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![]() Charles A. Lindbergh(Paris May 21st 1927)On the evening of May 21st 1927, a small silver-grey monoplane, "The Spirit of St Louis", descended quietly out of the darkened sky to land in a field near Paris. A huge throng of 100,000 people had already gathered in the open, waiting excitedly with their eyes fixed on the sky, eager to witness the historic event - the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris.As soon as the plane touched down, the young solo pilot, Charles A. Lindbergh, was mobbed by the ecstatic crowd and hailed a world hero for his achievement. "Well, I made it", was the characterstically modest comment from the quiet 25-year-old Mid-Westerner as he stepped from his little plane to the rapturous welcome. The flight, which had been through rain, sleet and snow, had taken 33½ hours. So much fuel had been needed for the long trans-Atlantic flight that "The Spirit of St Louis" had only just managed to take-off at New York, flying like "a drunken seagull", and barely clearing trees and telephone wires. Because of the weight problem, Lindbergh refused to carry a radio and had with him just five sandwiches, a quart of water and some letters of introduction. Such is the stuff of legends
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