Charles Lindbergh: The Lone Eagle Page #2

Ryan's owner is barely a year

older than Lindbergh...

Benjamin Franklin Mahoney,

a former bond salesman

who bought the company

after taking a few flying lessons.

He shares Lindbergh's passion

for aviation

and his desire to win

the Transatlantic race.

Donald Hall is Ryan's only engineer.

He's also young, just twenty-seven.

Hall is astounded by Lindbergh's

vision of a solitary,

sleepless flight to Paris.

But a crew of one would mean

more room for gasoline.

He begins sketches at once for

a small aircraft, a flying fuel tank.

Lindbergh wires his sponsors

in St. Louis.

"Believe Ryan capable of building plane

with sufficient performance.

Delivery within sixty days.

Recommend closing deal.

Lindbergh."

Lindbergh has his team.

Now, it's time to get to work.

The aircraft will be an extension of

Charles Lindbergh himself.

"Every part of it can be designed

for a single purpose

every line fashioned to

the Paris flight.

I can inspect each detail before

it's covered with fabric and fairings.

I can build my own experience

into the plane's structure."

The young men who plan a leap

across the Atlantic

need to know precisely

how far it is to Paris.

Lindbergh has a primitive solution.

The bit of white grocery

string under my fingers

stretches taut along

the coast of North America,

bends down over a faded blue ocean,

and strikes the land mass of Europe.

It's 3600 statute miles.

It will be twenty-eight hours to

Ireland and thirty-six to Paris.

Lindbergh will use a simple compass to

guide him from New York to Newfoundland,

then across two thousand miles

of open sea,

with no hope of surviving

if anything goes wrong.

As Lindbergh's work gets under way,

the competition heats up.

On March 2, in New York,

Richard Byrd announces that his plan

to reach Paris is almost complete.

Byrd has built a 100,000 dollar,

gigantic aircraft named "America,"

and will be ready by May.

Just two weeks later, in Virginia,

American Navy pilots Noel Davis

and Stanton Wooster

unveil their own contender:

a tri-motor called "American Legion."

But Lindbergh holds to his plan

to build a small aircraft.

He is certain that

the bigger the plane,

the bigger the chance of

a fatal accident.

Then, on March 26, a new challenger

emerges in Paris.

Ace Charles Nungesser and his

one-eyed navigator Francois Coli

are ready for a westbound

crossing in their plane,

the "White Bird."

The Ryan team works around the clock,

a race against the world's

most famous aviators

all for a twenty-five year old with

a dream, and determination.

Then comes a stunning blow.

In mid-April, American pilot

Clarence Chamberlin announces that

he has stayed aloft

for a record-smashing

fifty-one hours in skies

over New York.

His powerful plane Columbia

is now ready for Paris.

Four planes are ready to go,

waiting only for clear skies

over the Atlantic,

while Charles Lindbergh is

on the Pacific coast,

still waiting for his aircraft

to be built.

Suddenly, the odds begin to change.

A test flight of Byrd's America

on April 16 ends in a twisted wreck.

Byrd and two of his crewmen

are seriously injured

and the America needs weeks

of repairs.

Eight days later,

Clarence Chamberlin takes off

from the same New York runway.

He crash lands the Columbia.

Chamberlin walks away,

but his landing gear is destroyed.

Noel Davis and Stanton Wooster

are not as fortunate.

On April 26, both men are killed

when their overloaded plane

stalls and crashes in Virginia.

Lindbergh's prediction has come

tragically true.

Loaded down multi engine giants are

too unreliable for transatlantic flight.

Two Americans and four Frenchmen

have given their lives

in the race to link their nations.

April 28, 1927.

Two months after Charles Lindbergh

arrived in San Diego,

his dream plane is born

the Spirit of St. Louis.

Named in honor of his backers

in St. Louis,

the Spirit is just over

twenty-seven feet long,

with a forty-six foot wing span.

The plane is trucked to a local

airfield, for its maiden voyage.

For Lindbergh, Mahoney, and Hall,

the moment of truth has come.

The Spirit of St. Louis is all

Lindbergh dreamed it would be.

"I've never felt a plane

accelerate so fast before.

There's a huge reserve of power."

There are no front windows.

A gas tank blocks Lindbergh's

forward view.

Visibility and comfort have been

sacrificed for endurance.

Weighing just over a ton empty,

the Spirit is a tiny challenger to

Richard Byrd's eight-ton America.

The first test is a stunning success.

Every possible ounce of weight

has been eliminated.

Lindbergh will confront the Atlantic

without a radio,

without navigational instruments,

without a parachute.

He has thought through everything

and carries nothing.

He makes two dozen test flights,

and declares the Spirit ready.

The time has come to leave for

New York, and the starting line.

But he may be too late.

On May 8, French aviators Nungesser

and Coli take off from Paris.

The next day,

newspapers report the French aces

have been spotted over Nova Scotia.

So close to fulfilling his dream.

Lindbergh despairs he has lost the race.

But Nungesser and Coli

never arrive in New York.

Their aircraft mysteriously disappear.

It is never found.

Six Men have now been sacrificed.

But Lindbergh has been granted

one more chance.

May 10, 1927.

Lindbergh says goodbye to

Benjamin Franklin Mahoney,

Donald Hall,

and the Ryan factory workers.

They have built the Spirit,

it is now up to Charles Lindbergh

to fly to New York,

before any other pilot

attempts the Atlantic.

But first, he must stop in St. Louis

to meet his backers.

He flies all night, testing the Spirit,

and his own stamina.

He calculates fuel consumption

at 100 miles per hour,

his planned airspeed over the Atlantic.

And he practices holding his course

on a dead heading for St. Louis.

It is dry run, over land,

for his Atlantic journey.

Fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes

after lifting off from California,

Charles Lindbergh lands the Spirit of

St. Louis in the city of her name.

He has broken the world speed record

on his flight.

"No man has ever traveled so fast

from the Pacific coast before."

Lindbergh's sponsors want to show off

their investment,

but the great race to Paris will not

wait for a Missouri parade.

They urge him on to New York.

Seven and a half hours later,

Lindbergh reaches New York.

"Manhattan Island lies below me

millions of people,

each one surrounded by a little aura

of his problems and his thoughts,

hardly conscious of

earth's expanse beyond.

What a contrast to the western spaces

I have crossed.

I feel cooped up just looking at it"

At 4:
31 PM, on May 12, 1927,

the tiny Spirit of St. Louis touches

down at Curtiss Field, Long Island.

Charles Lindbergh has crossed

the North American continent

more quickly than any man in history.

Suddenly, the race to Paris

has a new contender.

A young daredevil

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