Erharts Global Flight Sucessful

So, what happens with Erharts career post flight? After the photo ops, interviews, and parade are over. What were her career prospects?

She had done a short stint on the faculty at Purdue University. Theres hints she was bored with the situation and unable to connect to the students. Are those correct or was there a chance she would continue at Purdue or perhaps another school? I am assuming she would have a role in the Army AF in WWII. Tho I have no idea what it might have been. Did she have the administrative ability to serve as more than just a pilot? Or maybe a specialty like test pilot or in a engineering planning position.

What about post war? What would play to her strengths into the 1950s.
 

Driftless

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What little I've read of her, she was much more of a "doer" than a "thinker", which isn't to knock her mental makeup. Obviously, she had to deeply involve herself in detailed technical preparation for any of her endurance flights, but her heart was in the flight itself. Even her quotes are typically very short, very pithy, and focused on action. She might have been what we now would call an adrenaline junky. I think she would have found university life, or lecture circuit, or writing to be frustratingly tame. Perhaps the start of WW2 would be a call to arms for her. She could certainly have been very useful in setting up some of the plane ferrying routes across the North Atlantic and parts of the Pacific, along with encouraging women aviators to become involved in those activities.

Did she have the engineering chops to work as a test pilot, especially going into the jet era? Chuck Yeager didn't have the educational background, but obviously he succeeded as a test pilot for a time. Maybe she'd have a career with some parallels to Jackie Cochrane?
 
What little I've read of her, she was much more of a "doer" than a "thinker", which isn't to knock her mental makeup. Obviously, she had to deeply involve herself in detailed technical preparation for any of her endurance flights, but her heart was in the flight itself. ...

If she accumulated experience in planning/testing ferry routes she may have landed work with the airlines in the 1940s-50s planning commercial routes. Tho that would become tediously routine after a while. Sort of like insurance acturial work. Really interesting the first few rounds. Then stiflingly dull.
 

Driftless

Donor
If she accumulated experience in planning/testing ferry routes she may have landed work with the airlines in the 1940s-50s planning commercial routes.

Lindbergh did some of that type of work for PanAm? in the 30's I believe. As you note, that activity would be interesting for a time, and probably get stale very quickly. Picking routes over Greenland and the Denmark Straits might hold some appeal for a longer time. Or even Johnston Atoll to Howland and Baker Islands to the West as navigation points?
 
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What are the chances she gets involved in air racing? Even, ultimately, Unlimited, with surplus P-51s & F4Us?
 
There are a few things to note here that I think might have an impact on her future career. First, she was the president of the Nighty-Nines in the early 30s. She was a big supporter of women in aviation, and worked to help other female pilots. Second and related, she was an avowed feminist, aside from having basically an open marriage with her husband, she was a strong supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment; she was after all a member of the National Women's Party. So what do I see happening for her, a few things.

First, she would become the leader of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, aka the WASPs. Her fame might even be able to get just enough votes in congress to allow them to be militarized. What that means is that the women wouldn't have to provide their own uniforms and pair for their own room and board. It would have been treated like the WAC should it have been approved IIRC. It also would mean that that their heroism would be recognized earlier, and thus it wouldn't take till 1977 to be granted veteran status and freaking 2009 to be given the congressional medal of honor; yes that was something Obama did.

What I see her supporting in her old age being support for the second wave of feminism and the Equal rights Amendment. Considering how close it came in that era for ERA to pass, her fame and legacy might be enough to get it passed. She already was a strong feminist in OTL, and I don't see that changing.
 
What little I've read of her, she was much more of a "doer" than a "thinker", which isn't to knock her mental makeup. Obviously, she had to deeply involve herself in detailed technical preparation for any of her endurance flights, but her heart was in the flight itself. Even her quotes are typically very short, very pithy, and focused on action. She might have been what we now would call an adrenaline junky. I think she would have found university life, or lecture circuit, or writing to be frustratingly tame. Perhaps the start of WW2 would be a call to arms for her. She could certainly have been very useful in setting up some of the plane ferrying routes across the North Atlantic and parts of the Pacific, along with encouraging women aviators to become involved in those activities.

Did she have the engineering chops to work as a test pilot, especially going into the jet era? Chuck Yeager didn't have the educational background, but obviously he succeeded as a test pilot for a time. Maybe she'd have a career with some parallels to Jackie Cochrane?

An American version of Hanna Reitsch?
 
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