Description
Amelia Earhart plane in color! A Sam Lyons painting of Amelia Earhart. Sam decided to focus on one of Amelia’s most successful flights. That airplane is a beauty and Sam captured her famous face to perfection. On May 20, 1932, Earhart took off from Newfoundland, Canada, at 7:12 p.m. in her magnificent red Lockheed Vega. She intended to fly to Paris to copy Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight. Her flight was filled with dangers, from rapidly changing weather to a broken altimeter, to gasoline leaking into the cockpit.
When she brought her plane down after a grueling 15 hour and 18 minute solo journey across the Atlantic, she wasn’t in Paris. Instead, she landed in an elevated field at Culmore, north of Derry, Northern Ireland. After having been spotted circling the city, Earhart landed, sometime after 1:30 pm. The date was May 21st, 1932, and Earhart was 34 years old. When a farm hand asked, “Have you flown far?” Amelia famously replied, “From America.”
It is rumored that Robert Gallagher, who owned the cow pasture was surprised when she landed in his field – because she was the first woman he had ever seen wearing trousers. It may not have been the plane landing that shocked him.
Amelia Earhart Legacy
The 3,986-kilometer (2,477-mile) flight set an official U.S record for women’s distance and time.
Earhart’s average speed for this record-breaking flight was 206.42 kilometers per hour (128.27 miles per hour), and she flew most of the way at an altitude of 3,048 meters (10,000 feet). Less than a year later, Earhart would set a new transcontinental speed record, making the same flight in a record 17 hours and 7 minutes.
Earhart’s Lockheed Vega, in which she landed in Derry, is now a centerpiece attraction at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in the US.
Earhart, along with her aviation feats, was also a diesel mechanic, a social worker, a university lecturer and a writer.
There are more than 33,000 parks, statues, memorials and buildings named after Amelia Earhart in the US alone, says Nicole McElhinney, co-founder of the Amelia Earhart Legacy Association in the U.K.
The landing site in Derry was the home of a small cottage museum, the Amelia Earhart Centre, which closed due to cost-cutting in 2008.
Amelia Earhart plane in color.
The 16” x 24” prints are available in a Limited Edition size of 250 Signed & Numbered and 25 Artist Proofs.
NOTE: THE ORIGINAL OF “AMELIA’S WHEELS” IS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE. CALL 863 644 5010 FOR MORE INFO.
