Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart, 1937.

Frederick Joseph Noonan (born 4 April 1893 in Cook County (Chicago), Illinois - missing from 2 July 1937, Pacific ocean), was a flight navigator, sea captain and aviation pioneer who first charted many commercial airline routes across the Pacific ocean during the 1930s. He disappeared with Amelia Earhart somewhere over the western Pacific during their World Flight in 1937. Image File history File links Frednoonan_earhart1. ... Image File history File links Frednoonan_earhart1. ... April 4 is the 94th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (95th in leap years). ... 1893 (MDCCCXCIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Nickname: The Windy City, The Second City, Chi Town Motto: Urbs In Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in Chicagoland and Illinois Coordinates: Country United States State Illinois County Cook Incorporated March 4, 1837 Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area    - City 606. ... Official language(s) English Capital Springfield Largest city Chicago Area  Ranked 25th  - Total 57,918 sq mi (149,998 km²)  - Width 210 miles (340 km)  - Length 390 miles (629 km)  - % water 4. ... July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 182 days remaining. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... For other meanings of Pacific, see Pacific (disambiguation). ... A navigator is the person onboard a ship responsible for the navigation of the vessel. ... First flight, December 17, 1903 Aviation or air transport refers to the activities surrounding human flight and the aircraft industry. ... For other meanings of Pacific, see Pacific (disambiguation). ... Amelia Earhart (1897-1937?) Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing as of July 2, 1937), daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart, was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight in 1937. ...

Biography

Noonan was the son of Joseph T. Noonan (born in Maine around 1865) and Catherine Egan (born in England). Noonan's died when he was four, and three years later a census report lists him as living alone in a Chicago boarding house, although it's likely that relatives or family friends were caring for him. In his own words, he "left school in summer of 1905 and went to Seattle, Washington", where he found work as a seaman. 1870 US Census for New York City A census is the process of obtaining information about every member of a population (not necessarily a human population). ... For other senses of this word, see Summer (disambiguation). ... 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Nickname: The Emerald City Location of Seattle in King County and Washington Coordinates: Country United States State Washington County King County Incorporated December 2, 1869 Mayor Greg Nickels Area    - City 369. ...

Sometime later he shipped out of Seattle on a sailing bark as an ordinary seaman. Between 1910 and 1915 he worked on over a dozen ships, rising to the ratings of Quartermaster and Boson Mate. He continued working on merchant ships throughout the First World War and by 1919 had achieved some respectability as a ship's officer. Throughout the 1920s his maritime career was characterized by steadily increasing ratings and "good" (typically the highest) work performance reviews. Noonan married Josephine Sullivan in 1927 at Jackson, Mississippi. After a honeymoon in Cuba they settled in New Orleans. 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Quartermaster is a term usually referring to a military unit which specializes in supplying and provisioning troops, or to an individual who does the same. ... Merchants function as professionals who deal with trade, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to produce profit. ... Combatants Allied Powers: France Italy Russia Serbia United Kingdom United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary Bulgaria Germany Ottoman Empire Commanders Ferdinand Foch Georges Clemenceau Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Wilhelm II Paul von Hindenburg Reinhard... 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The 1920s was a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... Nickname: The Best of the New South; The Bold, New City Coordinates: Country United States State Mississippi County Hinds Founded 1822 Mayor Frank Melton Area    - City 276. ... A honeymoon is the traditional trip taken by newlyweds to celebrate their marriage. ... New Orleans is the largest city in the state of Louisiana, United States of America. ...

In 1930 Noonan received a "limited commercial pilot's license", listing his occupation as 'aviator'. In 1931 he was awarded "license #121190, Class Master, any ocean", the qualifications of a ship's captain. During the early 1930s he worked as an instructor in Miami and an airport manager for Pan Am in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link is to a full 1930 calendar). ... A Commercial Pilot License (properly called a certificate in the U.S.) allows the holder to operate aircraft for compensation and hire. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article is about the city in Florida. ... Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) was the United States principal international airline from the 1930s until its collapse in 1991, and was credited with many innovations that shaped the international airline industry. ... Categories: Caribbean geography stubs | Capitals in North America | Haiti ...

In March 1935, Noonan was navigator on the first Pan Am clipper at San Francisco Bay. In April, he navigated the historic, round-trip China Clipper flight between San Francisco and Honolulu, piloted by Ed Musick (who was featured on the cover of Time magazine that year). Noonan was subsequently responsible for mapping Pan Am's clipper routes across the Pacific, participating in many flights to Midway and Wake Island, Guam, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. In addition to more modern navigational tools, the licensed sea captain was known for carrying a ship's sextant on these flights. 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Table of geography, hydrography, and navigation, from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and the Golden Gate The San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining of approximately forty percent of California, flowing in Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Honolulu as seen from the International Space Station Honolulu is the largest city and the capital of the U.S. state of Hawai‘i. ... Edwin C. Musick (1894, Saint Louis, Missouri - January 11, 1938, Pago Pago, American Samoa) was Chief Pilot for Pan American World Airways and pioneered many of Pan Ams transoceanic routes including the famous route across the Pacific Ocean on the China Clipper. ... View of the Pacific Ocean from Oregon. ... Orthographic projection centred over Midway. ...

1937 was a year of transition for Fred Noonan, whose reputation as an expert navigator, along with his role in the development of commercial airline navigation, had already earned him a place in aviation history. The tall, very thin, brown-haired and blue-eyed forty-three year old navigator was living in Los Angeles. He resigned from Pan Am because he felt he had risen through the ranks as far as he could as a navigator, and had interest in starting a navigation school. In March he obtained a divorce from his wife Josie in Juarez, Mexico. A short time later he married Mary Bea Martinelli (of Oakland, California). Noonan was rumored to be a heavy drinker, but this was fairly common during the era and there is no evidence it ever interfered with his reliability or accuracy as a navigator. 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The color brown is a dark red or orange of very low intensity; however brown exists as a color perception only in the presence of a brighter color contrast: red or orange objects are still perceived as such if the general illumination level is low, despite reflecting the same amount... Young Girl Fixing her Hair, by Sophie Gengembre Anderson Hair is a filamentous outgrowth of dead cells from the skin, found mainly in mammals. ... The term Blue may refer any of a number of similar colors. ... Closeup of a blue-green human eye. ... Nickname: City of Angels Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates: State California County Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Area    - City 1,290. ... Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Ciudad Juárez (also known simply as Juárez) (2000 population 1,142,354) is a city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. ... Oakland, founded in 1852, is the eighth-largest city in California and the county seat of Alameda County. ... In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl group (-OH) is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group. ...

Amelia Earhart met Noonan through mutual connections in the Los Angeles aviation community and chose him to serve as her navigator on her World Flight in the Lockheed Electra 10E, a circumnavigation of the globe at equatorial latitudes funded in part by Purdue University. Although the aircraft was of an advanced type and dubbed a "flying laboratory" for the press, little real science was planned, the world was already criss-crossed with commercial airline routes (many of which Noonan himself had first navigated and mapped) and the flight is now widely regarded as an adventurous publicity stunt. Noonan was probably attracted to the project because Earhart's mass market fame would almost certainly generate huge publicity, which in turn could reasonably be expected to attract attention to him and the navigation school he hoped to establish when they returned. Amelia Earhart (1897-1937?) Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing as of July 2, 1937), daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart, was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight in 1937. ... The Lockheed L-10 Electra was built Lockheed by Lockheed to compete with the Ford Trimotor. ... Purdue University is a public land-grant university whose primary campus is located in West Lafayette, Indiana on the bluffs above the Wabash River. ... Science in the broadest sense refers to any system of knowledge attained by verifiable means. ...

The first attempt began with a record-breaking flight from Burbank, California to Honolulu. However, as the plane was taking off to begin the second leg to Howland Island, its wing clipped the ground, Earhart cut an engine to maintain balance, the plane looped and the landing gear collapsed. Although there were no injuries the Electra had to be shipped back to Los Angeles for expensive repairs. Over a month later they tried again, this time leaving California in the opposite direction. Founded May 1, 1887 Incorporated July 8, 1911 General Information County Los Angeles County, California Latitude Longitude 34°1049 N 118°1942 W Area  - Total  - Water 45 km² (17. ... This article is becoming very long. ...

Earhart characterized the pace of their forty day, eastward trip from Burbank to New Guinea as "leisurely". They took off from Lae on July 2, 1937, and headed for Howland Island, a tiny sliver of land in the Pacific Ocean, barely 2000 meters long. The plan for the eighteen hour flight was to reach the vicinity of Howland using Noonan's celestial navigation skills, then find the island using radio navigation signals sent by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca. Through a series of misunderstandings or mishaps (which are still controversial), over scattered clouds, the final approach was never accomplished, although Earhart indicated by radio that they believed they were in the immediate vicinity of Howland. Two-way radio contact was never established and the fliers disappeared over the western Pacific. Despite an unprecedented search by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, no physical evidence was found. Lae is the second largest city of Papua New Guinea with a population of approx 120,000. ... July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 182 days remaining. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Coast Guard shield The United States Coast Guard is the coast guard of the United States. ... The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for naval operations. ...

Earhart and Noonan by the Lockheed L-10 Electra during their World Flight, 1937.

Later research showed that Howland's position was misplaced on their chart by approximately five nautical miles. There is also motion picture evidence that a belly antenna on the Electra may have snapped on take off (the purpose of this antenna has not been identified and radio communications seemed normal as they climbed away from Lae). Image File history File links Aviator Amelia Earhart with her navigator, aviation pioneer Fred Noonan during their World Flight, 1937. ... Image File history File links Aviator Amelia Earhart with her navigator, aviation pioneer Fred Noonan during their World Flight, 1937. ...

It's quite possible, even likely, that having run out of fuel, Earhart ditched the Electra in the ocean where she perished with her navigator. However, in her last message received at Howland, Earhart reported that they were flying a standard line of position (or sun line), a routine procedure for an experienced navigator like Noonan. This line passed within sight of Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) in the Phoenix Group to the southeast, and there is a range of documented and anecdotal evidence (but no proof) indicating that Earhart and Noonan found Gardner, which at the time was uninhabited, landed the Electra on a flat reef near the wreck of a large freighter, and sent sporadic radio messages from there. Other evidence indicates Noonan may have succumbed to either injuries or exposure rather quickly, while Earhart may have survived as a castaway for a period of months. For example, in 1940 Gerald Gallagher, a British colonial officer (also a licensed pilot) radioed his superiors to inform them that he believed he had found Earhart's skeleton, along with a sextant box, under a tree on the island's southeast corner. Nikumaroro atoll as photographed from earth orbit on 16 April 2001. ... The Phoenix Islands are a sparsely populated island chain in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... Gerald Bernard Gallagher (born July 6, 1912 - died September 27, 1941, Nikumaroro), the son of Gerald Hugh Gallagher (a doctor in the West African Medical Service) and Edith Gallagher, attended Stonyhurst College, Cambridge University (Downing College) and St. ...