Charles Augustus Lindbergh
1902- 1974
“The Lone Eagle ”

Charles Lindbergh left an engineering program to begin flying as a barnstormer at age 20. In 1924, Frustrated at the limits of his aging plane, he enlisted in the Army Air Service to fly more modern aircraft. In 1925 he graduated first in his class and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Reserve.

Lindbergh then became an airmail pilot and established the first airmail route between St. Louis and Chicago. That same year he decided to compete for the Orteig Prize, an award of $25,000 to the first aviator to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris in a fixed-wing aircraft.

With the backing of several businessmen, Lindbergh ordered a custom high-wing monoplane based on reliable mail planes, and equipped it with a large fuel tank and a Wright J-5 Whirlwind engine. On the rainy morning of May 20, The Spirit of St. Louis left New York and landed in Paris 33 hours later, making Charles Lindbergh the first aviator to make a solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic.