Amelia Earhart's Reckless Final Flights

Earhart’s skill, recklessness, and media myth

• Several commenters repeat a theme from the article: Earhart was considered a reckless pilot by experienced aviators, in contrast to other pioneering women like Jacqueline Cochran.
• Her public image is described as heavily manufactured by a publicity machine, likened to modern influencers whose branding outpaces their competence.
• One thread argues she was pushed beyond her actual technical abilities (navigation, radio) by fame and the pressure to keep generating “firsts,” drawing parallels to Stockton Rush and Donald Crowhurst.

Gender, strength, and aircraft/vehicle design

• Early aircraft lacked boosted controls and were built around typical male upper-body strength; some argue women of that era would be physically unable to handle certain emergencies.
• Others push back on simplistic “designed for women” narratives (e.g., power steering/brakes in cars), saying these technologies primarily served safety and comfort for all drivers.
• Broader debate about how criticism of a woman can be misread as sexism, and how icons of an identity become hard to critique.

Control forces, dives, and aerodynamics

• Long, technical discussion on “feel forces,” control-surface travel limiters, structural failure, and flow separation at high speed.
• Anecdotes about 727 and 707 recoveries, WWII fighters, dive brakes, and how loss of effective airflow can make control surfaces useless regardless of pilot strength.
• Explanation of trim tabs and why even big jets can be flown by hand, but out‑of‑trim conditions can quickly exceed human endurance.

737 MAX / MCAS dispute

• Very detailed back‑and‑forth over MCAS:
  • One side: concept sound, implementation sloppy; pilots failed to execute established runaway-trim memory procedures despite prior incidents and emergency directives.
  • Opposing side: MCAS itself was a dangerously conceived system (single‑sensor, repeated large nose‑down commands, hidden from pilots, excessive workload), making crashes largely a Boeing and regulatory failure.
• Multiple references to official reviews (JATR, FAA boards) and disagreement over how much blame to assign to crews vs manufacturer and regulators.

Radio/navigation errors in Earhart’s final flights

• Linked analyses emphasize her weak radio knowledge and critical equipment decisions (e.g., removal or damage of antennas, reliance on misunderstood HF propagation).
• She had already failed a practice ocean navigation exercise using similar techniques, then didn’t repeat it.
• Commenters see this as part of a broader pattern: success‑oriented planning, underestimating technical complexity, and inadequate preparation.

Risk, “greatness,” and early aviation culture

• Many note that early aviation was broadly reckless, but distinguish between unknown risks and ignoring known ones.
• Comments reflect ambivalence: admiration for courage and pioneering spirit vs insistence that hero narratives not obscure serious errors in judgment.
• Several people frame Earhart as both inspirational and cautionary: you “have to be a little crazy” to make history, but aviation is unforgiving of carelessness.

Language, style, and legacy

• Side thread on The New Yorker’s diaeresis (“coördinate,” “naïve”): explanations of what it is, whether it’s useful or pretentious, and how rare it is outside that magazine.
• Discussion of how publicity and national myth-making ensure Earhart’s legend vastly eclipses technically more impressive or earlier circumnavigators, especially women whose names are now largely forgotten.