The Spirit of ST Louis (15 page)

Well, I'm not going to let these press reports worry me. There's nothing I can do to push construction faster. I'll fly my plane through to St. Louis as soon as its tests are over. Then, my partners and I will get together and lay our final plans.

27

"Major Young is in San Diego. He wants to see you while he's here." Mahoney has knocked on our drafting room door to give me the news. Major Clarence M. Young commands my Reserve Squadron at Richards Field, in Kansas. Shot down while flying a bomber over Italy's Austrian front during the war, he returned from prison camp to enter a law practice in Des Moines. Two weeks of active duty in summer help keep him in training as an officer and pilot. I gave him some instruction in the Air Service's latest techniques last year, since I had just graduated from Kelly; and we formed a personal friendship. He was recently appointed chief of the Air Regulations Division of the government's new Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce. Now he's coming to see me and my Spirit of St. Louis. I'll ask him about the new regulations for civil aircraft. In the past, all a man needed to fly a plane was the money to buy one and the ability to get it in the air; now both pilots and aircraft must be licensed. The Spirit of St. Louis will have to carry a registration number painted on its wings.

"I'll see that your applications are acted on right away, Charlie. We want to get a number on your wings before you take off for Paris, and we certainly want you to be a licensed pilot when you land in Europe."

Major Young is inspecting the cockpit of my plane, and I've asked him about the licenses I need for a transoceanic flight. He has a dry sense of humor that leaves one a little uncertain as to when he's serious and when he's not.

"We'll give you an N-X license," he continues. "That will let you do about anything you want to."

"What's an N-X license?" I ask.

"N is the international-Code letter assigned to the United States. Planes flying outside the country have to carry it for identification. X stands for experimental. It authorizes you to make modifications without getting government approval. Of course you can't carry passengers with an X license; but I guess you won't want to do that anyway." He glances at the huge gas tank bolted in where passenger seats would ordinarily be. "You won't have any trouble about licenses."

28

In another week the Spirit of St. Louis will be ready for flight. I'll make the light-load tests from the Ryan Company's field at Dutch Flats. It's a smooth, grassless area, like a dry lakebed, boxed in by roads and telephone wires. It will do while the tanks are only partly filled with fuel, but we'll have to make our heavy-load tests elsewhere; for them, I'll need clear approaches and three or four thousand feet of run.

Several weeks ago Hall suggested that we use the parade grounds on the abandoned Army post at Camp Kearney. This afternoon he and I drove out to look them over. The conditions are almost ideal for our purpose. There's a long, level strip available for a runway, lying almost exactly parallel to prevailing winds. The mountains are far enough back to be out of the way for landing, and there's nothing at all to clear on take-off -- no trees, houses, or telephone wires, not even a fence. The end of the field rolls off gradually into a series of hills descending to the sea.

Out here there won't be a crowd to distract us while we're running tests; and this is important. If we don't talk about our plans in advance, we may not be bothered by newspaper reporters and photographers. The press has become a problem in recent weeks. The big associations in New York have asked San Diego papers to cover my activities in more detail. What started as a pleasant relationship with local jourlists now involves elements of tension. On the one hand, a reasonable amount of publicity will be an important asset to this project. On the other hand, I begin to realize that the distraction created by newspapers could cause its failure. We have to concentrate our attention on the tests and the accuracy of data we obtain. A slight error can cause a crash. One makes errors more easily when onlookers get in the way, and ask questions, and smoke cigarettes near fumes of gasoline. Also, plans often go wrong; and the less said about them in advance, the better. People who talk a lot about what they're going to do seldom accomplish their predictions.

If we run our tests at Camp Kearney, we may be able to get them over with before the newspapers find out what we're doing. Very few people realize that a field suitable for flying exists here; and if some reporter notices that the plane is gone from its hangar on Dutch Flats, he'll think it's in the air on a test flight, or else over at Rockwell Field on North Island.

NUNGESSER PLANE COMPLETES
TESTS

_______________________________

Bellanca Made Ready For
Take-Off

___________________________________

DROUHIN ENTERS CONTEST

___________________________________

Fonck Sails for America

APRIL 22.—Competition in the New York to Paris flight contest has intensified with the entry of M. Drouhin, the French aviator whose duration flight record of 45 hours 11 minutes and 59 seconds was broken recently by Bert Acosta and Clarence Chamberlin. Drouhin has been running secret tests with a Farman biplane.

Capt. Charles Nungesser's Levasseur plane, the White Bird, is undergoing a final check after its successful test flights of the last several days. Capt. Nungesser says he does not plan on taking off Sunday morning as announced, but that he hopes to get away by the end of the month.

Two other French contestants are known to be preparing planes for the transatlantic flight. M. Tarascon will fly a BernardMarie-Hubert plane, with a Gnome-Rhone Jupiter engine. M. Costa plans to pilot a Breguet, with a Hispano-Suiza engine.

Meanwhile, the work of repairing Commander Byrd's Fokker. monoplane, America. is under way. It should be completed in from two to three weeks, according to estimates made by officials of the Atlantic Aircraft Corporation.

The Bellanca is being re-equipped with instruments. Tension and uncertainty still exists in regard to whether Chamberlin or Acosta will be chosen to make the flight, in addition to pilot-navigator Bertaud. When asked about this, Mr. Charles A. Levine, owner of the plane, said he could not decide until just before the take-off.

"I want both boys to have their heart in their work up to the last moment," he said, "and if one of them was chosen now, the other would probably be sore."

Work on the plane is being rushed, and a secret take-off is thought likely within the next several days.---

The only serious disadvantage of the old parade grounds is the innumerable stones that lie scattered over its surface. Many are larger than a man's fist, and might cause a tire to blow on take-off or landing with one of the heavier fuel loads. However, we can pick up the biggest ones.

29

If events had only let me come to San Diego a month earlier, I too could now be ready for the Paris flight. In three or four more days we'll haul the Spirit of St. Louis to thy flying field and assemble fuselage to wing.

30

WESTERN
UNION

SB26025 GOVT.

WASHINGTON DC 22 212P

CHARLES A. LINDBERGH

CARE RYAN AIRLINES INC.

SAN DIEGO CALIF.

YOUR LICENSE NUMBER EXPERIMENTAL TRANSATLANTIC SHIP IS N DASH X TWO HUNDRED ELEVEN STOP

TRANSPORT LICENSE WILL BE MAILED TOMORROW CARE ROBERTSON AIRCRAFT ANGLUM MISSOURI

E. KINTZ

That's from the Department of Commerce. Now we can paint the license numbers on the wings and tail. It may save me time and a lot of trouble later on. Telegrams are coming fast these days, and they're all helpful. My plans are meshing together smoothly.

WESTERN
UNION

PATERSON N.J.

APRIL 22, 1927

WHEN USING FIRST CLASS AVIATION GASOLINE THERE IS NO CARBURETOR INTAKE ATTACHMENT NECESSARY STOP AFTER ARRIVING EAST WE WILL FIT ENGINE WITH CARBURETOR AIR HEATER IF FOUND DESIRABLE STOP SENT PROOF COPY INSTRUCTION MANUAL AIR MAIL YESTERDAY

HARTSON WRIGHT AERONAUTICAL CORP.

That's good. I was concerned about the cold of altitude and night. If I don't have to use a carburetor air heater, it will save several pounds of weight.

WESTERN
UNION

HOLMSTEAD

PENN.

RYAN AIRLINES

SAN DIEGO, CALIF.

15.5 DEGREES SETTING PROBABLY NECESSARY ON YOUR MONOPLANE TO GET TAKEOFF WITH HEAVY LOAD

FUEL ECONOMY WILL BE IMPROVED ON HIGHER PITCH SETTING STOP IF TAKEOFF IS SATISFACTORY WITH 15.5 SETTING SUGGEST TRY 16.5 AS THIS WILL IMPROVE FUEL ECONOMY.

STANDARD STEELPROP CO..

It's a good suggestion. We'll try it out. The higher the pitch, the more the range.

31

BELLANCA IN CRACK-UP

________________________

CHAMBERLIN'S SKILL SAVES
GIRLS

NEW YORK, April 24.—The Bellanca transatlantic monoplane narrowly escaped disaster, following its christening ceremonies today, when part of the landing gear tore loose on take-off. Clarence D. Chamberlin, the pilot, was making a flight with two little girls, age nine and fifteen, on board. The girls had climbed happily into the cabin a few minutes after breaking a bottle of ginger ale over the nose of the plane and naming it the "Columbia."

Only Chamberlin's great skill as a pilot saved what might have been a serious accident. He landed so gently on the one sound wheel that only minor damage was sustained by the Bellanca.

Landing on one wheel and a wing tip with a lightly loaded plane isn't very dangerous when a pilot is well acquainted with his craft. It's not likely to cause much of a crack-up, and it has been done a great many times. The newspapers always make it seem a good deal worse than it really is. But suppose that landing-gear strut had broken loose on a transatlantic take-off, after the big fuselage tanks had been filled to the neck with fuel -- then there would have been a real crash. Gasoline would have splattered all over the place, as it did last year from Fonck's Sikorsky. And the engine, after pulling full power for several hundred feet of roll, would probably have been hot enough to cause ignition.

Both Bellanca and Sikorsky are top designers. Then why did the landing gears fail? Is some strain caused by these heavily loaded take-offs being overlooked in engineering calculations? May there also be a hidden weakness in the Spirit of St. Louis? I must talk to Donald Hall about it.

32

WESTERN
UNION

EXTRA NL

NEW YORK, N.Y.

APR. 25

CHARLES A LINDBERGH

CARE RYAN AIRLINES INC.

SAN DIEGO CALIF.

YOUR TELEGRAM TWENTY FOURTH RECEIVED ARE HAPPY TO LEARN YOU HAVE CHOSEN MOBILOIL B FOR YOUR FLIGHT STOP GASOLINE HAS BEEN RECEIVED STOP HAVE ADVISED ST. LOUIS REGARDING MOBILOIL SUPPLIES ON YOUR ARRIVAL THERE STOP GLAD TO OFFER ALL POSSIBLE ASSISTANCE BOTH HERE AND ABROAD STOP BEST WISHES FOR SUCCESS

VACUUM OIL COMPANY E. J. SNOW

That's another problem off my mind. At first, I didn't know how to handle the fueling of the Spirit of St. Louis in New York. It would be easy enough to get some dealer to send his truck out to the field -- a four-hundred-gallon sale would bring such service quickly. But I found I could buy special gasoline in the West that would give me a little more range per gallon. I've bought 500 gallons of this fuel for my New York-to-Paris flight, from the Standard Oil Company of California. The company would arrange to ship it east in barrels, they said; but who would handle the shipment for me in New York? The Vacuum Oil Company offered to do so free of charge, and this telegram was sent from their New York office in final confirmation.

The big oil companies and their agents have always gone out of their way to help develop aviation. A barnstorming pilot can usually get a truck sent out to his field for as little as a twenty-gallon sale of fuel; and if he wants it, the driver will give him a ride back into town, where the local oil dealer is a ready source of information about the community, its hotels and stores.

I had hoped to get gasoline and oil free for my flights eastward from San Diego. There's plenty of precedent for that, and I felt that the advertising value to the companies whose products I use should be sufficient compensation. But both Standard and Vacuum stood pat on their prices. I'd have to pay their regular charge. However, all the service I need will be furnished at no extra cost. That's been the case with every item connected with the Spirit of St. Louis. I've had assistance for the asking, but no product without paying for it.