How did Lindbergh get home?

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

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Max' tagline made me wonder...


"Are there any mechanics here?"
-Charles A. Lindbergh, upon arrival in Paris
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How did Lindbergh get home after that trans-Atlantic flight? Did he fly the Spirit of St. Louis back to the US? Did he have it shipped home? Did he take a boat back?
 
By ship.
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/history/paris.asp said:
When he came home to America aboard the USS Memphis, a majestic convoy of warships and aircraft escorted him up the Chesapeake and Potomac to Washington. President Coolidge welcomed him home and bestowed the Distinguished Flying Cross upon him. His New York reception was the wildest in the city's history as 4 million people lined the parade route and Mayor Jimmy Walker pinned New York's Medal of Valor upon him. Finally, when it was all over, he turned and flew to St. Louis for a rest and to contemplate. His epic flight would become the one singular event which electrified the world and changed the whole course of history.
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Wiki says it came home with him on the Memphis and then he flew it around the US and latin america and in 1928 its last flight to the Smithsonian.

huh; 81 people flew the Atlantic before he did!
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Wiki says it came home with him on the Memphis and then he flew it around the US and latin america and in 1928 its last flight to the Smithsonian.

huh; 81 people flew the Atlantic before he did!
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That is true, he came back on a ship, with the plane. As far a the 81 people who flew the Atlantic before him, I don't know anything about that. Lindbergh's accomplishment was not flying the Atlantic, it was flying non-stop from New York to Paris. No one had done that before.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Wiki says it came home with him on the Memphis and then he flew it around the US and latin america and in 1928 its last flight to the Smithsonian.

huh; 81 people flew the Atlantic before he did!
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But, it was the first New York flight.
 
Thread Creep alert! In 1896 two guys rowed a boat across the Atlantic. They, too, loaded the boat onto a steamship for the return voyage.... but the ship ran out of coal somewhere off Cape Cod. :( What to do? :confused: Launch the boat and our heroes rowed to shore to get help!

Ran out of coal? I guess they forgot to do the pre-float inspection of the coal bunkers....

-Skip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Samuelsen_and_George_Harbo
 
JimmyWalker.jpg

"His New York reception was the wildest in the city's history as 4 million people lined the parade route and Mayor Jimmy Walker pinned New York's Medal of Valor upon him."

Wow. It must have been really wild.
 
Lindbergh wanted to continue around the world but was essentually ordered to return on the Memphis by the president.

One aspect of Lindbergh and the Spirit of St Louis that is not often mentioned is that from the time he landed in Paris until the plane went to the museum he was unique in his ability to travel globally. It's hard to imagine the significance of this now as we all jet around easily. But back then, the ability to up and transport yourself thousands of miles in a matter of hours was practically superhuman. The Spirit wasn't particularly fast but it had incredible range and Lindbergh had the ability to exploit it. His post Paris flight tours are in themselves fantastic and amazing.

Imagine today if someone offered a prize for the first solo non-stop trip to the moon and back and some unknown person with a few silent backers and a budget under a million pulled it off. I'm not sure even that would equil the triamph of Lindbergh in todays world.
 
Lindbergh was after the $25000 Ortieg Prize, which required the airplane to fly from New York to Paris non stop, or from Paris to New York. There were two other planes poised to embark at the same time, one being Cdr. Richard Byrd who was going to fly a tri-motor, and a crew representing Bellanca which was mired in court while they argued who was going to be included in the crew. The Ortieg Prize did not state that the flight had to be solo, it just had to be non stop. Both of the other two flights were going to be multi engine planes, but Lindbergh believed that having more than one engine would compound his chances of engine failure, and he knew that he could not complete the flight with an engine out regardless of how many he had. A side note is that he was in negotiations with Bellanca for a while, but they were too controlling, and wanted to pick the crew, including the pilot, so Lindbergh parted company with them. Lindbergh actually beat Byrd to the punch by taking off before the weather cleared over the Atlantic, betting that it would clear before he got there. A French plane had tried to do it the other direction, Paris to New York, about a week earlier, but did not make it. The pilot and crew were never heard from again.

As long as I'm here, I'm going to refer to a post that I made some time ago about Lindbergh's first words when he landed in Paris. It is not "where am I", which is often quoted incorrectly. While I am not the expert on Lindbergh, I have at least read a couple of his books.

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21197.
 
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Maxmosbey said:
As long as I'm here, I'm going to refer to a post that I made some time ago about Lindbergh's first words when he landed in Paris. It is not "where am I", which is often quoted incorrectly. While I am not the expert on Lindbergh, I have at least read a couple of his books.
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Absolutely.

Lindbergh wrote We very soon after the flight, but in Spirit of St Louis said the book was hastily written and so he wrote the second account to lay out the full and complete record.

He absolutely knew where he was and the only confusion was finding Le Bourget (This was long before standardized lighted runways and taxiways) amidst all the lights of Paris.
 
and important aspect of Lindbergh's success was his choice of 1 engine when most others were focused on the notion of having a back up. The concept of increased risk of failure with mulitple engines was lost to most. His choice of 1 pilot was also a key to his success. Lindbergh has been painted as a loner but his earlier aviation experiences were usually in cooperation with others, as a barnstormer, mail pilot, and military pilot. For the Paris flight he believed and stated that mulitiple personalities would only complicate, vex, and doom the effort. The Bellanca team proved that point.

There's no doubt that Luck played a big part in Lindberghs success but there is also no doubt that his focused, calculated, and innovative approach to solving the problem simply blew all other efforts out of the water. His position at the right place and time in history along with his genius in selecting the correct course of action is enviable.

MM
 
And the book Spirit of St Louis won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1954. He credited his wife Ann Morrow for help in writing it but it's widely accepted that HE wrote the book. He had 22 years to work on it granted. But, it is not only a great aviation story, it is a masterpiece of literature.

Imagine, pulling-off one of the greatest flights in history then, 22 years later publishing a book about it that becomes an international best seller and timeless literary classic.
 
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wby0nder said:
mulitiple personalities would only complicate, vex, and doom the effort. The Bellanca team proved that point.
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ow; that's maligning the Bellanca name!! unfairly!!

Let's not say "the Bellanca team"!
How about "The Group of Arguers Which Rightly Realized the Bellanca was The Best Airplane For The Job"?!

:D
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
ow; that's maligning the Bellanca name!! unfairly!!

Let's not say "the Bellanca team"!
How about "The Group of Arguers Which Rightly Realized the Bellanca was The Best Airplane For The Job"?!

Fair enough. Bellanca got his due. I think there have been a lot more Bellanca's flying around even today then there ever were Ryans.
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Skip Miller said:
Thread Creep alert! In 1896 two guys rowed a boat across the Atlantic. They, too, loaded the boat onto a steamship for the return voyage.... but the ship ran out of coal somewhere off Cape Cod. :( What to do? :confused: Launch the boat and our heroes rowed to shore to get help!

Ran out of coal? I guess they forgot to do the pre-float inspection of the coal bunkers....

-Skip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Samuelsen_and_George_Harbo
Click to expand...

The guy at the FBO probably didn't fll it clear to the cap. It happens all of the time.
 
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