The Fun of It/Chapter 7

by Amelia Earhart

“WHAT TO DO NEXT?”

IN the autumn of 1928, I returned from the little transcontinental jaunt. At Los Angeles I had visited the National Air Races of that year and renewed acquaintance with many friends, some of whom I had not seen since flying student days.

Now I was back in New York, ready to take up whatever the next job might be. Flying the At­lantic for some reason brought many offers of vari­ous types of work. Why such an expedition should fit one to go into a totally different occupation than any one has ever taken part in before, I have never comprehended. Offers from advertising agencies and other enterprises with which I was entirely un­familiar came to me as they do to any other news figure of the moment. There were some opportu­nities to enter commercial aviation, too.

After Colonel Lindbergh’s flight, the United States seemed to awake to the possibilities of air transportation. People spoke of it as a “coming thing,” not realizing that commercial flying had been quietly developing for several years and that a network of airlines already existed. To many persons this expansion simply meant interest in aviation stocks and none in the possibility of their actually using airplanes for travel themselves.

Ray Long, guiding spirit of Cosmopolitan Mag­azine, asked me to join its staff as Aviation Editor. With “Cosmo’s” enormous circulation I welcomed the opportunity to reach a great audience with my favorite subject. And in deciding to accept Mr. Long’s offer, I knew that I was casting my lot permanently with aviation.

In addition to writing a series of articles, part of my time was spent answering the many letters which came, seeking information about various phases of flying. Just then, it seemed as if almost everyone wished to learn to fly. Certainly there was an enormous number of prospects. While I heard from many girls, just as many inquiries were made by boys, and men and women.

There were serious questions and foolish ones and those which told stories of poverty, ambition and dreams. An inventor had discovered a device which added thirty per cent to the efficiency of any plane. A real estate man wished to enter aviation because it provided a “future.” A young chap wrote, “Give me the name of a school of aviation. I’m only an office boy, but I’m a darn good one.” Teachers, mechanics, laborers,—an endless throng seemed to pass my desk.

Scrawled on yellow paper in pencil, a youngster asked, “Why is the monoplane more faster than the biplane?” And that was hard to answer in a few words for a child.

“Dear Miss Earhart,” ran one letter, “I have quarreled with my boy friend and have decided to take up aviation. Please tell me how.”

I confess I was puzzled with the sequence of events. Had the writer cheerfully thrown over her admirer in order to fly, or did she think to “end it all” in an airplane? I couldn’t guess, so told her, as I did all others who asked “how”, that the first step in learning to fly is to pass the physical examination given by the Department of Com­merce.

I have been congratulated for swimming the English Channel, and being picked up by a ship near the Azores. So I received a few inquiries meant either for Gertrude Ederle or Ruth Elder (Camp, now). I have always felt that the three of us were somewhat thoughtless to have names all beginning with E.

One of my most frequent questions was, “Do you know Colonel Lindbergh?” Many had to do with sensations. How did it feel to fly high or low or fast or at all? Then there was one surprise package which does not surprise me any more. It was wrapped thus—and still is: “I am tremendously interested in aviation. I have always longed to go up in a plane but never had the chance. It must be wonderful to sail about in the blue sky.” Surprise. “Will you please send me your autograph?”

“My mother won’t let me fly.” In one form or another that was a plaint I heard many times.

In the early months of my editorship I evolved a list of “don’ts” for prospective flyers’ parents. Here they are:—do you want to try them on yours?

Don’t issue edicts against flying until you know some­thing about it from experience.

Don’t let your children fly in any but a licensed government-inspected plane.

Don’t, if they want to learn to fly themselves, allow them to attend any but the best schools, about whose equipment and personnel you are thoroughly informed.

Don’t, if they are to have a plane of their own, be penny wise and pound foolish. If necessary, wait until you or they can afford to buy adequate motors and demonstratedly established craft, rather than run the tragic risks of false economies and short cuts.

Don’t let the boy or girl hurry his or her training.

Don’t let anyone consider flying seriously until he or she has a thorough and satisfactory medical examination.

Don’t try to tell the instructor how to do the training.

Don’t fail to back the youngster who has begun to fly, with your full confidence; don’t worry him by your worry.

The main needs is to avoid “bootleg” flying—doing it secretly because parents object. I am sure some mothers and fathers do not know how often their youngsters find a way to visit air fields. Any­one who is situated so that he can observe any fly­ing activities, knows there are always children and young men and women in the background watching what goes on. They line the surrounding fences, if any, and they invade factories and hangars and transport waiting rooms whenever they can. They want to know all about airplanes and their operation, and most of all, they want to fly. Often they will go up for a free ride with any old pilot in any old airplane if given the opportunity. Or if parents have issued an unreasonable “Thou shalt not fly,” they will save their money and very naturally buy the cheapest trip available—which may or may not be the safest.

Now there is safe flying and that which is un­safe—exactly as there is safe or unsafe driving or boating. Parents, one or the other or both, should go with their children on the first ride. To see that the safeguards of a licensed pilot and licensed plane are in force is just as definitely a responsibility as overseeing other present-day activities. For the present generation is going to get off the earth some way or other!

Putting off doesn’t solve the problems of aviation. I have had mothers say to me, “I shall let my daughter fly when she is sixteen.” (Or eigh­teen or some other age, determined I don’t know how.)

“Why not now?” I have queried, only to be given funny or interesting but seldom adequate, answers. Sometimes I knew Daughter had already been up, so the explanation did not matter anyway.

Needless to say, I regret the necessity for this lack of cooperation, just as I do when parents without investigation forbid boys and girls to pur­sue subjects in college leading to an aeronautical career. That work may be the one field in which the young person may have the greatest aptitude, and it seems a pity to try to force him or her into another.

I have been rather severe on the parents in the foregoing. Perhaps I should turn to another

Three Vice-presidents in the Early Days of the Ludington Line—Gene Vidal, A. E. and Paul F. Collins

In the Cockpit of Her Lockheed-Vega

important class of adults—and talk about teachers. They, the women and men who are shaping the women and men of tomorrow—give me a special urge to make at least one flight compulsory for all pedagogues.

In my magazine work I had letters from college students asking how to persuade deans to permit flying. In contrast to the liberality of some insti­tutions, there was absolute ban on it in others. This even went so far as forbidding travel by air between home and campus, on penalty of expulsion. Of course, in some instances, there was a great deal to say for the dean’s point of view. In one university an accident, due to carelessness, as I remember it, had occurred with the result that discipline too lax there before had been tightened unreasonably. All flying was taboo.

To my mind the sensible middle course, at col­lege as anywhere else, is to have supervised flying. A plane may be misused or mishandled and its safety characteristics abused, as may be those of any other vehicle.

My correspondence convinced me that young people today are increasingly accepting aviation as a matter of course. To the newer generation a plane isn’t much more unusual than an automobile. When they talk aviation, they are apt to know what they are talking about.

Speaking of this modern attitude, I landed for a night once in a small town in New Mexico. There was no landing field or any sort of facility for planes. I learned later that none had been there for years. Scarcely had my wheels come to rest, when a boy on a bicycle arrived. He eyed my little Avian. “Huh, you haven’t got slots, have you?” he inquired. The child had had no opportunity to become acquainted with this development except through reading, yet he not only recognized my plane as one often equipped with slots, but knew what these gadgets looked like.

Aviation chatter is routine. The modern vocab­ulary is studded with “ailerons”, “r.p.m.’s”, “slips”, “stalls”, “dead sticks”, and the like. Among other things, aviation is making its contribution to the language. Some of its uncommon phrases of to­day will be common enough tomorrow. And con­versely, certain landlubber words of now may be seldom heard in the future.