The Last Horizon: Amelia Earhart's Final Journey Tour Leg 11

Leg 11 — GOSS → GOOY Mission Fly the short leg from Saint-Louis to Dakar, where Amelia prepares for one of the most remote portions of her circumnavigation across the Sahara Desert.

📖 The Gateway to Africa Although only a short hop separated Saint-Louis from Dakar, Amelia insisted on making the flight exactly as planned. Every leg of the journey mattered. Every takeoff and landing represented another link in a chain stretching around the globe. Dakar was one of the busiest aviation crossroads in French West Africa. Aircraft from Europe, South America, and Africa all converged here, making it an ideal place for fuel, maintenance, and weather briefings. The airport bustled with activity as French military aircraft shared the field with commercial transports and adventurous private aviators. While mechanics inspected the Electra once again, Amelia found herself surrounded by reporters eager to know whether she believed the hardest part of the trip was behind her. She smiled politely. "I don't think in terms of hardest." "I simply think about the next airport." It was an answer that perfectly reflected her personality. She rarely looked too far ahead. Great journeys, she believed, were accomplished one flight at a time. As evening settled over Dakar Harbor, Fred spread maps across a table inside the operations office. Tomorrow would be unlike anything they had experienced so far. Ahead lay the Sahara. A thousand miles of rock, sand, and almost no landmarks.