BIG CITY GETAWAY

THE SPIRITOF SAINT LOUIS MEMORIAL • WESTBURY, NY

Lindbergh left Long Island in 1927 Thumbed his nose at gravity And climbed into the heavens. When he returned to Earth that night everything changed, For the pilot and the planet, everything was rearranged. Oysters & Pearls – Jimmy Buffett

Everyone knows Lindbergh. We believe in amazing coincidences. It makes the world a bit more magical and fun. As we were putting this together, news came across the wires that 19-yearold Belgian-British pilot Zara Rutherford had just set the World Record for the youngest woman to y solo around the world. Nice! But let’s talk Lindbergh. Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military of cer, author, inventor, and activist. At the age of 25, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize for making the rst nonstop ight from New York City to Paris on May 20–21, 1927. Wait… this was about a prize and money. No way! Established in 1919 by Raymond Orteig, a French-American hotelier, aviation enthusiast, and philanthropist, this $25,000 prize sought to push the envelope on aviation by awarding the rst person who could perform a nonstop ight between New York and Paris. And, we thought Lindbergh did it because it was there. But still, as Buffett sang, Lindbergh left Long Island. Nobody else did. But let’s look at some of the facts of Lindbergh’s ight The plane N-X-211 cost $10,500 and was built in an old sh cannery in San Diego by Ryan Aeronautical in downtown San Diego. On the day of its rst ight, it was towed by car to a dirt air eld called Dutch Flats, about a mile from the factory. Today, both sites are located in the heart of San Diego, on the edges of the modern airport. It got its name “Spirit of St. Louis” in honor of Lindbergh’s supporters in St. Louis, Missouri, who paid for the aircraft. The plane was unique in many ways. It had no windshield. Lindbergh was ying virtually blind. Why? This odd arrangement improved the center of gravity and reduced the risk of the pilot being crushed to death between the main tank and the engine in the event of a crash. This design decision meant that there could be no front windshield, and that forward visibility would be limited to the side windows. The plane ew at an average of 600 feet and at an airspeed of just 96 mph. Lindbergh ew through darkness, fog and sleet, his plane at times skimming just 10 feet above the frigid Atlantic. To stay awake during the ight, Lindbergh stuck his hand out the window to blast his face with air and even tried resting one eye at a time.

33 hours and 3,500 miles later he landed to cheering crowds outside of Paris. After completing the 3,600-mile ight, Lindbergh had 85 gallons of gas remaining in his tanks. Although you might think he ew back to the states the truth is Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis came back on a ship. Today The Spirit is on permanent display in the main entryway’s Milestones of Flight gallery at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. It’s very nice and we have one just like it… Okay, on a much smaller scale. But there is a huge part of history that many ride by on a daily basis. Sometimes things just need to be pointed out to you and then, like us, you can appreciate the deep history that is all around us.

Just off the Meadowbrook Parkway in Westbury, Long Island – sadly near one of the islands 1,000,000 malls on a once pristine island - is a small, yet beautiful monument to one of the greatest feats in aviation history. It is small and not nearly as grand as the feat it celebrates. But still, this tiny monument is so worth the search and stop.

Thankfully, it is not far from one of the greatest aviation museums in our nation as well – The Cradle of Aviation – well worth a visit and a story by itself. Explore over 150,000 square feet featuring 75 air and spacecraft from a hot air balloon to an actual Apollo Lunar Module. The eight exhibit galleries are in chronological order and throughout the museum the volunteer docents (including one of our own, Steve Sachar) are there to share their aerospace experience. Combining this with a stop at Lindberg’s monument will make for an excellent day out. We can’t apologize for the fact that you do have to ride on Long Island, but according to those who live there, apparently it does have some nice riding, somewhere. ~ Brian Rathjen