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World FlightPilot Linda Finch will take off on March 17, 1997 to repeat one of the most famous flights of all time-Amelia Earharts 1937 round-the-world journey. The original flight did not end well. In July 1937, near the end of her trip, Earharts Lockheed 10E airplane suddenly disappeared over the Pacific Ocean. Finch hopes that this time she will have a better chance. Though she is flying an exact copy of Ear, arts plane, she will have the latest navigation, communications, and weather-tracking tools. Amelia had to navigate by the stars, an impossible task on a cloudy night, Finch says. Finch, in contrast, will be able to know her exact location-even while flying over the ocean-using the-Global Positioning system . This ring of orbiting satellites continuously transmits radio signals to Earth. To calculate her position, Finchs GPS receiver will measure how long it takes radio signals transmitted from various satellites to reach the plane. Knowing her location is especially important when flying around the equator, as Earhart did. In that region, thunderstorms are dangerous. I cant fly through thunderstorms, says Finch, because, the winds moving up and down could break the plane. And Finch will not be able to fly above the storms because her airplane Electra is not pressurized. That means the plane is not equipped to pump in outside air to make breathing easier at high altitudes. So Finch will fly around storms-or wait for them to pass. But unlike Earhart, Finch will know what weather is ahead. She will receive regular reports via radar from Naval stations around the globe. | 
