Flight
The Atlantic in its immense indifference was not aware that man-made cables on its slimy bottom contained news, that the silent heavens above pulsed with news—news that would set thousands of printing presses in motion, news that would make sirens scream in every U. S. city, news that would cause housewives to run out into backyards and shout to their children: "Lindbergh is in Paris!"
Late one evening last week Capt. Charles A. Lindbergh studied weather reports and decided that the elements were propitious for a flight from New York to Paris. He took a two-hour sleep, then busied himself with final preparations at Roosevelt Field, L. I. Four sandwiches, two canteens of water and emergency army rations, along with 451 gallons of gasoline were put into his monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis. "When I enter the cockpit," said he, "it's like going into the death chamber. When I step out at Paris it will be like getting a pardon from the governor."
He entered the cockpit. At 7:52 a.m. he was roaring down the runway, his plane lurching on the soft spots of the wet ground. Out of the safety zone, he hit a bump, bounced into the air, quickly returned to earth. Disaster seemed imminent; a tractor and a gully were-ahead. Then his plane took the air, cleared the tractor, the gully; cleared some telephone wires. Five hundred onlookers believed they had witnessed a miracle. It was a miracle of skill.
Captain Lindbergh took the shortest route to Paris—the great circle—cutting across Long Island Sound, Cape Cod, Nova Scotia, skirting the coast of Newfoundland. He later told some of his sky adventures to the aeronautically alert New York Times for syndication: "Shortly after leaving Newfoundland, I began to see icebergs. . . . Within an hour it became dark. Then I struck clouds and decided to try to get over them. For a while I succeeded at a height of 10,000 feet. I flew at this height until early morning. The engine was working beautifully and I was not sleepy at all. I felt just as if I was driving a motor car over a smooth road, only it was easier. Then it began to get light and the clouds got higher. . . . Sleet began to cling to the plane. That worried me a great deal and I debated whether I should keep on or go back. I decided I must not think any more about going back. . . .
"Fairly early in the afternoon I saw a fleet of fishing boats. . . . On one of them I saw some men and flew down almost touching the craft and yelled at them, asking if I was on the right road to Ireland. They just stared. Maybe they didn't hear me. Maybe I didn't hear them. Or maybe they thought I was just a crazy fool.
"An hour later I saw land. . . I flew quite low enough over Ireland to be seen, but apparently no great attention was paid to me."
Captain Lindbergh then told how he crossed southwestern England and the Channel, followed the Seine to Paris, where he circled the city before recognizing the flying field at Le Bourget. Said he: "I had intended taxiing up to the front of the hangars, but no sooner had my plane touched the ground than a human sea swept toward it. I saw there was danger of killing people with my propeller and I quickly came to a stop."