The new flight around the world

kimberlyanne546

kimberlyanne546

Final Approach
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Display name:
Kimberly
I got a PM on StudentPilot from a man who says he is distant cousins with the Wright Brothers.

He asked me to contact "Amelia Earhart." Apparently, she blogged today that she is trying to re-create a famous photo of THE Amelia flying over the Bay Bridge.

Long story, but I called her and sent her some emails. She is a distant relative and planning a flight around the world in a Cirrus.

More information (see November 11 blog):

http://flywithamelia.wordpress.com/

This is her:

are_00341.jpg


I sent her some 99s infomation, the sectional, ATC phone numbers, photographers, etc.

She is a private pilot in Colorado who works for an NBC station filming and flying regarding news stories, traffic, etc. Nice girl.
 
good for her. i need to figure out how to get someone to give me their cirrus...
 
CJones said:
Why? You would just land it in the middle of a bean field somewhere...
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only if it was a standard or open cirrus instead of a cirrus airplane. that silly plane can't even tow!
 
I don't see the appeal of Cirri, unless you want to get lumped in with a bunch of turds who tend to burst into flame at the drop of a hat.

Also they're chinese now.
 
DavidWhite said:
I don't see the appeal of Cirri, unless you want to get lumped in with a bunch of turds who tend to burst into flame at the drop of a hat.

Also they're chinese now.
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I think the appeal is someone is giving it to her / lending it to her. In that case I don't know how many choices she had.
 
I like it!

We need more women, especially young, good looking ones in aviation.
 
Anthony said:
I like it!

We need more women, especially young, good looking ones in aviation.
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She flies a Cirrus! The planes are almost as high maintenance as the people that fly them.
 
Good for her! I've heard of her since she is local but I've never met her.
 
DavidWhite said:
I don't see the appeal of Cirri, unless you want to get lumped in with a bunch of turds who tend to burst into flame at the drop of a hat.

Also they're chinese now.
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DavidWhite said:
She flies a Cirrus! The planes are almost as high maintenance as the people that fly them.
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Aw, c'mon, David. Have you flown one? Nice birds, and Cirrus almost single-handedly revived GA sales.

More importantly, I dearly love this woman's enthusiasm and the mere fact that she is a young pilot, enthusiastic about flying, and his moving her skills. A lot like you, as a matter of fact, except much better-looking!
 
We need more flying strippers.
 
Amelia is very disconnected from the local aviation community. Just sayin'...

There are quite a few aviation enthusiasts in the local Denver news media, mostly meteorologists, who spend a boatload of time at local aviation events, etc. They give speeches/talks, you can find them kicking around the airports on weekends, etc. Some have moonlighted off an on at Metro State's Meteorology department. Nick Carter, Marty Coniglio, and uhh.. Crud, can't think of the guy's name from KWGN...

Never seen Amelia at even one of them. Not even the big fundraisers or social events normally reserved for the rich and famous. ;)

Just one local pilot's opinion.

Not picking on her, but the aviation tie-in is mostly about her namesake than it is that she's active in the local aviation community in any meaningful way. The round-the-world plan has been touted but never seems to make much headway. It was part of her PR bio the first time she showed on the Denver media scene, before a TDY to the L.A. area for the network, and her return.

She'd have a significant impact on helping young female pilots along as a mentor, I think. But I don't think she's involved in that sort of thing.

Last I heard, Amelia trains (somewhat infrequently) at KBJC.

Right now I believe there are three meteorologist-pilots in Denver TV broadcast, and one guy who does his own "troubleshooter" type show who's a pilot but had to sell his Cirrus due to being somewhere between $35 million and $70 million in debt from bad real-estate investments. There's two traffic reporter-pilots including Amelia.

There's also been a couple of pro-aviation photojournalists who work from the only remaining news helicopter in the city, which is a shared resource between the major networks. The era of every station having an aircraft to compete with the others is over.

They probably should have gone back to flying Cessna 182s for traffic like Don Martin and Dick Dillon duking it out trying to scoop each other for KHOW and KIMN plus all their affiliates that picked up their reports back in the late 70s and 80s. Heck of a lot cheaper than launching a jet helicopter every day. I always thought Straight Flight or similar should work out the details to hang a gyro-stabilized camera system on less expensive fixed-wing aircraft for TV use, but then again... You can't land a 182 in a schoolyard for the celebrities to make their grand entrance for the kiddies. TV PR is a funny biz.

I still remember when some pilot dawned the KIMN Chicken suit and went flying to get air-to-air shots for their PR/advertising shots. Funny stuff.

John Ponts doing that during "Flying Wild Alaska"'s first season looked similar and made me laugh.

For all I know, Amelia may just be a very private person off-air. Rarely see her at the airport(s) though.

In comparison, Nick Carter crashed his indoor RC helicopter into the desk of one of my CFIs during some ground work one day. ;) He apologized and we all chatted for a minute. He was also my Meteorology for Aviators professor at Metro State many many moons ago... It's hard to throw a rock and not hit Nick on the local airport ramps on a nice sunny flying day when he's not working. :)
 
I understand. Well actually, I don't. I don't "get" the PR thing. I posted her story, inviting people to join her / follow her blog, to my 99s email lists. I got a reply saying "Kimberly, she is not a 99."

That was odd. She told me that she was (over the phone).

I guess back in 2007 - 2008 for a short time she was an "associate member". Associate members are student pilots who have their student pilot cert sent to headquarters but don't yet have their PPL.

Perhaps some people think once a 99 always a 99. But it made me look kind of silly in front of thousands of people, and you're right, why has she not joined or become part of the community?

I know it is time consuming and difficult to meet all the pilots . . . . but like you said perhaps she is shy. She didn't seem shy on the phone and having a video blog in her apartment doesn't seem shy either.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
...

Perhaps some people think once a 99 always a 99. But it made me look kind of silly in front of thousands of people, and you're right, why has she not joined or become part of the community?

...
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That did not make you look silly, unless your decision to believe something another person said was "silly."

You may be very silly, for any number of valid reasons, of course... :rolleyes:
 
SCCutler said:
That did not make you look silly, unless your decision to believe something another person said was "silly."

You may be very silly, for any number of valid reasons, of course... :rolleyes:
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I know but I wish she had told me the truth. I tend to trust people.

I'm sure it was all a misunderstanding.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
I know but I wish she had told me the truth. I tend to trust people.

I'm sure it was all a misunderstanding.
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She posted on Twitter today that she's using some "fund my dream" type website to see if anyone will cough up the cash for the round-the-world flight.

I bet she is a member of the 99's but not active and forgot to pay dues, or something like that. ;)

Hope she can someday catch her dream... it's gonna take a whole bunch of Benjamins.
 
Whenever Amelia Earhart is mentioned, I think of what Bob Buck wrote about her in North Star Over my Shoulder. It looks like google has made those pages available (pp. 60-61):

"I mention these great women pilots because they're different from the merely famous, like Amelia Earhart."
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I'm really not trying to stir the pot.
 
There is more than one path through life... If she is pro aviation and is in the media, then she is a plus compared to the vast number of media minuses... Let us not rain on her parade...

denny-o
 
Dr. O said:
There is more than one path through life... If she is pro aviation and is in the media, then she is a plus compared to the vast number of media minuses... Let us not rain on her parade...

denny-o
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This!!!!
 
Sounds like a bad idea especially considering that its a Cirrus and she doesn't seem current. I doubt that she flies everyday between working. I wish her luck and hope that she doesn't end the flight like her namesake unfortunately did. The original Amelia was a lot more experienced...
 
bigblockz8 said:
Sounds like a bad idea especially considering that its a Cirrus and she doesn't seem current. I doubt that she flies everyday between working. I wish her luck and hope that she doesn't end the flight like her namesake unfortunately did. The original Amelia was a lot more experienced...
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Experienced yes, but also pushed the envelope too.

Anymore flying around the world isn't going to be remotley as big of a deal. I'm sure almost any PP could pull it off so long as they remember not to tangle with weather beyond their limits.

GPS was a game changer.
 
1200AGL said:
Whenever Amelia Earhart is mentioned, I think of what Bob Buck wrote about her in North Star Over my Shoulder. It looks like google has made those pages available (pp. 60-61):
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Buck didn't think much of Earhart, I remember that. He thought she was a particularly bad navigator. Given the cause of her demise, he may not be entirely wrong.

1200AGL said:
I'm really not trying to stir the pot.
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Me neither. Just repeating Buck's opinion as I recall it. I thought Jerri Mock did a much better job with one less engine and one less navigator.
 
Dr. O said:
There is more than one path through life... If she is pro aviation and is in the media, then she is a plus compared to the vast number of media minuses... Let us not rain on her parade...
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Exactly. People find reason to criticize even pro-aviation stories.
 
bigblockz8 said:
Sounds like a bad idea especially considering that its a Cirrus and she doesn't seem current. I doubt that she flies everyday between working. I wish her luck and hope that she doesn't end the flight like her namesake unfortunately did. The original Amelia was a lot more experienced...
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Why does the Jessica Debrof incident keep popping up in my mind:dunno::dunno::yikes:.....
 
From Twitter a few minutes ago...

Whose going 2 @childrenscolo young professionals "Donate2Date"? @9NewsKUSA Amelia Earhart is 1 of the bachelorettes http://donate2date.org/

Get out your wallets, single pilot guys. Oh wait... never-mind, pilots are always broke. ;)
 
bigblockz8 said:
Sounds like a bad idea especially considering that its a Cirrus and she doesn't seem current. I doubt that she flies everyday between working. I wish her luck and hope that she doesn't end the flight like her namesake unfortunately did. The original Amelia was a lot more experienced...
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I thought she flew for a living? Perhaps I was reading her old bio? I could have sworn she operated a camera, in a plane, for NBC (I thought as the pilot?)
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
I thought she flew for a living? Perhaps I was reading her old bio? I could have sworn she operated a camera, in a plane, for NBC (I thought as the pilot?)
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Chances are there's a camera operator and a pilot (two different people) for something like that. One person doing both doesn't sound very safe. Also I'd be surprised if a TV station was using an airplane for a camera platform, most use helicopters which are better suited for that role.
 
Denver has only one shared TV helicopter. Stations dropped their individual choppers in the economic downturn. It's leased by a consortium and has a contract pilot and one camera guy on board most of the time.

Most of the traffic reporters are sitting in a newsroom with scanners and they get a timeslice of the video from the chopper and get to talk to the pilot and camera operator via a back channel FM radio channel.

Best way to get traffic reports is just to listen to the wide band FM downlink from the helo. All stations are getting and transmitting the same stuff. The only difference is the commercials.
 
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