I've been re-reading Lindberg's "Spirit of St Louis" book. I read it before as a teenager and was somewhat put off by the tedious detail in his logs and his recollections of his past, but now as a pilot I marvel at the details. Imagine flying 2300 miles over open ocean on "dead reckoning" without navigation aides and making landfall within a few miles of the planned point. Flying hours in zero visibility with only rudimentary instruments. Managing fuel from multiple tanks without gauges. Flying a plane that was deliberately so unstable that one couldn't stop using the controls for a minute without it falling off into a spin.
The other things that caught my attention was that prior to the famous flight, he served in the Army reserves as a flying instructor while barnstorming the country ("See your farm for $5, sure you can bring your sweetheart/wife/mother along too"), all without holding a license or having a licensed mechanic service his plane. He received his Commerce Department pilot's license (number 6) while in New York waiting to take off for Paris, AFTER having flown cross-country from San Diego. While flying the mail, he had to jump from two different aircraft due to poor visibility at night.
On his early attempt at a cross-country flight he crashed at Pensacola, and the Navy there assisted him with repairs. Try that today.
There were at least four other competitors that were close to making the Paris flight when he did. All were better financed and had better planes with better equipment (some even had radios) and all others failed, yet some were willing to assist him making repairs and preparations for his flight. Flying was a brotherhood then
The other things that caught my attention was that prior to the famous flight, he served in the Army reserves as a flying instructor while barnstorming the country ("See your farm for $5, sure you can bring your sweetheart/wife/mother along too"), all without holding a license or having a licensed mechanic service his plane. He received his Commerce Department pilot's license (number 6) while in New York waiting to take off for Paris, AFTER having flown cross-country from San Diego. While flying the mail, he had to jump from two different aircraft due to poor visibility at night.
On his early attempt at a cross-country flight he crashed at Pensacola, and the Navy there assisted him with repairs. Try that today.
There were at least four other competitors that were close to making the Paris flight when he did. All were better financed and had better planes with better equipment (some even had radios) and all others failed, yet some were willing to assist him making repairs and preparations for his flight. Flying was a brotherhood then
