Harold (Scotty) Scott was a pilot and flight instructor at the Utica Airport in the late 1920s and early 1930s. According to his daughter, Janet Scott Burwell of Inlet, Amelia Earhart flew into the Utica Airport in Marcy unexpectedly with her co-pilot, in an open cockpit biplane because of bad weather.
It was March 1929 and Earhart had already made a name for herself as being the first woman to fly across the Atlantic with a pilot, co-pilot and mechanic.
That landmark flight in June 1928 took 21 hours.Two months later in August 1928, she became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back.
“After landing at the Utica Airport with her co-pilot, she talked to my dad and the other pilots and mechanics about her flying experiences and someone took a picture,” said Burwell.
“My dad was really taken by her knowledge and personality and her adventurous spirit.”
Earhart was wearing a skirt and leather jacket, as seen in the photo, but was cold, Burwell said.
“Dad had some extra wool socks and he gave them to her.
She put them on and then he and another pilot guided her plane out through the valley,” she said.
Burwell’s father, who was called Scotty by everyone, moved to Inlet in 1930 and was one of the first pilots to fly charter trips in the Adirondacks with his sea plane or ski plane service.
After retiring from flying in 1944, he operated Scott’s Inn with his wife until 1968 with his wife Dorothy.
There are a number of photographs of Scotty in Clara O’Brien’s book, God’s Country, published in 1982.
