Charles Lindbergh and the....Twilight Zone

retread · 26 June 2006, 07:33 PM

For your consideration.... following the aerial epic of one Charles Lindbergh young "slim" embarked on an tour with his heavier than air craft. For the next nine months he delighted the fascinated and the curious with a journey covering nearly every corner of the United States, Mexico and Central America. On the very last leg of his travels upon leaving Havana, Cuba for Lambert Field , Missouri he took a detour to the .... well, let his log speak for itself...

Feb. 13 Havana to Lambert Field, St. Louis, MO. 15 hrs. 35 mins.

( Both compasses malfunctioned over Florida Strait, at night. The earth-inductor needle wobbled back and forth. The liquid compass card rotated without stopping. Could recognize no stars through heavy haze. Located position , at daybreak, over Bahama Islands, nearly 300 miles off course. Liquid compass kept rotating until Spirit of St. Louis reached the Florida coast.)

Never saw this on a Discovery Channel episode of "UFO's in History".

Roundel · 5 July 2006, 05:35 PM

Fascinating, baffling, --- and disturbing.

Personally, I find one solid report from a pilot of an unexplained phenomenom to be more impressive than a hundred stories of alien abductions, missing time, etc.

retread · 6 July 2006, 06:01 PM

Incidently, the quote from Lindbergh's log was taken from the appendix of his book "The Sprit of St. Louis", which if you haven't read - you should. You will find as I did that Lindbergh was not only an aviation icon but a really excellent writer. This book was awarded a Pulitzer Prize and even more , deserved to.

Barrett · 11 September 2006, 05:10 PM

My college journalism class was lectured by Leland Stowe, of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. He castigated Lindy as "a bloodless technician" without bothering to mention The Pulitzer Thing. (He got the Pulitzer himself in 1930.)

Retread got it right.

Roundel · 18 September 2006, 07:02 PM

"Technician"? The Spirit of St. Louis is still the most beautifully written book about flight I've ever encountered. He was as precise with words as he was with machinery.

"Bloodless"? That would be news to his barnstorming and air mail friends, who knew him as an incurable practical joker. Woe onto those who shaved with a safety razor that had been within his grasp without checking the blade!

For that matter, did bloodless people barnstorm? Fly the mail in Midwestern winters with instruments that were rock bottom in accuracy and sensitivity?

retread · 19 September 2006, 06:22 AM

A keen observer. High intelligence with obvious depth. Not just a command of the language but a feel for it. The ability to make an interesting story just that- intensely interesting. Not everyone can be a storyteller. Lindbergh could.
I assume the "bloodless technician" comment was inspired because Lindbergh didn't wear his heart on his shoulder in the best traditions of daytime television. It has been observed by someone that still waters can run deep.
Anyone who's interested in getting a copy of the "Spirit of St. Louis" , there are plenty available via abebooks for $2.00 or less. Making it one of the real bargains on the internet.
My Dad had a copy of "The Wartime Journals of Charles Lindbergh" , which I scanned a number of times but never read completely. From what I was able to take from this book it was of similar quality to "Spirit of St. Louis."
Proof in my mind that the latter book was no abberation.

Roundel · 19 September 2006, 08:15 PM

Excellent points, Retread. One must remember that Lindbergh came from English and Swedish pioneer stock and was born just over a century ago in Minnesota, a time and place when the Wild West was well within living memory, especially in those parts the Sioux uprising during the Civil War and the James gang's Northfield bank robbery. Born early enough to later recall people running to their front windows to see an automobile go down the street.

Some years ago I talked about Lindbergh to a gentleman who grew up in Minnesota during the 1930's and 1940's and knew a number of men like Lindbergh that he described as real life Gary Coopers, John Waynes, and Jimmy Stewarts.

The Wartime Journals of Charles Lindbergh is worth tracking down and reading. The quality of writing is remarkable for something written in spare moments and gives another view of the events of the time.

My favorite story from that book: a Ford engineer toying with two B-24 models, trying to find a way to combine them into a single plane. The engineer's boss had read about the Kaiser-Hughes HK-1 Hercules flying boat ("Spruce Goose") and wanted to get a giant plane of their own flying first.

Charles Neely · 24 September 2006, 07:36 PM

The Spirit of St Louis should be required reading for any aviation buff. It is engrossing and truly inspired writing. However, it is not a historical tome!

Upon even cursory examination, many tennants long held as histrical truth simply do not stand up to documentable facts. Facts I might add were documented by the man himself (he could not throw anything away, especially any paper upon which he made a notation). Also, one has to ask what version of the SOL one looks at. Most do not know that he wrote eight DIFFERENT versions, each giving contradicting or different slants to the same events??? Suffice to say that the first, started in 1938, has a much darker view of lightly covered items finally published in 1952. In the published version, he despises the press, yet defers to Donald Hall AND the published newspaper articles as references for events that he himself documented better. Lindberh, in his SOL is at critical odds with his earlier NY Times article and his book "We" on a number of important historical claims. These were written much closer to the actual happenings. Why he did not consult his own notes is a real inigma. The factual story of how he got to Paris is so much more interesting and richer than the fiction he got the "non fiction" Pulitzer" for! Every basic tennant of the story, as contained in the SOL, is questionable. More often than not, it simply didn't or couldn't have happened the way we have been led to believe. Scott Berg got a Pulitzer for non-fiction writing about the great aviator, but based his findings on the same canned versions. So much for claims of primary research!

So far, the only thing we can definitely attribute to CAL in the design of Spirit aircraft, is the enclosed cockpit. Hall ,apparently, told a pack of fibs (see his fictional NACA report!) and spent as great portion of his life trying to stand in the light of CAL's fame.

Points to ponder: WAS Lindbergh qualified to make an attempt at the Ortige Prize when he took off? IIRC , both inccorrect and correct answers appear in SOL.
Charlie Neely

Simba · 25 September 2006, 04:48 PM

One barely-remembered fact about Lindbergh's famous flight was that afterwards he flew The Spirit of St. Louis to the safety of RAF Grange, Gosport, Hampshire, UK, where it was dismantled and crated for return to the USA.

And I agree, his book is an inspirational masterpiece.

<hoists sundowner>

Cheers!

Roundel · 25 September 2006, 07:02 PM

Earlier this evening I saw an episode of Is It Real? on the National Geographic Channel about the Bermuda Triangle that recounted two incidents similar to Lindbergh's, both near Florida.

One was the oft told tale from 1970 of a pilot who was flying from Florida to the Bahamas when he flew through a tunnel in some clouds and then through an "electronic fog" during both of which his instruments went haywire. When he came out of the latter, he found himself back over Florida. However, no analysis or investigation was undertaken by the program.

The other story was about a pilot who was flying to the Florida Keys at night in 1995 when she suddenly found herself in a dark cloud during which distant city lights disappeared and her instruments also went crazy. For the program, she and a flight instructor retraced the flight. Weather records show that a thunderstorm was in the area of the original flight, which would account for the dark cloud, the disappearing lights, and the screwy instruments. The pilot seemed to accept that explanation, noting the she felt that her plane had been struck by lightning.

Personally, I believe that there's a lot of odd but natural electromagnetic phenomena that are poorly understood, or even known, because they are erratic and infrequent, rarely seen and noted, and very seldom photographed or scientifically measured. Formal lab research is seldom conducted because of the high costs and modest perceived benefits. Researchers thus have to fall back on anecdotes and the occasional lab study conducted for other purposes that offers some incidental insight. For more on the topic, seek out Philip J. Klass' first book, UFO's Identified.

For example, I once saw a tiny flash of St. Elmo's fire in the utility room of my parents' home. It was entirely by chance -- had I glanced a second or two earlier or later, I would have missed it completely. I've looked into that rooms thousands of times over the years, scores of those times under the same conditions, but have never seen the same thing before or since.