Passage I

Taking Wing

The view must have been a thrill each time: everything below so tiny and perfect, an eagle's-eye view of the landscape. From her wooden seat in the cramped cockpit. Facing the fuel gauges and compass that helped her plot her course, Amelia Earhart was on top of the world. In her goggles and leather flight cap, she must have grinned every time she banked the wings and headed into a cloud, on her way toward new records and destinations.

[1] Born in Kansas in 1897, Earhart broke what were then the rules for girls right from the start. [2] She was considered a tomboy and belly flopped downhill on sleds, climbed trees, and hunted. [3] Before long she was taking lessons and then her first plane had been bought. [4] By 1928 she had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane. [5] She went on to set record after record, showing what a person from Kansas could do.[6] She became fascinated with flying as a young woman whom she took her first flight—with a stunt pilot. (6)

In 1937 she sat about from Miami, Florida, with her copilot, hoping to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by airplane. They had reached New Guinea and completed three-quarters of their flight because the outside world lost contact with them on July 2, 1937, as they were en route to their next island destination. [A] In contrast, the U.S. Navy searched the Pacific for the plane and its occupants for weeks before giving up. [B] Rumor's have abounded ever since: perhaps Earhart was on a spy mission for President Roosevelt, or perhaps she crashed and lived for years undiscovered on an island. (11) It is most commonly assumed that she ran out of fuel and was lost at sea. [C] Amelia Earhart passed into history, and from there into myth. The legend of her achievements and of her mysterious disappearance still captivates us. [D] Her much-photographed face, with its chiseled cheekbones and daring eyes, remains a familiar image. We may never know what happened to her, but in our imaginations she continues to be very cool high above the earth. (15)