biography
| name: |
Lindbergh, Charles (Augustus)
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pronunciation:
[lindberg]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1902–74)
|
| biography:
| Aviator, born in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Pilot, inventor, writer, and environmentalist, he made the first solo transatlantic aeroplane flight in 1927 and returned to America a hero and celebrity of unsurpassed dimension. The son of a Minnesota congressman, he showed early mechanical aptitude as well as physical daring. He bought a war surplus Curtiss ‘Jenny’ biplane (1923) and barnstormed the Midwest and South, completed army flight training (1925), and worked as an airmail pilot on the pioneering St Louis–Chicago run. In pursuit of a $25 000 prize, he lifted off from Roosevelt Field, NY in a monoplane named Spirit of St Louis (20 May 1927), crossed the Atlantic, and landed at LeBourguet Field near Paris after 33·5 hours, a flight of 3600 mi. ‘The Lone Eagle’, as he became known, made a series of epic flights during the 1930s, many with his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001). In one of America's most notorious crimes, the couple's infant son was kidnapped and murdered in 1932; four years later Bruno Hauptman, protesting his innocence to the last, was put to death for the crime. Impressed by German military power, especially in the air, he campaigned for American neutrality in the years leading up to World War 2. During the war years he served as a consultant for Ford and the United Aircraft Co. Shy, and at periods almost reclusive, he began to appear more often in public in later years as a spokesman for environmental conservation. He also worked with Dr Alexis Carrel on experiments that led to the development of an artificial heart. His autobiography, The Spirit of St Louis (1932), won a Pulitzer Prize, and his wife was the best-selling author of Gift from the Sea (1955) and other books. His grandson, Erik Lindbergh, successfully duplicated the 1927 Atlantic solo flight in 2002. |
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