Wheeler Army Airfield the first transpacific flight from California in 1927; the great Dole Air Race from California to Hawaii; the first transpacific flight from the U.S. to Australia in 1928, and the first Hawaii-to-Mainland solo flight in 1935 by Amelia Earhart. Ms. Earhart visited Wheeler Field in 1935 in her Lockheed Vega and in 1937 in her Lockheed Model 10 Electra. Kingsford Smith, in his plane, the "Southern Cross", also used the airfield on his historic flights across the Pacific. By 1940, Wheeler Field had evolved into a primary base for Army Air Corps pursuit (i.e., "fighter") aircraft such as the P-40
Last Flight (book) material written by Putnam, as well as a poem, "Courage", which Earhart had herself written. Although credited to Earhart, historians have cast doubt as to how much of this book was actually written by Earhart and how much had been rewritten or embellished by Putnam. Amelia Earhart explains the origin of her dream to fly a multi-motored plane, which was in May 1935 during her nonstop flight from Mexico City to New York. En route to New York, while flying her single engine Lockheed Vega, she ponders her nightmare that the only engine would “conk” or break down in mid-flight.