Charles Lindbergh

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Charles Lindbergh the Spirit of St. Louis
Power point created by Robert Martinez Primary
Content Source A History of US, War, Peace, and
All That Jazz by Joy Hakim
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• In 1919, a wealthy hotel man, Raymond Orteig,
  offered a prize of 25,000 to anyone who could
  fly from New York to Paris. Several pilots tried
  for the prize. No one collected.

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• In 1927, competition got fierce. Besides the
  money, everyone knew there would be much glory
  for the pilot who first crossed the Atlantic
  Ocean.

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• In April, Richard E. Byrd took off, crashed, and
  broke his wrist.

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• That same April, two pilots set out from
  Virginia, crashed, and were killed. In early May,
  two French aces left Paris, headed out over the
  Atlantic, and were never heard of again.

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• In mid-May, three planes were being made ready.
  Newspapers were full of their stories. The
  competition had captured the imagination of
  people on both sides of the Atlantic.

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• Most of the newspaper attention focused on Byrd,
  who was famous and eager to try again. His plane
  had three engines and a well-trained crew.

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• The second plane, with two engines, was to be
  flown by two experienced pilots. The third plane,
  a small single-engine craft, could hold only one
  person. It was called the Spirit of St. Louis.

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• The Spirit of St. Louis got its name, from a
  group of St. Louis businessmen who helped pay
  for the plane.

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• The pilot, Charles Lindbergh, was little known.
  Hed been a barnstormer, a pilot who went around
  doing trick flying, circles and loops and
  daredevil things.

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• Lindbergh would take people on plane rides for 5
  a spin.

Charles Lindbergh picture on left.
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• That was the kind of thing most pilots did in
  those days. People didnt use airplanes for
  transportation. Trains were used to get places.

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• Airplanes? No one was quite sure where the future
  of aviation lay. But if planes could fly across
  the ocean safely, they might have an important
  future.

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• Lindbergh was a good pilot. He was the first man
  to fly the U.S. mail from St. Louis to Chicago.

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• And the first to survive four forced parachute
  jumps (forced because his planes developed
  problems and crashed.)

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• Something about him attracted people. Partly it
  was his looks. He was tall, six-foot-two, thin,
  with light, curly hair and a boyish grin. He
  looked younger than his 25 years.

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• He was quiet, and was always more at ease with
  machines, or nature, than with people. Hed grown
  up in Minnesota, where his father was a
  congressman.

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• Lindbergh never did well in school, maybe because
  he went to a different school almost every year.
  But he was smart enough to do a lot of reading.

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• It was 8 a.m. on May 20 when he took off. The
  weather wasnt good, but he was anxious to beat
  the others, and he was used to flying the mail in
  all kinds of weather.

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• His little plane carried so much gasoline that
  some people thought it would never get into the
  air. But Lindbergh had planned carefully. There
  wasnt an extra ounce on the plane.

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• He sat in a light wicker chair and carried little
  besides the fuel, a quart of water, a paper sack
  full of sandwiches, and a rubber raft.

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• There was no parachute, it would be of no use
  over the ocean, and there was no radio. He would
  be on his own once he left the East Coast.

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• Lindbergh headed out to sea, and people around
  the world learned of it on their radios.

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• That evening, during a boxing match at Yankee
  Stadium, the spectators rose and said a prayer
  for Charles Lindbergh, somewhere over the
  Atlantic Ocean.

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• Lindbergh had to stay awake or crash. After eight
  or ten hours of sitting in one place he began to
  doze. The night before the flight he had been so
  excited, that he had not slept at all.

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• Luckily the plane was frail. It banged about in
  the wind, and each time he started to nod it went
  spiraling down toward the water. That woke him.

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• Then miraculously, the fatigue ended, he looked
  down, and there was Ireland. Lindbergh was
  exactly where the charts said he should be.

Cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis.
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• Lindbergh didnt know that his plane was spotted
  over Ireland and the news radioed to America and
  France. People cheered and wept with relief.

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• He was seen over London, and then over the
  English Channel.

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• Thirty-three and a half hours after he left the
  United States, he circled the Eiffel Tower in
  Paris.

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• It had taken less time than he expected, so he
  was worried that no one would be at the airport
  to meet him. Then he looked down and saw a mob
  of people. They were waving and screaming.

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• The young flyer, who had brought nothing with him
  but the paper bag with sandwiches, was carried
  about on shoulders and hugged and kissed and
  cheered.

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• Charles Lindbergh was soon meeting kings and
  princes and more crowds of admirers.

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• He wanted to stay in Europe and see the sights,
  but President Calvin Coolidge sent a naval
  cruiser to Europe just to carry him and the
  Spirit of St. Louis back to America. He was a
  world hero.

Charles Lindbergh President Calvin Coolidge.
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• All over America there were parades and dinners
  and celebrations for the man they called Lone
  Eagle. People went wild with pride and
  excitement.

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• By the way, Lindbergh collected the prize check.