Passed her NAA license trials in December 1921, confirming she had soloed earlier that year.
On December 15, 1921, Amelia Earhart passed the flight trials required by the National Aeronautic Association, formally confirming her qualifications as a pilot. This followed her earlier solo flight of 1921, whose exact date was not documented in surviving records but which preceded these trials.
Passing these trials was a significant milestone at a time when female pilots were exceedingly rare — fewer than a few dozen women in the United States held any form of pilot certification. Earhart had spent months of grueling practice, often under Neta Snook's tutelage and later with other instructors, purchasing her own aircraft — a secondhand yellow Kinner Airster she nicknamed 'The Canary' — to hone her skills.
Successfully completing the trials situated her among an elite handful of licensed women aviators and set the stage for the record-setting flights that would follow within the year, including her women's altitude record set in October 1922. It represented formal recognition of her competence and dedication in a field that offered women little institutional encouragement, and it marked her transition from student to a credentialed aviator poised to make history.