Thu, Apr 09, 2009
The Spirit Of St. Louis Flies Again!
The Lindbergh Foundation announced Wednesday its third-annual
on-line auction includes only one item -- a ride in the Spirit of
St. Louis -- with up to 12 winners possible.
The EAA Spirit of St. Louis replica is making a rare appearance
during the weekend of the Lindbergh Foundation's 2009 Lindbergh
Award Celebration on May 15, 16, and 17 at the EAA AirVenture
Pioneer Airport (or Weeks Hangar), exclusively for the winners of
the Lindbergh Foundation's on-line auction. The official start of
the bidding process will be announced at a press conference on
April 22 at the Lakeland Fly-in.
"We are extremely grateful to EAA for making the Spirit
available to us for our auction," said Foundation Chairman John
King, co-chairman of King Schools. "The Spirit remains one of the
most recognizable airplanes in the world, an icon of Charles
Lindbergh’s famous record-setting New York-to-Paris flight.
We hope the opportunity for a ride in this incredible aircraft will
draw lots of excitement from the aviation community and increase
the interest in the mission and programs of the Foundation as
well."
The original Spirit of St. Louis hangs in the Smithsonian
Institution's National Air and Space Museum. Very few flying Spirit
replicas exist, and the EAA replica is the only one in the world
capable of carrying a passenger.
The EAA built its Spirit of St. Louis replica from scratch with
painstaking detail, using the "Morrow" plans from the Smithsonian
Institution. However, in this unique replica the EAA customized the
airplane by installing a forward pilot station in place of
Lindbergh’s large fuel tank. This means the EAA pilot
commands the aircraft from up front so the lucky passenger can
experience flight in the aircraft from the actual "Lindbergh seat"
position, providing a view that is exactly the way Lindbergh
himself would have seen it.
Pilots will enjoy logging "stick time" in this historic time
machine through the fully functioning dual flight controls. This
Spirit replica will not make another public appearance until
2011.
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