The San Diego Aerospace Museum's replica of the Spirit of St. Louis has been sitting pretty at the museum's entrance since June of 1980. This month, it will take flight once more, if all goes according to plan.

The Spirit is scheduled to fly Saturday, August 16, 2003 as part of a joint observance of the Centennial of Flight and the 75th anniversary of Lindbergh Field by the San Diego Aerospace Museum and the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. (The Airport Authority is the operator of San Diego International Airport's Lindbergh Field, which is the first commercial venture Charles Lindbergh ever endorsed. The airport was dedicated in his honor on August 16, 1928.)

The Museum's Spirit, a replica of Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis, in which he made the first non-stop solo transatlantic flight, flying 3,610 miles from Long Island, New York, to Paris, in 1927 is the only flying replica known to exist.

The only one? What about EAA's, and Fantasy of Flight's?

San Diego Aerospace Museum Executive Director Bruce A. Bleakley pointed out that, by definition, the Museum's 1979 Ryan Model NYP (for "New York to Paris") is a true replica because it was built with the assistance of three people who helped craft the original version 52 years earlier. Three members of the original Ryan Airlines team -- Ed Morrow, John Van Der Linde, and T. Claude Ryan himself -- supervised the aircraft's construction by the Museum's restoration volunteers. The plane's wooden fuel tank structure still bears their signatures.

The Museum's replica has a nine-cylinder, 233-horsepower Wright Whirlwind J-5A radial engine nearly identical to the one on the original aircraft (the original sported the J-5C version of the Whirlwind). The 73-year old engine's logbook, in perfect condition, notes it has a total of 795 hours flying time. After its completion in 1979, pilot Ray Cote flew the aircraft seven times from Lindbergh Field to Brown Field in Otay Mesa, with a stopover at NAS North Island. Total flying time was 2 hours and 42 minutes, at a cruising speed of approximately 90 mph.

The Ryan NYP replica was dismantled the first week of July (right) and transported to the Museum's hangar complex at Gillespie Field in El Cajon (CA).  There, the 2,100-pound aircraft will undergo a rigorous inspection process. Museum Board member Capt. Gordon Witter and designated pilot Capt. Roger Baker, both retired airline captains, will supervise the inspection of the airplane's fabric covering, airframe and engine.

"Given [the Museum's] commitment to youth and adult education, we are keeping the Spirit alive in a couple of ways," Witter said.  "We are educating young people about one of the events in aviation's short history that literally changed the world -- and the way we look at it.  And, we are reminding older people how we got to where we are - by bold people taking measured risks."

Given the risk of this flight, Witter said, "The emphasis here being that most 'daring exploits' that pepper the past one hundred years of powered flight were, in fact, the result of carefully considering and managing the risks. All progress involves risk -- not danger, but risk, an important distinction -- and to the extent we educate ourselves, in general and on the tasks at hand, we minimize and manage it."

The Museum's first Spirit of St. Louis, a reproduction lost when the museum's first home was destroyed in a 1978 arson fire, was built in 1967 by Hollywood's veteran aviator stunt pilots Frank Tallman and Paul Mantz to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Lindbergh's flight. Tallman flew the aircraft at Paris' Le Bourget airport during the celebration.

The flight of the Museum's replica has been underwritten by Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems and by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. Northrop Grumman Ryan Aeronautical, located in Rancho Bernardo, purchased the original Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical Company in 1999 as part of its vast holdings.

The San Diego Aerospace Museum is located in the historic Ford Building, 2001 Pan America Plaza.

FMI: www.aerospacemuseum.org