Flight for Fun

If it had been deliberately planned by her publicity-wise husband George Palmer Putnam, Amelia Earhart's solo flight from Honolulu to the U. S. last week could not have been more perfectly timed. A weekend recess in the Hauptmann trial cleared the front pages of the U. S. Press for a good spot-news story. To fill that void at that conspicuous moment was a bit of showmanship of which Publicist Putnam might well have been proud.

Amelia Earhart likes to say she flies for "the fun of it," once used the phrase for the title of a book. Last week her fun consisted of flying blind through fog while she listened to musical broadcasts and exchanged witticisms with her husband by radio. Some 18 hours after the start of the 2,400-mile flight, she landed safely at Oakland, Calif, in her red Lockheed Vega monoplane. After powdering her nose and pushing back her tousled hair, Miss Earhart confided to newshawks that she felt "swell." Back in Honolulu Husband Putnam made better copy by saying: "Myself, I'd rather have a baby.''

Amelia Earhart at 36 is easily the world's No. 1 airwoman. Kansas-born daughter of a Los Angeles attorney, independently rich since childhood, she took her first airplane ride with Frank Hawks in 1920, was the first woman to get an international pilot's license. Because she looked like Lindbergh and knew how to fly, she was chosen to accompany Louis Gordon and the late Wilmer Stultz on their transatlantic flight in 1928. Real fame came to her in 1932 when she flew the Atlantic solo on the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh's Paris flight. Since then, as an airline executive, writer, woman's stylist and lecturer, Miss Earhart, with the aid of her astute husband, has kept the glitter of her fame untarnished. A devoted couple, he calls her "A. E.," she calls him "Gyp." They have no children.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.