Today is the 85th anniversary of Lindbergh's May 20th, 1927 flight from New York to Paris.
The fellow came down on the wrong side of the politics later in life, but you wanna talk about a man with guts? That man had guts.
I can remember the Spirit of St. Louis touching down at Ford Airport 35 years ago. Dearborn set up a mobile post office on the test track to issue 50th anniversary stamps.
What landed was a replica Spirit which was also a Ryan plane but this one had a windshield for safer flight. When it landed, they quickly covered the windshield and taxied to the waiting crowd.
Funny you should mention he came down on the wrong side of politic's. Years ago I found a copy of "Weekly Reader" from 1933 and he was warning of Germany's air force being built up for sinister reasons.
Howard Dennis
I'm generally not a fan of bells and whistles and every time I see something with a lot of bells and whistles, I think of them as just a place for something to go wrong. I am reminded of a story told about Lindbergh. He was supposedly asked why he was going to use a single engine airplane to make his trans-atlantic flight when there were 3 engine planes available (Ford Tri-motor, I'm assuming). He responded with something to the effect of "The Tri-motor can't stay aloft on 2 engines, so why do I want to triple my chances of engine failure?"
Just finished watching the movie on TCM. I saw it when it first came out in '58 at our local drive in theater. Still a great movie. Dave
He also had several wives with kids. All at once. That's why he did a lot of international traveling.
Charles Lindbergh submitted his petition for the degrees of Freemasonry to Keystone Lodge No. 243 AF&AM in St. Louis in 1926. Keystone Lodge later merged with Trinity Lodge to become Keystone-Trinity Lodge, which most recently merged with another lodge. Because of the Lindbergh connection, the new lodge chose to be Spirit of St. Louis Lodge, and were given permission to use the number 27 in honor of the year of Lindbergh's flight. The lodge secretary still has his original petition, which shows his profession as "air mail pilot."
OK. It was one American wife and three (known) European lovers with whom he had seven children.
Spoke to us at North Waco Junior High in the early fifties.
Let me put this thread back on the topic. Did you know that Henry Ford's first flight in a plane was with Lucky Lindy. After the famous crossing in 27 Lindbergh toured around the US in the Spirit of St Louis. One day he flew into the Ford Airfield and took Henry for his first (and only) ride ever which just happened to be in that famous plane. What a lucky guy Henry was that day.
I believe its also Jimmy Stewarts birthday. Good book, good flick, no good s.o.b. later on. Not JS. CL.
Considering the cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis had a single wicker seat for the pilot, I'd like to how it could carry a passenger and where he/she sat in the plane.
Story I was told was that Henry Ford only flew once. That was in a Ford Trimotor piloted by Lindbergh.
If anyone has the book " Henry Ford's Airport and Other Aviation Interests 1909-1954 " you will find an account of that flight that Henry took in the Spirit of St. Louis. The book was written by Timothy O'Callaghan and published in 1995. It can be found on page 67 and is a quote from another book by Charles Lindbergh" The War Journals of Charles Lindbergh "
Regards, John Page
Just as a followup on my previous posting above, I have been communicating with Tim for a number of years now and met him when we visited the US in 2010. I emailed him overnight and he has given me permission to use any material from his book.
Here is the relevant page from the book.
For anyone interested Tim worked for Ford for forty years and has written many articles on Ford history and memorabilia , many of which have been published in The Model T Times. He has also authored three books on Ford aviation to my knowledge, and has a very interesting web site. He asked me to mention it if the chance arose. I hope I am not steeping out of line in doing this here but I consider him a friend and those of you who are interested in Ford history will find it very interesting. www.fordatwar.com
Very best regards, John Page
Just looking over old posts and this one caught my eye. Lindbergh included the NX 211 log book in his book "The Spirit of St. Louis". From this I quote:
Aug. 11 Ford Airport
One flight, carrying Henry Ford (This was Henry Ford's first flight in an airplane.) 0 hrs. 10 min.
One flight, carrying Edsel Ford 0 hrs. 10 min.
Again this was on Aug. 11, 1927... 85 years ago TODAY
TH
Hmm, I posted here on Sunday, August 11, 2012 P.D.T.... don't know how it came up with "Monday, August 13, 2012!
Ok, figured it out... calandar on my box set to 2013! Aren't I the most forward looking guy you know?
DOH!
TH
Dick, Lindberg also joined a Lodge in San Diego, while he was out there overseeing construction of the Spirit of St. Louis. That Lodge was meeting in the Scottish Rites Temple there when I joined that group in 1973.
St. Louis was made famous by early balloon flights and became an early aviation hub.
One of the most famous flights from St. Louis, The Atlantic balloon, landed in my home town. It was named with plans to fly to Europe, but crashed frequently before it got to New England.
Speaking of wicker seats I believe the early Ford Tri-motors had wicker seats to save weight. Our steamboat, "Tinkerbelle" has diamond tufted leather seating but the captains chair is wicker and folds out of the way when not in use. Sorry it's out of focus.
Here is another image from one of Tim O'Callagan's books. As per previous permission. Regards, John
An old friend at Mexicana Airlines started out as radio operator on their Ford Trimotors, flying between Monterrey and Chihuahua. He became a radio repairman and eventually manager of avionics. In the beginning, Mexicana and the other LatAm airlines were subsidiaries of PanAm. Lindbergh met Ann Morrow, daughter of our ambassador to Mexico on one of his route proving trips down there for PanAm.
rdr
C.A.Lindbergh (Charlie's Dad) was a Minnesota politician with a political type reputation. I would imagine most people counted their fingers after shaking his hand. For many years they lived on the shores of the Mippissippi Creek just South of Little Falls, MN. C.A. owned land around the Little Falls area and when my great Grandfather was looking for farmland just South of Cushing, MN he bought 80 acres from C.A. And that's my connection to the Lindberghs. Ok, I know, so what. But the Lindbergh History Center next to the house he grew up in is a very interesting place to visit as is the house and I've always enjoyed going there to visit.
I have read in the past that Lindbergh's mother's maiden name was Evangeline Lodge Land, and have always wondered if she might be related to the Canadian Lodges. This thread reminded me of that, but this time I went looking on ancestry.com. Turns out her grandfather was born in London (England, not Ontario) and emigrated to the U.S. That makes a connection largely impossible, except perhaps two or three centuries back (and untraceable now). Oh well, another claim to fame bites the dust....