And also reflects the mission of the university. Very strong philosophy and theological department. Then in 2010 i started the empire state addition. It is 110 years old, the director of the Fordham University press is in new york. [inaudible conversations] hello everyone. Thank you for coming to the Tattered Cover and thank you especially for coming out to support your local independent bookstore. We greatly appreciated. Tonight we have dan hampton, most of you probably know he is the author of several books. He is a decorated fire pilot and a historian of a noted historian. [laughter] tonight he is going to be discussing the flight. His recounting of Charles Lindberghs famous transatlantic flight over from new york to paris. Without further ado, im going to go ahead and turn this over to dan. Lets give him a big applause. [applause] i also tap dance and sing badly. [laughter] thank you jennifer and michael and the Tattered Cover crowd as well as my cspan buddies. Mark and steve who have done this with me several times before. And are probably tired of looking at me. And it is good to be back in colorado. In the nice sunny warm may. [laughter] whats up with that . I mean every time i think now i can reenergize my sprinkler system, plant grass, this time i waited until after mothers day. I had all of that done and went away. I thought i was safe. Guess what happened . If any of yall are looking for time end date to do that next year i will give you a time and date. At a week to the end you will be okay. Can you hear me okay . May 20 1927 Roosevelt Field in long island. We do not me like an airfield chicago ohare, new york laguardia. It is truly a field. Been there, sit on it, of course most of it is a parking lot right now. But back then what lindbergh was going to use to take off on this epic flight was more like a golf cart path. A little roadway and that was the good part. That is why he chose to have the plane pulled over to Roosevelt Field because it was paved. So he is in this tiny little airplane with a steel frame but it is covered with cotton and lacquered. Ive never been in the original spirit of st. Louis because it is hanging in the museum but and my good friend would not take it down for me. However i was in two flyable replicas which was inexperienced in oshkosh and another one in new york. I can tell you that even a single seat fighter that i flew in, which i thought was small, was pretty spacious compared to this thing. It was very basic. Wicker seats, exposed paddles, you can see the cables every time you move the stick or move the riders you can see the cables move. I think that would be little disconcerting as a pilot. So he is sitting in this thing. It is not really cold but it is wet, raining, misty. Anyone that has ever been to long island in the summer or springtime knows what im talking about. He built and tested this in california and now hes sitting very close to the Atlantic Ocean and is just now occurring to him but maybe the test figures and data and air speeds and low values he came up with in california might not really apply so much in long island. But it is too late now. May 20, 1927, in the morning over curtis field, richard byrd and chamberlin are waiting with their respective airplanes. They could take off at any time and he knows that. So he made the decision the night before to go based on a clearing Weather Forecast over the atlantic. He came and from watching ope the Majestic Theater in long in new york. He stopped for sandwiches to take with him in a paper bag. He had a canteen of water and he is sitting there trying to see a stick with a little white handkerchief that he had tied and stuck at the Halfway Point about 2500 or 3000 feet down this runway. I use that term loosely. He cannot see it. Because of low hanging fog. When at the end, just above the haze he can barely make out a line of trees. That is what he has to get over. He is thinking no problem it is over a mile away, i know the plane can do. I can do it. He said lets go. The rpm was a little bit low because again it is wet and moist as opposed to dry california heat. But he does. The guys running alongside the second a wonderful movie made in 1957. The guys are helping push the plane through the mud and he gets off. One thing that the movie took a little liberty was clipping the tree line. He didnt really do that. It was very dramatic and made for a great scene in the movie but he happily cleared it very well. Maybe 50 feet or so. He was startled that there was a country club and a golf course on the other side of the tree line. When he was too busy at that point to care and to relieve had actually gotten off the ground. Which was the hard part. He had a big old nine foot propeller that could be fixed so you can vary the angle of the propeller cut through the air on based on takeoff or cruising. Modern propellers do it automatically. His, you had to fix either on the ground or well you had to fix it on the ground. Was it going to be maximized for takeoff were maximized for cruising . He made the decision that i have 3600 miles to go. If i can just get off the ground i think that is probably the bigger challenge. So even the propeller wasnt really optimized for this hairraising takeoff. The takeoff itself, cant see out of the front. Which any pilot will take probably isnt really that big of a deal. Because we usually look out of the side anyway. But he had a fuel tank right in front of this nice plywood Instrument Panel in front of him. Fuel tank and another fuel tank. He has much fuel as he could carry because he had 3610 miles to go. He was actually cleaning out the left side of the rectangular window trying to keep the airplane on this path that he is on. And manages to get up and get airborne. As soon as he does, takes a deep breath, looks out of the other window and sends an airplane filled with reporters. Out there to take pictures of him crashing and dying on takeoff. He didnt like reporters very much. This did not help. So he shows the throttle forward and cranks the stick. Recently airplane the stick comes up to about mid chest. Its like a broomstick. He cranks the stick to the left and goes out toward Long Island Sound. This was something he was looking forward to because the biggest piece of water he had ever flown over his brief career. The 30 miles between Long Island Sound and the coast of connecticut. He was a midwestern guy. As most of you know. He had flown for the army air service. He had never flown overwater before, this was it. He was pretty excited, turbulence aside. Got himself across the connecticut, relieved. One milestone passed. Studied up on the northeast heading and flew over new england on his way to nova scotia and beyond. How did he get here . How did he get here . Well, he was probably the least known of any of the pilots trying for the price. This was offered by a whole he became enamored with Fighter Pilots and flying during the First World War they will come to his hotel and his bar, in new york. He offered 25,000 which in 1927 was worth about 350,000 of our dollars. For the first person to fly from new york to paris or paris to new york. It had to be nonstop and it had to be between those two cities. The atlantic, most people dont know had been crossed before. Anybody know when it was crossed the first time . No . 1918, a british airship came from scotland to Roosevelt Field in long island. They got along thereafter think 108 hours or something. I cannot imagine flying, drifting across the north atlantic in a plant but they did. They got there and realized there was nobody on long island that knows how to and airship. So an american observer said i will take care of this and he strapped on a pair of shoes, jumped out of the blimp, pulled the cord. He took off the parachutes and he tied the blimp up. In 1919, the u. S. Navy decided what would be a good idea to prove that we can cross the atlantic . So in typical military fashion they overdid it a little bit. They had three airplanes instead of one. They stationed warships at 50 miles intervals across the atlantic with searchlights. So that the seaplanes could see at night. It would work one time, probably not something commercially viable in the long term. But they figured we will do it this one time. Out of the three flying boats that took off one came down, the third one made it and then to portugal and england. So the atlantic have been crossed in bits and pieces but it never had been crossed nonstop from city to city before. Thats what this was all about. And if somebody could do it, and they can prove that hey, technology has taken a giant leap forward. And commercial air travel is in fact possible. And in lindberghs case had another motive. The money. He liked the dollar as much as the next guy but he also was a Firm Believer in peace. He thought that if communications between peoples were improved and continents were linked, then with that sort of growth would come better tolerance and understanding. It was a nice thought. It didnt really work out that way but those were his motivations. So there he was then. Now he is over new england, all of these things are behind him. He is ready to go. He hits provincetown near plymouth and massachusetts. Enter kirsten that thats where the pilgrims landed. And with any luck within a day or so he would be over the original plymouth where they left from. It took the pilgrims 60, 90 something days i think. I dont remember to cross and then he was going to do it in less than one day. He was pretty excited about that. Then he looks up and sees the first big expanse of water between the massachusetts coast and newfoundland ahead of him. He put a damper on his spirits but make a long story short he crossed newfoundland his navigation was spot on. Better than he hoped for. Better than he anticipated. Probably a little lucky. He was using a magnetic compass. He actually had to read it backwards. It was mounted above his head and they had not realized it until right at the very end that theres really no way to read this while flying. So in fact, they did get a mirror from a girl. Stuck some going on and expected on the plywood Instrument Panel in front of him. And he is reading it backwards in the mirror. Probably feasible during the day. I still do not know how he did it at night. A magnetic compass under the best circumstances is still hard to read, but he did. He also had another way that i will go into but the idea behind it he really doesnt have much to go on except for a course, a map and time. And when he reaches st. John of the coast of new finland, he is on course, relatively ontime, the fuel consumption is good and he is excited as he will ever be until he looks out it again and sees nothing but the north atlantic in front of him. He is 1900 miles to go. The sun is going down behind him. I have done this as i said in a jet, and it is disconcerting even under the shechem stances. For him to do that at 100 miles an hour 100 feet above the waves looking into that, really not sure where he is going to end up is phenomenal. This is obviously before satellites, before the weather channel. He did not know what was out of there in front of him. The best he had was from the weather that was already old. So he is at night in this tiny little basically cotton covered box. Astounding he ran into a couple of surprises along the way. That he had not thought of. Ice was one of them. Anyone know what great circle navigation is . If you think of the earth as a sphere, which is, spirit of water at the middle and narrow at the top. Therefore the closest or the shortest direction from pointtopoint is not to go around the middle but to go over the top. So that is what he was doing pure he was going further north over the shorter narrower end of the spear to minimize his time in the air. The disadvantage with that is he was well north of all of the shipping lands. He went down no one would ever have found him. Plus it was much colder up there which did not occur to him until he saw the ice. He wondered if not for the first time, if i have to land what is going to happen . That ice looks kind of dangerous. Fortunately he did not have to. He also ran to ice with the aircraft. Something that is prone to happen in thunderstorms even in the summertime. And he began to have to deviate. He changed altitudes, he would turn around and try to avoid the bigger thunderstorms that he could see. And the end result is the next morning when the sun finally came up, if he didnt really have a clear idea where he was. Add to that something that he could not have foreseen was about 100 mile an hour tailwind. Which had been blowing him all night. From behind. So he is 300 miles closer to europe than he thinks he is. He is also hallucinating a little bit which can happen. And when he picks up ireland for the first time, he is utterly confused. He thinks that he is 300 miles further out into the ocean. He does not really know where he is. He has always reasoned that if he flew east long if he would have europe which is true. But he also thought well it could be anywhere from norway to spain. Where am i . Being 300 miles further along did not help. And he was very puzzled by this. He flew up and down the irish coast and finally ascertained this position based on, i picked up the maps. Id seen them in missouri. They are not really detailed but there are details enough for him to realize he was over valencia bay. And its about 20 miles from a planned to be. Then he got his second wind and he was happy. I survived now he began to think, i might actually make this. Im crossing the English Channel after that, after 1900 miles and it was a cakewalk to him. When he hit the french coast and i began to worry about details which frankly are kind of funny to you and i. They were not funny to him. The biggest concern was that he forgot to get a visa. [laughter] and his passport. He thought are the even going to let me into the country . And then he thought, my gosh, i figured out that i am three hours early. Will the even the anybody there at the airport plea because again this is 1927. Radios were fairly common but there was no instate communication like we are used to. He didnt realize along the route, over nova scotia and new finland, england and ireland but people had followed him. They had a course called it in and the newspapers were running updates. Continuous updates. A young guy back in america named jimmy stewart, 19 years old, had enough. And every time he got an update from the radio he would run upstairs, he would stick a task in the map to chart the progress it is interesting and intriguing. Anyway, it occurs to lindbergh now after some 32 hours or so that he is hungry. So he takes out one of his greasy nasty ham sandwiches that he got back in long island. He is about half of it and decides it is not too appetizing. Doesnt want to later. So he doesnt throw it out the window. Takes a drink, feels pretty good. He finds the river. You can see it at night because of the boat traffic which is exactly what he did. He followed that into paris. Now it gets a little dicey. If it was not already. And i can appreciate this because the longest i ever flew in my jet was 15 hours. Which damn near killed me. Now hes been at this for twice that length of time. More than that 33 hours by the time he gets to paris. He doesnt know where is. There is no flight information handbook, no chart, airport terminal maps and Everything Else that we have today. All anybody could ever tell him was that it was about five or six miles north of the eiffel tower. So he gets there, finds the eiffel tower and flies around the eiffel tower and then finds the biggest darkest spot five or six miles north that he can see. And that is where he goes. Another problem, and i was unaware of this until i researched the book. He never landed the spirit of st. Louis at night before. Which was probably an oversight that could have been corrected and i might have, a lot happened that he could not have foreseen. This when he might appear he flew this at night from california to the east coast. He set a record by the way. But he never landed it at night. Tonight he has to land at night after 33 and now 33 and a half hours on a field he has never seen before. Remember, its not airfield with you and i are thinking of. It is truly a field. He flies up and around this dark spot, he cannot really see anything recognizable and continues a little bit further thinking maybe it is further out here. And its not printed flies right over the position of the airport which is kind of interesting. Turns around right over where it is now. And comes back to where he thinks it is. There are some spotlights on mark warner that are within around. But thats about the only lighting etc. On the main roads coming up out of paris. There are thousands and thousands of lights on the road. He thought gosh, i didnt know traffic was that bad in paris. Is this denver . He does not realize and he starts thinking that theres a traffic jam or an accident. He doesnt realize that all paris is waiting for him. And they had all been trying for hours to get up there. It is a huge traffic jam on the road. He does what most pilots do and he circles around, he drops down low and he figures out you know it may not be and forfeited his parents so i probably run the prize. I got here. And he sets himself up to land finally. About this time, i can appreciate this, he cant really go his legs. And its almost like he has forgotten how to land because he is been flying basically straight and level for so long. He completely waffles the approach once. He comes back around to do it again. And picture driving or flying if you can into a big black hole and designs and waving like that one end. Past is waiting lights when they go past you, your back in the blackhole again. And thats what happened to him. He came in over the hangers and he happy because is a windsock and he actually saw one of the hangers. So he is relieved. So he passes and lets go behind him all depth perception goes away because thats what happens and he cannot really see the ground. There is not much of a moon. And he basically just kind of drops the plane onto the dirt. Fortunately, nobody can see it. He walked away from it which any pilot site is probably a good landing. And again, he is rolling into the darkness here. No beacons, no runaway perimeter lights nothing. It is a grass field. Rolling into the darkness. And he realizes that for better or for worse i am down. And he turns around, he spins it around and he sees the blackness, the darkness is moving. He thinks it is moving and he realize