SoonerStormchaser
5/21/2008, 08:25 AM
May 21, 1927: Charles Lindburgh Completes First Non-Stop Transatlantic Flight.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Spirit_of_St._Louis.jpg
Eighty-one years ago today, the Spirit of St. Louis (Registration: N-X-211) is a custom-built single engine, single seat monoplane flown by Charles Lindbergh on the first non-stop solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris on 20 May and 21 May 1927, for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.
http://www.wired.com/ly/wired/news/images/full/LindberghStLouis.jpg
Designated to be awarded to the pilot of the first successful nonstop flight made in either direction between New York City and Paris within five years after its establishment, the $25,000 Orteig Prize was first offered by the French born New York hotelier (Lafayette Hotel) Raymond Orteig on May 19, 1919. Although that initial time limit lapsed without a serious challenger, the state of aviation technology had advanced sufficiently by 1924 to prompt Orteig to extend his offer for another five years, and this time it began to attract an impressive grouping of well known, highly experienced, and well financed contenders. Ironically the one exception among these competitors was the still boyish, 25-year old relative latecomer to the race Charles Lindbergh who, in relation to the others, was virtually anonymous to the public as an aviation figure, had considerably less overall flying experience, and was being primarily financed by just a $15,000 bank loan and his own modest savings.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Lindbergh_check.jpg
Six well known aviators had thus already lost their lives in pursuit of the Orteig Prize when Lindbergh took off on his successful attempt in the early morning of May 20, 1927. Dubbed the Spirit of St. Louis, his "partner" was a fabric covered, single-seat, single-engine "Ryan NYP" high wing monoplane designed by Donald Hall and custom built by Ryan Aeronautical Company of San Diego, California. Although the primary source of funding for the purchase of the Spirit and other expenses related to the overall New York to Paris effort came from a $15,000 State National Bank of St. Louis loan made on February 18, 1927, to St. Louis businessmen Harry H. Knight and Harold M. Bixby, the project's two principal trustees, and another $1,000 donated by Frank Robertson of RAC on the same day, Lindbergh himself also personally contributed $2,000 of his own money from both his savings and his earnings from the 10 months that he flew the Air Mail for RAC.
http://www.visitingdc.com/images/spirit-st-louis-picture.jpg
Burdened by its heavy load of 450 gallons of gasoline (2,385 lbs) and hampered by a muddy, rain soaked runway, Lindbergh's Wright Whirlwind powered monoplane gained speed very slowly as it made its 7:52 AM takeoff run from Roosevelt Field, but its J-5C radial engine still proved powerful enough to allow the "Spirit" to clear the telephone lines at the far end of the field "by about twenty feet with a fair reserve of flying speed." Over the next 33.5 hours he and the "Spirit" which Lindbergh always jointly referred to simply as "WE" faced many challenges including skimming over both storm clouds at 10,000 feet and wave tops at as low at 10 ft, fighting icing, flying blind through fog for several hours, and navigating only by the stars (when visible) and "dead reckoning" ** before landing at Le Bourget at 10:22 PM on May 21. A crowd estimated at 150,000 spectators stormed the field, dragged Lindbergh out of the cockpit, and literally carried him around above their heads (in a crowd surf) for "nearly half an hour." While some damage was done to the "Spirit" (especially to the fabric covering on the fuselage) by souvenir hunters, both Lindbergh and the Spirit were eventually "rescued" from the mob by a group of French military flyers, soldiers, and police who took them both to safety in a nearby hanger. From that moment on, however, life would never again be the same for the former little known Air Mail pilot who by his successful flight had achieved virtually instantaneous and lifelong world fame.
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/nyc100/images/nyc100-3-murray.1.jpg
The French Foreign Office flew the American flag, the first time it had saluted someone not a head of state. Gaston Doumergue, the President of France, bestowed the French L้gion d'honneur on the young Capt. Lindbergh, and on his arrival back in the United States aboard the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Memphis (CL-13) on June 11, 1927, a fleet of warships and multiple flights of military aircraft including pursuit planes, bombers, and the rigid airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3), escorted him up the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross. On that same day the U.S. Post Office Department issued a 10-Cent Air Mail stamp (Scott C-10) depicting the Spirit of St. Louis and a map of the flight. A ticker-tape parade was held for him down 5th Avenue in New York City on June 13, 1927.
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/images2/lindbergh_presentation.jpg
After the flight, Lindbergh became an important voice on behalf of aviation activities, including the central committee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in the United States. The massive publicity surrounding him and his flight boosted the aviation industry and made a skeptical public take air travel seriously.
**NOTE- Dead reckoning is still taught as a navigation method to this day. Your humble nav/frag. magnet still must show his proficiency in it in case the (highly unlikely) event happens where all my lovely NAVAIDS and GPS INU's all decide to go inop.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Spirit_of_St._Louis.jpg
Eighty-one years ago today, the Spirit of St. Louis (Registration: N-X-211) is a custom-built single engine, single seat monoplane flown by Charles Lindbergh on the first non-stop solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris on 20 May and 21 May 1927, for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.
http://www.wired.com/ly/wired/news/images/full/LindberghStLouis.jpg
Designated to be awarded to the pilot of the first successful nonstop flight made in either direction between New York City and Paris within five years after its establishment, the $25,000 Orteig Prize was first offered by the French born New York hotelier (Lafayette Hotel) Raymond Orteig on May 19, 1919. Although that initial time limit lapsed without a serious challenger, the state of aviation technology had advanced sufficiently by 1924 to prompt Orteig to extend his offer for another five years, and this time it began to attract an impressive grouping of well known, highly experienced, and well financed contenders. Ironically the one exception among these competitors was the still boyish, 25-year old relative latecomer to the race Charles Lindbergh who, in relation to the others, was virtually anonymous to the public as an aviation figure, had considerably less overall flying experience, and was being primarily financed by just a $15,000 bank loan and his own modest savings.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Lindbergh_check.jpg
Six well known aviators had thus already lost their lives in pursuit of the Orteig Prize when Lindbergh took off on his successful attempt in the early morning of May 20, 1927. Dubbed the Spirit of St. Louis, his "partner" was a fabric covered, single-seat, single-engine "Ryan NYP" high wing monoplane designed by Donald Hall and custom built by Ryan Aeronautical Company of San Diego, California. Although the primary source of funding for the purchase of the Spirit and other expenses related to the overall New York to Paris effort came from a $15,000 State National Bank of St. Louis loan made on February 18, 1927, to St. Louis businessmen Harry H. Knight and Harold M. Bixby, the project's two principal trustees, and another $1,000 donated by Frank Robertson of RAC on the same day, Lindbergh himself also personally contributed $2,000 of his own money from both his savings and his earnings from the 10 months that he flew the Air Mail for RAC.
http://www.visitingdc.com/images/spirit-st-louis-picture.jpg
Burdened by its heavy load of 450 gallons of gasoline (2,385 lbs) and hampered by a muddy, rain soaked runway, Lindbergh's Wright Whirlwind powered monoplane gained speed very slowly as it made its 7:52 AM takeoff run from Roosevelt Field, but its J-5C radial engine still proved powerful enough to allow the "Spirit" to clear the telephone lines at the far end of the field "by about twenty feet with a fair reserve of flying speed." Over the next 33.5 hours he and the "Spirit" which Lindbergh always jointly referred to simply as "WE" faced many challenges including skimming over both storm clouds at 10,000 feet and wave tops at as low at 10 ft, fighting icing, flying blind through fog for several hours, and navigating only by the stars (when visible) and "dead reckoning" ** before landing at Le Bourget at 10:22 PM on May 21. A crowd estimated at 150,000 spectators stormed the field, dragged Lindbergh out of the cockpit, and literally carried him around above their heads (in a crowd surf) for "nearly half an hour." While some damage was done to the "Spirit" (especially to the fabric covering on the fuselage) by souvenir hunters, both Lindbergh and the Spirit were eventually "rescued" from the mob by a group of French military flyers, soldiers, and police who took them both to safety in a nearby hanger. From that moment on, however, life would never again be the same for the former little known Air Mail pilot who by his successful flight had achieved virtually instantaneous and lifelong world fame.
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/nyc100/images/nyc100-3-murray.1.jpg
The French Foreign Office flew the American flag, the first time it had saluted someone not a head of state. Gaston Doumergue, the President of France, bestowed the French L้gion d'honneur on the young Capt. Lindbergh, and on his arrival back in the United States aboard the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Memphis (CL-13) on June 11, 1927, a fleet of warships and multiple flights of military aircraft including pursuit planes, bombers, and the rigid airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3), escorted him up the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. where President Calvin Coolidge awarded him the Distinguished Flying Cross. On that same day the U.S. Post Office Department issued a 10-Cent Air Mail stamp (Scott C-10) depicting the Spirit of St. Louis and a map of the flight. A ticker-tape parade was held for him down 5th Avenue in New York City on June 13, 1927.
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/images2/lindbergh_presentation.jpg
After the flight, Lindbergh became an important voice on behalf of aviation activities, including the central committee of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in the United States. The massive publicity surrounding him and his flight boosted the aviation industry and made a skeptical public take air travel seriously.
**NOTE- Dead reckoning is still taught as a navigation method to this day. Your humble nav/frag. magnet still must show his proficiency in it in case the (highly unlikely) event happens where all my lovely NAVAIDS and GPS INU's all decide to go inop.