1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,200 Host: Amelia Rose Earhart is a woman who believes that anything is possible with a solid flight plan. 2 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:12,800 Now you might first be taken back by Amelia Earhart, like THE Amelia Earhart. 3 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:19,600 No, that Amelia Earhart died several years ago, but this is the new the Amelia Rose Earhart. 4 00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:27,200 And just like her namesake, Amelia took a 28,000 mile flight around the world in a single engine aircraft. 5 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:34,000 Less than 30 women have ever been the pilot in command on a flight around the world. 6 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:41,200 And she's an amazing woman, she is a speaker and an online, you know, real popular online influencer. 7 00:00:41,200 --> 00:00:43,600 So Amelia, thanks for being here. 8 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:46,800 Amelia Rose Earhart: Thanks for having me on. 9 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:48,400 Glad to be here. 10 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:52,800 Host: So let's get the basic stuff out of the way. 11 00:00:52,800 --> 00:00:56,000 So you, you have a very famous name. 12 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:00,000 And I'm sure there's been ups and downs to that. 13 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:09,200 Can you just tell us the story about how you ended up with the name and how it's kind of impacted your life? 14 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:10,800 Amelia Rose Earhart: Sure. 15 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:28,400 Well, let me start by saying that every single day of my life, I have to explain my name multiple times because, you know, when you have a name that is your own unique name, you know, you get to tell your own story. 16 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:37,200 Well, I've spent the last 33 years basically telling someone else's story before my own and an interesting place to be because. 17 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:47,200 My family shared the same last name as the first Amelia, and my mom realized, really, and she talked my dad into it very slowly. 18 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:50,800 She said, we've got a really unique opportunity here. 19 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:53,200 Let's name our daughter Amelia Earhart. 20 00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:57,200 And maybe she'll be, you know, empowered by this name. 21 00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:00,800 Maybe she'll be inspired by the first Amelia story. 22 00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:04,000 And my dad said, that's a terrible idea. 23 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:12,400 She's going to feel like she has to fly, like she has to be a pilot, maybe fly around the world. 24 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:14,000 And it turns out. 25 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:23,200 But I did feel all those things, and there was a lot of, a lot of obligation around having a name that big. 26 00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:27,600 So it took me a long time to grow into it. 27 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:30,400 My family is not related to Amelia. 28 00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:41,200 We thought for the first 31 years of my life that we were, but I, after a couple of genealogical searches, found out that I'm actually not. 29 00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:49,200 So then I had to rebuild and decide, okay, what am I going to make of this really famous name? 30 00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:51,600 Host: You flew around the world. 31 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:57,200 Other than the namesake, what was the inspiration behind the flying around the world? 32 00:02:57,200 --> 00:02:59,600 Or was that pretty much it? 33 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:04,400 Amelia Rose Earhart: Well, I want to be totally honest with you. 34 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:06,800 It, you know, I wasn't born... 35 00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:09,200 Knowing that I wanted to fly. 36 00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:13,600 I wasn't a little kid that was constantly seeking out airplanes. 37 00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:20,800 It was definitely a lot of outside influence with the adults around me, especially as an only child. 38 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:27,600 I spent a lot of time around grown up saying, well, Oh, your name is Amelia Earhart. 39 00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:30,400 You should learn how to fly someday. 40 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:33,200 And there was, you should do this. 41 00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:34,800 You should do that. 42 00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:48,800 And so many shows and it was It was frustrating as a kid because I had all sorts of other goals that I wanted to get into and everyone just wanted to talk about flying. 43 00:03:48,800 --> 00:04:00,800 And so I reached the age of 21 and my family didn't have any extra cash to give me, you know, help with school or, of course, not flight lessons. 44 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:04,400 And so when I went to them and said. 45 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:09,200 Look, I've got to figure out if flying could be for me. 46 00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:17,200 I said, let me take a few lessons and see if this is something I could fall in love with. 47 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:24,000 And they said, well, we support you, but there's no way we can help you out financially. 48 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,200 So I said, I've got to do this. 49 00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:42,800 So I saved up enough money and I was waiting tables and doing a couple of jobs at a time while I was going to see you and I finally went out and took that very first flight lesson. 50 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:45,600 And I don't know what hit me. 51 00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:48,400 I don't know if it was that. 52 00:04:48,400 --> 00:05:03,200 Push of that independence that I've got to do this on my own and figure out what this name is going to mean to me for the rest of my life, but something happened in that airplane. 53 00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:10,400 It was a single engine has no 172 in Boulder, Colorado, and I fell in love with flight. 54 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:18,400 The moment those wheels lifted out the runway and I tell you, my feet have not touched the ground since. 55 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:22,000 And so it truly has become my life passion. 56 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:36,400 And I just, you know, I'm so grateful for that because if I would have hated it or felt sick or uncomfortable in the airplane, imagine how difficult it would be to still have this name. 57 00:05:36,400 --> 00:05:37,600 Host: Oh yeah. 58 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:43,200 How do you go from that to I'm going to fly around the world? 59 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:46,000 That seems like a pretty big leap. 60 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:52,800 Amelia Rose Earhart: It is a pretty big leap, but it was about a 10 year leap. 61 00:05:52,800 --> 00:06:00,400 So the first, uh, first lesson eventually led to a lot of saving to complete my private pilot's license. 62 00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:08,800 And that was a big feat for me because then I was Amelia Earhart, who can also call herself a pilot. 63 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:13,600 And that almost intensified the obligation that I was feeling from others. 64 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:16,000 But then granted, I was probably. 65 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:23,600 Uh, you know, letting that happen a lot on my own, but people would say, Oh, well, that's great. 66 00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:25,200 You're a pilot now. 67 00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:32,800 Do you ever think you could fly around the world and hear everyone was saying, well, you're a pilot. 68 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:35,600 Now you should fly around the globe. 69 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:39,600 And so I kept hearing that and kept hearing that. 70 00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:46,000 And I finally got so used to hearing it that it almost became my own language. 71 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,000 And it, in some ways. 72 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:50,000 Almost in a reverse effect. 73 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:59,200 It almost frustrated me at first, and then it started to feel so good because I had this cheering squad of complete strangers. 74 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:12,000 I was working in television when I started planning the flight, and it happened in 2012 when I really made that switch and said, what if I did fly around the world? 75 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:13,600 What would happen next? 76 00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:23,600 And in my private, you know, home life, I would start to jot down, okay, if I were to do this, where would I go? 77 00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:28,800 And I would just, you know, have little scraps of paper laying around. 78 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:33,600 This would be my route or this is why it would matter. 79 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:36,400 This is maybe somebody who could help. 80 00:07:36,400 --> 00:08:03,200 And before I knew it, I had bits and pieces of this flight plan all over my life and no one New about it and when I started to piece those details of that flight plan together and I started to say it out loud to people who were in my friend circle and, you know, amongst my family, no one said it was a bad idea. 81 00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:06,800 Every single person said, you've already started planning this. 82 00:08:06,800 --> 00:08:09,200 Now you have to do it. 83 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:12,400 And it became this fun challenge for me. 84 00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:20,400 And I saw the connection to Amelia's legacy of all the passion and the adventure that she had in her. 85 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:26,000 I also had that in me, but it really wasn't being brought out yet. 86 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:32,000 And I thought a really big, beautiful expression of that passion for adventure would be. 87 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:39,600 To prove to myself to prove to everyone else who had been saying, this is a really cool story. 88 00:08:39,600 --> 00:08:43,200 This would get so many people excited about aviation. 89 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:55,200 This would prove that there are still adventures to be had and that a woman could take the controls of an aircraft and fly all the way around the world. 90 00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:56,800 And in some way. 91 00:08:56,800 --> 00:09:18,800 First, symbolically complete the flight that Amelia set out to do in 1937 to do it 77 years later, and eventually that happened, and I'm proud to say after 2 years of planning, and I would say the equivalent of almost 2 million dollars raised to make this whole flight happen, it came together beautifully. 92 00:09:18,800 --> 00:09:21,200 Host: Tell me about the $2,000,000. 93 00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:26,000 Talk to me about raising $2,000,000 to pull off this crazy deal. 94 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:34,000 Amelia Rose Earhart: Well, I knew that no one would support this flight if it was just the flight itself. 95 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:37,200 You know, anyone can fly around the world. 96 00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:45,200 I knew that there had to be a really compelling story as to why I would want to do this. 97 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:53,600 So before I even started raising money or trying to get sponsors on board, I decided to write out the story. 98 00:09:53,600 --> 00:10:00,000 Why the heck would anyone care that a new Amelia airport was flying around the world? 99 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:14,800 Well, in aviation, whenever you hear a story about airplanes in the news, it's either a crash or a disappearance or a pilot shortage, or no one's learning to fly or aircraft are expensive or they're breaking. 100 00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:23,600 I wanted to tell a good news aviation story that has not been told since Amelia Earhart's era back in the 1930s. 101 00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:41,200 And I thought, let's reinvigorate that spirit of adventure in a really public story using social media, using my GoPro cameras, using my phone, using social media to connect with people while flying around the globe in a completely modern day and connected way. 102 00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:48,000 So after crafting that story and saying, gosh, I'm getting more excited after I map it out. 103 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:53,200 Other people will also, you know, I, heck, I didn't have an airplane. 104 00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:56,400 I didn't have any money in the bank. 105 00:10:56,400 --> 00:11:06,000 I said, I'm going to go tell the people who believe in me the most about this story and see if they have connection. 106 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:12,000 So it was all about telling my story to anyone who would listen to it. 107 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:14,000 And I started doing that. 108 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:34,000 And 1 connection would say, oh, well, I know so and so who works here, or they understand the way that building an extra fuel tank might work because we had to build an extra tank to put on the plane because we couldn't cross the Pacific Ocean without it. 109 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:48,000 So there was a lot of work to be done, but that 2M dollars comes in the form of fuel, which in some countries, like Papua, New Guinea was up to 14 dollars a gallon. 110 00:11:48,000 --> 00:12:16,400 And the aircraft held 600 gallons of fuel, um, getting visas for 14 different countries, uh, security, getting the clearances to overfly countries through Africa, which in some cases, just across 1 country would be about 3500 dollars just to pass through their airspace, and you have to also keep in mind the amount of money that we had to have basically as a backup plan in case anything went wrong. 111 00:12:16,400 --> 00:12:20,000 The insurance policies around this trip were so insane. 112 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:29,200 No one had ever taken a Pilatus PC 12, which is the plane that I flew, and drilled a hole through the side. 113 00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:34,800 No one had ever done that to put an additional fuel tank on board. 114 00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:38,400 So there were a lot of people to convince. 115 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:40,400 This is a great story. 116 00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:48,400 The more momentum it built, and the more people came on board, the more, you know, new people would listen. 117 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:58,400 In the end, we brought together 21 partners, and there were well over 100 people who had at least something to do with the flight. 118 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:03,600 And when I look back, you know, it really was a team effort. 119 00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:12,400 And the story of the adventure was what kept everybody else on the outside engaged as I flew that 28,000 mile stretch. 120 00:13:12,400 --> 00:13:14,400 Host: That is so wild. 121 00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:16,400 So where do you stop? 122 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:24,800 Like how, how often do you, how many times do you stop and refuel and where and that kind of thing? 123 00:13:24,800 --> 00:13:32,000 Amelia Rose Earhart: So I would fly between 7 and 10 hours a day and I traveled eastbound. 124 00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:49,200 So I left the United States and went down through Trinidad and Brazil and then straight across Africa, right along the equator, um, through the Seychelles, Maldives, Singapore, and then down through Australia and across the South Pacific all the way to Hawaii. 125 00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:52,000 And when you look at that stretch. 126 00:13:52,000 --> 00:14:04,000 I mean, you've really got to plan ahead because alternate routes or alternate landing locations, if you're flying across an ocean with no islands and no runways, there are none. 127 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:14,000 So you've got to have a backup for everything and the only thing that I did not have a backup for is that one engine. 128 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:20,000 The propeller on the front of that plane was being driven by one single engine. 129 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:26,400 And if I had an engine failure, I was going to glide down to the ocean. 130 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:34,800 Hopefully set the plane down gently enough and then try to survive in a life raft until I could get rescued. 131 00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:45,200 And I had so much trust in that one engine on the aircraft and it was almost having that one variable that could have gone wrong. 132 00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:51,600 That made the trip, I think, really compelling to people who are watching from the outside. 133 00:14:51,600 --> 00:15:02,000 But 7 to 10 hours per day, I was traveling eastbound, so I would cross three or four time zones just in one day of flight. 134 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:05,200 So I would take off at 4 a. 135 00:15:05,200 --> 00:15:05,600 m. 136 00:15:05,600 --> 00:15:09,600 and some days not land until 8 or 9 p. 137 00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:10,000 m. 138 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:18,400 I would sleep and hop back in the plane the very next day and take off and continue the next leg. 139 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:20,800 So this wasn't a pleasure cruise. 140 00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:25,600 It was done in 18 days, continually moving all around the globe. 141 00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:30,000 Host: You did some preparation, like some simulation for that, though. 142 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:32,000 Amelia Rose Earhart: I did. 143 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:47,600 I've been pushed out of the helicopter into the ocean, and I know how to open up the life raft, get inside of it, use the survival gear, you know, you can actually pay to go and do this. 144 00:15:47,600 --> 00:16:00,000 They say, you know, when you've experienced something similar at least one time before, it really does increase your chance of survival because you don't go into panic mode as quickly. 145 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:09,600 It's thrown out close to you, basically, um, and you pull a certain tab, you get it out of its, its, Really light case. 146 00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:17,200 You've got to put your feet up on a tank that is the tank that inflates the life raft. 147 00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:22,800 You pull that as hard as you can and push away with your feet. 148 00:16:22,800 --> 00:16:31,200 Meanwhile, you're in a survival suit, which is a big rubber suit that zips all the way up to your head. 149 00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:44,400 The bottoms of your feet, all the air pockets that were in that suit, immediately shoot your feet up to the surface of the ocean so you can barely keep your feet down. 150 00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:49,200 It's just a big, sloppy mess trying to get into that raft. 151 00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:58,400 And, of course, when I pulled mine open, it opened top down and it created a suction to the surface of the ocean. 152 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:10,400 And this is an eight man life raft, so there's a lot of just effort and exhaustion that people go through when they, you know, end up in these situations. 153 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:24,000 And then once you get in, you've got a very limited survival kit and you've got to learn how to ration and to use every piece of material in that kit for multiple uses. 154 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:39,600 In the survival kit, which I still have my survival kit from the flight around the world, as well as the raft, just in case, um, there is a certain amount of water that's on on board the kit. 155 00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:46,400 You've got different packets of dehydrated food that are very light, but it will keep you alive. 156 00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:53,600 There's, there's a lot of little candies that have a lot of sugar to keep your brain functioning. 157 00:17:53,600 --> 00:17:57,600 There's things that are really, uh, densely filled with salt. 158 00:17:57,600 --> 00:18:00,400 To keep you from becoming completely dehydrated. 159 00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:06,000 You've got all sorts of emergency calls that you would make while descending down. 160 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:28,000 So if you had an engine failure at 30, 000 feet, you've got approximately 30 minutes at a glide ratio that will get you down to the ocean at the slowest rate possible to give you as much time to prepare by making emergency calls and then also mentally prepare for what's about to happen. 161 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:40,800 Host: And then you obviously have to, like, if you're flying around the world, the other deal is like, you have to be able to fix your own deal if something breaks. 162 00:18:40,800 --> 00:19:02,800 Amelia Rose Earhart: Well, at the airport that we landed at during the flight around the world, there were people on hand who, let's say that, you know, we had a hard landing or something catastrophic went wrong, I wouldn't be qualified to make the, uh, the fixes to the plane, not by any means. 163 00:19:02,800 --> 00:19:08,400 I'm not an aircraft mechanic, so I would have had to call and help. 164 00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:19,600 Now, that being said, There was a very, very narrow weather window that I was allowed to fly through, you know, because we were ahead of hurricane season. 165 00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:24,000 You have to watch monsoon winds when you're flying near India. 166 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:32,000 Around the equator, you're in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which the winds, the headwinds and tailwinds can shift very rapidly. 167 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:44,400 So, this time of the year, and I studied the climate data for the last hundred years to look at the best two weeks to take this flight around the world. 168 00:19:44,400 --> 00:20:01,200 Those 2 weeks were optimal, and if I would have waited much longer, I could have gotten stuck behind a giant typhoon that made its way across the South Pacific, which did happen right behind the flight path that I was on. 169 00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:10,800 And on top of that, and this is not controlled, obviously, by the climate, but there was a volcanic eruption in Papua New Guinea. 170 00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:27,200 Right on the day that I finished the flight just days before I was in Papua, New Guinea, there's no way I'd want to get stuck there because they do not look too kindly on women flying airplane into their country. 171 00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:34,400 I would have been stuck with no way to get out of their space because the ash clouds. 172 00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:40,400 Host: What do you think this whole story means for people who are not pilots? 173 00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:52,800 Amelia Rose Earhart: The big takeaways from the flight around the world for me is that number one, identity, you are allowed to recreate your identity and decide who you are. 174 00:20:52,800 --> 00:21:13,200 Literally at any point in your life, and I had put a lot of pressure on myself around the Amelia Earhart identity because I felt like if I didn't fly around the world, I would have left out some sort of legacy that I needed to connect to the first Amelia. 175 00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:19,600 But after coming back, I realized that that flight obviously was inspired by her original idea. 176 00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:26,800 But I know so much more about who I am by testing my strength inside of that identity. 177 00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:35,600 I mean, I could decide tomorrow that I want nothing to do with aviation and I want to go be a painter. 178 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:37,200 And that's totally fine. 179 00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:42,800 And so listening to everybody else's, you should do this, you should do that. 180 00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:46,400 While it eventually led me closer towards this goal. 181 00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:52,800 It doesn't mean that this has to be my trajectory for the rest of my life. 182 00:21:52,800 --> 00:22:04,400 And with that many hours of flight, over a hundred hours sitting in an airplane, staring at the ocean, it gave me so much time to think about that. 183 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:10,000 And I want everyone to know that identity is not who you are today. 184 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:14,000 It's who you decide to be from this moment forward. 185 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:20,400 And that to me was the biggest, the biggest challenge with this name, my whole life. 186 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:28,800 And I feel so much more empowered now and so much free to try everything out there, not just within aviation. 187 00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:36,800 Host: The courage and the risk and the trust, I mean, I was thinking about the trust in that engine. 188 00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:45,600 You control everything you can control, but yet at some point it still comes down to trust because you can't control everythijng. 189 00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:56,400 Amelia Rose Earhart: Right, and with so many parts of our goals and our plans that we put out there, there are always going to be variables. 190 00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:59,600 For me, the variables were the engine reliability. 191 00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:04,000 The variables were the weather or the people on the ground. 192 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:12,400 I mean, if someone came along who didn't support my flight and wanted to stop me, they very well could have. 193 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:20,800 Those are things that I can't waste my time stressing about, especially in the pre flight process before the flight launched. 194 00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:40,000 Because if I did, I would get so stuck in my head of all the reasons not to do it, but I probably wouldn't have even gone to the variable that we can't control, which is very similar to the aviation process and how you plan a flight. 195 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:50,000 The variable, you have to take them out of your mind and only focus on the things that you do have a positive control over. 196 00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:50,800 Host: Absolutely. 197 00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:54,400 So I have one other thing to ask you. 198 00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:56,800 You have a patch with you. 199 00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:04,400 Can you just kind of tell the story of the patch and why you keep it in your passport? 200 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:17,200 Amelia Rose Earhart: So this patch that was given to me, uh, it was given to me on the day that I launched on the flight around the world in Oakland, California. 201 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:19,200 It was on June 26th. 202 00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:26,400 There was a big crowd that had gathered out at the airport to send me on my way. 203 00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:38,000 You know, planes all packed up, everyone's ready to go and I'm in a big hurry to get out during my slot because other planes were waiting to depart. 204 00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:44,400 And there's a little old man at the airport who is in a full military uniform. 205 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:45,200 He's about. 206 00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:46,800 5'2 and I'm 5'10. 207 00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:50,000 So there was a big difference between us. 208 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:50,800 Totally bald. 209 00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:55,600 He's in his late 80s and he's calling me over to him. 210 00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:57,200 Come over here, Amelia. 211 00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:58,400 Come over here. 212 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:08,000 And he was kind of being held back in the crowd and I ran over to him and I said, Sir, I'm really sorry. 213 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,000 I have to get going. 214 00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:11,600 And he said, Amelia. 215 00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,800 I need you to do something for me. 216 00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:19,600 And he just had that look like, you know, you better listen. 217 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,400 This guy's got something important to say. 218 00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:29,200 And he had two patches in his hands, identical patches with the name Amelia Earhart on them. 219 00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:39,600 And he handed me one and he said, you're going to carry this all the way around the world, and I'm going to keep this one. 220 00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:43,200 And when you get back, we're going to swap. 221 00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:47,200 And I'll have the one that went around the globe. 222 00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,000 And I said, sure, you got it. 223 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,000 I gave him a hug. 224 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:56,000 I took the patch and I got on the airplane. 225 00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:01,200 I tucked it in the map pocket directly next to my left leg. 226 00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:06,000 And I forgot about it for 18 days and 28, 000 miles. 227 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:20,800 And when I returned to Oakland after that, you know, massively stressful, amazingly beautiful, just epic flight that I had so many doubts and fears and worries about, but also so much passion behind ended that flight. 228 00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:36,000 Parked the airplane opened the door and got outside and of course, my mom and my dad were there and there was this big happy reunion and news news crews from all over the globe were standing there. 229 00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:53,200 I mean, hundreds of people came back to see the completion of the flight and there I look in the crowd and there is the same gentleman and he's got the patch right in his hands and he's wearing his military uniform again. 230 00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:58,000 And I say, Oh, my gosh, I've got to find that patch. 231 00:26:58,000 --> 00:26:59,600 Where did it go? 232 00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:06,800 So I look in the pocket and I grab it and I run over and I say, yeah. 233 00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:08,800 Sir, we made a deal. 234 00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:10,800 He said, yes, we did. 235 00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:23,200 And so we swapped patches and he had brought a civil air patrol unit with the flags from all the countries that I had flown through, which was a beautiful symbol. 236 00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:29,600 And he handed my mom a bouquet of roses and he pulled me in real close. 237 00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:37,600 I gave him a hug and I just had so much to do and so many interviews to get to. 238 00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:45,600 And at that moment, he leaned in very closely and he said, Amelia, there's something that I didn't tell you. 239 00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:54,400 He said, when I was a very little boy, I grew up here in Oakland, and I was in love with aviation. 240 00:27:54,400 --> 00:28:04,000 He said, I begged and begged and begged my parents to bring me here to Oakland Airport when I was about six years old. 241 00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:13,600 And I stood right here in this exact same spot, and I watched the first Amelia Earhart depart on her flight around the world. 242 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:22,400 And he said, I have been waiting 77 years to see her come back to me and you just brought her home. 243 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,600 And that is what the flight was about. 244 00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:27,200 It wasn't about obligation. 245 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:29,600 It wasn't even about promoting aviation. 246 00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:39,200 It was about the connection to people that I will never meet who are inspired by a story of someone learning who they are. 247 00:28:39,200 --> 00:29:17,200 Through taking a risk and getting out and just doing their own thing, regardless of what anyone else thinks they should do and that connection and that patch is something that reminds me that I always have the choice to do what feels right for me and my journey and part of my flight path now for the rest of my life is to share that story with others so that they can get out and do their own thing, close their own circles that have open endings because that was a really beautiful moment. 248 00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:19,200 Host: What a fabulous story. 249 00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:25,200 Thank you for who you are in your true identity and for sharing that message. 250 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,200 We wish you the best. 251 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:31,200 Amelia Rose Earhart: Thank you, it was such a pleasure.