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American Morning
Recreating Amelia Earhart's Flight Across America
Aired July 24, 2001 - 10:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Time to say happy birthday to Amelia Earhart. She is an enduring historical figure. She continues to inspire women across the world. She broke records. She broke barriers for women with her historic flights. Now we are marking what would have been her 104th birthday.
A California woman is getting ready to recreate the aviation legend's 1928 solo flight across America, using the same kind of plane that Earhart flew. During the first half of the journey, Carlene Mendieta will fly from Rye, New York to Glendale, California. She is going to make several stops along the way, take a week's rest, and then she is going to fly back from Glendale to Rye, New York.
In all, she plans to log approximately 5,300 miles at an average speed of 87 miles per hour. Mendieta plans to stop in a total of 23 cities during the two-week trip. And she is joining us now from Oshkosh, Wisconsin to talk about the flight.
Carlene, good morning. Congratulations on taking up this historic flight.
CARLENE MENDIETA, RECREATING EARHART FLIGHT: Good morning, Daryn. I'm really happy to be able to talk with you today.
KAGAN: I guess the No. 1 question is: Why?
MENDIETA: Why.
KAGAN: I heard there a lot of airlines flying across the country these days.
MENDIETA: Yes, why would we take the slow route?
KAGAN: Absolutely.
MENDIETA: The basic thing that we want to do here is to focus attention on a truly remarkable women in history. Unfortunately, Amelia Earhart is remembered most for her disappearance in 1937. But she had 10 years of amazing, record-breaking things that she did in aviation.
Plus, she was a tireless campaigner for women and young girls to get out of the social mores of the time, get outside of the home and do what they wanted to do. KAGAN: And the flight you will be recreating took place about nine years before she disappeared, as I understand it.
MENDIETA: That's correct. It was in 1928.
KAGAN: And you are going to fly in a plane -- if we can pull out a little bit, maybe we can see that this is a plane just like Amelia Earhart flew in 1928. Is that right?
MENDIETA: This is the same exact model that she flew, not her exact airplane, which has been pretty much lost to history. But this is a sister airplane that was produced three weeks after Amelia Earhart's.
KAGAN: Carlene, as I understand it, you haven't been flying that long yourself.
MENDIETA: That's right. I started flying in 1998 and have just a little over 300 total flying hours.
KAGAN: So how did you learn how to fly a plane like this?
MENDIETA: I learned how to fly in antique airplane, a little J-3 Piper Cub. And all of my flying has been in antique airplanes, which is a passion of mine.
KAGAN: And tell us a little bit more how you really are trying to recreate what Earhart did. We talked about the plane. You're going to take the same path. And you're actually going to try to land at many of the same places that Amelia Earhart landed as she took this route.
MENDIETA: That's correct. We are going to duplicate her route as much as possible. We are going to start at Westchester County Airport in New York. We'll come up what's called the Southern route, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania to Dayton, to Muskogee, Oklahoma at Hat Box Field, down into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and then California.
KAGAN: I would think a lot of places where Amelia Earhart was able to land, there might be shopping malls now or big tract homes.
MENDIETA: There are actually very large international airports.
KAGAN: OK.
MENDIETA: So that's going to be a little bit different than the open pastures that she landed in.
KAGAN: And you will land that at large airports?
MENDIETA: That's correct. We're getting special clearance to be able to do that.
KAGAN: You talked about that Amelia Earhart, unfortunately, is known most for disappearing in 1938. That's what most people associate her with. Do you have any theories about what you think happened to her?
MENDIETA: You know, I don't have any personal theories. I'm still hoping that we will be able to recover her airplane and be able to put to rest the mystery of what actually happened.
KAGAN: And you start your trek just after Labor Day, I believe. Is that right?
MENDIETA: That's correct. We're planning on September 6. But we're going to be under weather constraints and certainly the constraints of an antique airplane.
KAGAN: And that much has not changed...
MENDIETA: That's right.
KAGAN: ... since Amelia Earhart tried to do it.
We're going to wish you good luck and invite you to check in with us along the way. We will follow your route.
MENDIETA: Well, I would like to encourage anyone in America who would like to follow our route to log on to www.ameliaflight.com. They can follow the day-to-day travels and actually ask me questions.
KAGAN: Very good. Well, we will do that along with the rest of America.
Carlene Mendieta, good luck. And thanks for joining us this morning.
MENDIETA: Thank you.
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