The Big Jump

Richard Bak

Description

The trans-Atlantic air race of 1927 and the flight that made Charles Lindbergh a hero

The race to make the first nonstop flight between the New York and Paris attracted some of the most famous and seasoned aviators of the day, yet it was the young and lesser known Charles Lindbergh who won the $25,000 Orteig Prize in 1927 for his history-making solo flight in the Spirit of St. Louis. Drawing on many previously overlooked sources, Bak offers a fresh look at the personalities that made up this epic air race – a deadly competition that culminated in one of the twentieth century's most thrilling personal achievements and turned Charles Lindbergh into the first international hero of the modern age.

• Examines the extraordinary life and cultural impact of Charles Lindbergh, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, and his legendary trans-Atlantic flight that captured the world's imagination
• Explores the romance of flying during aviation's Golden Age of the 1920s, the enduring mystique of the aviator, and rapid technological advances that made for a paradigm shift in human perception of the world
• Filled with colorful characters from early aviation history, including Charles Nungesser, Igor Sikorsky, René Fonck, Richard Byrd, and Paul Tarascon

History and the imagination take flight in this gripping account of high-flying adventure, in which a group of courageous men tested the both limits of technology and the power of nature in pursuit of one of mankind's boldest dreams.
Acknowledgments ix

Prologue: Instant Fame—or Flaming Gasoline 1

1 "We've Come to Fly the Atlantic" 6

2 "Where Does France Come In?" 23

3 "The Ace with the Wooden Leg" 35

4 The Fortune of the Air 54

5 Slim 80

6 Giuseppe, the Gypsy, and the Junk Man 92

7 Revving Up 101

8 Against the Prevailing Winds 111

9 Come to Earth 121

10 Little Silver Plane 132

11 Paris au Printemps 139

12 A Stout Heart Does Not Fear Death 149

13 Limbo 160

14 Hunting Dragons 169

15 We Two 184

16 "Vive l'Amérique!" 205

17 "Lindbergh Is Our Elijah" 218

18 Two More Across 233

19 The Atlantic No Longer Exists 246

Epilogue: Restless Spirits 264

Notes 274

Bibliography 297

Index 312

Sujets

• 20th Century
• Modern
• Histoire
• Ígor Sikorski
• History of the United States
• Paul Tarascon
• History
• Richard Byrd
• Igor Sikorsky
• Charles Nungesser
• Charles Lindbergh

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 24 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781118043783
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents
Cover
Frontispiece
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue: Instant Fame—or Flaming Gasoline
Chapter 1: “We’ve Come to Fly the Atlantic”
Chapter 2: “Where Does France Come In?”
Chapter 3: “The Ace with the Wooden Leg”
Chapter 4: The Fortune of the Air
Chapter 5: Slim
Chapter 6: Giuseppe, the Gypsy, and the Junk Man
Chapter 7: Revving Up
Chapter 8: Against the Prevailing Winds
Chapter 9: Come to Earth
Chapter 10: Little Silver Plane
Chapter 11: Paris au Printemps
Chapter 12: A Stout Heart Does Not Fear Death
Chapter 13: Limbo
Chapter 14: Hunting Dragons
Chapter 15: We Two
Chapter 16: “Vive l’Amérique!”
Chapter 17: “Lindbergh Is Our Elijah”
Chapter 18: Two More Across
Chapter 19: The Atlantic No Longer Exists
Epilogue: Restless Spirits
Notes
Bibliography
Index

This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Bak. All rights reserved
Photo Credits: Page 13: First Across Association; pages 16 left, 25, 33, 55, 59, 86, 104, 117, 124, 135, 137, 173, 180, 182, 212: Library of Congress; page 21: Vickers; page 26: New York Public Library; pages 42, 52, 114, 120, 150, 155, 159: Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace; page 65: Sikorsky Archives; pages 94, 167, 188: Smithsonian Institution; pages 95, 235: Record Flights ; pages 108, 217, 221, 256: National Archives; page 241: Skyward ; pages 243, 247: L’Illustration .
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Bak, Richard, date. The big jump : Lindbergh and the great Atlantic air race / Richard Bak. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-471-47752-5 (hardback); ISBN 978-1-118-04376-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-04377-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-04378-3 1. Aeronautics–Competitions–History–20th century. 2. Transatlantic flights–History–20th century. 3. Aeronautics–United States–History–20th century. 4. Aeronautics–History–20th century. 5. Lindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus), 1902-1974. 6. Air pilots–United States–Biography. 7. Air pilots–Biography. I. Title. TL537.B35 2011 629.13092–dc22 2011010967
To the memory of my father, Edward Joseph Bak
Acknowledgments
While the pursuit of the Orteig Prize by Charles Lindbergh, Clarence Chamberlin, Richard Byrd, Charles Nungesser, René Fonck, Paul Tarascon, and others is the focal point of this narrative, the race to be the first to connect New York and Paris by air plays out against the broader backdrop of North Atlantic flight, from the initial crossings in 1919 through the flurry of attempts in 1927 and concluding with the first Paris-to-New York flight in 1930. To more fully present the French side of the story, a viewpoint typically given short shrift in the many accounts of Lindbergh’s epochal flight, my research necessarily involved locating and deciphering materials that challenged my meager foreign-language skills. I consider myself fortunate to have found Carolyn Miller, an archival researcher fluent in French, who expertly and expediently translated many documents for me. My daughter Rosemary also translated several items, often on short notice, proving that her year of study in Marseilles still held value. Additionally, librarians, archivists, curators, booksellers, historians, and aviation aficionados on both sides of the Atlantic contributed in various ways to the completion of this work, and to each of them I offer my deepest thanks. My editor, Hana Umlauf Lane, and my literary agent, Jim Donovan, both deserve some sort of prize of their own for their patience. Finally, thanks to Wiley Senior Production Editor John Simko for his forbearance and attention to detail.
Prologue
Instant Fame—or Flaming Gasoline
The barrier was both physical and psychological, and cost more than a few lives. Flying over water was far more dangerous than flying over land, where any flat space was a suitable landing field for a 1920s craft. The Atlantic had its stepping-stones like the Canadian coast, Bermuda, the Azores, England, and Ireland, but for the big jump the pilots poised at the edge of the water, like small children waiting for somebody else to stick a toe in first.
—George Vescey and George C. Dade, Getting Off the Ground
In the early-morning gloom, all eyes were on the little monoplane with its distinctively burnished cowling. As the nine cylinders of the Wright Whirlwind engine issued a powerful, monotonous roar, the young pilot inside the cramped cabin weighed the risks of trying to leave Long Island, New York, under less than ideal conditions against those of waiting an additional day. By then his rivals in what reporters, oddsmakers, and the rest of the enthralled public were calling “the world’s greatest air derby” likely would be ready for departure as well. Like all airplanes attempting to make the “big jump” across the cold, treacherous expanses of the North Atlantic, his machine, with nearly a ton and a half of fuel on board, was essentially a flying gas tank. In this situation, with a single engine straining to lift the overloaded aircraft off a sticky, unpaved runway, nobody would have faulted him for postponing his departure until the sun dried out the field and the air.
“It’s less a decision of logic than of feeling,” was the pilot’s explanation. “The kind of feeling that comes when you gauge the distance to be jumped between two stones across a brook.” And if he had gauged wrong—well, that was the advantage of going it alone. He had no one to answer to except himself.
He buckled his safety belt and pulled down his goggles.
“What do you say,” he said. “Let’s try it.”
The wheel blocks were kicked out. A handful of men pushed against the wing struts to free the plane from the ooze, then ran alongside to help send it on its way. After a hundred yards the last of the helpers dropped off and the fishtailing craft was moving on its own, churning through the muck in the general direction of the ambulance parked ominously at the end of the runway.
John Miller, a youthful aviation buff, had spent a sleepless night on the floor of the lobby of the Garden City Hotel, waiting for history to be made. “I think most of the non-aviation people out there expected a crash,” he said of the curiosity-seekers who had flocked to Roosevelt Field in the wee hours of a dreary, rainy morning. “They were out there to see a disaster.”
“Disaster” had become the operative word in the transatlantic sweepstakes the New York Times had labeled “the greatest sporting event of the age.” During the previous eight months a series of catastrophes had claimed some of the world’s finest airmen as they chased aviation’s most prestigious prize. Four men had been killed outright, while two others had disappeared somewhere over the ocean and were presumed dead. Several other fliers, including such familiar names as Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett, the conquerors of the North Pole; Tony Fokker, the builder of Germany’s famous fighters; and René Fonck, the Allies’ leading ace during the Great War, had either been seriously injured or narrowly escaped death in mishaps. One Times reporter who watched the string of aspirants roll down the runway and into the headlines sardonically handicapped each pilot’s chances for the elusive Orteig Prize. It was either going to be instant fame, thought John Frogge—or flaming gasoline.
Within just a few years of Orville Wright’s brief but historic 1903 flight off a North Carolina sand dune, daring aeronauts were knitting together odd corners of the map. One July morning in 1909, the Frenchman Louis Blériot created a sensation by being the first to fly across the English Channel, a twenty-two-mile hop that in its day was as celebrated a long-distance feat as Apollo 11 ’s round trip to the moon sixty years later. One hundred thousand Parisians cheered Blériot upon his return. “T