6.Developing Air Lines
The race had whetted Amelia’s competitive appetite, although the event, generally, had annoyed her because of the unnecessary excitement and trouble which the women fliers had caused. She would have preferred a straight and simple race, one in which she could have competed, without fanfare, with men. This last possibility was out of the question for the time being; she turned, therefore, to establishing some speed records of her own. The Vega had yet to prove its mettle at full throttle.
In November of that same year AE set the new speed record for women over a one-mile distance; and a few months later she established the international speed record for women over a 100-kilometer course.
In her fever of activity, Amelia now turned from competitive flying and magazine writing to developing air lines. With a characteristic burst of initial energy, she plunged into first onethen another aspect of air-line operation, first with one organization then with another. But, as with nursing and medicine, and as at Columbia when she was too impatient to follow a prescribed course of study, she soon tired of the new activities. There was no occupation on the ground that could hold her interest for long.
Her destiny, she knew, lay in the air; but she would have to continue getting more and more flying time before she could finally break the ties with mundane pursuits. Working for an air line at least offered chances to fly, even if it meant paying for the privilege by trying to sell aviation to stubborn women.
Mothers and wives, Amelia was to complain later, were the great stumbling blocks in her attempt to convince the American public that flying was safe. It seemed that sons and daughters and husbands were willing to take to the air, but a matriarchal opposition barred the way. As she had used her arguments writing forCosmopolitan, so now AE used them again in speaking tours for the cause of aviation in general, and for Transcontinental Air Transport, the air line she represented, in particular.
Amelia flew from point to point on the Ludington Line of TAT and delivered her talks to women’s groups. Often her mother would go along with her. AE would point to her mother seated at the speaker’s table and indicate her proof: if mother and daughter could fly together, the air was as safe for any woman and her family as the highway and the railroad. Gradually women began to be sold.
Working on TAT with Amelia were two young men, Paul Collins and Gene Vidal. They had many progressive ideas about the running of an air line and were anxious to put them into operation in their own business. They took AE into the new organization with them as a vice-president.
As she had before, Amelia worked primarily with the women passengers, finding them, quieting them, convincing them. Again she made many lecture tours. She always began her speeches byasking for a show of hands from those who had flown. The career women invariably won out over their less daring sisters from a college group or a women’s club.
Difficulties of all kinds were encountered in the running of the line. Irate customers, usually women, complained to Amelia about cabin temperatures that were either too high or too low. Would the plane please stop bumping? Did they have to fly into air pockets? One passenger insisted that she would not pay extra for her thirteen pieces of luggage; after all, the trains did not set any silly limits at thirty pounds. A woman bought a ticket for herself and what she said was a small lap dog: Amelia insisted that the woman sit in the same seat with the lap dog, which, it turned out, was the size of a small pony. At another time the same seat was sold to two different people. Frequently passengers were grounded by the weather and had to be turned over to the railroads.
Amelia soon fidgeted with an unrest to try something else. The right to fly at no cost on the air line was too expensive for her energies when she had to pay for the privilege with so many irritations on the ground. If she could flyandearn money at the same time, she could then build up her hours in the air and yet realize enough funds, finally, to back her contemplated solo across the Atlantic. The dual opportunity came in the form of the newest experiment in aviation, the autogiro.
For AE, the forerunner of the helicopter was a challenge to her flying skill. In 1931, to the surprise of everyone, she learned how to fly one in just a few hours, and a couple of days later she took it to 18,415 feet and set a new altitude record for autogiros. Because of the publicity she had gained from the flight, Amelia was approached by the Beech-Nut Packing Company to fly an autogiro across the country as a promotion stunt for the chewing gum. She readily agreed: the venture, although commercial, was the answer to her desire for flying time and money.
Beginning in May of 1931, and for the next two months, Ameliaflew back and forth from New York to California, advertising the name of Beech-Nut painted on the side of her plane.
The cross-country flight, although unusual in some respects, was even more unusual in another. Three months earlier AE had quietly slipped away with GP, who had divorced his wife, and married him in Connecticut. And now by leaving on a “business trip,” Amelia had put the marital shoe on the other foot, that of the male, and had left her mate waiting for her at home.
For a long time AE had felt that marriage was a cage; but GP, who had begun his campaign early after theFriendshipflight, had finally overcome her continued reluctance. He convinced her that the cage could be attractive if the door to it were left unlocked and open.
The marriage was marked by an interesting public reversal of roles. Not unlike an anxious woman who has been left behind, George waited for Amelia to finish her new adventure in the air. He worried about her. She had already sustained one accident in Texas, and had complained about the accounts of it in the press as much as any righteously indignant male.
“A fatal accident to a woman pilot,” she wrote, “is not a greater disaster than one to a man of equal worth. Feminine fliers have never subscribed to the super-sentimental valuation placed upon their necks. I am sure they feel they can endure their share of misfortune, whatever it be, as quietly as men.”
When Amelia was heading back East on her trip, GP went to Detroit to meet her. She had been scheduled to appear at the State Fair Grounds, where she was going to give a demonstration flight with the autogiro. Waiting for her, George stood on the outside of a circle which had been marked off for AE to land in. Close by stands had been erected, and from them long support wires had been stretched and staked into the ground. GP talked with a group of people who had gathered.
“Here she comes!” someone shouted, pointing over GP’s shoulder.
George Putnam turned his head and saw the giro, whirling and clattering above the treetops. Assured that everything was as it should be, he resumed his conversation.
Then he heard a loud crash. GP spun around. The giro lay broken in a cloud of smoke, the rotor blades cracked and splintered, the landing gear smashed.
He ran toward the wreck. Ignoring the ground beneath him, he struck one of the support wires. He flew up, over, and down, and hit the ground flat on his back.
Amelia emerged from the accident without injury. When she saw her husband sprawled on the ground, and apparently hurt, she ran to him. She saw that he was winded but otherwise, it seemed, in good condition.
“So flyingisthe safest, after all!” she teased him. “If you had been with me, you wouldn’t have been hurt.”
GP turned to get up. His face creased in pain.
He had cracked three of his ribs.