>> the only freshman to try to come across from paris to new york, a harder route. he was very romantic and he was

thought of as the glamorous night of the air. he also had flown in a couple of hollywood movies, one of which would not be released until after his death. their were no complications in this. it was easy to understand these people as they were presented. the storylines were very simple. because of that they became infested with the hopes and dreams of millions and their victories and finished became our own. you've got to remember that at this time lindbergh was not ordained to win, not at all. he showed up during the last come he showed up a week before took off. the other flyers have been covered to death, so he was new which made him news, so there was a lot of coverage about lindbergh, and he was young and this was a young age, the jazz age. reporters went absolutely nuts about him, but everyone other

flyers, at one time or another had been declared the front runner. every one of the flyers the press speculated was going to be the one that one. and everyone other flyers was just as accomplished and just as capable as his rival. nobody saw at the time that lindbergh was any better than any of the other flyers, even though in hindsight that's what you here today. if anything, lindbergh watched the others fact, watched the others start, before him and they took advantage of the crashes and the failed mistakes. and then he took his chance when the moment presented itself. all right. so let's talk about the characters a little bit. this is where things blow up. this is raymond orteig.

he was the french, the ex-patriot french hotel owner in new york and put down a $25,000 for the price. some people have asked how much that would translate to today? i've seen thing -- figures about $350,000. however, it was cleared understood that whoever was first across the atlantic, in addition to the orteig prize would probably be rich fairly soon. and, in fact, within a couple of years after winning the race, lindbergh was worth a million dollars, and he continued to make more than it. he got a lot of offers in his first month which he turned down from film studios and stuff like that. and their attack it as being worth about 5 million return although stem down the first month after his arrival.

orteig had been born at the border between spain and france, and one is very done his grandmother put some friends into his belt and said go to the united states and see what you can do. and he became and he became the first a waiter at the lafayette café on washington square in new york. and about 10 years he rose to the point where he bought the café and its adjoining hotel, and with a partner he owned two hotels in new york. when was the hotel lafayette, one was the hotel report, which had the best wine cellar in new york during prohibition. it was done about that. and the hotel lobby was considered a slice of authentic france in the middle of new york. everybody went there. but what happened with orteig was that during world war i the

hotel lafayette was the preferred place to stay for french military men and flyers when they came to the united states for diplomacy or for training, or whatever, and they came and they told stories about flying and he was already, he was always homesick about his country. and he just remembered that with fonts and after the war was over, he was homesick and he missed that. he was nostalgic. and in 1919 he hosted a dinner for eddie rickenbacker, the united states premiere world war i age and. and rickenbacker was talking and he said you know, i really miss the companionship that occurred between the french flyers in the

american flyers, and i only hope that as technology allows us, that our two great countries will be united in the air, not through war, but by peace. and orteig was so inspired by that, that night he went home, he joined the aero club of america which was a sponsor and club for the dinner. and he wrote a letter saying i hope -- i'm going to donate $25,000 for this price, which was basically a nonstop flight from new york to paris, or paris to new york, you know, 3600-mile trip. he did not know at the time the $25,000 was one-eighth of this liquid capital and so if there had been an emergency he would have been slitting his own

throat. but lucky for him he only realized that long afterwards. most of the flyers, all but one team, they started out in long island right around here, where is the roosevelt mall? that would? write that way. okay. and long island was a natural airfield. the center of nassau county, which would've been over there where the roosevelt mall is, was not as hempstead plains, and hempstead plains was the only naturally occurring prairie east of the alleghenies. it was flat. there were no trees. there were few farms. the grass was soft and spongy. the undercarriages of the planes at those times were very delicate but you landed on them and yet to be able to bounce up and down all of it or they would break and you would crash. and so in 1926-1927 when this story takes place, there were

three airfields which were right next to each other on instead place. it was curtiss field, mitchell field and roosevelt field. mitchell and curtis were not really available to private flyers. roosevelt was the best kept, the longest and the one or even though that's not where -- it was where all of them took off. this is renée faulkner in 1926 rené fall came over from france and said he was going to be the winner in the orteig prize. he was the greatest living ace from world war i to the 75 official kills to his name. remember, the red baron had more but had not survived, and he was not as the ace of aces. taking over for the go to races which were held out there, and

he came across an american consortium that was starting to build a plane, thinking of entering a orteig prize, and can represent himself and said i want to do this. and as famous as he was, the americans went nuts. the plane was designed, because of the helicopter that he developed, but at that time he build really big planes. he was, during world war i, he was the main airplane builder for bizarre and russia. he built bombers like have these observations deck for your kind of walk out and look up the clouds. there were so massive that only one was shot down by the germans when it went over to germany to bomb germany. but he had to run after the revolution.

he first went to paris but there were a lot of displaced airplane designer so he came to the united states and he build big planes. fonck two together a crew of himself as pilot, an american copilot, a french radioman and a russian mechanic. and it was felt that his flight was a sure thing. he really had no competitors. but he drastically overloaded the plane, and he never got off the ground, pumped up over this kind of giant hill a separate roosevelt field from curtiss field, and the plane disintegrated and it burst into flames, and the russian mechanic and the french radioman died. fonck always said he was going to try again but he had lost so he was a loser.

nobody really trusted him, and so he never really got enough money for a second try. immediately after fonck crashed, all of these american started to think about i can do this, too. the first person to start thinking about this was richard byrd. in 1926, byrd had flown over the north pole. he claimed that he was the first person to fly over the north pole. today, that's generally disputed. it's believed today that he probably felt about 150 miles short. people who seem to have an ax to grind think that he was lying. those are a little bit more unbiased seem to think that he probably commutes always known as inevitably was in a very good navigator. and they seem to think he just miscalculated and he turned back before he was actually over the

north pole. and then we finally figured it out, he had been awarded the congressional medal of honor and his entire image depended on this. so he really couldn't back out by that point. he is shown with president coolidge and floyd bennett, which is who floyd bennett field was named after. then it was always one of the most respected flyers within raise. he was always byrd's pilot. and everything he tried to do. [inaudible] >> that guy over to the side? [inaudible] >> i do not know. i don't think he had anything to do with aviation. so, what happened was that in november 1926, wanamaker who is the owner of the wanamaker department stores in new york,

one of the largest apartness was in new york at that time said to byrd at a dinner honoring him, i'll give you $100,000 if you build a plane and be the first to cross the atlantic, to flight. it must be all american-made, and it will be in the name of science. purely in the name of science. and byrd couldn't really back out. although it wasn't reported in the press at first, this was kept very secret for a while, and he is decided, byrd designer was anthony fokker and what built the red barons players, who have built birds plane that flew over the north pole. so it was a star-studded consortium. so that was the first person was rumored to fly. the first person who actually

officially entered was noel davis. noel davis is the fellow over closest to the window, close to the plane. he's a mormon couple. he's a fellow who wrote the range when he was a young man. utah suddenly had openings to an apathy we decided he would try to get in and out of turkey was in war and then after the war he, as many young board navy officers did, decided to come pilots down in pensacola. he had the first plane that was available, that was ready for flight. he was the front runner for quite a while. many people thought that the odds of byrd and noel davis were just about equal. but then on a final test down close to where i live, i live in virginia beach, virginia, down on a final test, what's no

langley field, he is very heavy plane could not lift off and he crashed and was killed. a lot of people say the turning point of the race, of this race was when lindbergh showed up, but that wasn't the turning point at all. the race became much more serious and changed in 10 are completely when davis and stanton worcester died. of course, you know, the french radio operator and the russian mechanic had died before them, but they were really part of the very small world of american flies. they weren't really known. it was tragic but these are people that were known, as a people start losing friends at this point. and at that point a cloud began

to descend over the race. and kind of a sense of doom seem to fill the hearts of a lot of these flyers. [inaudible] >> the plane was, the plane was i talk a lot more about the personalities than a mechanical instrument to that was one of the biggest bombers in the united states at the time. it was built by the company out of pennsylvania. it was called the american legion come and the american legion gave davis and wooster $100,000 to build it. it was a three engine plane. it was any other big planes like fonck's plane was and like byrd's plane was. okay. the next two people that we see are bert acosta and clarence

chamberlain. they were identified in the press as professionals. bert acosta is the fellow with the scarf on, the kind of tall dark i. is kind of the movies are. he was a ladies man of the air. and clarence chamberlain was his exact opposite. he was short. e. which i. -- he was shy. he wore the pants the call before back to the 1920s that came above the knee. they were called plus four. he wore knickers, or these long socks. he wore a bowtie. he was as i'm pilot as a pilot could be. and the fellow who owned the plane that chamberlain and acosta were flying in did not believe that chamberlain could fit the image of a pilot, a world-class pilot if he was the

first to cross the atlantic. because the owner, riley, believed the first person to cross the atlantic would be a world celebrity, bigger than chaplin, bigger than douglas fairbanks, the biggest person in the world, and he was right for the time. but at this time they were not really any professional pilots. this is what's different about them. there were barnstormers but those were showmen. and there were lots of military ties but the idea of somebody who made a living as a pilot, as a test pilot, and somebody who trained as a pilot, that was unusual. and these to get that at the time so they were rarity. there was lindbergh. this photo was taken in 23 or 24 so this was either taken when he was getting his wings as an army flyer down in texas, or early in

his career as an air mail flyer. so he was not very well known at that time. he flew after getting his wings in texas, he started as a barnstormer. he knew that barnstormers didn't live very long. he didn't have a great future, so he became an army aviator and then he joined the airmail kick in when he was, when he was flying the airmail from st. louis to chicago one night after fonck crashed, he thought to himself i can do that myself. i thought, you know, like everybody else he thought fonck was going to win but then he thought if i can stay awake for 40 hours, which i've done as an airmail pilot, then if i flight alone and they keep the weight down i could have enough gas to make it across. and so, and his theory of how to do it was radically different

from all the other pilots at that time. that's his plane, the spirit of st. louis when he landed a week before taking off. this is a photo of lindbergh shaking the hand of clarence chamberlain in front of the spirit of st. louis with byrd in between. you can see that lindbergh was quite tall. his nickname was slim. we were talking about this. at one time i knew, not sure whether not he was the youngest player on the field. he might've been one of the two youngest players on the field. there was a norwegian flyer, too. may have been as young. obviously he towered over everybody else, and when he had his plane to go to want to make sure he has plenty of the legroom. he didn't want to be cramped. this is charles dunne gas or the night of the air.

he and his copilot françois coli were both world war i faces. they were revered by the french. they were loved as much as lindbergh would be, they were loved as much by the french as lindbergh would be by the american to him when he disappeared in his flight, it was a national tragedy. he is shown here with his american wife. she's the american heiress, and her mother had married one of the discoverers of the comstock lode. he died leaving her millions, and she married again to the personal secretary of cornelius vanderbilt. vanderbilt -- and vanderbilt was consuela's father.

she had millions and she also had an instant access into new york society. she was studying over in france when she met this dashing young aviator, nungesser, and she married him. but her father thought that all flyers were disreputable and said if you don't get this marriage and old i'm going to cut off your allowance and write you out of the will. and she did not want to be without money so she did as dad said. but they had a plan. nungesser said that he would win, and he would land at the base of the statue of liberty. they have designed a plane to land on water. he had is medals with him. they were each down to about here, and he was going to stand in the cockpit, put on his mettle, and as the boat towed his plane to the battery, he would be looking for her and she would be waiting for him at the battery and they would see each other, and then they would never

be separated again because nungesser are rightly presume that whoever was the first to cross the atlantic would make millions, as lindbergh it. all evidence today, he disappeared. airplane, the white bird, disappeared. all evidence today seems to point to the fact that he was indeed the first to cross the atlantic, and he disappeared somewhere between newfoundland and nova scotia. and the best evidence seems to suggest that he perhaps was shot down by a rum runner. this was prohibition. so if this is true, nungesser was not a victim of natural forces. he was a victim of american prohibition. this is chamberlain once again and the owner of the columbia,

his playing -- playing, charles levine. levine owned this, the best plan at the time. lindberg wanted it. lindberg always painted levine as a duplicitous man. in fact, he more or less painted him as a duplicitous as jew within his spirit of st. louis. because he always felt better about the fact that he had the columbia within his grasp and then levine kind of jerked away from him at the last minute. levine was the first transatlantic airline passenger. he jumped into the plane at the very last minute. lindberg went across on made 20-21.

chamberlain and levine -- lindberg went across in may. chamberlain and levine went across in june. they went to berlin. they went farther than lindbergh had come and levine was the only flyer who did not receive a letter of commendation from calvin coolidge. and the jewish population in brooklyn had a fit about that. so that's levine. levine is the villain, the set piece. many newspaperman called him a madman because he's always changing his mind, or he was labeled as a man who was not lindbergh. but in many ways he was the most like lindbergh of any of the flies. he was an outsider. he doted on his plane. he was uncomfortable in society. he was a gambler in terms of gambling about life and death. i mean, he was a fascinating

character. and the last to go over was byrd's crew. the man who is the presumptive winner is the loser. and the people find that their are trained to -- i've been a crash that severely injured floyd bennett. so they had to reject or their crew list. bert acosta became one of the pilots. byrd was to navigate the man with glasses is the radioman, george noble, and bernt balchen probably saved all of their lives because they for 40 hours in a fog and they could never see the ground until they crashed off the western coast of france at the very end. so that ended, when they crashed

in france, that pretty much ended the official race. but then from july, or late june until december you had all of these people who wanted to duplicate lindbergh's flight. and a number of them were women, and the only woman to survive was roosevelt. ruth elder was, as big reception when she arrived in new york as lindbergh did. she was young. she was successful. she was sexy. at for she was thought to be single, turned out that she has been back home, and the papers went absolutely nuts about her. she was raised for -- raised poor in alabama. she got married and moved to florida, while lindbergh was

making his flight, and while that was going on she decided if a man can do this, why can't a woman do this? so she was learning how to fly. she got her flight instructors. they bought a type of airplane that looked a lot like the spirit of st. louis. it was called the detroiter. she named it the american girl, and she told the press, if an american boy can have great dreams, why can't an american girl? and she went aloft. she made it as far as -- and she crashed in the sea but she crashed with inside of a norwegian tanker, and they saved or. she very, perhaps more than any of the other flyers, she understood the new world of celebrity. because she said early on,

anybody who, the first one who flies across is going to be famous. they are going to make money. they will be famous but i do want to go back to the life of a dental hygienist in florida. why shouldn't i do this? this is my way out. and what's fascinating is when you're looking in the archives, they were all of these letters to these flyers. for men and women. but the most sang take me along, take me along th. there was one letter from a woman who had seven children, but five have died. there was one woman who had slung burgers in philadelphia and she offered to bring food. all of them saw flying as they wait out. and ruth elder, no, unabashedly said this is my way out. celebrity is my way out. and she crashed -- let me back

up. when she was in new york she was a huge success. see that ribbon around her hair? every day she would, to roosevelt field with a different ribbon around her hair, and those were quickly called with ribbons. and all the clothing stores in new york quickly carried with ribbons. and all the girls in new york war bruce ribbons but it was a huge fashion statement. she crashed but she would offer a thoughtful through. she became a very brief movie star. she married well, several times. and after a few years she gave up. she gave up flying and she became a golf champion. but she certainly did a whole lot better than, you know, our little home in the hills of alabama or the land of florida.

i mean, she knew what she wanted and she went after it. she understood and manipulated the rules of celebrity more than any of the other state. so, does anybody have any questions? yes, sir. oh, yeah. we have to speak, please take into the mic when you ask a question. >> was the spirit of st. louis the first closed aircraft, as far as the planes, the composition? and did it have heating? >> it didn't have eating. no, it didn't have heating. that would've added weight. it was -- no. the columbia, chamberlains, was

a close cockpit. the only planes that were completely closed cockpit were the single engine planes, the columbia and the spirit of st. louis. let me see. byrd's plane, yes, byrd's plane was about half closed. the canopy kind of went up halfway and then it was open specs only the side door and side mirrors? >> well, lindbergh had, he could look out the side of his window, and he had like a little periscope, telescopes we could see right in front of him. and he said that's the way he flew anyway. he looked out the side when he was landing so he didn't really need, you know, need glasses in front or anything like that. he had his gas tank in front in front of him.

[inaudible] any parallel between lindbergh and neil armstrong? >> it's interesting. you know who lindbergh really liked during the apollo 11 mission was not neil armstrong, but michael collins who stayed in the capital alone. and collins, when collins was director of the airspace museum, and there was a retrospective of lindbergh. and lindbergh was alone looking at the spirit of st. louis out there, and collins kind of watched him come and in lindbergh came to him and said, you know, of all the astronaut's eye in the you the most, being alone in silence but that's what i always valued. it's really interesting.

[inaudible] >> oh, yeah. all right. any other questions? >> i still feel today that we still love our airmen, and what these wonderful stories bring to mind is someone like sullen berger. i mean, he puts the ship down in the water and he still is going on and on. >> is a consultant like cbs now i think it is. you're right. it's like it do something amazing. it was. so i would agree with you. i don't think it's quite as overt anymore as it used to be. i think probably what we will see the next big spurt like that is when we start to have space pilots. to me, we have the astronauts, of course but not the next phase

in space exploration is private industry, and they are going to be, you know, there are probably going to be these daredevil space pilots somewhere down the line. so i would agree with you. >> about your research being like libraries but i want to know who did all this wonderful research spent well, i went to a lot of archives. the biggest archive for the lindbergh archives, in st. louis with a kept everything about the flight. and then byrd collected letters and everything at the polar institute research at ohio state but for some of these guys publish books. i searched the archives on all of them that i could find. i read everything that i could find but i also flew in a crop duster collected get a feel for these little old planes and a lovely the air felt. i mean, and i spent a lot of

time, there was a lot of this, a lot of the collection, their letters and papers, are in the library of congress or the air and space museum. so the library of congress, the manuscript division, has an incredible amount and the air and space museum. this fellow right down here. >> okay. first question, involves nothing you've spoken about. >> okay. [inaudible] the person who ostensibly at least tried for kidnapping the lindbergh baby. does your book touch on that at all? >> a tiny bit. remember, it is about celebrity and about this race. every one of these flyers, except perhaps chamberlain, fainted not treat them well.

and lindbergh fall from grace was the most public and the most well-known. the first horrible thing that happened to him of course was the kidnapping. i don't spend all of time on that because that's a book itself. >> okay. it was never 100% written in stone that he was the person responsible. >> a very good. >> the other thing, the archives in st. louis but lindbergh was born in new jersey. >> i know. the are several lindbergh archives. the one that has everything on a transatlantic flight is in the state historical society in st. louis, because basically, you know, he came out of st. louis. he was funded by all the st. louis business been. and so he was getting, you know, offers for pets, massages and

jobs and people were sending him poems and paintings. and, finally, st. louis just opened this museum with all of his junk. and he became a kind of a pilgrimage place for everybody who worshiped the lindbergh. and so that's the place to go for lindbergh and information about the flight but if you want to go, if you want to find out about his childhood you go to the state historical society of minnesota. if you want to find out about his, what got him in trouble, got him -- you go to yale where they have all of the archives on americans first. but that's outside the purview of my story so i went to st. louis. >> many years ago and this is

pre-alex trebek, when art fleming had jeopardy the first time around, one of the questions they had was with the 28th person to fly across the atlantic. ice and lindbergh, and it was right. now, we are talking solo? >> we are talking solo, and we're also talking -- do what? [inaudible] spent it was nonstop to lindbergh was not actually the first across the atlantic. they were to the english flyers in 1919, and they won a 10,000-pound reward from lord northcliffe in which is a lot of money at the time. a publicity stunt for his two newspapers. they flew -- the airplanes were much feebler than. but they flew from newfoundland

over to ireland. they only flew, i mean, they flew 1000 something miles. [inaudible] >> well, no. this was a world war i bomber, okay? and so they were the first to actually make it across. but i mean, you know, you're talking about a different -- this is a 3600-mile flight for lindbergh versus 1000 plus mile flight for them. and a lot of it is just the mechanics of publicity i think. i'm income in 1927 u.s. movies, you at radios, good newspapers. you have photographs. you know, the millions of lindbergh songs. you had talkies.

lindbergh just came -- and the orteig price competition just came at the right time for this kind of life, fascination, and this world adulation. somebody else? >> you spoke about ruth elder, and at the beginning you said there were a number of women that try to make -- could you say something more about him? >> well, there was an english woman who was royalty who flew across from england, trying to make it to the united states. she disappeared. she was known as the flying princess. you have to remember when i start researching a new book, a lot of the old details start to go away, so forgive me. at the of the one who was really fascinating was the niece of woodrow wilson.

she was a new yorker. her name was francis. she tried to fly across in december, and everybody was telling her this is suicidal. the ice is going to form on your wings. you will be dead. and she wouldn't listen. and she had several kind of like mini revolts within her crew, and the day that she left, she's going to fly up to newfoundland, service or engine, and then fly across, the day she left a reporter saw her slip a gun into her purse or backpack or something like that. and the reporter said something about a symbol of her authority, and she kind of changed the subject to then she disappeared. i don't think she killed everybody on board. i don't think that happened. but, you know, i mean, she was

competing at the same time as ruth elder, and it was really pretty interesting. once again, the mechanics of publicity are going on here. she was in her 30s. she wasn't unattractive but she was stern. [inaudible] >> and she was a feminist, so she was kind of scary to the press. ruth had movie star good looks, and she was week. she would talk to everybody. and all the girls in new york laughter, and she got her way through charm. there was this one moment when the owner of roosevelt field close down most of the field because he was scared she was going to die. she got the owner of roosevelt field alone and charmed him and got reopen. she could get her way by charm. and so ruth elder -- welcome

frances actually moved her base before ruth elder did come it didn't ruth elder took off and crashed and didn't make it. and then frances took off. is either christmas eve or at couple days before christmas eve, and disappeared. [inaudible] >> wait, wait, wait. we cannot be extemporaneous here. >> you mentioned icing and you also mentioned fokker. foppery stomaching aircraft. >> yet, but he, before he died he got me kind of got rid of the licensing of his name because he had a fight with the people that taken over his name, his company. >> well speed he was out of it. >> the reason i mention it because i just happened to be at la cortinada airport when u.s.

airways flight 50/50 crashed into flushing bay after taking off to the problem was icing. it was snowing. >> i know. the french plane that disappeared on the way from brazil to france. it was theorized it was exactly the same thing. planes are still -- talking about la cortinada, that makes me think. i still think planes are still considered glamorous. when i flew in yesterday, there on the tarmac was a jet, a private chat, and it had, it kind of stood alone in a circle, and painted on the fuselage was from. donald trump giant jet. and i remember, i've wondered about that because when i was a reporter, i had gotten on the trump princess to remember his yacht lacks and it was like an

exercise in excess. i wonder whether not his plane is the same thing. >> he bought the trump princess, the guy who owned name did after his daughter. that was one hell of a boat. >> next question. >> did you get a chance to talk to charles lindbergh's grandson, eric? he did about 10 years or so, he did the flight over the atlantic in a single engine. >> i heard about that. i didn't get to talk to him. i wrote a letter to lindbergh's daughter, because you have to get permission, you have to get her permission to delve into the helmet archive. it turned out i didn't need them. she never wrote me back and i didn't really pursue it.

they are justifiably sensitive about things. i have talked to noel davis his son was a year old when his father crashed. i talked to step in wooster's half sister who was a 10 year-old, 10 years old when wooster crashed. that thing i kick myself for is that clarence chamberlain's family is around here somewhere, maybe in new jersey or something, and there's a fellow by the name of -- i got an e-mail from a fellow by the name of billy, who had made a documentary about clarence chamberlain that showed at the imax theater over at -- i'm sure point in the wrong direction, but at the cradle of civilization. that way, that way. and all this, his family is still alive and i would have loved to have known they were

still alive. his children are still alive. i would have loved to have talked to these people. chamberlain was a fascinating character. at a time when, there's a lot of, in this book there's a lot of, i mean, i don't harp on it but it can't get away from it. there's a lot of prejudice and discrimination in here. i mean, you know, levine, there was a lot of anti-semitism. at the time in 1927, there were african-american flyers who wanted to fly, but there were few places that would let them fly. chamberlain was one of the few people, one of the few flyers in new york who regularly went up with a black flyers. i think he was jamaican. his name was -- what was his name?

hubert julian, or something like that. he called himself a black eagle. every couple of years he would -- advertisers would pay him to go over harlem and a red devil suit and jump out with a parachute, and he would travel behind a marquee. he and chamberlain were best of friends. finally, finally julian said, he built this claim he was going to be the first american flyers to fly from new york city to liberia, and i guess it was a pretty rickety plane because he invited chamberlain to fly with him, and chamberlain kind of cocked his eye at him and said you're not really good to fly into, are you? yeah, come along with me. and the plane actually took off and it within about three seconds it landed in the east river and julian was in the hospital for about a week or something like that. and i don't think he ever tried

again. but he's a really fascinating character. and i think he went on an aviation. but chamberlain was, and, the only person -- chamberlain was the only one of the flyers in the orteig prize to get along with levine, and he was the only one, this guy who was not movie star caliber, he was the only one of the flyers to get along with levine to everyone else disparate, partly because of anti-semitism. and he was the only one to take up, the only black fly in new york that i could find during, based in new york during that time. so i think it was really pretty interesting. i just wish somebody would do a story on this julian fellow. or a documentary or something. kind of a fascinating fellow. any other questions? yes, ma'am.

>> not so much a question, a comment. but cradle aviation is having a celebration, and the grandson of lindbergh is supposed to be there. i think it's next weekend spent is that eric you are talking about? okay, all right. >> amy phipps had been from westbury wanted to fly the atlantic, and ended up financing i understand the flight that amelia earhart took as a pastor. >> there was also the designer of, designer of chamberlain and levine's plane. he was married to a woman from omaha, nebraska, and her sister, myrtle brown came out from omaha wanting to be an art student in new york. you know, she sat around a table while all of this was going on and she decided she was going to be a flyer, and she decided during this period she was going, also going to be the

first woman to make it across the atlantic. she decided this when she didn't have a license but she didn't have a plane and she didn't have a backer because she did find a catholic priest from pittsburgh who said that he would fly with her if she flew to rome. and so she was going to fly -- she was going to fly to rome, and she never made it across the atlantic, but she moved to delaware and she became the first licensed female pilot in delaware. she also became one of only 25 female pilots to hold a commercial pilot's license in the united states. and the last sort i had of her was that myrtle brown kind of had the corridor from delaware to new york as, you know, that was her sky. as many of these people did, her

plane caught out once and she landed in a field of spinach. and when she came to, and she knocked herself out with spinach. and when she came to, there was this farmer watching her and he was identified as freeholder joseph something. and i could never, you know, get this straight, i mean, if somebody was called freeholder, was he like amish or something? i don't know. but anyway -- [inaudible] >> okay, all right. i didn't go into that. but this freeholder was watching her, and when she came to, the first thing he said was, young lady, you ruined $100 worth of spinach, and i'm not giving you back your plane and tell you pay for it. and he didn't. he didn't give back to her until she paid for it. these guys are always running afoul of the farmers.

when chamberlain and levine -- [inaudible] >> yes. when chamberlain and levine were trying to make it to berlin, they first landed in a field of weeds outside of her land, way outside of berlin and it little town. and they landed and a mashed a bunch of wheat up, and this woman comes up and she goes, that's my wheat. you mashed up my transit but who's going to pay for my wheat? in the woman thought, there have been these kidnappers around their lady, and she suddenly grew very afraid because she thought that she was confronting kidnappers with a new and unique way of kidnapping people. and she only called down when her sons just, you know, who could speak a little bit of english, you know, explained to her these were just lost america's. then they took off again. they got a little bit of, they

got a little bit of gas and they flew a few more miles and the plane caught out, and they landed in a field of beats, and the mayor of the local town trouble up and said don't worry, it's just beats, come and have some beer. and they were always up against farmers. [inaudible] >> yes. i guess it's kind of late. any last questions? does anybody want to ask anything more? okay. [inaudible] >> okay. >> you mentioned rene fonck. was he flying something that was made by -- [inaudible] a big name in -- >> there were some model planes around, and i think that he flew model planes around the time of the war. but there were no, i know that,

i know that monoplanes were bought by william randolph hearst. and he was considered too flimsy and he gave it away to a philadelphia department store owner. but, i mean, it didn't have anything to do with this flight. that was a different, that was a decade earlier, two decades. [inaudible] >> no, it wasn't one of the ones, one of the planes that was used. he was surprised the name didn't come up. they were lots of the haviland bombers during world war i, but they were not a plane.

so i really concentrated much more on personalities than i did on planes. you know, i knew that was my weak point when i was writing this book, and if i tried to pass myself off as an expert on airplanes, there are millions of people out there who could, you know, let me know that i was barking up the wrong tree. questions? >> do know what the average altitude was? >> it was little. it was really low. one thing you have to do, you know, he flew by side a lot of times, which is a way of using the compass and also your watch to figure out where you are. but you have to figure out when speed and dead reckoning. he was close enough to the ways a lot of times that he could see which way the froth was going off the top of the ways. so they had these schools --

schools that were installed within the planes come and a lot of times he flew about 10 feet off the waves. a lot of times he had to go higher. [inaudible] >> no, i don't think so. he might have been, sometimes one is trying to get around the clouds. but on the average he wasn't flying that, you know, as high as some of them. anybody else? all right, okay. well thank you very much. i appreciate it. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's website, joejacksonbooks.com. >> what are you reading this summer, booktv wants to know. spent i've got three books i'm on right now. one is "the passage of power" by robert caro, which is about kind

of competition, interactions between president kennedy and lyndon johnson, and road from lyndon johnson's vantage point. and pretty interesting kind of hard-nosed politicians both publicly and behind the scenes jockeying for position throughout the primary election of 1960, and then throughout the convention which is very, very interesting. the of the book is "the social conquest of earth" by edward o. wilson which is basically how our species came to really rely on social interaction, emotional intelligence, and the way we communicate with each other, kind of build kind of the social networks that we have and how far back that goes. and that's a really interesting book to be reading. at the same time you're reading about the kennedy-johnson interaction. because there's so much perception and emotional

intelligence that is needed in the field of politics, we'd and people and all this, this is something our species has been evolving with for a long, long time now. and then the final book is a father thomas keating called "heartfulness," and father keating is not originated but someone who really started to promote centering prayer which is a christian-based meditation decays a benedictine monk, and really has wrote a lot about the importance of having some meditation connected to your religion and how that really depends our connection to god and everything else. he wrote this book which is based on some conversations that he had the it's called "heartfulness" and it's a beautiful book about the christian meditation. so we've got a wide range of reading material this summer. >> for more information on this and other summer reading li