Williams Bros Lockheed Electra

Amelia Earhart's aircraft 

70th Anniversary of her death on July 2 1937

by Amanda Bamford

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In February of 2007 I had a project at school that required me to select a  famous person and do a report and oral presentation in front of my class.  My classmates selected a wide variety of people from famous people from past centuries to recent hockey players.  I chose Amelia Earhart......a woman that broke many boundaries and proved women were capable of many amazing things. 

History (from the Official Amelia Earhart site)

Amelia Mary Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1897.  She died en route from Lae, New Guinea to Howland Island.  She was married on February 7, 1931, to George Putnam.  

Amelia had many achievements including the following;

  • October 22, 1922 - Broke women's altitude record when she rose to 14,000 feet
  • June 17-18, 1928 - First woman to fly across the Atlantic; 20hrs 40min (Fokker F7, Friendship)
  • August 1929 - Placed third in the First Women's Air Derby, aka the Powder Puff Derby; upgraded from her Avian to a Lockheed Vega
  • June 25, 1930 - Set women's speed record for 100 kilometers with no load, and with a load of 500 kilograms
  • July 5, 1930 - Set speed record for of 181.18mph over a 3K course
  • April 8, 1931 - Set woman's autogiro altitude record with 18,415 feet (in a Pitcairn autogiro)
  • May 20-21, 1932 - First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic; 14 hrs 56 min (it was also the 5th anniversary of Lindberg's Atlantic flight; awarded National Geographic Society's gold medal from President Herbert Hoover; Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross; wrote For The Fun of It about her journey
  • August 24-25, 1932 - First woman to fly solo nonstop coast to coast; set women's nonstop transcontinental speed record, flying 2,447.8 miles in 19hrs 5min
  • July 7-8, 1933 - Broke her previous transcontinental speed record by making the same flight in 17hrs 7min
  • January 11, 1935 - First person to solo the 2,408-mile distance across the Pacific between Honolulu and Oakland, California; also first flight where a civilian aircraft carried a two-way radio
  • April l9 - 20, 1935 - First person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City; 13hrs 23min
  • May 8, 1935 - First person to fly solo nonstop from Mexico City to Newark; 14hrs 19min
  • June 1, 1937 - Began flight around the world June 1937; first person to fly from the Red Sea to India

In 1937, as Earhart neared her 40th birthday, she was ready for a monumental, and final, challenge. She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. Despite a botched attempt in March that severely damaged her plane, a determined Earhart had the twin engine Lockheed Electra rebuilt. "I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system, and I hope this trip is it," she said. On June 1st, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan departed from Miami and began the 29,000-mile journey. By June 29, when they landed in Lae, New Guinea, all but 7,000 miles had been completed. Frequently inaccurate maps had made navigation difficult for Noonan, and their next hop--to Howland Island--was by far the most challenging. Located 2,556 miles from Lae in the mid-Pacific, Howland Island is a mile and a half long and a half mile wide. Every unessential item was removed from the plane to make room for additional fuel, which gave Earhart approximately 274 extra miles. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, their radio contact, was stationed just offshore. Three other U.S. ships, ordered to burn every light on board, were positioned along the flight route as markers. "Howland is such a small spot in the Pacific that every aid to locating it must be available," Earhart said.

At 12:30 p.m. on July 2, the pair took off. Despite favorable weather reports, they flew into overcast skies and intermittent rain showers. This made Noonan's premier method of tracking, celestial navigation, impossible. As dawn neared, Earhart called chief radioman Leo G. Bellarts and asked for
Itasca's location. She failed to report at the next scheduled time, and afterward her radio transmissions, irregular through most of the flight, were faint or interrupted with static. At 7:42 A.M. the Itasca picked up the message, "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet." The ship tried to reply, but the plane seemed not to hear. At 8:45 Earhart reported, "We are running north and south." Nothing further was heard from Earhart.

A rescue attempt commenced immediately and became the most extensive air and sea search in naval history thus far. On July 19, after spending $4 million and scouring 250,000 square miles of ocean, the United States government reluctantly called off the operation. In 1938, a lighthouse was constructed on Howland Island in her memory. Today, though many theories exist, there is no proof of her fate. There is no doubt, however, that the world will always remember Amelia Earhart for her courage, vision, and groundbreaking achievements, both in aviation and for women. In a letter to her husband, written in case a dangerous flight proved to be her last, this brave spirit was evident. "Please know I am quite aware of the hazards," she said. "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."

 

The Model

My Dad suggested we build a model of her final plane from her fateful last flight.  I think secretly my Dad was dreading his suggestion as we were under a massively tight deadline to get my project finished.  We began building the kit a week before I had to make the presentation in front of my class.  

There wasn't much of a selection of model kits of her aircraft, but my local hobby shop did have the Williams Bros kit on the shelf and even if there was another kit of this aircraft.....we didn't have time to order it in.  The Williams Bros kit is an odd scale as is common with Williams Bros......not 1/48.....not 1/72....somewhere between those 2 scales.  The model kit was basic, but surprisingly well detailed in some ways with rivets all over the fuselage.  The rivets were too prominent and because this kit was a huge rush job.....in a bare metal finish with a fair amount of filling.....we decided to sand all the surfaces smooth and forget about trying to save the rivet detail.

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The above photos showed the filler that was required.  The canopy was large and made it possible to merely glue into place......sand and fill the seam....and mask the individual windows.  The Alclad II bare metal finish was applied 2 or 3 times until all sanding marks were removed.  This required sanding and then polishing with finer and finer grades of sandpaper getting up to over 2000 grit in the end.  There were large red decals for the wing leading edges etc.  These ripped and basically self destructed in an attempt to install them.  So these areas were masked and painted red.  The kit comes with no pilots and my model has no crew.....but the windows are so small you don't really notice.

The diorama base is a Google Earth image of Howland Island where it is believed she may have crashed nearby.

The model came out surprising well considering the huge rush.....it's not an award winner.....but it does look pretty good.  I can't believe how much sanding I had to do.....I thought the sanding and polishing would never end.

I got a very high mark on my project and my teacher proudly displayed the model on her desk the whole day for my Grade 5 class to admire....but not to touch.  It was a HUGE hit with the class.

Amanda 

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Photos and text © by Amanda Bamford