As soon as the official read my barograph there was great rejoicing, for apparently I had established a woman’s altitude record. The news got in the papers. One clipping read:
Miss Amelia Earhart, local aviatrix, established a new altitude record for women yesterday under the auspices of the Aero Club of Southern California.
Flying her own Kinner Airster, containing a 60-foot power motor, she ascended more than 14,000 feet.
Her sealed barograph registered little vibration until about 12,000 feet, where Miss Earhart said something went wrong with the motor. At the time she was climbing easily, about 50 feet a minute, which would have continued perhaps for several thousand feet more if the engine difficulty had not arisen.
Although my figure of 14,000 feet was not extraordinary, the performance of my engine was interesting. With the little Lawrence power plant of less than 60 h.p. I had gone up much farther than some of the higher powered planes which should have been more efficient.
A little while later I made another attempt. The weather was pretty good at the start. At 10,000 feet I ran into clouds. At 11,000 feet sleet, and at about 12,000 feet dense fog. This was an entirely new experience, and very disquieting. For the first time in my life, I had that strange feeling experienced by the flyer in fog.
Under such circumstances it is impossible to tell what the plane is doing. It may be upside down or turning giant circles. Without instruments the pilot simply does not know his position in space—there are no outside landmarks with which to check. Of course, if one is really upside down for any length of time one’s feet drop back from the rudder and the safety belt tightens; or if in a skid a side blast of wind gives a belated warning, etc.
It was extraordinarily confusing and, realizing I could not go farther, I kicked the ship into a tail spin and came down to 3000 feet where I emerged from the fog and landed.
I remembered one of the old-timers came up and looked at my barograph record. His eyes fixed on a vertical line just before the record ended. “What does that mean,” he asked. “Did you go to sleep along in there?”
I told him about getting out of the fog by way of a tail spin.