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5d ago (edited) in The Spirit of St Louis Story
Lindbergh in Long Island on May 12, 1927
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.
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Excerpt from:
The Spirit of St. Louis: Charles Lindbergh’s Historic Solo Flight Across the Atlantic
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Lindbergh in Long Island on May 12, 1927
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