NYP "Spirit of St. Louis" @·AIRCRAFTUBE

  • Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis
    Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis
  • Leaving North Island (Rockwell Field, San Diego)<br>for St. Louis, 10 May 1927 Leaving North Island (Rockwell Field, San Diego)<br>for St. Louis, 10 May 1927
    Leaving North Island (Rockwell Field, San Diego)
    for St. Louis, 10 May 1927
  • The Wright J-5C Whirlwind engine and the flags<br>of the countries visited painted on the cowling The Wright J-5C Whirlwind engine and the flags<br>of the countries visited painted on the cowling
    The Wright J-5C Whirlwind engine and the flags
    of the countries visited painted on the cowling
  • The cockpit, with no windshield The cockpit, with no windshield
    The cockpit, with no windshield
  • The pilot's<br>wicker seat The pilot's<br>wicker seat
    The pilot's
    wicker seat
  • At Jacksonville (Florida),<br>Guggenheim tour (October 1927) At Jacksonville (Florida),<br>Guggenheim tour (October 1927)
    At Jacksonville (Florida),
    Guggenheim tour (October 1927)
  • Charles Lindbergh at Jacksonville (Florida), October 1927 Charles Lindbergh at Jacksonville (Florida), October 1927
    Charles Lindbergh at Jacksonville (Florida), October 1927
  • The instrument panel and the periscope housing (left) The instrument panel and the periscope housing (left)
    The instrument panel and the periscope housing (left)
  • The fuel consumption log chart<br>on the instrument panel The fuel consumption log chart<br>on the instrument panel
    The fuel consumption log chart
    on the instrument panel
  • Pioneer earth inductor<br>compass indicator Pioneer earth inductor<br>compass indicator
    Pioneer earth inductor
    compass indicator
  • The Wright J-5C Whirlwind seen from below The Wright J-5C Whirlwind seen from below
    The Wright J-5C Whirlwind seen from below
  • Stromberg NA-T4 carburetor data plate Stromberg NA-T4 carburetor data plate
    Stromberg NA-T4 carburetor data plate
  • A sistership of the Spirit of St. Louis flying over Washington (postcard) A sistership of the Spirit of St. Louis flying over Washington (postcard)
    A sistership of the Spirit of St. Louis flying over Washington (postcard)

Ryan NYP "Spirit of St. Louis"

The Spirit of St. Louis, officially the Ryan NYP (for "New York - Paris") and registered N-X-211, is the custom-built single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane in which Charles Lindbergh made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic on 20-21 May 1927. Taking off from Roosevelt Field (Long Island, New York), he landed at Le Bourget near Paris 33 hours and 30 minutes later, after covering about 3,600 miles (5,800 km), and won the $25,000 Orteig Prize (see Lindbergh - New York-Paris). The aircraft was built in San Diego, California, by Ryan Airlines, then owned by Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Mahoney. Since 1928 it has belonged to the Smithsonian Institution and is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Background

In 1919 the New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig offered a $25,000 prize to the first Allied aviator to fly nonstop between New York and Paris. Eight years later, several well-funded teams were preparing large multi-engined aircraft for the attempt: René Fonck had crashed on take-off in his Sikorsky S-35 in September 1926, Richard Byrd had a Fokker trimotor (Fokker F.VII), Clarence Chamberlin a Wright-Bellanca WB-2, and in France Nungesser and Coli were preparing their "Oiseau Blanc". Lindbergh, a young airmail pilot flying DH-4s for the Robertson Aircraft Corporation in St. Louis, was convinced that a single pilot in a single-engined aircraft carrying as much fuel as possible had the best chance. He failed to obtain a Bellanca and turned to the small Ryan Airlines company in San Diego.

Design and development

Lindbergh arrived in San Diego on 23 February 1927 and visited the factory with Mahoney, factory manager Hawley Bowlus, chief engineer Donald A. Hall and sales manager A. J. Edwards. Mahoney promised to deliver the aircraft within two months, for a price that eventually reached $10,580. Lindbergh contributed $2,000 of his own savings; the rest came from a group of St. Louis businessmen and supporters (among them members of the St. Louis Raquette Club and Albert Bond Lambert), in whose honour the aircraft was named. The order was confirmed on 25 February 1927.

To save time, Hall based his design on the company's 1926 Ryan M-2 mailplane, but the result was a substantial redesign: the wingspan was increased by 10 ft (3 m) to 46 ft (14 m), the fuselage was lengthened and strengthened, and the landing gear was widened to carry the enormous fuel load. Hall estimated that the work took 850 engineering hours and around 3,000 construction hours; the Ryan staff, working exclusively and closely with Lindbergh, completed the aircraft about 60 days after his arrival. Hall later described the design in a technical report for the NACA, which was reproduced as an appendix to Lindbergh's Pulitzer Prize-winning book "The Spirit of St. Louis" (1953).

The fuselage and tail were made of welded steel tubing covered with doped fabric; the wing had wooden spars and ribs, a plywood leading edge and fabric covering. The tail and control surfaces were taken unchanged from the M-2, which made the aircraft only marginally stable and tiring to fly: it constantly wandered in pitch, roll and yaw. Lindbergh later wrote that this instability actually helped him stay awake during the long flight. Weight was saved wherever possible: there was no radio, no parachute, no fuel gauge, and the pilot sat on a simple wicker seat.

Fuel system and cockpit

The aircraft carried about 450 US gallons (1,700 l) of fuel, weighing more than 2,700 lb (1,230 kg), in five tanks: a large main tank and a forward tank in the fuselage and three tanks in the wing. At Lindbergh's request, the main fuel tank was placed in front of the cockpit, between the engine and the pilot, to improve the centre of gravity and to avoid the pilot being crushed between the engine and the tank in a crash. As a result there was no forward windshield: Lindbergh could only look ahead with a small retractable periscope on the left side or by turning the aircraft to look through the side windows, which he was used to from mail flying.

The instrument panel included an airspeed indicator, altimeter, tachometer, turn and bank indicator, oil pressure and temperature gauges, fuel pressure gauge, an eight-day clock and a liquid compass, which was mounted behind the pilot and read with a mirror. The most modern instrument was a Pioneer earth inductor compass, which allowed accurate navigation over the ocean; Lindbergh reached the Irish coast only a few miles from his planned course. The cockpit was tiny, about 36 in wide, 32 in long and 52 in high (91 x 81 x 132 cm).

Engine

Lindbergh insisted on a Wright J-5C Whirlwind, a nine-cylinder air-cooled radial engine designed by Charles Lawrance, rated at about 223 hp (166 kW). The Whirlwind was renowned for its reliability and fuel economy, and its rocker arms were self-lubricating for long periods, avoiding the regular greasing required by other engines of the time. The engine (serial number 7331) was assembled at Wright's plant in Paterson, New Jersey, by Thomas Rutledge and drove a two-blade Standard Steel metal propeller. The original spinner cracked during the flight to New York and was replaced there before the Atlantic crossing.

Operational history

Test flights and transcontinental record

The Spirit of St. Louis made its first flight on 28 April 1927 from Dutch Flats, near the Ryan factory in San Diego, followed by some 23 test flights, including take-offs with increasing fuel loads. On 10 May 1927, Lindbergh took off from Rockwell Field, North Island, and flew overnight to St. Louis in 14 hours 25 minutes, a record for the distance. The next day he continued to Curtiss Field on Long Island: his total flying time of 21 hours 40 minutes from coast to coast set a new transcontinental record.

The transatlantic flight

After several days of bad weather, Lindbergh took off from a muddy Roosevelt Field at 7:52 am on 20 May 1927, the overloaded aircraft barely clearing the telephone wires at the end of the runway. He followed the coast of New England and Nova Scotia, passed over Newfoundland at dusk, then crossed the ocean through the night, fighting fog, icing and fatigue. He reached Ireland the next afternoon, crossed southern England and Normandy, and landed at Le Bourget at 10:22 pm (Paris time) on 21 May, where a crowd of more than 100,000 people overran the field. Souvenir hunters tore pieces of fabric from the aircraft before it could be protected. About 85 US gallons (320 l) of fuel were left in the tanks.

After a stay in Paris, Lindbergh flew the Spirit to Brussels (Evere) on 28 May and on to London (Croydon) the next day. The aircraft was then dismantled and brought back to the United States aboard the cruiser USS Memphis, sent by President Calvin Coolidge. On 11 June 1927, Lindbergh and his aircraft were welcomed in Washington, D.C., where Lindbergh received the Distinguished Flying Cross; the same day the Post Office issued a 10-cent "Lindbergh Air Mail" stamp, the first U.S. stamp bearing the name of a living person.

Goodwill tours

From 20 July to 23 October 1927, sponsored by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis on a tour of all 48 states, visiting 82 cities and covering some 22,000 miles to promote commercial aviation; an estimated 30 million people saw the aircraft. On 13 December 1927 he flew nonstop from Washington to Mexico City (where he met Anne Morrow, his future wife), then continued on a goodwill tour of 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries, ending with a nonstop flight from Havana to St. Louis in February 1928. The flags of the countries visited were painted on the sides of the engine cowling. Apart from Lindbergh, only two other pilots flew the aircraft, Major Thomas Lanphier and Lieutenant Philip R. Love, for about ten minutes each in the summer of 1927.

Retirement and preservation

On 30 April 1928, Lindbergh made the last flight of the Spirit of St. Louis, from St. Louis to Bolling Field, Washington, D.C., and presented it to the Smithsonian Institution. In just under a year it had made 174 flights totalling 489 hours 28 minutes. It was put on display on 13 May 1928 and hung for 48 years in the Arts and Industries Building, before being moved in 1976 to the new National Air and Space Museum, where it was suspended in the Milestones of Flight gallery alongside the Bell X-1 and SpaceShipOne.

The golden colour of the nose panels comes from a varnish applied by Smithsonian conservators soon after the aircraft arrived, to protect the painted markings; it has yellowed over time, but the museum decided to keep it as part of the aircraft's history. In 2015 the Spirit was lowered to the floor for a thorough conservation and examination before being hung again. Following the museum's major renovation, it is again on display in the reopened galleries in 2025.

NYP-2 and derivatives

Only one Spirit of St. Louis was built, but a second, almost identical NYP-2 was completed shortly after the flight for the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, registered J-BACC; it set several Japanese records in early 1928 before being lost in an accident. Ryan (renamed B.F. Mahoney Aircraft) also used the experience gained with the NYP to develop the Ryan B-1 Brougham, a five-seat cabin monoplane powered by the same Wright J-5, followed by the six-seat B-7 and the C-1. A Brougham was given to Lindbergh after the retirement of the original aircraft. The later Ryan company is also known for its Ryan ST and PT trainers.

Replicas

  • 1938 : A modified Ryan B-1 Brougham was used as a reproduction in the Paramount film "Men with Wings".
  • 1957 : Three reproductions (B-153, B-156 and B-159) were built for Billy Wilder's Warner Bros. film "The Spirit of St. Louis", starring James Stewart as Lindbergh. They are preserved at the Missouri History Museum (St. Louis), The Henry Ford museum (Dearborn, donated by James Stewart) and the Cradle of Aviation Museum (Garden City, Long Island).
  • 1967 : "Spirit 2", built by stunt pilot Frank Tallman for the 40th anniversary, first flew on 24 April 1967 and flew over Paris during the Paris Air Show. Bought by the San Diego Air & Space Museum, it was destroyed in an arson fire in 1978.
  • 1979 : "Spirit 3", the San Diego Air & Space Museum's replacement, first flew on 28 April 1979 and flew again in 2003; it is displayed in the museum's rotunda.
  • 1977 and 1990 : The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) of Oshkosh built two reproductions powered by Continental R-670 radials, both registered NX-211. The first, flown by EAA founder Paul Poberezny for the 50th anniversary, is in the EAA museum; the second, first flown in November 1990, still flies at airshows.
  • 1979 : A reproduction built by David Cannavo, powered by a Lycoming R-680, was bought in 1995 by Kermit Weeks for his Fantasy of Flight museum in Polk City, Florida.
  • 1997 : A replica built and certified in Estonia (ES-XCL) crashed shortly after take-off at an air show in Coventry, England, on 31 May 2003, killing its owner-pilot Pierre Holländer; the cause was a fatigue failure of a badly welded wing strut fitting.
  • 2015 : The Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome replica, started by Cole Palen and completed by Ken Cassens with a restored Wright J-5 and period instruments (including an earth inductor compass), first flew in December 2015 and made its public debut on 21 May 2016.
  • 2019 : John Norman of Burlington (Washington) completed, after more than seven years of work, what is considered the most accurate flying replica, based on his own measurements of the original. It first flew on 28 July 2019.
  • Static replicas are displayed at San Diego International Airport (with an original Wright J-5), St. Louis Lambert Airport, the Wings of the North museum (Minnesota), the Chanute Air Museum (Rantoul), Frankfurt Airport and the Luftfahrtmuseum Hannover-Laatzen.

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This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Source : Article Spirit of St. Louis of Wikipedia ( authors )

Ryan NYP "Spirit of St. Louis"

  • Role : Long-range record aircraft.
  • Manufacturer : Ryan Airlines.
  • Designer : Donald A. Hall.
  • First flight : 28 April 1927.
  • Retired : 30 April 1928.
  • Status : preserved at the National Air and Space Museum (Washington, D.C.).
  • Owner : Charles Lindbergh.
  • Registration : N-X-211.
  • Number built : 1 (plus one NYP-2 and several replicas).
  • Flights : 174 (489 hours 28 minutes).
  • Developed from :
    • Ryan M-2.
  • Developed into :
    • Ryan B-1 Brougham.

    Specifications

  • Crew: one.
  • Length: 27 ft 7 in (8.41 m).
  • Wingspan: 46 ft (14 m).
  • Height: 9 ft 10 in (3.00 m).
  • Wing area: 320 sq ft (30 m²).
  • Airfoil: Clark Y.
  • Empty weight: 2,150 lb (975 kg).
  • Gross weight: 2,888 lb (1,310 kg).
  • Max takeoff weight: 5,135 lb (2,329 kg).
  • Fuel capacity: 450 US gal (375 imp gal; 1,703 l).
  • Powerplant: One Wright J-5C Whirlwind 9-cylinder air-cooled radial engine.
  • Power: 223 hp (166 kW).
  • Propellers: 2-bladed Standard Steel fixed-pitch metal propeller.
  • Maximum speed: 133 mph (214 km/h, 116 kts).
  • Cruise speed: 100-110 mph (160-180 km/h, 87-96 kts).
  • Range: 4,100 mi (6,600 km, 3,600 nmi).
  • Service ceiling: 16,400 ft (5,000 m).
  • Wing loading: 16 lb/sq ft (78 kg/m²).
  • Power/mass: 0.0435 hp/lb (0.0715 kW/kg).

— — — = = — — —

This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Source : Article Spirit of St. Louis of Wikipedia ( authors )
Ryan NYP "Spirit of St. Louis" : Your comments on this subject
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