With the nose of the plane pointing toward Paris, Lindbergh worried about the take-off. He would have 5,000 feet to lift off the ground and gain enough altitude to clear the trees and telephone wires at the end of the field. The Spirit of St. Louis had never been tested carrying 425 gallons, let alone the 25 gallons of extra fuel Lindbergh ordered added (the capacity of the tanks as built came out oversize by 25 gallons). If it weren’t for the water-soaked runway, the lack of headwinds, the heavy humidity that would lower the engine’s r.p.m., and the untested weight of the plane, he would not have been as concerned. A bucket brigade formed to fill the plane’s five fuel tanks, and by 7:30 a.m. the tanks were filled to the brim. Hundreds more people joined the crowd. With the wheels sinking into the muddy ground, Lindbergh readied himself for take-off, mentally going over his checklist and gathering all his flying experience from the past four years. Should he wait or go ahead? There were too many uncertainties, except his trust and experience in this custom designed plane. At 7:51 a.m. he buckled his safety belt, put cotton in his ears, strapped on his helmet, and pulled on his goggles and said, “What do you say — let’s try it.” At 7:52 a.m., Lindbergh took-off for Paris, carrying with him five sandwiches, water, and his charts and maps and a limited number of other items he deemed absolutely necessary. The heavy plane was first pushed, then rolling, and finally bounced along the muddy runway, splashing through puddles. At the halfway point on the runway, the plane had not yet reached flying speed. As the load shifted from the wheels to the wings, he felt the plane leave the ground briefly, but returned to the ground. Looking out the side window, Lindbergh could see the approaching telephone lines. Now less than 2,000 feet of runway remained and he managed to get the plane to jump off the ground, only to touch down again. Bouncing again, and with less than 1,000 feet, he lifted the plane sharply, clearing the telephone wires by 20 feet.

At 2:30 a.m. on a misty Friday morning, May 20, 1927, Lindbergh rode from the Garden City Hotel, where he and the other contestants were staying, to Curtiss Field to prepare for take-off. Even at that early hour, 500 on-lookers waited. At 4:15 a.m. the rain stopped. Lindbergh ate one of the six sandwiches he had been given the night before and ordered the Spirit of St. Louis to be wheeled outside. The weather had been too bad the night before to move the plane to Roosevelt Field. Six Nassau County motorcycle patrolmen escorted the concealed plane, which was tied to the back of a truck, and was hauled across the deeply rutted road to Roosevelt Field, where Lindbergh had planned to make his departure. [ Previous | Next ] ======= Excerpt from: The Spirit of St. Louis: Charles Lindbergh’s Historic Solo Flight Across the Atlantic Written by Nova Hall in association with the Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation

May 19 was a dreary day. The weather forecasts offered little hope of a clearing in the weather in the next few days. That evening, after touring the Wright plant in New Jersey with some of his new friends, and B.F. Mahoney the owner of Ryan Airlines, Lindbergh and some others had planned to attend the Broadway show “Rio Rita.” Before they arrived at the theater, however, they stopped for one more phone call to the weather bureau. There was good news, yet no one had informed him earlier. A break in the weather was predicted, with high pressure beginning to clear patches of clouds over the Atlantic. Suddenly an early morning departure was possible. The group headed back to the airfield to begin making preparations and final inspections. After working on the plane for a few hours, Lindbergh returned to the hotel just before midnight. If he was to be ready at daybreak, as he had planned, he needed to get some sleep. Upon arriving at the hotel, however, Lindbergh was confronted by a throng of reporters anxious to interview him. Word of activity in his hangar had already spread. Lindbergh excused himself as quickly as possible. Once in bed, his mind raced with a thousand thoughts, questioning, reasoning, calculating, and reviewing every decision he had made to this moment. At 1:40 a.m., he realized there was little hope for sleep. [ Previous | Next ] ======= Excerpt from: The Spirit of St. Louis: Charles Lindbergh’s Historic Solo Flight Across the Atlantic Written by Nova Hall in association with the Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation

When pressed in New York about his decision to forego a radio, Lindbergh said, “When the weather is bad you can’t make contact with the ground. When the weather isn’t bad a pilot doesn’t need a radio.” Lindbergh had already lost his patience with the incessant and sensationalistic press. To make matters worse, he had not yet become technically eligible for the Orteig Prize, which stipulated that 60 days must elapse between acceptance of his entry papers and take-off of the flight to qualify. His St. Louis backers told him to fly when he was ready, despite the Prize. [ Previous | Next ] ======= Excerpt from: The Spirit of St. Louis: Charles Lindbergh’s Historic Solo Flight Across the Atlantic Written by Nova Hall in association with the Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation

The mood was tense as Lindbergh and the two other contestants waited day after day for the weather to clear enough to allow a successful take-off. Spending hours reviewing weather charts, watching the mechanics tend his plane, dealing with the incessant media, while diligently guarding his take-off plans, Lindbergh found time to take in some of the sights of New York City. Lindbergh’s take-off, the magnitude of danger for the flight became even more eminent in the public’s eye. Just two days prior to Lindbergh leaving San Diego, the famed French pilots Charles Nungesser and navigator Francois Coli had left Paris for New York in a single-engine biplane on May 8, and had disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean. The odds, it would seem, were against any attempt to cross the Atlantic. Newspapers were peppered with stories of plane crashes and fatalities surrounding the competition. French pilot Rene Fonck crashed on takeoff from Roosevelt Field, Long Island on September 21, 1926, killing two crewmen. A third plane, the American Legion, piloted by Noel Davis had also crashed earlier that month on April 26. Both Davis and Stanton Wooster his co-pilot had been killed. Both Richard E. Byrd (who would later fly over the North Pole) and Clarence D. Chamberlin, a noted aviator piloting the Bellanca, each had minor accidents during the testing of their planes in April of 1927. Now Byrd and Chamberlin waited with Lindbergh for a final attempt. [ Previous | Next ] ======= Excerpt from: The Spirit of St. Louis: Charles Lindbergh’s Historic Solo Flight Across the Atlantic Written by Nova Hall in association with the Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation