Amelia Read Online Free Page B

Amelia
Book: Amelia Read Online Free
Author: Nancy Nahra
Pages:
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continued to read about aeronautics and glean whatever she could about the subject by talking to pilots. The detailed knowledge she acquired deepened her appreciation of the flying experience, leading her to think about the flow of air over the wing when a plane achieves lift, or how the engine and propeller keep a plane airborne.
    It was soon obvious, to her at least, that she had to have her own plane.
    To bolster her savings, she took odd jobs ranging from photography and truck driving to clerking at a local telephone company. By the summer of 1921, pooling her savings with funds her mother gave her, Earhart was able to buy a used biplane, a bright-yellow, two-seater Kinner Airster . It boasted a twenty-seven foot wingspan, a nineteen-foot-long body, had a range of 200 miles, and could climb as high as 13,000 feet. She called it “the Canary.” Earhart counted the plane as a present for her twenty-fourth birthday.
    Within six months, she knew how to fly and needed only to log the air hours required before taking the test for a pilot’s license. By December 15, she had qualified for the license from the National Aeronautics Association. But even before that, on October 22, she had set her first record for female pilots, flying the Canary to an unheard-of altitude of 14,000 feet.
    Trying to fit into her new world, Earhart bought a leather jacket like those worn by male pilots, sleeping in it for three nights to make it look sufficiently worn. She also kept her hair cropped short, copying Neta Snook and other women pilots. But she was far from the traditional woman in a man’s world; more than once, she tried to outdo her colleagues in swagger and accomplishments.
An Airborne Career Postponed
    Earhart was determined to make a career aloft, but the obvious starting point, exhibitions at air shows, wouldn’t support her. A woman pilot drew crowds, but few people were willing to buy rides in her plane. Making matters worse, women weren’t allowed to compete against men in flying competitions. As Earhart saw it, aviation was just one more field in which women were unfairly treated. She started thinking about how to get around or over the barriers.
    With Snook as a role model, Earhart considered giving flying lessons. But much as she liked taking risks, she was not foolhardy. She knew too well the dangers instructors faced. Training planes in those days lacked dual controls, so a student sometimes crashed a plane, killing both the instructor and the student.
    Forced to postpone her career in the air, Earhart fell back on her brief experience with photography to earn a living. Methodical as always, she read everything she could find about cameras, lenses, and film developing, quickly becoming adept enough to set up a photography business with a friend, but the business never took off.
    In 1924, after years of strain, humiliation, and instability, Earhart’s parents separated. Edwin had remained sober and was doing well financially, but both Amy and Edwin were unhappy. Amy was still not ready to abandon the marriage, but Edwin was.
    Finally, after twenty-nine years of marriage, Edwin prevailed and Amelia’s parents divorced. At the same time, Amelia reconsidered her decision to drop out of Columbia.  She reasoned that a medical career would give her independence of a kind her mother had never achieved. It would also provide enough income for Amelia to keep on flying. Still in good standing at Columbia, she returned to New York, but the course load required a commitment she knew she didn’t want to make. She dropped out once again.
    With Amy now trying to function independently for the first time in her life, Amelia’s sense of responsibility for her mother tugged at her more strongly than ever. Once she gave up her studies at Columbia, she moved back to California. Then, hearing her mother talk about moving back east, Amelia saw an obvious solution: She wanted to fly Amy back to
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