In 1927 Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic Ocean. He flew the 3610 miles from Paris to New York alone, in thirty-three and a half hours.
Lindbergh’s aircraft was a single-engined Ryan monoplane. ‘Spirit of St. Louis’. It had an enclosed cabin behind the engine and to see in front he had to use a periscope. After crossing the coast of Newfoundland, 1150 miles from New York, Lindbergh flew into fog and storm clouds and had to fly blind until he was half way across the ocean.
He had a brown-paper bag od sandwiches with him but ate none because he thought it would be easier to keep awake if he was hungry. One hundred thousand people welcomed him when he landed in Paris. He escaped them by lending his flying helmet to an American reporter who was promptly mobbed by the crowd.
Everywhere he went afterwards he was treated as a hero. In France he received the Legion of Honour, and in England the Air Force Cross. He received about two million letters of congratulations and hundreds of thousands of telegrams. A town was named after him and a special stamp was issued bearing a picture of his plane.
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