[caption id="attachment_66957" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Amelia Earhart"]
A campaign is underway in Derry to bring one of the world's most famous airplanes back to one of the world's most famous landing sites.
"Old Bessie" touched down at Ballyarnett, Derry in May 1932, just 15 hours after leaving Newfoundland on the first ever transatlantic crossing to be completed by a solo pilot.
The legendary Amelia Earhart was at the controls.
And now Earhart fans in Ireland are proposing that the aviatrix's Lockheed Vega 5b plane should return "home" next year to mark the eightieth anniversary of the flight.
They believe this will act as a magnet to attract Derry's sizeable American diaspora back for its "City of Culture" year in 2013.
The plane is currently on display at the Washington Smithsonian, and City of Culture representatives are contacting the institution to see if directors would be amenable to letting Bessie make the trip back across the Atlantic.
Derry Earhart enthusiast John Thompson, who was an adviser to the 2009 film "Amelia," said: "Her landing here is an event we need to be celebrating and commemorating. In Ireland, we sometimes tend to overlook the huge significance of our aviation heritage.
"But in the U.S. the interest in Earhart is phenomenal. Could you imagine such a wonderful artifact returning here? It would attract massive international focus. We tend to overlook the huge significance of our aviation heritage. In the U.S. the interest in Earhart is phenomenal. Derry/Londonderry is hugely important in terms of world aviation and next year we're going to be reminded of our status in spadefuls,"
Thompson said that the tourism draw of Bessie would be enormous.
"Belfast is making an industry out of the Titanic. And yet in terms of connecting the world, and bringing the two sides of the Atlantic together, this event is just as significant," he said.
