Amelia's Shadow (Blaze Collection) by Marie Benedict

Author:Marie Benedict [Benedict, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2024-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

JOIN THE ROUND-THE-WORLD FLIGHT

AMELIA EARHART

MAY 1937

GIMBEL’S SOUVENIR ENVELOPE ONLY $5

Istare at the stacks of envelopes emblazoned with Amelia’s likeness. There must be a thousand postmarked envelopes and stamps here, I think, and more at the hangar where her plane is stored. An ingenious way to raise money for Amelia’s historic journey, these souvenirs can be purchased by anyone for five dollars and will accompany her on the trip around the world, getting a special stamp upon its completion. Her husband, George, concocted the scheme, and while I bristle at the very thought of him, I cannot deny his marketing brilliance. After all, funding for our flights is always in short supply, especially in these dire economic times when the tide has turned against women pilots. We Ninety-Nines have learned that what benefits Amelia benefits us all. She is our ambassador to the world and our last, best hope of keeping women in the sky.

Back at home in Rye, the corner of my dining room table spared from the envelopes is covered with aerial maps. Red pencil marks decorate the charts, and they are lined up to form one continuous whole. If my finger follows the red line from start to finish—east from Oakland, California, across the United States to South America, then over the Atlantic Ocean to Africa and from there to Asia, and finally island-hopping over the Pacific Ocean—it will circumnavigate the earth. And that is precisely the plan.

Amelia and I thought we’d be taking this journey together. In fact, we promised each other that day at the hospital over five years ago. We thought it might not be terribly hard to sell the idea. What could be more record-breaking than not one but two women encircling the globe? How better to garner enormous publicity and sponsorship? Not to mention proving wrong all the naysayers about our skills as pilots.

We both have readied ourselves for this loftiest of goals over the years since. I worked for aviation companies flying Curtiss Condors and the Emergency Peace Campaign, and Amelia taught at Purdue University in addition to our flying. I’ve racked up records—a women’s distance record, a new altitude record, the first woman to pilot a commercial plane. These accolades feel so different from the ones that came before, however, because Amelia cheered me on every step of the way, just as I’ve done for her with her seven speed and distance records. No more comparison, no more envy, no more bitterness. The round-the-globe flight was meant to be the culmination of our accomplishments and a message to an inhospitable world that women pilots are capable of anything.

But my most recent flight was nearly my last. I’d crashed the reconstructed Akita again, this time in a fiery blaze that left me with a broken wrist, ankle, and nose; serious burns; and internal injuries that took months to diagnose and from which, even now, I am recovering. Still, I count myself lucky to have survived it; my copilot did not. And detractors used my accident as one more reason women shouldn’t be flying.

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