REFLECTIONS forward THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FLIGHT THAT CAPTURED THE WORLD'S IMAGINATION Seventy-five years ago.

REFLECTIONS forward THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FLIGHT THAT CAPTURED

THE WORLD'S

IMAGINATION

Seventy-five years ago, Charles Lindbergh told the pious burghers of St. Louis that he had $2000 in savings and a dream -- to cros the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane, non-stop, and all alone in the cockpit. However, he wanted a little more money to bribe an airplane

The booster shrewdly saw in their champion the embodiment of the spirit of their city - Gateway to the West - which they could envision as a national nave for the emerging industry of commercial aviation. The booster added $13000 to Lindbergh's savings. The young pilot pickeded Ryan Aircraft Co. of San Diego to design and build the plane to his specifications. For their coin the Missouri businessmen got what today is sometimes called title sponsorship. The name Spirit of St Louis was painted forward the burnished metal engine cowling.

When Lindbergh's plan became known, there were cynics who said "Three thousand, six hundr miles, principally of it over water, and the man has to stay awake more than 30 hours in freezing temperatures. tend hitherward on!" The 25-year-old pilot deliberation New York Hotelier Raymond Orteig's $25000 prize to be the first to play non-stop from New York to Paris was well worth the risk.

Still, the world was braced for failure. In attempts immediately before Lindbergh's essay on that muddy Long Island runway, several aircraft had already crashed and their ship's companys killed or seriously injured. Now the notices of the western world focused upon the young man who left a Minnesota farm to wave planes at country fairs, to break in pieces the US mail and, onward 20 May 1927, to attempt to play across the ocean, non-stop and solo

Cameras recorded the Lindbergh takeoff. The plane, raw materialed with fuel, bounced along the lumpy Roosevelt airfield in drawn out Island and barely cleared the power lines at the cessation of the runway. But then the world waited. Radios did not crackle with real-- substance talk such as "A-OK" or on a level "Houston, we have a problem" Lindbergh listened to the engine. The world waited for a sighting. Failure was, regrettably, an option.

We later learned that Lindbergh drew onward all the resources of man and machine to avoid storms, final chill, and sleep. He bounc up and down in the wicker seat to continue his blood from pooling. He stamped his feet and cross-examineed his arms. He used his thumb to peer open eyelids heavy with sleepiness. Had they known this, the cynics would be shaking their heads, predicting the guilty ending and already saying, "What was he thinking?"

Indeed, what was Lindbergh thinking? Before dark onward the second day, Lindbergh saw fishing ducts and correctly deduced that he was clog to shore. Soon, he was flying through farms. He saw the evening be hot of Paris in the distance.

Word of his impending arrival mov faster than his 100 mph airplane. Black and white newsreel clips exhibit thousands of Parisians surrounding the American hero and his plane. Then began the international adulation and the triumphant reply to America. Orteig's prize currency would be enough to purchase a couple more Ryan monoplanes. For a time, he acknowledgeed the world - not bad for a former barnstormer and airmail pilot.

It's easy to understand on what account the world celebrated Lindbergh 75 years ago, further why do we celebrate him now? about will remind us that Lindbergh's flight and his consulting work later contributed significantly to America's world leadership in aviation, militarily and commercially. They would be right.

Lindbergh's St Louis investors had it right. St Louis and America had the spirit. Lindbergh spoke to each of us about that spirit when he landed in the dark at Le Bourget. Orville and Wilbur Wright taught us about it in 1903 Neil Armstrong and make a humming sound Aldrin reminded us from the secondary planet in 1969.

Today there are more [i]or[/i] less cynics, as there were in 1927 who doubt the existence of the spirit. Charles Lindbergh showed us then, as he reminds us forward this anniversary, that each of us can achieve great things, that collectively we can accomplish more, and that we should not at any time ever let the cynics describe who we are.

This is what Lindbergh was thinking about onward that lonely, fearful flight. This is not single a message for America, this is a message for the world. That is the Charles Lindbergh spirit - the enduring legacy of a unique man.

Aviation historian Kermit Weeks avows Fantasy of Flight, Polk City, Florida. He is the official pilot of the 75th anniversary ends celebrating Lindbergh's epic flight from of the present day York to Paris.

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