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Flying on Faith, Hope, and History

Linda Finch did more than re-enact Amelia Earhart's final flight; she was sowing dreams

by Peg Roen

Dream big. Never lose hope. Trust God. Pursue your goals. Make a difference.

These messages flew with pilot Linda Finch this spring as her vintage airplane lifted off the runway at Oakland International Airport. Sixty years after Amelia Earhart took off from the same ground on her famous attempt to fly around the world, more than 3,000 well wishers gathered to witness this, its re-creation. By the time Linda's plane circled the globe and broke through the San Francisco Bay fog to land 73 days later, millions more would be impacted by her journey.

This challenging 26,000-mile venture around the equator was more than an endeavor to revive history. It was a reminder of Earhart's vision for women and children to dream big—and believe they can accomplish their dreams.

In jeans and a casual denim shirt—quite acceptable attire in the San Antonio, Texas, office from which Linda, 46, also operates a nursing home management business—she settles into a chair beside a wide glass panel overlooking a 100-by-100-foot airplane hangar.

She apologizes for the clutter—not your usual stacks of junk, but such things as a pith helmet she received in Suriname, photographs of the Mediterranean Sea taken from the ruins of the ancient city of Carthage, and copies of a commissioning service in which her hometown church, Alamo Heights Presbyterian, gave her a spiritual blessing. (Reverend Richard Robinson, a former pilot himself, wrote the message.)

It was here that Linda, an aviation historian with 22 years of experience in restoring and flying vintage aircraft, first became enamored with the thought of bringing Earhart's plane back to life. The project intrigued her. But soon after she began her research, she discovered a more compelling reason to not only complete the work but expand it into what would become World Flight 1997.

"I became enthralled with Amelia's message," Linda says. "Flying was almost secondary to her mission of communicating to women that they didn't have to live within the limits imposed by society, friends, or fears."

Earhart proved that again and again. In 1928, she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger in a Fokker F7. In 1930, she set a women's speed record of 181.18 mph over a three-kilometer course. The next year, she set an altitude record of 18,451 feet. On the fifth anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's flight—in 1932—she became the first woman to successfully solo across the Atlantic.

In 1937 Earhart set out on the most challenging air adventure of her time—a flight around the world at the equator. Along with her navigator, Fred Noonan, she completed 22,000 miles of the 25,000-mile trip, before disappearing on the stretch from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island.

Not just any old plane
Like Earhart, Linda began flying in her twenties. While a teen, she saw a World War II fighter, which sparked her enthusiasm and fueled her determination to one day fly it. A decade later, her flying career began in a P-47, one of five still flying in the world.

To recreate the 1997 flight, Linda searched for a plane more rare yet—an all-metal twin-engine transport monoplane like Earhart's. The FAA registry listed only two of the fifteen original Electra 10Es. After urging a reluctant owner to sell, Linda scraped together a down payment and spent several months hunting for a sponsor. Finally, she hooked up with Pratt and Whitney, the top aircraft engine manufacturer, to buy the plane.

"When they delivered it, the plane was on the truck at an angle, as if it were banking," Linda says. "The wings were off, but the stubs they attached to were in place. When it came around the corner all dirty and full of birds' and rats' nests, half stripped and half painted, I had two thoughts: The project was real, and Amelia's plane had come back. The rarity of it was incredible."

The Electra 10E was originally designed as an economical airliner that could carry ten passengers and a crew of two. Like Earhart, Linda removed the passenger seats and installed extra fuel tanks. Additional fuel tanks were mounted in the baggage compartment for the long stretches across the ocean, which could keep her in the air for up to 15 hours. The longest leg—from Honolulu to Oakland—spanned 2,200 nautical miles.

Messages from the sky
As much as the historical accuracy meant to Linda, it was the message that became her true mission. The sky's the limit for all of us, she believes. That notion is not rooted in feminism, but in faith. A plaque on her wall sums it up: "What we are is God's gift to us, but what we do with what we are is our gift to God."

"We have a responsibility to give back," Linda says. "One way to do that is to do things for others. I've always felt so blessed, and if I could help inspire others through recreating Earhart's flight, then I wanted to do that."

Inspiring others comes natural to her mother, says Linda's 28-year-old daughter, Julie Cordero. (Linda, who is divorced, also has a 21-year-old son, Leslie, and an adopted 2-year-old daughter, Katie.)

"She has always been the picture of courage to me," Julie says. "Raising children on her own, starting businesses, tackling projects. She's done so many things, that I know I can do whatever I put my mind to."

At Julie's age, Linda had that same confidence, passed down to her from her grandfather, William C. Meider, an oil-field worker whom she remembers living in a forest of wooden oil rigs. He never went to school, but his unselfish hard work made college possible for his younger brother, and for that Linda admired him. The young girl would come to adopt his view that not only could you make a difference, but you should.

"I wasn't surprised that Linda would think this big," says friend and co-worker Kathy Barrow. "She has a lot of vision and has come up with many wonderful ideas in the past. She's very appreciative of everyone and so generous with praise, which motivates people and focuses them on accomplishing a project as a team."

For World Flight 1997, Linda's team included two navigators, a staff in charge of promotional details, and Pratt and Whitney personnel.

At first, Linda planned to connect with 600,000 children in the U.S. cities where the pioneering pilot landed: Oakland and Burbank, California; Tucson, New Orleans, and Miami. But her vision expanded when Pratt and Whitney allowed Linda to take more than a million passengers on board via a free educational program provided on the Internet.

Through "You Can Soar" (a complete curriculum package sent to schools), students grades 5 through 8 learned about Earhart's life and legacy; studied science lessons in weather gauging, time zones, and aerodynamics; used math for navigational applications; picked up geography and cultural studies from the countries visited as well as language, art, and poetry from a multicultural perspective. To the aviator's delight, children and adults also sent her e-mail. During the trip, the website was accessed an amazing 30 million times.

Opening the pilot's log
Through e-mail, Linda recounted the details of her trip, offering vivid examples of the land and life at each of her stops.

Of Papua New Guinea, she wrote on May 16, 1997:

The country is magnificent! The mountains are covered with jungle, and some of the small hills are covered with what looks like moss. It is very smooth, almost like a carpet in many shades of green.

Besides daily correspondence, Linda plotted her position every half hour, just as Earhart did. Here, technology gave her a boost the 1930s aviator didn't have—satellite tracking equipment. Some things, however, remain as complicated as they were 60 years ago. For example, some countries require permits to fly in certain areas—typically issued on a 24- to 48-hour basis. This heightened the pressure to stay on time and on course.

Via the Internet, Linda shared these frustrations as well as lighthearted moments. From Fortaleza, Brazil, on April 5, she typed:

In Brazil, they speak Portuguese, and the first night I had a very hard time ordering dinner. I finally just pointed to something, and it had raisins in it. The only food in the world I don't like is raisins.

Yet another theme came through in Linda's entries. Through references to her prayer life, her visits to churches across the world, and her personal relationship with God, Linda revealed the important role faith plays in her life.

After a stop in Calcutta, India, she reflected: The time I was able to spend in Mother Teresa's home for crippled children was a gift to me I will always cherish. I am reminded that what I give to others is truly given to God. He has placed all of us here to care for one another.

In Honolulu, before the final leg of her flight, she shared: I visited Ray Kane, a world-famous guitar player. He and his family sang a beautiful hymn and said a prayer for us. With all of the prayers that are said for our safety, there is no need to worry about our trip.

Safety did pervade the thoughts of those close to Linda.

Says Julie: "I was scared about this project at first. But as the day approached, my fears faded. The flight had turned into a mission, the spreading of a message of hope and courage to young people whose lives are missing that. We were working for them. We didn't need to be scared because we had a real purpose."

Casting cares upward
Linda kept her own fear captive by spending time with God each morning. Such a routine helped her remember simply to do her best and understand God is in control of whatever happens.

"I can accept the results and not worry because I know he's with me in this," she says.

Linda's one memory of being afraid in an airplane was long before her most recent flight. It was night, and her plane's engine started vibrating terribly. Flames were shooting out the front. Two cylinders on the engines had cracked, and Linda was forced to pull the power back. The plane was descending slowly to the ground.

"I had no lights, but I could see the road," Linda says. "I followed it, hoping to avoid the mountains, and ended up landing on the runway. But in those first few seconds when I checked my instruments and figured out it wasn't just a little problem, I felt absolute terror. I said the 23rd Psalm out loud, and immediately I felt extreme peace. It seemed like I had forever to deal with what was going on. God was just there, and if I was going to die, that was all right, too."

Linda praises God that no such incident took place on her recent venture. Sunshine followed her all the way around the world, she likes to joke.

She hesitates and adds, "That doesn't mean I didn't have my tough moments."

Particularly difficult was making it past the halfway point. By the time Linda reached Egypt, the trip was beginning to wear on her.

"I was so homesick," she remembers. "But when we started across the Pacific, I felt renewed. I knew I was almost home."

That joyous feeling was tempered when Linda reached Howland Island, where in a fly-over she dropped wreaths in Earhart's memory.

"What struck me was just how close to home Amelia had been, too," Linda says. "I thought about her family's personal loss and how my family would feel if I didn't come home."

Only with God's help
Linda succeeded in providing inspiration. Says Fran Parsons, a retired elementary teacher and the current administrative coordinator at Linda's church in San Antonio: "Linda reached out to people to give them hope. She didn't send a video. She didn't write and publish a report. She made the extra effort to meet them at the airport, to go into the classrooms, to communicate by the Internet. That brought her message to a different level and made it memorable."

Linda won't soon forget what she learned, either—that no matter where we set our limits, there's always room for more. We can do more than we think we can, with God's help.

"God made the project possible, and he allowed it to grow," Linda says. "As the demands on time and energy grew as well, he gave me the strength to do all I had to do."

Linda drew on that strength once again when another demand arose even as she performed a final wing wave over Oakland and landed safely on May 28. The Texas Attorney General's office, which three years ago filed a lawsuit against the partnership that owns one of Linda's nursing homes, chose to amend it during her trip to include her personally. Questions of patient care arose, although Linda says any deficiencies listed had been corrected by that time.

"Our dedicated staff serves the needs of hundreds of residents," Linda says with a note of sadness over the level of attention given the suit. "I am proud of them and confident that the care we provide is of the highest caliber."

Residents of the small Texas town in which the nursing home is located have already passed their judgment—one of support. The sentence? A Linda Finch Day, set for this fall.

These people have known about Finch's commitment to spreading messages of hope long before World Flight 1997, Julie says.

For example, she adds, "I remember as a child spending our holidays in my mother's nursing homes. We would make special things for the residents and then hand them out with fruit and cookies on Christmas morning. So many times I have seen my mother demonstrate that no matter where you are, you should always brighten someone else's life and encourage them."

That, Linda hopes, will be the lasting effect of her trip.

"If only 1 percent of the people this message has touched make a difference with their lives, then everything has been worth the effort."

Copyright © 1997 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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