“Roughly, about 2,000 miles,” Amelia said.
“Your 50-watt radio isn’t strong enough for that kind of flying. On such a long leg as that one you’ll be out of range of any ground stations.” Washburn looked intently at Amelia. “If you’re off just one degree on your heading, you’ll miss that little island completely.”
Amelia had no intention of being one degree off course. The best navigator available could hit the island right on the nose.
“What kind of radio signals will there be at Howland to home in on?” The professor pursued the point.
“None,” Amelia answered.
For Bradford Washburn the interview was over. The project was out of the question. He did not want to look for a needle in a haystack, especially if the haystack were the Pacific Ocean—and certainly not without a strong magnet to find the needle.
Bradford Washburn was convinced that Amelia had rather not have a navigator, that she had decided on one only as an irritable necessity. Her self-confidence, her belief in her own flying abilities, was for him towering and magnificent to behold; but he wanted no part of it.
“One must take chances,” AE had often said before, and she repeated the same words in the hope of hitting Howland Island.
That she was devil-may-care was perhaps attributable to what seem to have been premonitions, foreshadowings which she blatantly ignored. AE and GP had spent an afternoon examining gyroscopes at the Sperry plant in Brooklyn. On the way home Amelia had stopped the car at a red light on Flatbush Avenue. In the blue dusk of that winter’s day she noticed off to the side an old man step off the curb and start to shuffle across the street. “It’s hard to get old,” the old man muttered as he crossed, “so hard.” Amelia heard every word.
The light changed. Amelia slammed the clutch to the floor and shifted the car into gear. Her lips were closed tight, her eyes intent on the moving traffic. At the next corner she turned into a side street, drove around the block, and swung back up the street to where the old man had stepped off the curb. She looked up and down the opposite sidewalk. The old man had disappeared in the crowd.