She looked down from 300 feet. Trees and ground were speeding by; everything was getting smaller as the plane climbed into the sky. The automobiles on Wilshire Boulevard looked like black bugs, the houses like toys.
The plane leveled off. “Two thousand feet,” Hawks shouted from the back seat. Amelia looked over the side of the cockpit. The oil derricks on the edge of the city were directly below; farther out, the Hollywood hills and the ocean.
Hawks nosed the plane into a steep glide, then tipped up the wing into a turn. The wind whistled over the wings and through the struts and cross wires.
Amelia braced her arm against the instrument panel. She smiled as she rose slightly from the seat. The stick in front of her angled forward; she wanted to hold it. When she reached out a hand, the man beside her shook his head and pushed the hand aside.
She turned quickly left and right in the seat, then tapped her feet on the floor. How wonderful to climb and turn and dive through the air! She felt buoyant, light, free—something she had never known before. A warm wave of exhilaration surged through her.
The plane had landed and the flight was over too soon. AE was on the ground but her thoughts were still in the sky. She knew now that she would have to fly again, whatever the cost. As soon as she had left the ground on that take-off she had known it. She now understood what had lured the young Canadian pilots into the air.
That evening she had to tell her family about her plans. “I think I’d like to learn to fly,” she said finally, when the supper dishes were being cleared from the table.
“You aren’t really serious, are you?” her father said. “I thought you were just wishing. I can’t afford to let you have instruction.”
Amelia was by no means defeated. She would find other ways of getting the money. She would get a job and pay for her lessons by herself. She was now old enough to decide what she wanted to do with her life. Her father’s decision forced the issue and broke the financial ties she had grown to depend upon.
Amelia found a job with the Los Angeles telephone company. It paid little, but sorting mail and running errands provided enough to get started with her lessons. She worked five days a week, leaving her with weekends to spend at the flying field. Neta Snook, an early woman flier and a graduate of the Curtiss Flying School, was her first instructor.