Finch hopes the flight will be a living memorial to Earhart's courage and skill and will encourage young Americans to ``dream big dreams and live large lives,'' something that the daring aviation pioneer of the '20s and '30s clearly did.
To that end, Finch, 45, will set out March 17 to travel more than 29,000 miles through heat and cold in a cramped 4-foot-by-4-foot cockpit that echoes deafeningly with the noise of the two air-cooled Pratt & Whitney Wasp engines.
Her average speed is expected to be 150 m.p.h., a snail's pace in this era of jet travel, and she expects to make more than 30 stops in 20 countries on five continents in a grueling three-month journey that will begin and end in Oakland, Calif.
Finch will climb no higher than 12,500 feet because the silvery Electra won't carry the oxygen she would need to survive at higher altitudes.
Involving students is an important part of the adventure for Finch. She talked Pratt & Whitney into providing $5 million to pay for the plane's restoration; for the trip, called ``World Flight 1997,'' and for a related $3.6 million ``You Can Soar'' educational effort.
The program's organizers hope to send study guides to every middle school in America linking the trip to exercises in math, history, science, geography and leadership. Its World Wide Web site will offer interactive exercises, including sending electronic mail to classrooms along the route of Finch's flight.
A special display on Finch's venture has been set up at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, which the pilot visited yesterday.
Finch clearly shares Earhart's energy and capacity for large dreams. A successful nursing-home operator from San Antonio, Texas, she commutes to work in a Beechcraft Baron and has made a hobby of restoring and flying World War II-era fighters.
