Pilot Insurance Center

May 20 – 21, 1927

Spirit of St Louis
33hours and 30 minutes
3610 miles
New York to Bourget Field near Paris, France
Greeted by 100,000
Budget of $15,000

The Spirit of St. Louis (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France, for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.
Lindbergh's airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, was unique. Dubbed a "flying gas tank," the plane could hold more than 450 gallons of fuel. It had a 223 HP radial engine, a 45-foot wingspan and got about 10 miles to a gallon, giving it a range of 4,200 miles. The plane, engine and pilot weighed only 2,500 pounds, but a full load of gas weighed 2,700 pounds, more than doubling the weight of the plane. To keep the weight down, Lindbergh left off the radios, the brakes, the pilot's parachute and even the front window (which he replaced with another gas tank).

Feb17th, 1956 - 1st Flight of the Lockheed YF-104A. 68 years ago.
Herman (“Fish”) Salmon was the test pilot for the first flight of a service test prototype - Lockheed YF-104A which would become the standard F-104A production aircraft.
The F-104 Starfighter was developed by the "Skunk Works" team of Kelly Johnson. It had a maximum speed of 1,150 knots at 35,000 feet. The Starfighter’s initial rate of climb was 60,395 feet per minute and its service ceiling was 59,600 feet. A total of 2,578 F-104s of all variants were produced by Lockheed and its licensees.
The USAF retired the f-104 in 1969. Italy continued to fly the Starfighter until finally retiring it in 2004.
Interesting read about ejecting from an F-104 here:
http://www.ejectionsite.com/yf104eject.htm

Thank you to our clients for taking the time to give us the feedback.