Great Headline, eh? It Worked Swell 75 Years Ago, Too!

At 09:47 UTC yesterday, Erik Lindbergh, flying the single-engine New Spirit of St Louis, completed his solo trip across the Atlantic, touching down at LeBourget, in a re-enactment of his grandfather's flight, 75 years ago ("Lindbergh Lands in Paris," 05-05-27, ANN). The solitude of the ocean behind him, the shores of Europe behind him, he landed to applause of thousands. So much for the similarities.
Seventy-five years is a long time -- three fourths of aviation's entire history -- and a lot happens in that time.
We've covered the plane, a nearly-stock Lancair Columbia 300, and Lindbergh's preparations in several articles here over the past couple months. The flight had some non-standard, though no-problem moments, on the 17-hour flight:
ANN News-Spy Chris told us, "Erik had to dodge some weather early in the trip, which had him flying up as high as 17,500' for a few hours. He returned to planned flight levels of 7,000 - 13,000 after clearing the weather, but had to dodge some additional weather pushing up from the south about mid-way through the flight.
"About 1,400 miles out from his destination, Erik encountered the other side of that system and had to deal with some cloudiness, going IMC as he hit landfall in France. He shot a IFR approach into Runway 27 at Le Bourget and landed safely at 9:27 UTC.  Pretty smooth sailing considering the distance covered."
Congratulations to Erik, to Lancair, to Continental, to the X-Prize folks, to every company and helper that made that flight a nice safe one; and to Aero-Planner and the History Channel, who do a lot of that tricky logistics stuff, to bring the flight to all of us.

FMI: http://www.aeroplanner.com/lindbergh