The Flight: Charles Lindbergh’s Daring and Immortal 1927 Transatlantic Crossing

The Flight: Charles Lindbergh’s Daring and Immortal 1927 Transatlantic Crossing by Dan Hampton         Audio Book:  8 hours, 58 minutes    Paperback:  400 pages                

Wow!  Prepare yourself for a nail biting enthralling telling of a great local celebrity who did the then unimaginable thing of flying from New York to Paris non-stop the first time it was ever accomplished.  Lindbergh had no GPS he went by paper maps and his own mathematical calculations.   What a feat and he completed the trip in 33 hours.    Lindbergh didn’t sleep the whole way and he was so hyped he went to a party the nght before he left and couldn’t sleep a wink that night either so the man was flying on lack of sleep,  he had some water and 5 sandwiches one of his backers packed for him of which he only ate 2 sandwiches and drank very little water but Lindbergh was a rail thin lad and didn’t eat much normally so that was nothing new for him.    Author Dan Hampton tells the story as though you are right there in the cockpit with Lindbergh in real time.   Going by Lindbergh’s own diary and journals Hampton relates the story in Lindbergh’s own words and they are powerful and intense.    It is so effective you can feel the fear and anxiety in Lindbergh’s words.   Man, that 25 year old went through some stuff on that trip.    He flew barebones taking the least amount of stuff with him to keep the weight down – he didn’t even pack a parachute to cut down on the weight.     An excellent telling of a harrowing event that even includes ghostly visitations offering suggestions of help in keeping on course and the plane aloft.     Charles Lindbergh and his plane the Spirit of St. Louis are aviation heroes as well as national and international heroes receiving the U.S. Medal of Honor, the French Legion of Honor , the Service Cross of the German Eagle presented by Hermann Goering on behalf of Adolph Hitler for his contribution to aviation, and more accolades and honors were bestowed on him.   Too bad when he arrived in France the people stormed the field and broke the bearings on his plane from the weight of all of them clambering up on it.    The crowd was overwhelming to Lindbergh as he knew only the words Vive La France in French and did not know how to say STOP!   GET OFF!   (Arretez!   Descendez!)   Souvenir hounds started ripping fabric from the plane’s fuselage and grabbed him out and carried him on their shoulders.   He later learned to his great sorrow someone had stolen his log book!  (CONNARD!!!!!)   Great story, great writer.   Bravo!