Amelia Earhart the 16th Woman to Obtain a Pilot's License

November is aviation history month and what better to celebrate women's issues than to read about the most famous woman aviator in history.

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Amelia Earhart

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart in 1937 remains one of the biggest mysteries of all time.

Life and times of Amelia Earhart

The Canary

Training was hard and Amelia had to fit in. She had to dress and act the part as well. She bought a leather jacket which she slept in for three days in order to look the part. She also bought a bi-plane which she called The Canary.

Amelia became the 16th woman to obtain a pilot's license on May 23, 1923. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale was the issuing body.

In the early years the Boston Globe had called her the one of the best women pilots in the nation. However, more recently historians say that she was a good pilot but was certainly not one of the best. She was still a new pilot and there were more experienced women pilots. She made some mistakes which is normal for a new pilot. She did however gain 500 hours of solo flying time by 1927 and that was a good accomplishment in itself.

Amelia was pretty much living off of her grandmother's inheritance at this period in her life. Amelia was left in a bad way once her inheritance came to an end .She had also made some bad investments She had to sell her plane, the Canary, and another plane she had owned. She did purchase purchase a car which she called the Yellow Peril.

Her sinus problems erupted again and she had another unsuccessful operation. Amelia and her mother took a cross country road trip from California all the way to Calgary, Alberta Canada. They did stop off at Boston, Mass so that Amelia could have another operation. Once well again, she went back to university but dropped out because her mother could no longer afford the tuition fees.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart