LB2016.15.969

LB2016.15.969

Charles A. Lindburgh poses beside his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis at the Rockland, Maine Airport hangar in 1928 after a visit to his bride-to-be Anne Morrow at the Morrow's summer home on North Haven Island, Maine Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 - August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20-21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles flying alone for 33.5 hours. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was designed and built by the Ryan Airline Company specifically to compete for the Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities. Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the first solo transatlantic flight and the longest at the time by nearly 2,000 miles. It became known as one of the most consequential flights in history and ushered in a new era of air transportation between parts of the globe. Lindbergh was raised mostly in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., the son of prominent U.S. Congressman from Minnesota, Charles August Lindbergh. He became a U.S. Army Air Service cadet in 1924, earning the rank of second lieutenant in 1925. Later that year, he was hired as a U.S. Air Mail pilot in the Greater St. Louis area, where he started to prepare for his historic 1927 transatlantic flight. Lindbergh received the highest U.S. military decoration from President Calvin Coolidge, the Medal of Honor, as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross for his transatlantic flight. In July 1927, he was promoted to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve. The flight also earned him the highest French order of merit, civil or military, the Legion of Honor. His achievement spurred significant global interest in both commercial aviation and air mail, which revolutionized the aviation industry worldwide (a phenomenon dubbed the "Lindbergh boom"), and he spent much time promoting these industries. He was honored as Time's first Man of the Year in 1928, was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1929 by President Herbert Hoover, and was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 1930. Wikipedia contributors, "Charles Lindbergh," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charles_Lindbergh&oldid=1152706992 (accessed May 8, 2023). The Spirit of St. Louis (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20-21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France, for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize. Lindbergh took off in the Spirit from Roosevelt Airfield, Garden City, New York, and landed 33 hours, 30 minutes later at Aéroport Le Bourget in Paris, France, a distance of approximately 3,600 miles (5,800 km). One of the best-known aircraft in the world, the Spirit was built by Ryan Airlines in San Diego, California, owned and operated at the time by Benjamin Franklin Mahoney, who had purchased it from its founder, T. Claude Ryan, in 1926. The Spirit is on permanent display in the main entryway's Milestones of Flight gallery at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Wikipedia contributors, "Spirit of St. Louis," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spirit_of_St._Louis&oldid=1149734785 (accessed May 8, 2023). "276"