Lindbergh, Charles A. 1902-1974

LINDBERGH, CHARLES A. 1902-1974

Pioneer aviator

"Lucky Lindy."

The greatest aeronautic feat of the 1920s, and indeed one of the greatest and most-publicized events of the decade in any sense, was Charles Augustus Lindbergh's solo, non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in 1927. More important than the personal fame the flight brought Lindbergh was its impact on the history of aviation. It proved that it was possible to build planes capable of flying long distances safely, paving the way for the development of commercial airlines and specialized military aircraft.

The Orteig Prize

Lindbergh's flight was not the first Atlantic crossing by air. Eight years earlier five navy men in a seaplane, the NC-4, had flown from Newfoundland to the Azores to Portugal and then to England. Still, nobody had ever flown solo directly from an American city to a European capital, and the Orteig prize of $25,000 was offered for the first individual to accomplish such a feat.

Richard Byrd

Navy Comdr. Richard E. Byrd had flown over the North Pole in 1926 and was keen to win the honor of being the first to cross the Atlantic solo. He had had the runway at Roosevelt Field on Long Island lengthened to enable a plane laden with extra gasoline tanks to take off. Unfortunately for Byrd, a minor crash delayed his departure, and he approved the request of a long and lean midwestern mail pilot, Charles Lindbergh, to use the field.

Backing

Lindbergh, who was backed by Saint Louis civic boosters and aviation buffs, named his plane The Spirit of St. Louis. (It is now hanging in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.) He wanted a specially constructed plane for the flight and finally signed a contract with Ryan Airlines of San Diego, California, to build the aircraft for $10,580. It had a nine-cylinder, air-cooled CurtisWright engine with redundancies—back-up parts. It had two ignition systems, a double carburetor, and no radiator to spring a leak. Lindbergh not only supervised but assisted in the construction, which was accomplished in only sixty days.

In the Air

Lindbergh left San Diego for New York on 10 May 1927, stopping only for a brief layover in Saint Louis. On 12 May the bleary-eyed, twenty-five-year-old aviator taxied to a stop on at Roosevelt Field. After a week of last-minute preparations, interviews, and weather watching—during which Lindbergh is said to have gotten little sleep—the U.S. Weather Bureau finally issued a guardedly optimistic forecast for the North Atlantic on 20 May 1927. It was pouring rain on Long Island, but Lindbergh ordered his plane pushed out of the hanger and into takeoff position. With agonizing slowness the plane bumped across the muddy airstrip, barely getting up enough speed to clear a parked tractor and some overhead wires at the end of the runway. Finally at 7:52 A.M. The Spirit of St. Louis went airborne carrying 425 gallons of gasoline—its biggest load ever. The stripped-down cockpit contained no radio and no parachute. To save even more weight the cockpit seat was made out of wicker, and the only food Lindbergh carried was five sandwiches. The airplane had no windshield, only side windows, and to see ahead Lindbergh had to use a movable periscope.

Over the Waves

Lindbergh's plane, a monoplane in an era of biplanes, was the finest available, and the chances of its failing him were not great. The primary difficulty was in the takeoff, in which a crackup would almost certainly have created a blazing inferno. In a time before automatic pilots—and with thirty-seven course changes to make in thirty-three hours—Lindbergh was aware that his greatest enemy was sleep. He had prepared for the flight by deliberately depriving himself of sleep for long periods, but it is doubtful that such "training" was of any real benefit. His youth and stamina were his real strengths. Lindbergh had not even reached Nova Scotia when he first fell asleep, waking up with a jolt. When he opened a window to blow cold air on his face, his Mercator chart, on which he had plotted his great-circle course, almost got sucked out of the plane. He buzzed Saint John's, Newfoundland, to let people know he had made it to the extreme tip of North America, and then he headed out over the vastness of the open Atlantic.

No Deicers

Flying blind in dense clouds, Lindbergh rose to more than ten thousand feet, trying to get above them. He could not, and the wings began to ice up. By descending and maneuvering, he finally escaped the clouds and the ice, but sleepiness continued to dog him. He hallucinated, saw mirages, and sometimes snapped awake just as the plane was on the verge of setting down in the sea. Finally he saw the coast of Ireland, got a fix on his position, and steadied his course for Paris. At Le Bourget Airport on 21 May a tumultuous crowd of 100,000 excited Frenchmen surged onto the runway as he taxied to a stop. Lindbergh's epic flight of 3,610 miles had taken thirty-three and a half hours. The American was borne off the field in triumph on their shoulders, as souvenir seekers ripped off parts of the plane. President Calvin Coolidge had the national hero brought home on the navy cruiser Memphis. In his younger days Lindbergh had been a reserve second lieutenant in the U. S. Army Air Service. Now he was made a colonel. His safe landing on 21 May 1927 in France put American aviation on the high level it had been seeking for some time. A new era in aviation had dawned.

Sources:

Charles A, Lindbergh, Of Flight and Life (New York: Scribners, 1948);

Lindbergh, "We" (New York & London: Putnam, 1927).