Charles Lindbergh and the 'Spirit of St. Louis'
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Lindbergh's prize winning New York to Paris flight made him an instant celebrity and media star. 
In successfully winning the Orteig Prize, his solitary flight seemed to stir the public's 
imagination. He wrote: "I was astonished at the effect my successful landing in France had on 
the nations of the world. It was like a match lighting a bonfire." Lindbergh subsequently flew 
the Spirit of St. Louis to Belgium and England before President Calvin Coolidge sent the United 
States Navy cruiser USS Memphis (CL-13) to bring them back to the United States. Arriving on 
June 11, Capt. Lindbergh and the Spirit were escorted up the Potomac River to Washington, D.C. 
by a fleet of warships, multiple flights of military pursuit planes, bombers, and the rigid airship 
USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) where President Coolidge then presented the 25-year old U.S. Army Reserve 
aviator with the Distinguished Flying Cross. Over the next 10 months, Lindbergh and his now famous 
flying "partner" made a number of extensive promotional and goodwill tours across the United 
States and Latin America.
The Spirit at the National Air and Space Museum

Just one year and two days after making their first flight at Dutch Flats near San Diego, CA, 
on April 28, 1927, Lindbergh and the Spirit flew together for the final time while making a hop 
from St. Louis to Bolling Field, in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 1928. There he presented his 
iconic monoplane to the Smithsonian Institution where for more than eight decades it has been 
on public display, today hanging in the atrium the National Air and Space Museum alongside the 
Bell X-1 and SpaceShipOne. At the time of its retirement, the Spirit had made just 174 flights 
for a total of 489:28 flying time.

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Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) (nicknamed "Slim," "Lucky Lindy" 
and "The Lone Eagle") was an American aviator, author, inventor and explorer.

On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh, then a 25-year old U.S. Air Mail pilot, emerged from virtual 
obscurity to almost instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo 
non-stop flight from Roosevelt Field on Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris in the single-seat, 
single-engine monoplane Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh, an Army reserve officer, was also awarded 
the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lindbergh used his fame to relentlessly help promote the rapid 
development of U.S. commercial aviation. In March, 1932, however, his infant son, Charles, Jr., 
was kidnapped and murdered in what was soon dubbed the "Crime of the Century" which eventually led 
to the Lindbergh family fleeing the United States in December 1935 to live in Europe where they 
remained up until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Before the United States entered WWII in 
December, 1941, Lindbergh had been an outspoken advocate of keeping the U.S. out of the world 
conflict (as was his Congressman father during World War I) and became a leader of the anti-war 
America First movement. Nonetheless, he supported the war effort after Pearl Harbor and flew many 
combat missions in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a civilian consultant, even though 
President Roosevelt had refused to reinstate his Army Air Corps colonel's commission that he had 
resigned earlier in 1939.

In his later years, Lindbergh became a prolific prize-winning author, international explorer, 
inventor, and active environmentalist