Seventy-five years ago, Charles Lindbergh told the good burghers of St. Louis he had $2,000 in savings and a dream: cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane, non-stop, all alone in the cockpit. He needed a little more money to buy an airplane.
The boosters shrewdly saw in their champion the embodiment of the spirit of their city, Gateway to the West, which they could see as a national hub for the emerging industry of commercial aviation. The boosters added $13,000 to Lindbergh's $2,000 ante. Lindbergh selected Ryan Airlines Co. of San Diego to design and build the plane to his specifications. For their money, the Missouri businessmen got what today is sometimes called title sponsorship. The name was painted on the engine cowling: Spirit of St. Louis.
When Lindbergh's plan became known, there were cynics who said, "Three thousand, six hundred miles, most of it over water, and the man has to stay awake more than thirty hours in freezing temperatures. Come on!"
The 25-year-old Charles Lindbergh thought New York hotelier Raymond Orteig's $25,000 prize to be the first to fly non-stop from New York to Paris was well worth the risk.
Still, the world was braced for failure. In attempts immediately before Lindbergh's turn on that muddy Long Island runway, several aircraft had already crashed and their crews killed or seriously injured. Now the eyes of the western world focused on the young man who left a Minnesota farm to fly planes at county fairs, to fly the U.S. mail and, on May 20, 1927, to attempt to fly across the ocean, non-stop, alone in the cockpit.
Cameras recorded the Lindbergh takeoff. The plane, stuffed with fuel, bounced along the lumpy Roosevelt airfield in Long Island and barely cleared the power lines at the end of the runway. But then the world waited. Radios did not crackle with real-stuff talk such as "A-OK" or even "Houston, we have a problem." Lindbergh listened to the engine. The world waited for a sighting. Failure was an option, regrettably.
We learned later that Lindbergh drew on all the resources of man and machine to avoid storms, extreme chill and sleep. He bounced up and down in the wicker seat to keep his blood from pooling. He stamped his feet and pumped his arm. He used his thumb to pry open eyelids heavy with sleepiness. Had they known this, the cynics would be shaking their heads, predicting the wrong ending, and already saying, "What was he thinking?"
Indeed, what was Lindbergh thinking?
Before dark on the second day Lindbergh saw fishing vessels and correctly deduced that he was close to shore. Soon he was flying over farms. He saw the evening glow of Paris in the distance. Word of his impending arrival moved faster than his 100 mile an hour airplane. Black and white news clips show thousands of Parisians surrounding the American hero and his plane. Then began the international adulation and the triumphant return to America. Orteig's prize money would be enough to buy a couple more Ryan monoplanes. For a time, he owned the world. Not bad for a former barnstormer and airmail pilot.
It's easy to understand why the world celebrated Lindbergh 75 years ago, but why do we celebrate him now? Some will remind us that Lindbergh's flight and his consulting work later contributed significantly to America's world leadership in aviation, militarily and commercially. They would be right.
Lindbergh's St. Louis investors had it right. St. Louis and America had spirit. Lindbergh spoke to each of us about that spirit when he landed in the dark at Le Bourget field in Paris. Orville and Wilbur Wright taught us about it in 1903. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reminded us from the moon in 1969.
There are perhaps some cynics today, as there were in 1927, who doubt the existence of the spirit. Charles Lindbergh showed us then, as he reminds us on this anniversary, that each of us can achieve great things. that collectively we can accomplish more, and that we should never, ever let the cynics describe who we are.
This is what Lindbergh was thinking about on that lonely, fearful flight. This is not only a message for America. This is a message for the world. That's the Charles Lindbergh spirit, the enduring legacy of Charles Lindbergh.
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Aviation historian Kermit Weeks owns Fantasy of Flight -- World's Greatest Aircraft Collection (www.fantasyofflight.com) in Polk City, Florida. He is the official pilot of 75th anniversary events celebrating Charles Lindbergh's nonstop, solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927.
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