6. The first aviator to fly from Honolulu to Oakland, California
By the mid-1930s several aviators had attempted to fly the distance between Honolulu, Hawaii and Oakland, on the American mainland. In 1927 the Dole Air Race attempted the flight, originating in California. Eight airplanes eventually participated. Only two arrived in Hawaii, three were lost without a trace, and the rest crashed on takeoff. Flying from Hawaii presented similar disasters, and Earhart’s flight, alone, was considered highly dangerous among aviators. Earhart accomplished the feat on January 11, 1935, in a flight she described as “routine”. During the final hour of the flight, she was able to listen to the Metropolitan Opera broadcast from New York.
On April 19 she flew to Mexico City on a flight which originated in Los Angeles, again making the journey alone. On May 8 she left Mexico City for a solo nonstop flight to New York, arriving at Newark, New Jersey to a cheering throng which gathered to greet her. During the first half of the 1930s, Earhart established numerable records for speed and distance, and became linked in the public mind with her bright red Lockheed Vega, though she flew other types of aircraft as well. In 1935 she contemplated replacing the Vega. She decided another, longer-range and better-equipped aircraft was needed for a goal which formed in her mind, an airborne circumnavigation of the globe.
