Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Lindbergh is my all time numerouno numba one hero. If anyone is interested I have a copy of a technical document about the Spirit detailing a lot of the design features and eight graphs prepared showing things like performance over time verses gross weight, fuel economy at various rpm’s and such. It was written for the National Advisory Committe for Aeronautics in July of 1927 by Donald Hall, who was the Chief Engineer for Ryan Aircraft.
As for the pilot; to use Michner’s well worn phrase: “Where do we get such men?” And where are the Lindberghs of today ?
They’re out there. You’ll find them at Pax River, Edwards, Fort Rucker, and Houston.
Yes, something of a hero, but flawed by his support of the German Reich, although, granted, before the Holocaust days. Where do we get such men? Thousands stormed beaches and lines all over the world in the last century.
Don’t forget there’s a replica of the SoSL hanging above the baggage claim in the new terminal @ Lindburgh.
I was going to note that there was a replica in the San Diego Air & Space Museum, but that’s probably the same bird. Or at least it was there last spring.
Kinda like landing the T-28 from the back seat,…. only worse.
I had never seen that video of his take off. Thank you very much for sharing.
No guarantees, no real backup or safety plan, odds were not in his favour -yet, he went. From such committment is history made, and we move one step forward.
As to where we find such men? I spoke with one today. My neighbors son, probably all of twenty, has been in the Army less than three years, one tour in Iraq already under his belt. Home for the Holidays, he is currently at Ft. Hood awaiting his units movement to AF, orders already in hand. His mother and he are, as I write, on the way to Ohio to be with family that he has not seen since joining the Army. He cannot wait to be back with his buddies and continue the mission.
We also spoke of his visiting Police Officer Kimberly Munley to pay his respects to her (though apparently she was so medicated that the conversation was short and a bit one-sided), and of how many of the troops at the base were also making their appreciation (personal & professional) known to her.
I know that this is a Navy blog, though in the end the solidarity, committment and sacrifice amongst the services is inseparable. (Heck, even I wanted one of those CG sweatshirts, and I knew the darned answer!)
As to Lindbergh, someone said that all men are flawed, and that Great Men have great flaws. (Probably spoken by Churchill, though that may be soley due to my bias to him.) Lindbergh was a complex man, and it is my understanding that after Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh dedicated himself to helping American, and especially the aviation community, wholeheartedly. Flew combat missions in the PTO I believe, though FDR would not allow him to become active duty or commission him as an officer for political reasons. FDR had a history of such pettiness, though IMO he too was a Great Man, and was not without flaws.
Such men are there, and always have been.
I still don’t quite know how Lindbergh landed that thing, with no more forward nose visibility than what he could get with his periscope.
And not just landed, but landed at night on an unfamiliar field, with plenty of spectators and vehicles as potential FOD.
Why, pray tell, was the plane designed with no forward view in the first place?
The basic spec for the plane, laid out by Lindbergh and Hall, specified that all fuel tanks were to be forward of the pilot, and the cockpit was to be fully enclosed. The periscope idea cme from a Ryan engineer who had been aWW I submariner. It had a 3 by 5 inch mirror, and projected six inches out the left side of the plane. It was retractable for areodynamic reasons. Lindbergh consented with the stipulation it would come off in New York if he didn’t like it, but he decided he like beingable to see out without opening the window on the door when it was raining.
Ryan had to put the 450+ gallons of fuel somewhere, and between the pilot and engine was good for CG requirements. The NYP had five fuel tanks; one in each wing, between the wings over the pilot’s head, between engine and pilot, and lastly in what would have been a bit of cargo space behind the pilot.
Looking at the film of the takeoff, it didn’t really want to leap into the air; Lindbergh was not far from rolling it up into a flaming bonfire.
But he didn’t.
Thanks guys! Although, what with all the weight of motor & gas in front, what was so heavy about the tail to require that much forward counterbalance for CG? Wasn’t he headed the wrong way for hauling a load of Guinness for Lex’s Irish forbearers? Why not just move the wings back a bit to match CL & CG?
Bill, the tail doesn’t provide lift, it provides direction. Think of it like a pickup with dual rear wheels, there’s not a lot of weight on the front wheels and they provide steering, there’s tons on the back wheels and they hold the weight. Same with an aircraft — the rear of the plane does the steering, it’s the main wing that provides all the lift. The center of gravity, basically the balancing point around which those three tons of aircraft and fuel and such move, is to be as close to the main wing as possible.
– Max
All that gas plus 25 gallons (175 lbs) of oil, which was in a tank on the engine side of the firewall. Tank actually produced a little heat for his feet. The Spirit weighed 2150 pounds with empty tanks, was estimated at 5135 (165 pounds over design max) at takeoff, and weighed 2415 the morning after in Paris. Her fuel consumption was better than planned, but she had used 20 of the 25 gallons of oil.
Bill, the idea was to put the gas at the CG, so that it didn’t shift as the airplane consumed fuel. When you are looking at fuel fractions on the order of 50%, this becomes an important consideration.
I’ll point out one factor that we forget…Lindberg was landing on a grass field, not a runway – and was familiar with landing long-nosed taildraggers. IIRC, he discussed this in his book, and figured that the field of view from the cockpit was tolerable. Not great, but tolerable.
All the gas tanks were connected by a Lunkenheimer distribution valve setup in the cockpit. It allowed him to pump gas to or from any of the five tanks, and there were two entirely seperate feeds into the engine so a stoppage in one wouldn’t starve the engine.
The hardest thing he did was staying awake for that long, ‘specially considering that he hardly got any sleep the night before, either. In his book, he mentions waking up a time or two during the flight while fixing to die.
On the tail: The guys at Ryan asked if he wanted the empennage enlarged from that of their regular mail plane, seeing as how a bigger wing required bigger tail feathers for same tail volume coefficient. Lindbergh refused, saying that an almost-unstable plane which he had to fly all the time would help keep him awake.
Paul B, Colonel Lindbergh was an honest man who said what he thought. Yup, he was what is known these days as a White Nationalist. A large part of the country concurred with him, back then.
JTG, a large part of America agreed with Lindbergh in not voluntarily getting into another European War. Once America was at war, Lindbergh did not hesitate to offer his services and put his life on the line for his country.
Had Europe been proactive, they almost assuredly could have prevented both WWI and WWII. With the wonderful clarity that hindsight provides, it is hard to understand how one could not agree that Lindbergh was correct in this regard.
“The Guns of August” by Barbara Tuchman is one of the best books about WWI IMO.
Lindbergh did sling the J word around, somewhat.
P.s. Alvin York vehemently disagreed with Lindbergh about the Germans. Sgt. York did have some personal knowledge about getting ‘thwartships with that bunch.
is strangely compelling . . . .
Re Visibility for landing in the Spirit: on approach, you sideslip for a view of the runway. The landing flare is accomplished like it is from the back seat or equivalent (e.g. F4U Corsair) of any tail dragger: if you can’t see the runway and it was ahead of you, it must be under you. Peripheral vision takes care of height above ground and early recognition and correction of drift.
First time I landed a glider with a fully-reclined “seating” position, I’ll swear my feet were higher than my eyes at touchdown. As long as you have good lateral visibility it’s no problem, unless someone runs onto the runway in front of you. Of course, Lindbergh had a great crowd-control device mounted up front. I seem to recall reading that cars were lined up along the side of the runway with their headlamps shining out over it.