His eyes fixed on a vertical line just before the record ended. "What does that mean," he asked. "Did you go to sleep along in there?"
I told him about getting out of the fog by way of a tail spin.
He certainly wasn't impressed favorably. "Suppose the fog had lasted all the way to the ground?" he asked.
I bring this experience up because of its important bearing both on the training of pilots and on flying in general; especially schedule flying. It is immensely important for a pilot to learn to fly by instruments, as distinct from flying "by horizon." The night flyer or the avigator in fog must depend upon his instruments to keep his course, equilibrium and altitude. It did not require the flight of the Friendship through long hours of fog and cloud to teach me the profound necessity of this.