Perhaps the world’s most famous female pilot, Amelia Earhart was not a naturally gifted one. She made many mistakes, but was diligent in her efforts to improve. Please know I am quite aware of the hazards, she once wrote to her husband. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.

Amelia mary earhart Was born in Atchinson, Kansas, in the US on July 24, 1897. During her troubled childhood—her father was an alcoholic and her parents eventually divorced—she learned to be a survivor. She loved to climb trees, hunt rats with a rifle and belly-slam a sled downhill. At age seven, with the help of her uncle, she fashioned a roller-coaster ramp on the roof of the family shed and launched herself in her sled. She emerged from the flight bruised and battered, but also exhilarated. In 1918, she contracted flu which led to pneumonia and chronic sinusitis. The sinusitis required many operations over the years and troubled her throughout her life. In December 1920, she went up on her first flight, an experience that forever changed her. Within a week she signed up for flying lessons and six months later, bought her own second-hand biplane.

In October 1922, Amelia set the first of many records: a women’s altitude mark of 14,000 ft. In 1928, she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. In fact she was little more than a passenger with the onerous duty of maintaining the flight log—the two male pilots did the flying. However, on May 20-21, 1932, exactly five years after Charles Lindbergh’s epic feat, she flew solo across the Atlantic, the first woman to do so. She was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for this feat, the first woman to be so honoured. As her fame grew, Lady Lindy became friendly with many people in high office, including Eleanor Roosevelt. Declaring that men and women were equal in jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower, on January 11, 1935, she became the first pilot—male or female—to fly solo across the Pacific from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California.

Amelia was a lifelong advocate of women’s rights. She was a founder member of The Ninety-Nines, a support group for women aviators, and became its first president in 1930. Though she was, perhaps, the world’s most famous female pilot, she was not a naturally gifted one. She made many mistakes, but was diligent in her efforts to improve. Please know I am quite aware of the hazards, she once wrote to her husband. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.