A Lindbergh Flies Again

by Photo provided courtesy of the X Prize Foundation. Erik Lindbergh inside The New Spirit of St. Louis. Photo provided courtesy of the X Prize Foundation.

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Erik Lindbergh, the 36-year-old grandson of the legendary "Lone Eagle," took
off at about 12:16 p.m. Eastern time from Farmingdale, Long Island, on
Wednesday May 1, slightly east of the Roosevelt Field shopping mall that now
stands where his 25-year-old grandfather departed on May 20, 1927. Erik
Lindbergh arrived at the same Le Bourget airfield near Paris where a
throng of 100,000 people greeted his grandfather. While Charles´ flight took
about 33 hours, Erik´s took about 17 hours. He touched down at 11:30 local time on Thursday, May 2.


"This is about celebrating, not recreating, my grandfather´s flight," Erik
said, before the flight. Erik´s state-of-the-art New Spirit of St. Louis is made of a glass and
carbon composite and cost
$289,000. It cruises at an average of 184 mph, compared with the 108 mph of
the original
Spirit of St. Louis, built of wood, fabric, and welded steel tubing for
$10,58. Erik had a Global Positioning System device for location. Charles had
no radio and only two compasses for navigation; at one point, he spotted
several small fishing boats and tried to shout at them for directions. Yet
when he reached the coast of Ireland, he was less than 3 miles off course


Erik also made the flight to support the X Prize, a $10 million award
designed to "do for space travel what Charles Lindbergh´s flight did for
aviation." The X Prize will be awarded to the first team that builds and
flies a three-person vehicle to an altitude of 62 miles twice within a
two-week period. The contest aims to spur the private sector to develop space
tourism.