| "I ask you to drink to his health as a
young man full the spirit of adventure who has lit up the world with a flash of
courage." With these words, the British Minister of Air turned and raised his
glass to the young man who sat beside him—a young man who, only a month before,
was completely unknown. Yet, on that summer day in 1927 his name was on the
world's lips — Charles Lindbergh, the first man to fly the Atlantic
alone. He had been an air mail pilot, flying back and forth between Chicago and the city of St. Louis. Determined to win the ＄25,000 prize offered by a fellow American for the first flight from New York to Paris, Lindbergh had persuaded a group of St. Louis businessmen to finance the building of a special plane for him. The news that Lindbergh intended to fly the Atlantic alone was received with disbelief. The plane would never fly, people said. It would run out of fuel. It had only a single engine. Lloyds of London refused to insure the flight. Men called Lindbergh the "flying fool". But on May 20th, 1927, just after ten to eight in the morning, Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis", heavily laden with fuel, struggled into the air from a New York airfield. For several hours the weight of the petrol prevented the young pilot from flying more than a few feet above the wavetops. Night came and thick fog covered up the stars. Lindbergh flew steadily on, hoping that his course was the right one. He struggled to keep awake, checking the fuel all the time to keep his mind active. Through the next day the "Spirit of St. Louis" flew on over the seemingly limitless sea. Then a fishing boat appeared, and, an hour later, land. It was Ireland. Lindbergh set a compass course for Paris. By ten o'clock the lights of France's capital were shining beneath him. Tired, unshaved, suddenly hungry, the "flying fool" came to Le Bourget airport, and landed in front of a huge crowd of wildly cheering people. After 34 hours of continuous piloting, the flight of 3,600 miles was over. |