Amelia Rose Earhart, who was named after the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic, plans to complete her namesake's dream journey around the world.
The modern Earhart, a weather and traffic co-anchor for NBC Denver affiliate KUSA, will attempt to circumvent the globe on June 2014 in a Pilatus PC-12NG with her co-pilot, Patrick Carter of Fayetteville, Ark.
They will start in Oakland, Calif., fly to Miami, Brazil, Africa, India and Australia, then pass over Howland Island where the late Earhart and her co-pilot were supposed to land before they vanished over the South Pacific in 1937.
With 14 stops and an estimated 48,000 miles, Amelia Rose Earhart, 30, hopes to become the youngest woman to fly around the world by the time she returns to Oakland.
She started taking flight lessons in 2004 because she was sick of seeing the disappointed expressions on people's faces when she confessed that was not a pilot despite her connection to the original aviatrix. The original Earhart did not have children, but Amelia Rose Earhart claims to have a "very distant" relation to her that traces back to the 1700s. Earhart's parents wanted to give her "an inspirational namesake," she said on NBC's "Today" show.
"There's not a lot of things we're entitled to, but we're entitled to developing our own adventure. This is my version of adventure and best way to keep Amelia's spirit alive," Earhart added.
Since first learning how to fly, Earhart has traveled from Oakland to Miami.
Unlike the late Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot, the new pair will be more prepared for their flight around the world next June. The current Earhart will have GPS, for one. She'll also have a sponsoring team assembled by Jeppesen, a company specializing in navigational information, that will "flight-follow the airplane". The pair also just completed training in a simulator for everything that could possibly for wrong in-flight, USA Today reported.
Another difference with Earhart and Carter's flight is their plan to livestream their experience. They want to be the first ones to record their flights through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, they told USA Today.
Earhart hopes to encourage people, especially younger girls, to learn how to fly. The founder of Fly With Amelia Foundation, she plans to raise additional funds for the organization during her flight, according to KUSA.