WOMAN’S GREAT OCEAN FLIGHT

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 93, 14 January 1935, Page 9

WOMAN’S GREAT OCEAN FLIGHT

Honolulu to California MRS. PUTNAM’S SOLO TRIP ACCLAIMED By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. January 13, 7 p.m.) Oakland (Cal.), January 12. Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam hopped off from Wheeler Field, Honolulu, at' 4.45 p.m. on Friday on a solo flight to Oakland (California), where she landed at 1.34 to-day. Wheeler Field was sloshy with tropical mud, and Mrs. Putnam forced her wavering ship into the air. She reported from time to time by way of a twovoice wireless equipment. .The weather was overcast at the start, the

ceiling being 5000 feet. She carried a collapsible lifebelt, a life raft, and various other safety devices in case she came down at sea.

Mrs. Putnam’s is the first solo flight ever made from Hawaii to California, and it took 18 hours 16 minutes. “I am tired,” she said as she popped hei; head out of the cockpit to the cheers of 5000 people, and ran a comb through her hair. ■ Two hours later she went to bed.

Though watched for she took the crowd by surprise when she landed 'without circling the held. “It was Worse than any Atlantic flight,” she said. “I thought I would like to have the sight of land a couple of times. I was never lost, but veered south and sighted land about 60 miles south of San Francisco. I was not sure it was land, and throttled my motor purposely to save fuel. Ido not understand why anyone worried. The reason I did not give my position was 'because I did not shoot the stars witli thesextant, therefore I could not. I wasted much time because some of the equipment was new. A new type of compass threw me off, and the ventilator blew off, bothering me considerably, but the motor functioned perfectly. Commercial flights from Hawaii to California are entirely feasible, and inevitable. We will be flying everywhere in a short time.” She had two hours’ fuel left.

Mrs. Putnam sprang to fame in June, 1928, when, as Miss Amelia Earhart, she flew the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Wales, in tiie Fokker monoplane Friendship. She occupied the position of passenger on the flight, tiie pilot being Wilmer Stutz. Following this achievement she learned to fly, and later married Mr. G. P. Putnam, the American publisher. On May 20-21, 1932, she became tiie first woman to fly the Atlantic solo, crossing from Harbour Grace. Newfoundland, to Culmore, Ireland, where she was forced clown by a leaking petrol tank, and landed in a paddock. The distance covered,' 2026 miles, macle her flight the longest ever achieved by a woman, and her time, 13 hours 30 minutes, broke the record for the Atlantic crossing. 16 hours 12 minutes, the time taken by Alcock mid Brown on that first flight. Congress voted her the Distinguished Flying Cross for this effort. Three months later she became the first woman to fly across the United States, coast to coast, non stop, the flight being macle in the eastward direction. Known as “Lady Lindy,” she bears a physical resemblance to the colonel, and accomplished her great Atlantic flight on the fifth anniversary of his crossing. She is not only one of the greatest women pilots of America but of the world, and flies civil machines of every size and type, in contrast to the women of British aviation, who confine their attention to light aircraft. T'iie flight from Honolulu to the United States has only been accomplished once previously, the recent crossing by Sir Charles Kingsford Sutil h end Captain P. G. Taylor. Mrs. Putnam’s flight on the journey was 3 hours 17 minutes slower than flint of the Australians, but was a solo effort.