The Spirit of ST Louis (17 page)
Read The Spirit of ST Louis Online
Authors: Charles A. Lindbergh
Tags: #Transportation, #Transatlantic Flights, #Adventurers & Explorers, #General, #United States, #Air Pilots, #Historical, #Biography & Autobiography, #Aviation, #Spirit of St. Louis (Airplane), #Biography, #History
"I—I'd like to get one for three hundred and fifty gallons," Hall replies, hesitantly. "But Charlie, if you think the surface is too rough, we can probably get by with what we've got. The wheel bearings were smoking a little, you know," he odds.
"It's landing with all that gasoline that worries me," Mahoney argues. "I'm for calling it enough "
I had intended to take off with loads up to 400 gallons; but if I keep on, and a tire blows, it may wreck our whole project. After all, one can carry tests so far that instead of adding to safety they increase the over-all danger. I'll probably never land with as much as 300 gallons again, so as far as that part of the test is concerned I've already exceeded any future requirements. True, I'll have to take off with 125 gallons more at New York, but the field there will certainly be smoother—and it will be close to sea level; the parade grounds at Camp Kearney are at an altitude of five hundred feet. I think Mahoney is right; we'll call it enough.
Twilight is thickening. We stake the Spirit of St. Louis down and leave it under guard. The tanks can be drained tomorrow morning.
When I get back to the city, I telegraph my partners that the tests are satisfactorily completed, and that I'll be ready to start east within forty-eight hours. I had originally planned on running a series of gasoline consumption checks before leaving California. But I'll save at least a day by doing that on my flight between San Diego and St. Louis. As yet I haven't been able to make my fuelflow meter work. It looks as though I might as well discard it.
38
The Spirit of St. Louis is standing ready in its hangar. My plans are complete. All San Diego details have been attended to: my bills are paid; my bank account is closed. The rubber boat is lashed down tightly in the fuselage. Tires are pumped to just the right pressure. The center wing-tank is full. It's early morning on the 8th of May. For two days I've been waiting on weather. A general storm area hovers over the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest, making even a daylight flight a questionable venture. And I want to fly to St. Louis through the night.
39
NUNGESSER OVER ATLANTIC
___________________________________________
DUE IN NEW YORK
TOMORROW
PARIS, May 8 -- As the sun rose above the horizon this morning, Captains Charles Nungesser and Francois Coll started their heavily overloaded Levasseur biplane, the White Bird, rolling over the ground at Le Bourget Aerodrome for the start of their transatlantic Sight westward to New York.
There was a breath-taking moment during the long take-off, when Captain Nungesser tried to lift his machine, but failed. He was successful, however, on the next attempt, and the white plane rose slowly, to disappear into the western sky. ---
That's the first time a plane loaded for the New York-Paris flight has actually taken off the ground. Nungesser and Coli are in the air with full tanks. They're experienced men. They should land in New York tomorrow. I spend most of the day studying charts and data I've assembled for the westward, Pacific flight. It's the route beyond Honolulu that concerns me most; there's probably not even a radio station on the pin-point islands I'll have to strike. And can I find beaches hard enough and long enough for landing and take-off? Maybe we'll have to put pontoons on the Spirit of St. Louis. But with pontoons, could my plane get off the water with enough fuel to reach Honolulu?
40
NUNGESSER SIGHTED OFF
CAPE RACE
_________________________
WHITE BIRD REPORTED BY
DESTROYER
_________________________
FRENCH AIRMEN REACH
NOVA SCOTIA
________________________
OCEAN PLANE SEEN OFF
PORTLAND
_________________________
TRANSATLANTIC FLYERS
OVER BOSTON
_________________________
CROWD AT BATTERY WAITS
ANXIOUSLY
_________________________
NUNGESSER, COLI LOST
_______________________
PARIS FEARS WORST
_________________________
NAVY READY FOR SEARCH
____________________________
It's May 9th. Step by step newspaper headlines have followed Nungesser and Coli from their take-off at Paris to the city of Boston, only to have them vanish like midnight ghosts. Now no one seems to be sure that they were ever sighted after their plane left the coast of France. Only one thing is definite: the White Bird is down somewhere short of its goal, on land or on sea, for time has exhausted its fuel.
Accidents, delays, and tragedies have combined to leave only the Bellanca poised for the New York-Paris flight. And now, 2500 miles farther westward, my Spirit of St. Louis is built and tested.
I've gone down to the Weather Bureau at the Federal Building each afternoon to talk to its chief, Dean Blake, and to look over maps and forecasts. Each time it has been the same story -- a low-pressure area covering the route I want to follow -- mountaintops in clouds -- low visibility in passes -- heavy rain -- local reports of ice and hail. Three days wasted on account of weather, waiting for the clouds to clear. Why does flying have to be so dependent on the eyesight of a pilot? After all, the Spirit of St. Louis is perfectably capable of traveling through that storm area if only I could see well enough to hold my course and keep out of icing regions. The clouds are harmless enough in themselves. I wait here helplessly simply because of an area of opaque air.
Aviation will never amount to much until we learn to free ourselves from mist. The gyroscopic turn indicator is a step in the right direction, but it will take much more than that—better instruments, and radio, and possibly some way of dissipating fog above an airport. Experiments are being made in all three fields, but the answers are years away -- interesting to speculate about, but useless for getting me to St. Louis. What I really need is a pair of spectacles to see through fog. If I had a device like that, how simple the entire flight would be!
Possibly I can get through anyway if I fly by daylight. Most of my friends advised against an overnight flight to St. Louis. Even in perfect weather, they said, flying over the mountains at night was taking too much chance. But for me, the experience of 800 miles of darkness will be the best training I can get for my far more difficult flight across the ocean.
I've never flown through an entire night. To do so should give me a familiarity with the Spirit of St. Louis I can obtain in no other way. I want to find out how accurately I can hold my course between sunset and sunrise, without any check points on the ground. And there's another consideration. A nonstop overnight flight across deserts, mountains, and prairies to St. Louis will do much to answer the people who talk about my lack of experience in long-distance flying, and who say that my New York-to-Paris project must be stopped. My partners in St. Louis have been subjected to several attempts In stop the flight -- rather weak attempts, to be sure, which have had no effect on my friends; but I want to give them something with which to argue back, and no argument can be as good as a successful trip of the kind I'm planning.
Today, I visit the Weather Bureau with more hope than usual, for the low-pressure area has shown signs of moving eastward. When it's gone far enough, I'll follow in its wake across the continent, and possibly across the ocean too. Dean Blake spreads out meteorological charts again. I can tell by the expression on his face that good news awaits me. Flying conditions should soon be favorable, he says. I can probably take off tomorrow and expect fair weather all along my route. I should even have a tail wind most of the way! We study the charts carefully. Then I thank him and say good-by for the last time. I'll go to bed early tonight.
The Bellanca hasn't started yet, and Byrd's Fokker isn't ready. If I follow close on the tail of this storm, I may get to New York before the weather permits anybody else to leave for Paris. But that will mean cutting out the St. Louis ceremonies my partners have planned. We intended to christen the plane, and Bixby wrote that the Chamber of Commerce wants to hold a big luncheon while I'm there, to promote aviation and increase interest in the air mail, the National Guard squadron, and my flight to Paris. We've already given up the idea of setting a new endurance record -- that would have brought a lot of attention to our city. How will my partners feel about my using Lambert Field as little more than a refueling point en route to New York? It really isn't fair to them. After all, I'm flying a St. Louis plane. It's a St. Louis project. I planned the flight to be from St. Louis to Paris, with a stopover at New York. To spend only a few hours in my home city is not enough. And yet if I'm to be successful, I can't waste time on ceremonies.
home
This is the day of take-off, May 10th. I pack a small suitcase, which I'll lash to the left side of the fuselage, beside my seat. Since the fuel tanks will be only slightly over halt full for a 1500-mile flight, I can afford the luxury of carrying a suitcase. I'll need business clothes both in St. Louis and New York. After that I'll leave everything behind except what I wear.
I stop for a few minutes to say good-by to the men in the factory, and to tell them again what a grand job I think they've done on my plane. They're as pleased as I am about the performance of the Spirit of St. Louis.
"Send us a wire when you get to Paris," someone calls out as I leave.
From the factory I drive to Dutch Flats and fly over to North Island, where a gasoline truck is waiting for me. Hall and I have lunch with some of the officers. Afterward we walk around the Air Station, looking at planes and equipment, and I take one of the Navy's new Hawk fighters up for a twenty-minute acrobatic flight. I don't want to start east too early, for I plan on meeting daybreak over Kansas. That's far enough from St. Louis to hold down my angular correction if I've drifted many miles off course. Also, it will give the sun a chance to burn morning mists away.
At 3:15 I return to my plane. I've set 4:00 as departure time. That will leave nearly three hours of daylight during which I can turn back or land if anything goes wrong.
There's no need to ask anyone to telephone the newspapers when I take off. Their reporters and photographers are already on the field. It looks as though I won't have to bother much about adequate publicity from now on.
I wish my earth-inductor compass was working, but a bearing froze on one of the test flights and we can't get parts out here to repair the damage. The Pioneer Instrument Company telegraphed that they'll have a new compass ready In New York when I arrive. They're also going to put in a newer type of liquid compass for me. The one in my cockpit now has excessive deviation; but it's good enough for my trip across the country. In a compass, I prefer steadiness to accuracy of reading. As long as the deviation chart is correctly made out, it's easy to subtract or add a few degrees to one's magnetic course.
At 3:40 I crawl into my flying suit. It's uncomfortably hot In this California sun, but I can't very well put the suit on while I'm in the air -- and I'll certainly need it over the mountain ranges tonight.
"Let me know what your fuel consumption is when you get to St. Louis," Hall says. "I want to get another check on those curves."
We start and warm up the engine. It's a few minutes early, but why wait longer in the heat? I wave good-by, taxi into position, and ease the throttle open. As I pick up speed, I hold the tail low to put as much load as possible on the wings and reduce strain on the landing gear.
The Spirit of St. Louis is in the air soon after its wheels start clattering over the hummocky portion of the field. The take-off wasn't as difficult as I expected. It's 3:55 Pacific. I snake a mental note of the time, check instruments, pull the throttle back slightly, and begin a wide, climbing turn to the left. Two Army observation planes and a Ryan monoplane have taken off with me as an escort. Colonel Graham, the Commanding Officer at Rockwell Field, is in one of the observation planes. Hall, Bowlus, Harrigan, and A. J. Edwards are in the Ryan. We circle North Island, the factory, and the city of San Diego. Then, leaving ocean and bay behind, I set my compass heading for St. Louis.
The coastal range of mountains is only a few miles eastward, lying about at right angles to my route. I cross over valley orchards, and climb with bush-green foothills -- using
just enough power to keep a safe altitude above their crests.
What a hopeless place for a forced landing! I look do on boulder-strewn mountain sides. The few bushes on the summit must root in crevices of rock. There's not a level area in sight to which I could glide in emergency. A pilot has trust his engine above terrain like this. Of course I could have spiralled to greater height, and then held a gliding angle to some valley clearing; but in another twenty miles I'll over on the eastern side. I want to make a fast flight to S Louis. Why lose time safeguarding my plane through a few minutes of daylight when I'm to spend the entire night above canyons, lava beds, and cliffs?
At 4:30 the escorting planes dip their wings and turn back toward San Diego. To my right is Superstition Mountain; to my left, the San Jacinto peaks. Ahead, the coastal range breaks down into sharp-shadowed desert ridges.
A great valley stretches out before me, sun-scorched, sage-flecked, veined with dry, stony creek beds. Soft desert colors merge into one another until I'm not sure whether the sands are more yellow or pink. In the middle of this valley is the Salton Sea—a pale blue wash which seems to have neither depth nor wetness. My course lies directly across it, toward the crinkled Chocolate range beyond. Men have died of thirst traversing such burning wastes on foot or muleback. I glance at the two canteens hanging beside me in the cockpit. Suppose I'm forced down in the desert. Have I enough water to take me out?
I pass the winding Colorado River at 5:45, on course, and continue eastward above lengthening shadows and the weird rock formations of the Southwest. As Dean Blake predicted, I have a tail wind.
Sunset finds me over purple valleys, dusk-filled canyons, and silhouetted cliffs of Arizona, climbing steadily toward night. There are threads of steel on the ground below, barely visible in gathering twilight -- tracks of the Santa Fe, and my last check point of day. I try out the magnetos -- not a skip or jerk on either one. I run my eyes over the instruments readings are normal. My altitude is 4900 feet.
It's getting cold. I draw on boots, then mittens. Three and a quarter hours out, now. The altimeter is up to 8,000 feet, and I'm still climbing to stay well above the ridges. Ground details are obscured by a haze which has been forming since sunset. The moon is almost overhead, several days from full -- and there's still some light in the west. If the sky doesn't become cloud-covered, I won't encounter full darkness until the later night.
I can't see far ahead now; but below me, the general contours of earth are perceptible in outline. When my eyes parallel the rays of the moon, its vision seems added to mine, us though I gained a satellite's perception. I run my flashlight over the instrument board—several of the dials are not luminous, and must be checked with a separate source of light. Every needle is in place. I fill out the log, and settle hack in my cockpit.
The engine jerks! - - - again! --- again! - - - the danger sign I know so well. It splutters --- jumps - - - begins to vibrate. I grip the stick, and glance toward earth. I'm over mountains—bare ones—no trees. That's all I can tell. Haze is thicker; but I still see outlines with the moon. I ease back on the throttle, and throw my flashlight on the instruments. Fuel pressure is up—that's not the trouble. The engine shakes the entire plane. I pull the mixture control back, slowly, to its stop. The coughing goes on.
A forced landing -- over mountains -- at night -- is it all finished, then -- the flight to Paris, all our plans? There's a possibility, just .the barest possibility, that I can stall down into some area of moonlight without crashing my plane beyond repair. But I'm over one of the wildest regions of Arizona, with close to 200 gallons of gasoline in my tanks. I stare at the earth. There's not a single light on its surface, not a ranchhouse window to break this desperate solitude of night. Thousands of feet below I see a huge desert slope, curving up the side of a mountain. It bears no trees -- the greenish-yellow shading vouches that. Is it strewn with lava? Is it veined with creek beds? Is it studded with petrified logs? Are there ridges and cliffs, eroded by rain? The dim light gives little hint of texture, but I can feel the surface there below -- I've seen such mountain slopes before. My mind pictures it -- cut by arroyos, spattered with stones, without a level spot where wheels can roll. Of course I’m lucky to see anything at all—suppose there were no moon, or that the sky were overcast?
I'm losing altitude slowly. In spite of its coughing and sputtering, the Whirlwind is still putting out some power. I may be able to stay in the air another quarter hour. Should I turn back now and try to find a better place to crash? No, there are only more mountains behind, and I remember vague outlines of canyons. I'll be better off where I am.
I bank slowly toward the valley, trying to estimate my altitude above ground, trying to perceive some detail of the surface to tell me what I really have to face. Which way is the wind? Probably still northwest -- there's no way of being sure -- But if I land toward the northwest, that's down slope! No, there's another place in that great scoop of earth, a place where I can land up the slope and into the wind -- if it hasn't changed.
I'm still several thousand feet high. I glance at my altimeter. The needle hasn't moved much since I last looked. The forced landing, apparently, won't be immediate. I may be able to stay in the air for a long time.
There's nothing more to do about the ground. I won't be able to see any surface details until I'm much lower, and I've already decided on the general area where I'll land. I turn my eyes to the instruments again. What can the trouble be? It sounds like fuel mixture, but I've tried the mixture control in different positions without success. Three pounds pressure —that's normal; besides, wobbling the hand pump doesn't do any good. Is it ignition? How can it be ignition when the engine runs as well—or as badly—on one magneto as on the other? Is there water in the carburetor? But we strained every drop of fuel, carefully, and I've just drained the Lunkenheimer trap. Is something broken in the engine? Nothing I can do about it if there is.
I open the throttle wide and pull it back again. The coughing decreases slightly. I open the mixture control cautiously. That helps too. Lord only knows why it didn't help before. Yes, the engine is definitely running better. I keep circling. I'm no longer losing altitude. Can it be that I won't have to land? Will some miracle keep my Whirlwind going while I circle between these mountain ridges through the night? Of course I'll stay up as long as I can -- nothing would be gained by crashing sooner than I have to. Each minute makes my fuel load a little lighter, reduces my landing speed some fraction of a mile. Each minute separates me that much farther from the earthly impact that's almost certain to be crushing to my body and my plane.
I keep working with mixture control and throttle, moving first one and then the other to the position which reduces shaking most. By just the right jockeying of these levers I find that I climb slowly, gaining back part of the altitude I've lost. I was down to 7,000 feet above sea level at the lowest point—within two or three thousand of the ground, as near as I could judge. Now, I'm up to 7,500. Should I try to spiral until daybreak? Should I take up my heading east across the Rockies, toward sunrise and level Kansas plains? Should I turn back toward California where I know the skies are clear, and try to find the air field on North Island? I glance at the clock - 8:07. It seems hours, yet it's been only fifteen minutes since the missing started.
Against the wind, San Diego is close to five hours of flight behind me. I'd have to pass over all those weird formations of the desert, where a forced landing might well be equal to a fatal crash. And even if I reached the ocean, there's the possibility of a coastal fog at night.
If I fly eastward, I've got Rocky Mountain crags to pass, but I'll cut almost an hour off night by flying toward dawn. In eight hours at most I'll meet the rising sun over that gigantic landing field, Kansas.
Staying where I am holds little appeal; though if my engine fails completely, I'd be better off.
Twenty minutes have passed since the missing started -- a third of an hour lost, circling around. The Whirlwind is running better now. I feel confidence returning. Maybe my trouble is caused only by altitude and the cold air of night. If so, there is still hope. I'll use more power and watch the mixture control carefully. I stop spiralling and take up my St, Louis course, setting the throttle at 1750 revolutions a minute, climbing steadily to get above the mountain peaks. The missing increases as I gain altitude, but I want to clear those ridges with an extra margin. I should hold at least 10,000 feet.
Of course -- a new thought enters my mind -- I might turn south toward the Mexican border, where mountains are lower and where the air is probably warmer. I have plenty of fuel in the tanks. But that would destroy the check on navigation which is my main object in this flight. It's extremely important to see how far off route I am when the sun rises. If serious errors have crept into my navigational techniques, I must learn about them before I start across the ocean. The fuel-consumption data I hoped to obtain is already thrown off -- spiralling, climbing, and using an extra hundred r.p.m. to keep the engine warm make it almost valueless. But I can run another test on that during the flight from St. Louis to New York -- not as good, but accurate enough for my requirements. What I need now is a check on navigation. So I'll try to hold to the route I laid out in San Diego.
I've left the broad valleys behind. Below, I see only steep sides of mountains, sheering into narrow, night-locked ravines. There's not even a spot fit to crash on. But the use of more power is working. The engine sometimes runs for several minutes between coughing spells.
