Read Online The Spirit of ST Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Charles A. Lindbergh
Tags: United States, General, Historical, History, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, Transportation, Transatlantic Flights, Adventurers & Explorers, Air Pilots, Aviation, Spirit of St. Louis (Airplane)
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his address after we come down."
We climb into our cockpits. There'll be a half hour's formation flying; then the squadron is scheduled to break up for individual acrobatics. We taxi out into the field and take off. My two wingmen follow close – Captain Young with Sergeant Wecker, Lieutenant Hutchinson with Sergeant Gerding. We set course for St. Louis. People will look up and tell each other that the National Guard is overhead. It's good advertising, and helps bring us new recruits.
There's Forest Park below, winding roads among its trees - that's where the flying field used to be. Now we're up to three thousand feet, above the center of the city. I bank ward open country to the north. There's the Missouri-Mississippi junction--perfect landmark for a pilot lost in haze. You can't miss the earth's great landmarks, if you can see the earth at all. Rivers, mountains, coastlines, point your ay. It's by them I'll have to find France, and Paris, if I can finally get a plane to make the flight.
Now formation training is over. I wobble my wings to signal a breakup. Wingmen peel off to either side. Stick back, right, full rudder, throttle open--our Jenny snaps over, upside down --- a half loop--- a roll right --- a roll left --- a vertical reversement. We're too low for more: bank toward Lambert Field and climb. We'll do one spin before our landing. A flying wire starts to vibrate in the inner bay. It's amazing what those thin steel cables stand in acrobatics—tons of strain on their metal threads. When wings and wires hold their shape through loops, spins, and barrel rolls, they can surely carry the fuel load I'll need for a flight to Paris.
14
1 overcoat, blue
1 hat, gray felt
1 pair gloves, fur lined
1 scarf, silk
2 pair sox, wool
1 necktie, silk
1 suitcase, leather
I read, upside down, the items on the clerk's sales slip. He hasn't filled in the prices yet. Good Lord, that's going to run close to a hundred dollars, and there's still my suit to pay for. Shoes and shirts are about the only things I can economize on. The ones I wear with my uniform will do.
I don't like to spend money on such intangible assets as clothes. But if I'm really going to fly to Paris, I must be willing to put everything I’ve got into the project – time,
energy, money, even my position as chief pilot on the airmail line. I'll hold back only enough to pay for room and board until I can get a new start flying if I fail. It bothers me to think that I'm buying these clothes just to make an impression on the Wright Corporation—they won't add a penny's worth to my ability as a flyer. I'm actually spending money on an overcoat just to wear it through the front door! I'll probably take it off before I even sit down. And the silk scarf and the felt hat—I haven't the slightest use for them. I hate to do things just to make an impression. But right now that may be as essential to my Paris flight as a plane itself will become later.
I've decided to get my traveling outfit all in order before telephone the Wright Corporation. Once I start, I must keep pushing my project constantly. It would be bad tactics to let a week or ten days pass between my phone call and arrival.
15
It's been a warm afternoon for November. Three of us stroll down the road to Bridgeton--Love, Mendenhall, and I. Mendenhall is a newcomer to the field.
"Slim, the doctor says I can start flying again next Monday," Love announces suddenly. He's not given to talking very much, and he has a habit of heaving an important statement into conversation like a rock.
"That will help a lot, Phil," I say. "Are you sure it's all right?"
"Would have been all right a week ago," he answers. "These surgeons are just cautious."
Love crashed last year in Georgia, on a cotton-dusting job--passed out in the cockpit of a Huff-Daland—left a perfect imprint of his teeth on a tubular steel crossbar of the fuselage. (He now carries a four-inch length of that
We climb into our cockpits. There'll be a half hour's formation flying; then the squadron is scheduled to break up for individual acrobatics. We taxi out into the field and take off. My two wingmen follow close – Captain Young with Sergeant Wecker, Lieutenant Hutchinson with Sergeant Gerding. We set course for St. Louis. People will look up and tell each other that the National Guard is overhead. It's good advertising, and helps bring us new recruits.
There's Forest Park below, winding roads among its trees - that's where the flying field used to be. Now we're up to three thousand feet, above the center of the city. I bank ward open country to the north. There's the Missouri-Mississippi junction--perfect landmark for a pilot lost in haze. You can't miss the earth's great landmarks, if you can see the earth at all. Rivers, mountains, coastlines, point your ay. It's by them I'll have to find France, and Paris, if I can finally get a plane to make the flight.
Now formation training is over. I wobble my wings to signal a breakup. Wingmen peel off to either side. Stick back, right, full rudder, throttle open--our Jenny snaps over, upside down --- a half loop--- a roll right --- a roll left --- a vertical reversement. We're too low for more: bank toward Lambert Field and climb. We'll do one spin before our landing. A flying wire starts to vibrate in the inner bay. It's amazing what those thin steel cables stand in acrobatics—tons of strain on their metal threads. When wings and wires hold their shape through loops, spins, and barrel rolls, they can surely carry the fuel load I'll need for a flight to Paris.
14
1 overcoat, blue
1 hat, gray felt
1 pair gloves, fur lined
1 scarf, silk
2 pair sox, wool
1 necktie, silk
1 suitcase, leather
I read, upside down, the items on the clerk's sales slip. He hasn't filled in the prices yet. Good Lord, that's going to run close to a hundred dollars, and there's still my suit to pay for. Shoes and shirts are about the only things I can economize on. The ones I wear with my uniform will do.
I don't like to spend money on such intangible assets as clothes. But if I'm really going to fly to Paris, I must be willing to put everything I’ve got into the project – time,
energy, money, even my position as chief pilot on the airmail line. I'll hold back only enough to pay for room and board until I can get a new start flying if I fail. It bothers me to think that I'm buying these clothes just to make an impression on the Wright Corporation—they won't add a penny's worth to my ability as a flyer. I'm actually spending money on an overcoat just to wear it through the front door! I'll probably take it off before I even sit down. And the silk scarf and the felt hat—I haven't the slightest use for them. I hate to do things just to make an impression. But right now that may be as essential to my Paris flight as a plane itself will become later.
I've decided to get my traveling outfit all in order before telephone the Wright Corporation. Once I start, I must keep pushing my project constantly. It would be bad tactics to let a week or ten days pass between my phone call and arrival.
15
It's been a warm afternoon for November. Three of us stroll down the road to Bridgeton--Love, Mendenhall, and I. Mendenhall is a newcomer to the field.
"Slim, the doctor says I can start flying again next Monday," Love announces suddenly. He's not given to talking very much, and he has a habit of heaving an important statement into conversation like a rock.
"That will help a lot, Phil," I say. "Are you sure it's all right?"
"Would have been all right a week ago," he answers. "These surgeons are just cautious."
Love crashed last year in Georgia, on a cotton-dusting job--passed out in the cockpit of a Huff-Daland—left a perfect imprint of his teeth on a tubular steel crossbar of the fuselage. (He now carries a four-inch length of that
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