The Spirit of St. Louis was built by the Ryan Company of San Diego, California, for 25-year-old air-mail pilot Charles Lindbergh. He took off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, early on the morning of May 20,1927, in an attempt to fly solo across the North Atlantic. To see forward, Lindbergh had either to turn the airplane or use a periscope; a gasoline tank was installed where the windshield normally would have been. After 33 1/2 hours, Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget Field, near Paris, welcomed by the frenzied cheers of 100,000 people. He had flown the At- lantic alone, the first solo crossing of a major ocean by air.

Back