Tag Archives: Lockheed Electra 10E Special

18 June 1937

Aviation, , , , , , , , , , ,

18 June 1937: Leg 20. Amelia Earhart departed Calcutta, India enroute to Rangoon, Burma. After a fuel stop at Akyab, she and Fred Noonan continued on their way, but monsoon rains forced them to return to Akyab.

“When we reached the airport at dawn nocturnal rains had soaked it. The ground was thoroughly wet, precarious for a take-off. But meteorologists advised that more rain was coming and that likely we could dodge through the intermittent deluges of the day but that if we remained the field might become waterlogged beyond use. That take-off was precarious, perhaps as risky as any we had. The plane clung for what seemed like ages to the heavy sticky soil before the wheels finally lifted, and we cleared with nothing at all to spare the fringe of trees at the airdrome’s edge. For a time we flew through gray skies crowded with clouds that lowered at us as we passed over the many mouths of the Ganges and Brahmapurra rivers…Much of the way from Calcutta to Akyab we flew very low over endless paddies…Akyab is a picturesque place from the air. Two pagodas, covered with gold leaf, stand out…The airport is a port of call for most pilots passing this way. It has two runways and a large hangar. Imperial Airways and Air France stops regularly, and K.L.M., the Dutch line, when necessary to refuel or on account of the weather. . .

“We did not intend to stay at Akyab overnight. Instead we hoped to reach Rangoon at least, and started off from Akyab after checking the weather and fueling. Once in the air the elements grew progressively hostile. The wind, dead ahead, began to whip furiously. Relentless rain pelted us. The monsoon, I find, lets down more liquid per second that I thought could come out of the skies. Everything was obliterated in the deluge, so savage that is beat off patches of paint along the leading edge of my plane’s wings. Only a flying submarine could have prospered. It was wetter even than it had been in that deluge of the mid-South Atlantic. The heavens unloosed an almost unbroken wall of water which would have drowned us had our cockpit not been secure. After trying to get through for a couple of hours we give up, forced to retreat to Akyab.

“Back-tracking, we headed out to sea, flying just off the surface of the water. We were afraid to come low over land on account of the hills. When it’s impossible to see a few hundred yards ahead through the driving moisture the prospect of suddenly encountering hilltops is not a pleasant one. By uncanny powers, Fred Noonan managed to navigate us back to the airport, without being able to see anything but the waves beneath our plane. His comment was, ‘Two hours and six minutes of going nowhere.’ For my part, I was glad that our landing gear was retractable, lest it be scraped on trees or waves. . . .”

—Amelia Earhart

Great Circle route from Calcutta, India, to Akyab, Burma, 290 nautical miles (334 statute miles/537 kilometers). (Great Circle Mapper)

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

17 June 1937

Aviation, , , , , , ,
Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special,NR16020, being serviced at Karachi, Sindh, 16 June 1937. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)
Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan with their Lockheed Electra 10E, NR16020, at Calcutta, India, 17 June 1937.

17 June 1937:  Leg 19. “From Karachi on June 17 we flew 1,390 miles to Calcutta, landing at Dum Dum airdrome shortly after four in the afternoon. Low clouds hung about during the beginning of the flight, but these disappeared as we drew near the Sind Desert. Through this great barren stretch rough ridges extended almost at right angles to our course. A southerly wind whipped the sand into the air until the ground disappeared from view in regular ‘dust bowl’ fashion. We flew along until the ridges grew into mountains and poked their dark backs like sharks through a yellow sea. these acted as a barrier to the sand, and the air cleared somewhat, so we could again see what we were flying over – dry river beds, a few roads connecting villages, and then a railroad.” —Amelia Earhart

Great Circle route from Karachi, Sindh, (now, Pakistan) to Calcutta, Dum Dum, India, 1,178 nautical miles (1,356 statute miles/2,182 kilometers). (Great Circle Mapper)

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

16 June 1937

Aviation, , , , , ,
Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, being fueled at Karachi, India (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)
Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, being fueled at Karachi, Sindh. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)

16 June 1937: After flying nearly 2,000 miles (3,220 kilometers) the previous day, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan lay over at Karachi, Sindh (now, Pakistan). The Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, is fueled and serviced in preparation for the next leg of the Around-the-World flight.

Landward from Karachi there is desert. To the north is the thirsty hilly landscape of Kohistan, the limestone spurs of the Kirthir range, breaking down southwards into sandy wastes. Southerly is a monotonous expanse riddled by creeks and mangrove swamps reaching to the coast, and further south the great Indus River, born one thousand miles north in Afghanistan, flows into the Arabian Sea. The city’s population is close to 300,000, its seaport serving a huge hinterland which embraces the whole of Sind, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, the Punjab, and beyond. Karachi airdrome is, I think, the largest that I know. It is the main intermediate point on all the traffic from Europe to India and the east. Imperial Airways flies frequent schedules all the way to Australia, and K.L.M. to the Dutch East Indies. In military aviation it is, I suppose, the most important headquarters in India, strategically located in relation to the mountain country of the Northwest Frontier, with its troublesome tribes.

In our hurried scheme of things, with the problems of our own special transport uppermost, most of or time “ashore” was spent in and around hangars. More important far than sightseeing was seeing to it that our faithful sky steed was well groomed and fed, its minute mechanical wants cared for. So the geography of our journey likely will remain most clearly memorized in terms of landing-field environments, of odors of baking metal, gasoline and perspiring ground crews; of the roar of warming motors and the clatter of metal-working tools. Such impressions competed, perforce, with the lovely sights of the new worlds we glimpsed; the delectable perfumes of flowers, spices and fragrant country side the sounds and songs and music of diverse peoples. . . . Of all those things, external to the task at hand, we clutched what we could.

—Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, undergoing maintenance inside a hangar at Karachi, Sindh. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)

© 2016, Bryan R. Swopes

15 June 1937

Aviation, , , , , , ,
Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E NR16020 being serviced at Karachi, Sindh, 16 June 1937. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)

15 June 1937: Leg 18. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan fly from Assab, Eritrea, to Karachi, Sindh (now, Pakistan), a distance of 1,880 miles (2,865 kilometers). Prohibited from flyng over Saudi Arabia, they skirt along the southern coastline.

We left Assab early on the morning of the fifteenth, well before daylight. First we cut across a deep indentation on the Eritrean coast, and thence at an angle flew over the narrow southern entrance to the Red Sea called Bab-al-Mandah to the Arabian shore. That reached, we straightened out over the desolate southeastern tip of Arabia, checking over Aden after the sun was well up, one hundred and seventy-five miles on our way. . . Flying by foreigners over Arabia is not welcome. . . Finally the authorities relented. . . They gave permission to land at Aden, and permission to fly thence to Karachi, possibly stopping first at Gwadar, 350 miles up the coast at the mouth of the Persian gulf in Baluchistan close to the Persian border. It was stipulated that we were not to fly over Arabia itself but along the edge of the sea. So from Aden, as directed, I held a course along the coast. Sometimes the blue Arabian Sea was below. Sometimes clouds piled along the ocean’s edge forced us shoreward for brief stages. Flying high, we were able to see considerable of this forbidden and forbidding country. Surely some of the wastelands of the world bordered our route. One could scarcely imagine a more desolate region than that shore…Beyond Ras el Hadd, which is on the eastern end of Arabia, facing the Gulf of Oman, we cut across to Gwada, which we checked over at five o’clock. Thence we skirted the coast southeastward to Karachi, arriving at 7.05 P.M. I think our elapsed time for the 1,920 miles from Assab to Karachi was 13 hours and 10 minutes. . . .

—Amelia Earhart

Great Circle route from Assab, Eritrea, to Aden, then onward to Karachi. 1,588 nautical miles (1,828 statute miles/2,942 kilometers). Earhart and Noonan were instructed to follow the southeastern coastline of Saudi Arabia, and not overfly the country itself. (Great Circle Mapper)

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

14 June 1937

Aviation, , , , , , ,
Amelia Earhart, Fred Noonan and a group of locals pose for photographs with the Electra at Assab, Eritrea, 14 June 1937. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)

14 June 1937: Leg 17. From Massawa, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan fly their Lockheed Electra 10E, NR16020, 246 nautical miles (283 statute miles/455 kilometers) down the coast of the Red Sea to Assab, Eritrea, to prepare for the next long flight to Karachi, India. They have the aircraft serviced and fueled then await the morning.

On Tuesday, June 14, we moved down the Red Sea from Masawa to Assab to prepare for the long flight along the Arabian coast to India. Assab was nearer our objective than Masawa, offered better take-off facilities, and as well we had a greater supply of 87 Octane gasoline spotted there. Eritrea stretches along the coast of the Red Sea for 670 miles. Our course took us about half that length. Soon we left behind the mountains that bordered the coast-line and bade farewell to everything that was green. Approaching Assab the coast became terribly barren beyond description. . . .

—Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E, NR16020, being serviced inside a hangar at Assab, Eritrea, 14 June 1937 (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)
Great Circle route from Massawa to Assab, Eritrea, 246 Nautical miles (283 statute miles/455 kilometers). (Great Circle Mapper)

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes