VERDUGO VIEWS:Remembering Amelia Earhart’s ties here

Amelia Earhart’s attempt to fly around the world ended abruptly 70 years ago this week when she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared on July 2, 1937, in the South Pacific, somewhere between New Guinea and Howland Island.

A well-known figure in Glendale, Earhart bought her first airplane right here at Glendale Airport, and many of her flights originated from what later became Grand Central Air Terminal.

Earhart grew up in Kansas and fell in love with flying when she and a friend watched an air show. While living in Southern California, she went to several air meets, which were then in their infancy.

She took her first flying lessons in 1921, driving a gravel truck at the Glendale Airport to pay for the lessons. Six months later, she bought her first airplane from Bert Kinner, a self-taught mechanic who had designed a two-seat flying machine, the Airster, in his Glendale Airport hanger.

She flew the Airster to an unheard-of height of 14,000 feet in the days when 5,000 feet was the ultimate and most aviators flew no higher than 2,000 or 3,000 feet. Her daredevil flying brought her first women’s record and turned her into a national celebrity.

She liked the Airster so well that she ordered another model from Kinner, a barebones plywood affair known as the Crackerbox. According to Glendale author John Underwood, who wrote “Images of Aviation, Grand Central Air Terminal,” the experimental Airster’s engine ran rough and tended to put her foot to sleep, but she relished her role as a test pilot.

She was a frequent houseguest at the Kinner residence at 1201 Flower St. That same year, Earhart got a pilot’s license, the first granted to an American woman, and joined a crew flying across the Atlantic, becoming the first woman to cross by air.

In 1929, Grand Central Air Terminal opened with huge fanfare and later that same year, Earhart shoveled dirt at the groundbreaking of the Flying Club of California, near the air terminal. The clubhouse, next to the Los Angeles River, was complete with a swimming pool and was said to have secret passages to provide members with an escape route from Prohibition-era police raids.

In March 1937, with her 40th birthday nearing, Earhart began her quest to become the first female to fly around the world. Her first attempt, heading west, ended with a crash on takeoff in Hawaii.

Earhart had the plane shipped back to Lockheed in Burbank for major repairs, according to Underwood. Then she set off with Noonan on another attempt, this time flying east.

With only 7,000 miles to go, Earhart and Noonan prepared to leave New Guinea and fly to Howland Island, a tiny destination only 1 1/2 miles long and half-mile wide. To lighten their load and make the fuel last longer, Earhart left behind everything she could.

In a phone interview, Underwood said he agreed with other aviation experts and historians that Earhart was ill prepared for her flight and that she left important equipment behind.

“She was careless with details,” he said.

Earhart left a letter to her husband indicating that she was aware of the hazards.

She wrote, “Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”

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Grand Central’s historic Air Terminal building on Air Way will take center stage on New Year’s Day, 2008, in Pasadena’s annual Rose Parade.

The Glendale Rose Float Assn. float will feature the terminal and a small plane taking off. According to an article written by Sean Bersell in the spring 2007 Glendale Historical Society newsletter, the air terminal was chosen because of its historic contribution to commercial airline travel and for the way it connected Glendale to the entire world.

The terminal, at 1310 Air Way on the western edge of Glendale, was the premier commercial aviation hub in Southern California in the 1930s. It had the first paved runway west of the Rockies and offered the first air service between Los Angeles and New York City.

Bersell, a member of both the Rose Float Assn. and the historical society, said the terminal, acquired in 2000 by the Walt Disney Co. as part of the company’s expansion of its Glendale campus, is a landmark of worldwide importance to the history of aviation and one of Glendale’s most treasured buildings. Disney and the Glendale Redevelopment Agency have entered into an agreement that outlines plans for Disney to rehabilitate the terminal building and list it on the National Register of Historic Places no later than 2015, Bersell added.