SOARING ‘ FLIGHT’ GOES INTO THE COCKPIT WITH LINDBERGH
In the 22nd hour of his solo New York- to- Paris flight, 1,000 feet above the foggy Atlantic, desperately fighting off fatigue, Charles Lindbergh hallucinates that other people are with him aboard the Spirit of St. Louis. They speak to him above the roar of the engine, offer advice about navigation, and are a comfort to the lonely pilot.
When he flies out of the mist, Lindbergh realizes no one else is there.
Preparing for the non- stop, single- engine flight, Lindbergh is so obsessed with excess weight he rejects a traditional leather pilot’s seat in favor of a lighter wicker chair. In essence, he breaks a world record and becomes America’s hero while seated on the equivalent of patio furniture.
Details like this and more are offered by aviation historian Dan Hampton, who takes us back 90 years, into the cramped cockpit of Lindbergh’s plane and across the cold Atlantic in The Flight: Charles Lindbergh’s Daring and Immortal 1927 Transatlantic Crossing ( William Morrow, 271 pp., eeeg out of four), an engrossing account of the flight.
Hampton, a decorated former U. S. Air Force pilot who has flown the Atlantic in modern F- 16 aircraft, is a voice of expertise in the air, making observations and noting details that might elude others. He’s very good at explaining Lindbergh’s actions during the flight, and how the pilot suffered during his 331⁄ 2- hour odyssey, which began May 20, 1927.
Lindbergh, a former Army aviator, mail pilot, barnstormer and wing- walker, was out to win the Orteig Prize, a $ 25,000 award ( about $ 365,000 today) for the first person to fly non- stop from New York to Paris ( or Paris to New York).
Others had flown across the Atlantic — two Britons flew from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919 — but not as far as Orteig’s daring challenge demanded.
The prize was offered by a French hotel magnate who wanted to promote trans- Atlantic air travel. Lindbergh himself believed commercial aviation would play a significant role in America’s future.
Other pilots tried and failed, including two French aviators who took off from Paris 12 days before Lindbergh. They were presumed lost at sea.
Lindbergh suffered greatly during his own flight — from the cold, the isolation, but most frighteningly from lack of sleep. Extreme fatigue haunted Lindbergh for much of the flight over the open Atlantic, to the point where he reached through an open window to direct cold air across his face and used his fingers to pry open his eyes. It’s a feat of endurance that is remarkable even today.
Lindbergh was greeted at the Paris airfield by thousands of exuberant Frenchmen who lifted him out of his plane and carried him around the field. His life was never the same after that. Lindbergh returned to adulation in the United States, an excruciating ordeal for a private man.
Subsequent events — the kidnap and murder of his toddler son, his controversial admiration for Germany and antiwar stance before World War II, his support for the American space program — kept him in the public eye for decades.
Lindbergh wrote two books about his flight: We in 1927, and The Spirit of St. Louis, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
Hampton draws on both of these, but provides detail from extra sources for a richer, far more complete picture. The author skillfully weaves Lindbergh’s personal history, the preparation of the plane and historical events that help explain Lindbergh’s popularity.
The Flight will appeal to flight enthusiasts, history buffs and those who appreciate well- crafted tales of adventure.