May 21, 1927: Lindbergh lands in Paris

[Felix/FFDS]

I am shocked that this was not posted today:

LINDBERGH LANDS IN PARIS:
May 21, 1927

American pilot Charles A. Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, successfully completing the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris. His single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, had lifted off from Roosevelt Field in New York 33 1/2 hours before.

(History Channel - Today in history)

[Fly2e]

I guess we're all too busy flying Felix  ;)

Dave

[WebbPA]

I am surprised, even shocked, considering the importance we place on anniversaries these days.  This flight was the functional equivalent of a lunar landing for the time - but since we have forgotten the date of our own first lunar landing (a mere 35 years ago) is it any wonder that we have forgotten Lindbergh?

More amusing facts:

An unknown newspaper writer named Robert Ripley created a stir when he audaciously reported that Lindbergh was not the first, but the 67th person to cross the Atlantic.  His newsletter, now known as Ripley's Believe it or Not, took off immediately thereafter

http://www.otr.com/ripley_on_radio.html

Lindbergh never really crossed the Atlantic - he took off from an island.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtransatlantic.html

Technicalities aside, this was a monumental feat for civil avaition.  As any of you who have tried flying his plane in FS2004 know, the man was a typical flyer pioneer - a combination of brains, gonads and stupidity.

[Hagar]

I'm not really surprised. Crossing the Atlantic is so common these days that very few remember or even think about the early pioneers who made it all possible. Although their Vickers Vimy is also featured in FS9 everyone seems to forget Alcock & Brown who succeeded on June 15, 1919, just after the end of WWI & 8 years before Lindbergh - not forgetting the many brave men who died in the attempt. I wonder how many here would know who did the first successful crossing of the Pacific Ocean, the date & the aircraft used without looking it up.

[ozzy72]

Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm sometime in 1928 if memory serves.... wasn't it a Fokker they were flying?

[ATI_7500]

Yeppers. A Fokker F.VII named "Southern Cross". This aircraft could fly farther than a 737...impressive.

Found ths painting of it: