The Flight

by Dan Hampton

  I’ll fly on northeast a few miles more, Slim decides. This just doesn’t seem far enough out of Paris. Maybe, though, he just doesn’t know. Airspeed is 85 miles per hour . . . so that’s 1.4 miles every minute. Had he flown seven minutes from the Eiffel Tower?* He has plenty of gas and the night is clear, so a bit of caution won’t cost anything. If I see nothing else that looks like an airport, I’ll come back and circle at lower altitude. Slim has no reason to rush, not after more than thirty-three hours, and he’s well aware of the danger in trying to land too quickly on unfamiliar ground. After all, even if this is the wrong airfield, there’s no confusion about the Eiffel Tower. This is definitely Paris!

  The Spirit is wings level again at 4,000 feet heading northeast. Stick and rudder move nearly of their own accord after so many hours, and Lindbergh’s muscles are so accustomed to the range of motion that he barely notices. Everything seems better; the seat is less uncomfortable, his eyes can read the gauges in the dim light at a glance, and he’s wide awake. Night air, tinged with exhaust, fills the cockpit and Slim leans over to stare from each window. There is a smaller village on the field’s northern border, then the lights thin out in the countryside.* It’s almost like flying into a dark valley the way the glow abruptly fades, and his eyes take a few moments to adapt. Now there’s nothing but the fiery white-orange bursts from the Whirlwind’s exhaust ports, and a dribbling trail of faint lights below.

  Five minutes later there’s still nothing ahead but the scattered yellow dots of farms, and the area off his left wing is especially dark. That had to be Le Bourget behind him—it just wasn’t as far from Paris as he’d thought. Looking right, Slim dips the wing and boots the rudder, hunching forward again to squint from the window. Through the gray-black light he can see nothing but vast, flat fields below, and he pulls the throttle back.† Clicking the stabilizer trim to neutral, Lindbergh nudges the mixture control up, just a bit less than full RICH, and glances at the altimeter: 3,500 feet.

  Halfway through the descending turn and with more airspeed the Spirit is suddenly lively. The controls are stiffer; air rushes through the windows and catches in the fuselage behind the seat before dissipating through the fabric. Power vibrates back from the engine, up through the floor and rudder pedals to his feet. Lindbergh concentrates on the few lights below and the blaze of lights ahead. The glow bounces from the spinning propellers, creating a weird circular sheen off the blades. Paris floats across the horizon again, a carpet of multicolored lights that makes him blink continuously.

  Twenty-five hundred feet and he’s still descending toward the darkness under the wheels. But it’s actually not so dark. Not like Wyoming or Nebraska at night, and certainly not the heavy blackness of the ocean. It truly is astounding how a pilot’s comfort level can go up with experience or training. Why, the possibilities for commercial aviation unlocked by this flight must mean formal training in blind flying, understanding weather better, and maybe one day even landing by instruments alone. Slim can see all that in the future, but at the moment he can’t see Le Bourget. Not definitely anyway, though there is nothing else out here that looks even remotely close. As he pulls the stick back, Spirit’s nose rises and Slim adds power. The Whirlwind growls and he feels the props bite back into the air.

  Two thousand feet. He decides that’s low enough for now. Lindbergh has no idea of the terrain and there could be radio towers on top of the hills below. Getting all the way through the perils he’s endured just to crack up on a radio tower is too grim to consider. Nudging the stick right, he holds 90 miles per hour and offsets the field to the west. As soon as the floodlights are visible through the left window, Slim dips the left wing and puts Spirit into a skidding spiral so he can see better.

  The lights are pointing toward him, off in the darkness on the west side of the field. From this angle he can now see an orderly row of buildings and a large slab of concrete. Twitching the stick, he brings the wing up slightly and squints into the lights below. Yes! Excited, he realizes the concrete is a parking apron for aircraft and the buildings . . . one is half-open and despite the glare he can see it is unmistakably a hangar. This is an airport, no doubt about it. It must be Le Bourget!

  ARCING AROUND the airfield’s southern edge, he stays close to the lights and tries to pick up more details. It’s safe to spiral lower now and he drops the wing low again, tugging the throttle back slightly. But the lights . . . they’re everywhere, and much worse on the south side. As Paris passes behind him again, the horizon goes with it and Lindbergh feels slightly disoriented. After thirty-three hours of generally flying straight and level, even a gentle spiral at night is tough. Easing the descent, he shallows out in the turns, pulls the throttle back to IDLE, and continues to spiral down, always staying just beyond the lights. There is a whole row of them, little bright lines of lights on the eastern side behind the hangars. Factory windows maybe? Coming around the north side again, Slim flies with the corners of his eyes, using Paris as a guide, staring down and back.

  Cars.

  They are headlights, he realizes. Thousands and thousands of them clogging the road. But why? I’ll drag the field from low altitude to make sure its surface is clear, he decides, pushing up the throttle and roaring in a thousand feet over the hangars. The rush of speed is real, the first time he has felt it since his brief acrobatics through the clouds over the Atlantic. Slim’s body and inner ear aren’t quite caught up yet, so he’s careful at this point. No arrival aerobatics like he’d do flying the mail—just a low pass now to let anyone who happens to be down there know that a plane is going to land. He glimpses a wind sock on a big hangar off the right wing. The narrow end is pointed roughly toward him and it’s filled up a bit, but not stiff. So the wind is 10 or 15 miles per hour from the northwest, and he now knows from which direction he must land.

  Without really needing to think about it, Lindbergh creates a standard rectangle pattern above the airport. Throttle forward, mixture RICH, and he pulls straight up just past the hangars. The lighted area disappears and he flies again into the black wall along the field’s western edge. Less than a minute later Slim boots the left rudder, presses the stick to his thigh, and brings the Spirit 90 degrees left to the “crosswind” leg. This is the short end of the rectangle, farthest from the landing end, and the idea is to climb high enough, and get enough distance, to turn back for the landing. Holding about 80 miles per hour in the climb, the pilot uses the floodlights as a reference and when they pass a half mile off his wingtip he banks up in another left turn. Playing the stick and rudder to remain just outside the lights, he rolls out 90 degrees later on “downwind,” or the long end of the rectangle.

  Pulling the throttle back to hold airspeed, Slim gropes for the flashlight with his left hand and shines it over the Lukenheimer manifold. Now is not the time to turn off the wrong tank! He twists the second petcock from the left horizontally, pauses, then switches hands on the stick and turns the right wing tank valve straight up, closing the fuel flow. With the wind behind him, Spirit is aiming directly at the east–west road cluttered with the cars. Eyeballing the spotlights, Slim wedges the flashlight under a leg and holds a thousand feet in altitude until the hangars pass under his left wingtip. Kicking the rudder and sliding the stick forward and left, he tugs the throttle back to IDLE and leans into the turn.

  Watching the waving white beams below, Lindbergh constantly increases and decreases the bank to adjust the “base” turn. This is the other short side of the rectangle, and if it’s done correctly he’ll roll out heading into the wind aligned for landing. Crossing the road and all the bright lights, Slim blinks again at the darkness but doesn’t look away from the spotlights. They are his best reference and he thinks that at least the area past them is clear enough to land. Wing up . . . wing down, throttle up a bit, then back . . . more rudder . . . and he eases the last part of the turn so the propeller is pointed just short of the spotlights.

  The Spirit sinks and so does his stomach. As he shoves the th
rottle halfway up, the prop slices into the air and the plane stops dropping. Slim stares at the ground, eyes wide. Cars, hangars, and floodlights spraying light into the dark sky. Sloppy. He feels sloppy, as though it were his first solo flight. Normally the plane is an extension of his eyes and hands . . . especially for landing. But that isn’t working now. It’s almost as if he’s forgotten how to fly. It could also be that he’s never landed the Spirit of St. Louis at night before, and now he’s trying it after no sleep for three days on an airfield he’s never seen. A few more minutes to get the feel of the place . . . that’s all he needs.

  The row of hangars has a gap a few hundred feet wide, and it’s lit well enough to fly through. Maybe that’s what they intended since the ground beyond seems flat and clear. This time, lower and better oriented, he can even see a few aircraft parked in the shadows. Over the trees . . . throttle up a bit . . . the car headlights hit the corner of his left eye as Spirit thunders past the road into the gap. Hot air from the ground is rising and the plane pitches a bit as he crosses over some buildings, and aims for the lighted grass beyond. Moving . . . there is something moving on the rooftops. Flags? No, too many. Arms? It looks like waving arms.

  But he’s suddenly over the field and pointed off into the void beyond the lights. As the ground rushes up he sees it’s not completely flat. What’s out there in the blackness past the lights? Jamming the throttle forward till it stops, Slim holds the nose a few feet off the ground as long as possible, glimpsing blades of grass and sod under the wheels. At full power now the Whirlwind roars and Spirit lurches forward, yawing right until he kicks the left rudder. The lighted area vanishes again and night hits his eyes like a thick, black curtain. Stick back, the plane soars up away from the earth and Slim stares from both windows. There are a few tiny lights way out off the nose that might mark the edge of the field. Maybe. I’ll have to take a chance on that, he thinks. If I land short, I may stop rolling before I reach it.

  There’s no need to circle any longer.

  PULLING THE NOSE up in a gentle, climbing turn to crosswind, Lindbergh reaches 1,000 feet and turns downwind. Retrieving the flashlight, he shines the beam around the panel to check the gauges one last time. This is it. Slim runs a hand over his safety belt and makes certain it’s fastened. When he looks left, the floodlights seem to be trying to track him, and he darts a glance at the airspeed indicator. Ninety miles per hour. Seems too fast, he thinks. I’ll overshoot if I keep on at this rate. That would mean missing the gap in the hangars, or landing too far from the lights to see. Back to IDLE again, he clicks the stabilizer trim back a notch and pulls the stick to his chest. Holding it steady, Slim realizes with a start that he can barely hear the motor. Shoving the throttle up for a fast burst, he hears it sputter and slides the knob right back.

  Eighty miles per hour.

  He’s burned up most of his gross weight in fuel, so the Spirit is much lighter. It needs less throttle than he’s grown accustomed to during these 33 hours and 17 minutes, but his continuing lack of feeling is frightening. I’ll have to pull the nose higher instead of pushing it down. Fighting a growing fear, Slim summons all he has left; his conviction that this is the correct field, that he has to land, and that he, Charles Lindbergh, has made it to Paris.

  One hundred yards to go. The “base” turn is uncoordinated: one wing down, then up, then down again, dropping toward the cars. Left elbow braced against his ribs, he keeps the throttle straight up. The stick feels like a broom, and his feet are blocks of wood in boots. There’s a substantial rectangular building close to the road and trees, then a dark spot, maybe a small park, and more buildings right up to the floodlights. Hangars march off into the gloom on both sides, but the ones to the north seem much bigger. Slipping the plane around the final turn so he can see, Lindbergh hunches forward, blinks rapidly and fixates on the gap. Sideslipping is more dangerous than just landing straight in, but he really has no choice. If I don’t sideslip, I’ll be too high over the boundary. He’d float well past the lighted area and land in . . . what? Whatever is out there.

  Floodlights.

  He peers at the bottoms of the lights and tries to ignore the waving beams. Airspeed . . . 85 miles per hour. More rudder, and he feels the plane’s tail whip right. Stick forward . . . the nose drops, and as the Spirit skids around the turn Slim straightens out slightly over the road. Cars again. Thousands of cars and people by the road. A sea of arms waving like blades of grass in the wind . . . then they’re gone. A bright beam fills the left window and makes him squint, but he can still see the patch of ground beyond the hangars. Flashing over the little park, his eyes register it all; light gray shadows up front, deep black valleys between the hangars, and bodies silhouetted on the rooftops. Ground rush. As he sinks toward the earth it seems to rise up to him.

  Thirty feet.

  Shoving the throttle forward, Slim kicks left, then right to keep the nose pointed at the tiny area of grass he can see. Hangars flash by both wingtips. Pulling the throttle back the plane drops down through the gap. Twenty feet. The tail is too high and the Spirit is too fast. Hold the nose off. Off! He’s going to miss the lit area and land past the black curtain.

  Careful!

  Ten feet.

  Lights disappear behind the window and, eyes wide, he searches for something, anything, up ahead. It’s like jumping from a lit room through a dark window.

  Give her the gun and climb. . . .

  Lindbergh’s hand is moving the throttle forward when the wheels touch at 10:22 P.M., the trombone shocks compress and then come off the ground again. Trying not to squeeze the stick, Slim eases it forward and feels the horizontal stabilizer lift the tail, forcing the nose down. The Spirit settles, then lifts again slightly and the wings wobble. Throttling back with his left hand, Lindbergh nudges the stick forward with his right. This time as the tail drops Slim twitches the stick back to catch it, then eases the tail down until he feels the skid make contact. Bumping the throttle several times to make certain it’s in IDLE, he cranes his whole body sideways, peering uneasily into . . . nothing.

  The field must be clear, he tells himself as the Spirit bumps and jolts into the darkness. Boots tapping the rudder pedals, he keeps the nose straight and slows. He’s down . . . he’s really down! For the first time in more than 33 hours there is something solid beneath him. Leaning out the left window he can see the ground is indeed flat: solid, dry sod covered with grass.

  Slowing to walking speed, he taps the left pedal and as the tail begins to swing Lindbergh boots full opposite rudder and clamps the stick against his left thigh to ground-loop, or turn, the aircraft 180 degrees back toward the buildings. Quite literally he is returning to the light. Rolling forward slowly, he peers ahead past the spinning sliver blades at the hangars and . . . people! Thousands . . . a surging wall of tens of thousands of tiny black figures between the plane and the lights. Running, sprinting . . . at him! The propeller—it will cut them to pieces!

  Slim brings the throttle back to IDLE, then reaches for the magneto switch. Instinctively, he glances through the window again . . . and yes, he is on the ground. Slowly, deliberately, his fingers move and click the switch one, two . . . and three positions right to OFF. For the second time in 33 hours and 30 minutes the magnificent Wright Whirlwind coughs, splutters, and begins to die. The propeller instantly slows, a silver blade gleaming in the distant light.

  Lurching to a stop on Le Bourget field, Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis are once again part of the human world.* For a brief moment the plane, and the man inside, are perfectly still. He can’t hear the aircraft creak as it settles on the grass, and the roar of thousands of voices is just now penetrating the leather helmet and cotton wadding in his ears. But he can smell hot metal, gasoline, and rich earth; he can see a mass of dark figures silhouetted against the lights, surging at him like surf on a beach.†

  Slim has no thought yet of the startling reality that the world has altered beyond all belief or expectation, that he has
met the last great challenge of his decade, and revolutionized human life. Charles Augustus Lindbergh has thrown open a window that will never close, and for those who witnessed history in Paris on May 21, 1927, and for all of us yet to come, the future has changed forever.

  TEN

  A NEW REALITY

  PANDEMONIUM.

  This is an entirely apt description of the one hundred thousand hysterically exuberant French citizens who poured across Le Bourget’s grassy field toward the Spirit of St. Louis and its startled young pilot. “I had barely cut the engine switch when the first people reached my cockpit,” Lindbergh later wrote about his first moments in Paris. “Within seconds my open windows were blocked with faces.”

  He was immediately concerned about his beloved aircraft. He felt it “tremble with pressure” from the press of bodies, and then heard wood crack as three fairings gave way beneath the human weight. It was critical to get the Spirit covered and under guard, as souvenir hunters were already clawing strips of fabric away from the steel framing. Much has been made of Lindbergh’s opening statement on French soil, usually in error, but all he truly managed to yell was “Are there any mechanics here?” He was greeted with excited shouts in French, and screamed back, “Does anyone here speak English?”

  The plane was being rolled forward now, but the tail skid dragged in the grass. Slim needed to deal with the problem, so he opened the door for the first time since New York and stuck out a leg. That was as far as he got. The first men around the Spirit yanked Lindbergh from his plane and hoisted him horizontally above the throng. Thousands of jumping, stumbling people were cheering and calling his name. Helplessly prostrate “in the center of an ocean of heads that extended as far out into the darkness as I could see,” and stiff from hours in the same position, he was unable to break loose from the dozens of hands gripping his body. Inexorably carried off toward the lights, twenty-five years later he reflected on that night and remembered, “After the warnings I had been given in America, I was completely unprepared for the welcome which awaited me on Le Bourget.”