Chasing Amelia Earhart

When a team of experts travels to a remote Pacific island next year in search of clues that Amelia Earhart landed there nearly 80 years ago, Eugene archaeologist Rick Pettigrew hopes to document the expedition.

These are some of the Amelia Earhart-related artifacts
recovered from Nikumaroro Island by
The International Group for Aircraft Recovery.

Pettigrew and filmmaker Teal Greyhavens want to film an international research team as it voyages to the island of Nikumaroro to uncover a rock cairn where Earhart’s navigator is believed to be buried, scuba dive along the nearby reef to look for traces of Earhart’s airplane and search the island for bone fragments and other traces of human life.

The international research group said in a statement late last month it believes new evidence shows partial skeletal remains found in 1940 on the island could belong to Earhart. The bones were first analyzed in 1940, but a doctor concluded they belonged to a male and the bones were later lost. In 1998, the international team discovered files about the remains, including skeletal measurements, and researchers determined the bones were actually consistent with a female of Earhart’s height.

Read entire article here @ The Register-Guard

I have posted many news items on this mystery - read more here:

• Amelia Earhart Found?
• Bone Key To Earhart Mystery
• DNA Inconclusive In Search For Amelia Earhart
• Amelia Earhart - New Evidence
• More On Amelia Earhart Search
• Results of Amelia Earhart Search
• Amelia Earhart - Lost Evidence?
• Amelia Earhart - Case Closed
• Remains Found

The remains of Amelia Earhart may have been found on an island

The remains of Amelia Earhart may have been found on an island

Ric Gillespie of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) says that the fate of Amelia Earhart may be much more saddening than first thought. He believes she died as a castaway on a different Pacific island.

Four months into her trip around the world, Earhart began to run low on fuel while trying to find Howland Island. Both the engineer onboard and Amelia herself were last seen on radar on June 2.

It is unknown what actually happened to the pair, but Gillespie says that they did not die in a watery crash. He says that both Earhart and Noonan landed on an island called Nikumaroro, which is around 400 Miles southeast of Howland Island.

Continue reading article courtesy of The Vintage News

The Great Female Pilot – Pancho Barnes

From Top Secret Writers:

Barnstormer, world speed record holder, crash survivor, stunt pilot, founder of a pilot union, and owner of a fly-in ranch depicted in The Right Stuff and frequented by friends like Chuck Yeager, Buzz Aldrin, and Jimmy Doolittle.

Pancho Barnes was an unconventional character that had a big effect on aviation and aviators during some of the most dynamic years in aviation history.

Though living through pain, prejudice, and the Great Depression, she maintained a love of life.

Born Florence Leontine Lowe, Panch was renowned as a unique, dynamic, humorous, talented, and generous individual.

Pancho was a very respected pilot in the Golden Age of Flight: an era that began with Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 flight across the Atlantic Ocean and ended twenty years later in Long Beach Harbor with Howard Hughes’ giant flying boat, the “Spruce Goose,” pulling itself out of the water.

Blessing Liman - Nigeria's First Female Fighter Pilot

From This Day Live:

Blessing Liman, a 25-year-old lady from Kaduna State, has become Nigeria’s first female military pilot.

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) at the weekend commissioned her along with 126 others who completed the Direct Short Service Course 2010/11 Cadets of 325 Ground Training Group at the NAF Base, Kaduna.  Liman said she was very excited and proud to make history.

She said: “It is very uplifting and I feel very proud of myself though it has been very challenging. Coming from the civil war and the civil mentality, the Air Force has done a great job because it has changed our orientation.

“I believe that all females have equal opportunity to dignify their rights in whatever adventure they choose they can do.”

Blessing, who wants to encourage other females, called on other womenfolk to see her feat as a challenge for them to explore their capabilities “for nation-building”.

DNA Inconclusive In Search For Amelia Earhart

From CNN:

The fate of famed aviator Amelia Earhart remains a mystery after DNA tests on one of three bone fragments discovered on a Pacific island proved inconclusive.

Cecil M. Lewis Jr. of the University of Oklahoma's Molecular Anthropology Laboratories reported "the question of whether the bone is human must remain unanswered" until new technologies may make a determination possible.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) asked Lewis to test the bones found in 2010 on Nikumaroro, formerly Gardner Island. The bone tested by Lewis may be from Earhart's finger, the group says.

Earhart disappeared near the island in 1937 while flying around the world with navigator Fred Noonan. She was later declared dead.

"You learn patience," TIGHAR executive director Ric Gillespie said Wednesday night about the findings. "The door is still open for it to be a human finger bone."

According to Gillespie, a British officer found 13 bones, including a skull, of a likely castaway on the island in 1940 and sent them to Fiji. The officer also reported finding the remains of a woman's shoe and a man's shoe.

Bone Key To Earhart Mystery

From AOL News:

See also Discovery News article - Amelia Earhart's Finger Bone Recovered?

A tiny piece of bone could unlock the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart, the pilot who vanished somewhere over the Pacific Ocean 73 years ago.

The fragment, believed to be from a human finger, was found on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the southwest Pacific, Discovery News reported.

Researchers investigating Earhart's disappearance found the fragment of bone in June 2009 along with pieces of a pocketknife, prewar American bottles and makeup from a woman's compact.

At first they thought the bone was from a turtle. Further investigation showed it could very well be human.

"After 22 years of rigorous research and 10 grueling expeditions, we can say that all of the evidence we have found on Nikumaroro is consistent with the hypothesis that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, landed and eventually died there as castaways," Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, told Discovery.

Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo and became an icon of the active woman. In 1937, she embarked on an attempt to fly around the globe.

See my post from August 2009 - Amelia Earhart - Found??

Major General Jeanne Holm

From the Wall Street Jounral:

As a rare woman in Air Force blue, Jeanne Holm paved the way to make aerial warfare less of a boys' club.

Gen. Holm, who died Feb. 15 at age 88, rose from an Army truck driver during World War II to the Air Force's first female general.

After a pioneering career in the nation's youngest service, then-Col. Holm in 1965 was named the Air Force's director of women, and she used the office as a platform to lobby for women's inclusion in Air Force jobs that had been off-limits.

Maidenhead Museum: Spitfire Women

From Culture 24:

Maidenhead Heritage Centre & Museum is uncovering the fascinating story of the many female pilots who ferried aircraft to the RAF in World War Two with a new Research Centre & Exhibition dedicated to the work of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA).

Due to open this summer the Museum is looking for information on pilots and others who worked for the ATA at airfields across the UK during World War II.

ATA pilots, many of whom were women, delivered much needed aircraft from factories to front line squadrons. They were based at 13 Ferry Pools at airfields around the country, including the ATA’s headquarters at White Waltham outside Maidenhead.

“1200 male and female pilots of 28 different nationalities delivered over 309,000 aircraft, an amazing achievement, especially as most ATA pilots had only flown light aircraft before the war,” explained Richard Poad, aviation historian and Chairman of Maidenhead Heritage Centre.

More WASPS Honoured

From the Seattle Times:

They were mavericks of their day, taking to the skies when the nation was at war and most women were at home caring for families. At a ceremony this spring, 11 Washington women will join the 200-some surviving Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) in receiving Congressional Gold Medals for service during World War II.

Sixteen more medals will be given to local WASPs posthumously.

Congressional Gold Medals have been awarded nearly 150 times since the nation was born in 1776. The women join polio-vaccine inventor Dr. Jonas Salk and poet Robert Frost, as well as two other World War II groups honored since 2000: the Navajo Marine Corps Radio Operators, known as the "Code Talkers," who developed a code using their Native language to communicate military messages, and the Tuskegee Airmen.

Congress and President Obama approved the honor for the WASPs last year.

India's "Night Witches"

From Thaindian News:

As India hotly debates whether to induct women fighter pilots, a look around the world reveals they have been so fearsome in some places that they came to be branded “nigh witches”. Pakistan and China already have them, but they have never faced direct combat.

“If women are trained in the same manner, then you cannot discriminate against them for just being women. China has inducted them, the US Air Force has women fighter pilots; then how can one say that India cannot have women fighter pilots?” Ranjana Kumari, chairperson of the Centre for Social Research, told IANS.

This month, Defence Minister A.K. Antony told parliament, “It has to be a conscious decision. Earlier we did not have women officers, but now we have women officers and we are thinking of expanding their roles.”

At present, the IAF has 748 women officers in all arms, barring the fighter stream.

This year Pakistan commissioned seven women fighter pilots, breaking into another male bastion. The women fly F-7s, a Chinese version of the Russian MiG-21.

China’s first batch of 16 women fighter pilots debuted during its National Day parade this year. They too are yet to see combat.

The erstwhile Soviet Union, which formed three regiments of women combat pilots who flew night missions and were so successful that the Germans feared them, calling them “Nachthexen” or night witches. Present-day Russia, however, has no woman fighter pilots.

The US Air Force allowed women to fly jets way back in 1993. According to information in the open domain, of the more than 14,000 pilots in the US Air Force, around 3,700 are fighter pilots. And of them, 70 are women. Many of the women fighter pilots of the US Air Force have flown bombing missions over Afghanistan after 2001.

The IAF has a good number of women military aviators flying helicopters and transport aircraft. But the issue of inducting women fighter pilots remains unresolved.

UK: Female Red Arrow

From BBC News:

Twenty years since women were first allowed to become pilots in the RAF, the Red Arrows have unveiled their first female aviator.

By their own admission, the inclusion of 31-year-old Flt Lt Kirsty Moore is an "historic" occasion for the renowned Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team.

Flt Lt Moore will fly as "Red 3" for three seasons from next May.

It's the culmination of an ambition that started as a school girl watching her father as an RAF navigator.

Flt Lt Moore joined the RAF in 1998, becoming a Hawk instructor and then Tornado pilot. She is not the first woman to apply for the Red Arrows, but she was the first to be shortlisted and then selected.

Women flew in the Air Transport Auxillery in the Second World War with Jean Bird later being awarded her RAF wings.

But it was not until 1989 that women could qualify as RAF pilots - Flt Lt Julie Gibson led the way followed in 1993 by Flt Lt Jo Salter becoming the first RAF fast-jet pilot.

UAE: Women Cadet Get Their Wings

From Al Bawaba:
Etihad Airways’ first female Emirati cadet pilots - Salma Al-Baloushi and Aisha Al-Mansouri - have successfully graduated from flight training alongside nine male colleagues and gained their airline transport pilot licence (ATPL).

Etihad Airways’ first female Emirati cadet pilots - Salma Al-Baloushi and Aisha Al-Mansouri - have successfully graduated from flight training alongside nine male colleagues and gained their airline transport pilot licence (ATPL).

The cadet pilots, Etihad’s second group to graduate, were conferred with their flying wings in a ceremony at the airline’s training academy which was attended by family and friends as well as senior management from Etihad Airways and the Horizon International Flight Academy.

Blogs of Interest

A couple of noteworthy blogs that I have recently come across and thought you might enjoy:

History of American Women
Dedicated to the many women who contributed to the growing history of America.

Wings & Wasp
Dedicated to the many women aviators of World War II.

Amelia Earhart - Found???

From Christina Caron @ ABC News:

It has been 72 years since famed aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared while attempting to fly around the world. But the mystery remains unsolved: Nobody knows exactly what happened to Earhart or her plane.

Now researchers at the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or Tighar, say they are on the verge of recovering DNA evidence that would demonstrate Earhart had been stranded on Nikumaroro Island (formerly known as Gardner Island) before finally perishing there.

During May and June of next year, Tighar will launch a new $500,000 expedition, continuing the archaeological work it has been doing on the island since 2001.

"We think we will be able to come back with DNA," said Tighar's Executive Director Ric Gillespie, who is working with two DNA labs in Ontario, Canada, Genesis Genomics and Molecular World. "We were out there in 2007 under the impression that in order to extract DNA we would need to find a piece of a human, and we didn't find anything like that. But we did find what's best described as personal effects of the castaway that died there."