Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis

On May 21, 1927, in Paris, Charles Lindbergh alighted from his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, and entered history as the first person to complete a nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic. Now, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of Lindbergh's New York–Paris flight and the 100th anniversary of his birth, comes a fascinating new look at Lindbergh's life and the feat that made him an instant legend the world over.

The authors, both curators at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, stress the degree to which Lindbergh's achievement was grounded in his sophisticated grasp of aviation technology and his superb skills as a pilot. Illustrated with newly taken color photographs of the airplane—one of the most precious artifacts in the entire museum—and archival photographs of Lindbergh throughout his life, this gripping account bursts with the excitement of the early, pioneering days of aviation.

May 20-21, 2002, is the seventy-fifth anniversary of then 25-year-old Charles Lindbergh's nonstop solo flight from New York to Paris in a specially built monoplane dubbed Spirit of St. Louis by one of the feat's Missouri-based financial supporters. In this lovely book, dozens of photographs of the pilot, the plane, the event, and its aftermath accompany intelligent summaries of Lindbergh's early life, the making of the plane, the flight, and Lindbergh's subsequent life as the twentieth-century American hero. The flight's basics are probably still common knowledge, but lesser-known aspects--such as New York restaurateur Raymond Orteig's promise of $25,000 for the flier who first crossed the Atlantic or the 48-state tour Lindbergh and the Spirit flew during the summer of 1927--may be news to many. The authors downplay the Lindbergh-baby kidnapping and murder, seemingly in favor of discussing Lindbergh's opposition to U.S. entry into World War II (unfortunately, with more political correctness than understanding), his postwar criticism of the aviation industry, and his late-life environmentalism. A top-flight commemorative. Ray Olson
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May 21, 1927. Le Bourget Airport, Paris. Thirty-three hours, 30 minutes and 3,610 miles since takeoff from Roosevelt Field on Long Island. After circling the field one last time, Lindbergh throttles back. His reflexes are now quite dull from fatigue, and he finds himself struggling to control his aircraft. But he lands safely to a tumultuous reception and enduring fame as the first person to fly nonstop alone from New York to Paris. Pisano and van der Linden--respectively, chair of the aeronautics division and curator of air transportation and special-purpose aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution--almost put the reader in the cockpit of that single-engine airplane to share the challenge and ordeal of the flight. Many pictures of the pilot, the plane and scenes related to the flight enliven the story.

Editors of Scientific American