Volta
Exploration11 – 12 January 1935

Solo Flight from Hawaii to California

Earhart flew alone some 3,800 km across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland — the first solo flight from Hawaii to the American mainland.

Earhart studying a map in Hawaii (January 1935, Pacific Aviation Museum)
Earhart studying a map in Hawaii (January 1935, Pacific Aviation Museum)

Pacific Aviation Museum · CC BY 2.0 · Source

The stretch of Pacific between Hawaii and the mainland had already claimed several aviators. On the afternoon of 11 January 1935 Earhart took off from Wheeler Field in Honolulu in her Lockheed Vega, flew through the night over open sea and, a little over 18 hours later, landed at Oakland on the 12th, where thousands were waiting.

It was the first solo flight from Hawaii to the mainland. That year she also flew alone from Los Angeles to Mexico City and from Mexico City to Newark, and joined Purdue University as an adviser on careers for women in aviation; Purdue bought her a twin-engined Lockheed Electra for her next flight.

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The map in 1935

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States and rulers at the time
United States — President Franklin D. Roosevelt

People

  • Amelia Earhart1897 – 1937

    key figure · American aviator, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (1932), who vanished over the Pacific in 1937 while flying around the world near the equator

Before and after

Earlier
1933 New Deal
Later
1937 Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge

Themes that include this event

  • Amelia Earhart1897 – 1937

    From her first ride in an aeroplane to the first solo Atlantic flight by a woman and her disappearance over the Pacific on a flight around the world — the life of an aviator who widened the paths of the sky