Charles Lindbergh: Breaking Barriers in Aviation Clyde Miller Senior Division Historical Paper 2,481 Words

Charles Lindbergh: Breaking Barriers in Aviation Clyde Miller Senior Division Historical Paper 2,481 Words 1 In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully flew the first powered aircraft in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Ten years later, the concept of air travel was still in its infancy, and most of the aircraft that were in the skies at the time were still very small and could only travel short distances before running out of fuel. That meant that pilots were confined to only being able to fly within the country they lived in. As a result, nonstop and transatlantic flights were essentially unheard of, as they would be too costly and extremely dangerous. That all changed in 1927, twenty-four years after the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight, when an airmail pilot known as Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to successfully fly nonstop from New York to Paris by himself. Charles Lindbergh broke barriers through his solo transatlantic flight by proving that such flights were in fact possible, which in turn allowed many small airlines to expand their routes into other countries, turning air travel into a worldwide industry and changing the way people traveled. Early Life Charles Lindbergh was born on February 4, 1902 in Detroit, Michigan. For most of his childhood, Lindbergh and his family were constantly moving, and he “seldom spent more than a few months in the same place.”1 This constant moving allowed Lindbergh to gain a newfound appreciation for travel; an appreciation that would later end up determining his career. During his high school years, Lindbergh gained interest in mechanical and scientific subjects, the latter of which would help him break a smaller barrier in the medical field. The former made him 1 Lindbergh, Charles A. "We" (New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1928), p.20. 2 eventually decide to major in mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin.2 This would later change however, as he started gaining interest in aviation, and two years after enrolling, he left the school to pursue a career in that field.3 Upon leaving the University of Wisconsin, Lindbergh moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where he began flight school.4 Up until that time, Lindbergh had “never been near enough to a plane to touch it”5, which meant that his time in Lincoln was truly the first time he was ever able to see all of the instruments and inner workings of an aircraft, which further fueled his interests. Lindbergh stayed in Nebraska for about two months, and by the end of May had accumulated around eight hours of flying, and it seemed as though he was ready to attempt his first solo flight.6 Unfortunately, due to technical issues, that flight never happened, and it would not be until a few months after that incident that he would have completed his first solo. After finishing his training, Lindbergh met E.G. Bahl, a pilot that was planning on barnstorming through Nebraska, which involved flying through cities while performing stunts, and Bahl agreed to let Lindbergh join him on his trip.7 During his time with E.G. Bahl, Lindbergh began performing stunts that mainly included walking onto the wings of the aircraft while it was in midair. He continued to perform these stunts on barnstorming trips across the northern United States until October of 1922, when he reached Montana and decided to head back to Lincoln. In 1923, Lindbergh ended up buying his first plane, and in 1924 he became a part of the United States Army Air Corps, where he was able to get even more flight training.8 2 Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, vol. 1. 3 "Charles A. Lindbergh." In Explorers & Discoverers of the World. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1993. 4 Explorers & Discoverers of the World, 1993. 5 Lindbergh. 23. 6 Ibid. 27. 7 Ibid. 28. 8 Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, vol. 1 3 Flying the Mail Before breaking barriers with his transatlantic flight, Lindbergh was breaking barriers in an industry that had recently experienced a major growth: the airmail industry. By 1925, “the [U.S. postal airmail system] was delivering fourteen million letters and packages a year”.9 Due to the growth of the industry, Lindbergh decided to apply for an airmail route operated by the Robertson Aircraft Corporation between Chicago and St. Louis, along with two other pilots, flying a DeHavilland DH-4 (See appendix I).10 As a result, Lindbergh and the other two pilots would have to fly a total of “five round trips each week”11 in aircraft that were used during World War I, which made many of the trips long and fairly dangerous. In his autobiography, The Spirit of St. Louis, Lindbergh talks about some of the conditions that he and the other pilots that worked for the company would have to face, saying that, “our operating expenses are incredibly low, but our revenue is lower still. The corporation couldn’t afford to buy new aircraft”.12 Even though Lindbergh did not work for the largest airmail corporation in the world, and even though he was not earning enough money, he still thoroughly enjoyed flying in the airmail industry and the company he worked for still managed to be extremely efficient, with around ninety-nine percent of all of the mail being delivered on time.13 This part of Lindbergh’s career did not come without its own share of hardships, however. During the time he flew as an airmail pilot, Lindbergh was involved in two crashes, both of which he survived by jumping out of the planes and parachuting to the ground.14 These crashes, as well as the way that he handled each one, 9 Kessner, Thomas. The Flight of the Century: Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of American Aviation, 2012. p.46 10 “U.S. Air Mail Service Pioneer.” Lindbergh. 11 Lindbergh, Charles A. The Spirit of St. Louis. New York, NY: Scribner, 1953. p. 4 12 Lindbergh. The Spirit of St. Louis. 5. 13 Ibid. 4. 14 Lindberg. The Spirit of St. Louis. 7. 4 would later prove to be extremely beneficial when he broke a major aviation barrier with his transatlantic trip. The Spirit of St. Louis It was also during this time that Lindbergh heard about the Orteig Prize, which was “a $25,000 purse awarded to the first person to fly from New York to Paris.”15 Lindbergh soon became very interested in this prize, and he decided to compete for it. However, there was one major problem with his plan: he did not have an airplane that was able to sustain the long trip. Lindbergh had already been considering a few aircraft that he thought could make the trip, such as the Wright-Bellanca (See Appendix II) and some of the aircraft produced by Fokker.16 Unfortunately for him, however, none of those offers ever came through, especially in the case of Fokker, as one of the salesmen Lindbergh talked to ended up telling him “Mr. Fokker wouldn’t consider selling a single-engined plane for a flight over the Atlantic Ocean”.17 In order to solve this problem, Lindbergh reached out to Ryan Airlines in San Diego to see if they had an aircraft that could make a successful trip across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, they did not, and this prompted Donald A. Hall, an engineer at the company, to take the initiative to begin designing an aircraft that could make the trip.18 Originally dubbed the Ryan NYP (New York to Paris), and later the Spirit of St. Louis, the aircraft was very similar to another aircraft produced by Ryan Aircraft, the M-2 (See Appendix III), however this one had been modified to carry the large amounts of fuel necessary for Lindbergh to travel across the Atlantic.19 One of the biggest modifications made to this aircraft was placing a fuel tank at the front of the aircraft and placing 15 Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, vol. 1 16 Lindberg. The Spirit of St. Louis. 29. 17 Ibid. 18 Hall, Nova. "The spirit of St. Louis." Advanced Materials & Processes 161, no. 11 (2003): 43+. 19 Ibid. 5 the cockpit behind it, which in turn restricted the vision of the pilot to the side windows of the aircraft and a periscope, making the flight even riskier than it originally was.20 Two months after Lindbergh approached Ryan Airlines, the Spirit of St. Louis was finished and ready to be taken on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic. Flying Across the Atlantic On the morning of Friday, May 20, 1927 in New York, Charles Lindbergh got into his Ryan monoplane and prepared it to take off on the long journey to Paris. A wave of anxiety had overcome Lindbergh the night before, as he “thought about the fact that he was starting out before the sixty-day qualification period for the Orteig [Prize]”21, which could have meant a possible disqualification. Nonetheless, on that Friday morning, he taxied his plane onto the muddy runway of Roosevelt Field, and at approximately 7:52, the Spirit of St. Louis took off en route to Paris.22 The skies that day were full of scattered clouds, and it had been raining the night before. Luckily, the rain had turned into a very slight drizzle by the time Lindbergh took off, and it did not look like it would be getting any worse.23 Lindbergh’s route to get to Paris involved him travelling “up the coast of New England and Nova Scotia and then over the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the island of Newfoundland” (See Appendix IV).24 Although the route seemed very simple and easy to Lindbergh when he first took off from New York, it would soon prove to be very challenging.

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