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tv   The Flight  CSPAN  June 10, 2017 6:59pm-8:01pm EDT

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reservation 24 hours in advance. a lot of people do not know that. the original home of the general secretary was in flushing queens. >> what else to have coming out? >> we have another book called left bank of the hudson. people think of soho and williamsburg as this enclave gentrified by artists and then blend into these mega ãthere is also -- outside of that we have this really neat book on google books and it is a translation from the french. those are the three lead books. that's what would you consider on the university press? >> we are very known in humanities and social sciences. particularly theology but their interdisciplinary titles. they intermingle. we are most known for that.
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and also reflects the mission of the university. very strong philosophy and theological department. then in 2010 i started the empire state addition. it is 110 years old, the director of the fordham university press is in new york. >>. [inaudible conversations] >> hello everyone. thank you for coming to the tattered cover and thank you especially for coming out to support your local independent bookstore. we greatly appreciated. tonight we have dan hampton, most of you probably know he is the author of several books. he is a decorated fire pilot and a historian of - a noted
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historian. [laughter] tonight he is going to be discussing the flight. his recounting of charles lindbergh's famous transatlantic flight over from new york to paris. without further ado, i'm going to go ahead and turn this over to dan. let's give him a big applause. [applause] >> i also tap dance and sing badly. [laughter] >> thank you jennifer and michael and the tattered cover crowd as well as my c-span buddies. mark and steve who have done this with me several times before. and are probably tired of looking at me. and it is good to be back in colorado. in the nice sunny warm may.
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[laughter] what's up with that? i mean every time i think now i can re-energize my sprinkler system, plant grass, this time i waited until after mother's day. i had all of that done and went away.i thought i was safe. guess what happened? if any of y'all are looking for time end date to do that next year i will give you a time and date. at a week to the end you will be okay. can you hear me okay? may 20 1927 roosevelt field in long island. we do not me like an airfield chicago o'hare, new york laguardia. it is truly a field. been there, sit on it, of course most of it is a parking lot right now. but back then what lindbergh was going to use to take off on this epic flight was more like a golf cart path. a little roadway and that was the good part.
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that is why he chose to have the plane pulled over to roosevelt field because it was paved. so he is in this tiny little airplane with a steel frame but it is covered with cotton and lacquered. i've never been in the original "spirit of st. louis" because it is hanging in the museum but and my good friend would not take it down for me. however i was in two flyable replicas which was inexperienced in oshkosh and another one in new york. i can tell you that even a single seat fighter that i flew in, which i thought was small, was pretty spacious compared to this thing. it was very basic. wicker seats, exposed paddles, you can see the cables every time you move the stick or move the riders you can see the cables move. i think that would be little
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disconcerting as a pilot. so he is sitting in this thing. it is not really cold but it is wet, raining, misty. anyone that has ever been to long island in the summer or springtime knows what i'm talking about. he built and tested this in california and now he's sitting very close to the atlantic ocean and is just now occurring to him but maybe the test figures and data and air speeds and low values he came up with in california might not really apply so much in long island. but it is too late now. may 20, 1927, in the morning over curtis field, richard byrd and chamberlin are waiting with their respective airplanes. they could take off at any time and he knows that. so he made the decision the night before to go based on a clearing weather forecast over the atlantic. he came and from watching - ope the majestic theater in long -
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in new york. he stopped for sandwiches to take with him in a paper bag. he had a canteen of water and he is sitting there trying to see a stick with a little white handkerchief that he had tied and stuck at the halfway point about 2500 or 3000 feet down this runway. i use that term loosely. he cannot see it. because of low hanging fog. when at the end, just above the haze he can barely make out a line of trees. that is what he has to get over. he is thinking no problem it is over a mile away, i know the plane can do. i can do it. he said let's go. the rpm was a little bit low because again it is wet and moist as opposed to dry california heat. but he does. the guys running alongside the second a wonderful movie made in 1957.the guys are helping
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push the plane through the mud and he gets off. one thing that the movie took a little liberty was clipping the tree line. he didn't really do that. it was very dramatic and made for a great scene in the movie but he happily cleared it very well. maybe 50 feet or so. he was startled that there was a country club and a golf course on the other side of the tree line. when he was too busy at that point to care and to relieve had actually gotten off the ground. which was the hard part. he had a big old nine foot propeller that could be fixed so you can vary the angle of the propeller cut through the air on based on takeoff or cruising. modern propellers do it automatically. his, you had to fix either on the ground or well - you had to fix it on the ground. was it going to be maximized for takeoff were maximized for cruising? he made the decision that i have 3600 miles to go. if i can just get off the
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ground i think that is probably the bigger challenge. so even the propeller wasn't really optimized for this hair-raising takeoff. the takeoff itself, can't see out of the front. which any pilot will take probably isn't really that big of a deal. because we usually look out of the side anyway. but he had a fuel tank right in front of this nice plywood instrument panel in front of him. fuel tank and another fuel tank. he has much fuel as he could carry because he had 3610 miles to go. he was actually cleaning out the left side of the rectangular window trying to keep the airplane on this path that he is on. and manages to get up and get airborne. as soon as he does, takes a deep breath, looks out of the other window and sends an airplane filled with reporters. out there to take pictures of him crashing and dying on takeoff. he didn't like reporters very much. this did not help. so he shows the throttle
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forward and cranks the stick. recently airplane the stick comes up to about mid chest. it's like a broomstick. he cranks the stick to the left and goes out toward long island sound. this was something he was looking forward to because the biggest piece of water he had ever flown over his brief career. the 30 miles between long island sound and the coast of connecticut. he was a midwestern guy. as most of you know. he had flown for the army air service. he had never flown overwater before, this was it. he was pretty excited, turbulence aside. got himself across the connecticut, relieved. one milestone passed. studied up on the northeast heading and flew over new england on his way to nova scotia and beyond. how did he get here? how did he get here? well, he was probably the least known of any of the pilots trying for the price.
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this was offered by a whole -- he became enamored with fighter pilots and flying during the first world war they will come to his hotel and his bar, in new york. he offered $25,000 which in 1927 was worth about $350,000 of our dollars. for the first person to fly from new york to paris or paris to new york. it had to be nonstop and it had to be between those two cities. the atlantic, most people don't know had been crossed before. anybody know when it was crossed the first time? no? 1918, a british airship came from scotland to roosevelt field in long island. they got along thereafter think 108 hours or something. i cannot imagine flying,
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drifting across the north atlantic in a plant but they did. they got there and realized there was nobody on long island that knows how to - and airship. so an american observer said i will take care of this and he strapped on a pair of shoes, jumped out of the blimp, pulled the cord. he took off the parachutes and he tied the blimp up. in 1919, the u.s. navy decided what would be a good idea to prove that we can cross the atlantic? so in typical military fashion they overdid it a little bit. they had three airplanes instead of one. they stationed warships at 50 miles intervals across the atlantic with searchlights. so that the seaplanes could see at night. it would work one time, probably not something commercially viable in the long term. but they figured we will do it this one time. out of the three flying boats that took off - one came down,
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the third one made it and then to portugal and england. so the atlantic have been crossed in bits and pieces but it never had been crossed nonstop from city to city before. that's what this was all about. and if somebody could do it, and they can prove that hey, technology has taken a giant leap forward. and commercial air travel is in fact possible. and in lindbergh's case had another motive.the money. he liked the dollar as much as the next guy but he also was a firm believer in peace. he thought that if communications between peoples were improved and continents were linked, then with that sort of growth would come better tolerance and
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understanding. it was a nice thought. it didn't really work out that way but those were his motivations. so there he was then. now he is over new england, all of these things are behind him. he is ready to go. he hits provincetown near plymouth and massachusetts. enter kirsten that that's where the pilgrims landed. and with any luck within a day or so he would be over the original plymouth where they left from. it took the pilgrims 60, 90 something days i think. i don't remember to cross and then he was going to do it in less than one day. he was pretty excited about that. then he looks up and sees the first big expanse of water between the massachusetts coast and newfoundland ahead of him. he put a damper on his spirits but make a long story short he crossed newfoundland his navigation was spot on. better than he hoped for. better than he anticipated.
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probably a little lucky. he was using a magnetic compass. he actually had to read it backwards. it was mounted above his head and they had not realized it until right at the very end that there's really no way to read this while flying. so in fact, they did get a mirror from a girl. stuck some going on and expected on the plywood instrument panel in front of him. and he is reading it backwards in the mirror. probably feasible during the day. i still do not know how he did it at night. a magnetic compass under the best circumstances is still hard to read, but he did. he also had another way that i will go into but the idea behind it -- he really doesn't have much to go on except for a course, a map and time. and when he reaches st. john of the coast of new finland, he is on course, relatively on-time,
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the fuel consumption is good and he is excited as he will ever be until he looks out it again and sees nothing but the north atlantic in front of him. he is 1900 miles to go. the sun is going down behind him. i have done this as i said in a jet, and it is disconcerting even under the shechem stances. for him to do that at 100 miles an hour 100 feet above the waves looking into that, really not sure where he is going to end up is phenomenal. this is obviously before satellites, before the weather channel. he did not know what was out of there in front of him. the best he had was from the weather that was already old. so he is at night in this tiny little basically cotton covered box. astounding! he ran into a couple of surprises along the way. that he had not thought of. ice was one of them.
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anyone know what great circle navigation is? if you think of the earth as a sphere, which is, spirit of water at the middle and narrow at the top. therefore the closest or the shortest direction from point-to-point is not to go around the middle but to go over the top. so that is what he was doing pure he was going further north over the shorter narrower end of the spear to minimize his time in the air. the disadvantage with that is he was well north of all of the shipping lands. he went down no one would ever have found him. plus it was much colder up there which did not occur to him until he saw the ice. he wondered if not for the first time, if i have to land what is going to happen?that ice looks kind of dangerous. fortunately he did not have to. he also ran to ice with the aircraft. something that is prone to happen in thunderstorms even in the summertime. and he began to have to deviate. he changed altitudes, he would turn around and try to avoid
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the bigger thunderstorms that he could see. and the end result is the next morning when the sun finally came up, if he didn't really have a clear idea where he was. add to that something that he could not have foreseen was about 100 mile an hour tailwind. which had been blowing him all night. from behind. so he is 300 miles closer to europe than he thinks he is. he is also hallucinating a little bit which can happen. and when he picks up ireland for the first time, he is utterly confused. he thinks that he is 300 miles further out into the ocean. he does not really know where he is. he has always reasoned that if he flew east long if he would have europe which is true. but he also thought well it could be anywhere from norway to spain. where am i? being 300 miles further along did not help.and he was very puzzled by this. he flew up and down the irish
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coast and finally ascertained this position based on, i picked up the maps. i'd seen them in missouri. they are not really detailed but there are details enough for him to realize he was over valencia bay. and it's about 20 miles from a planned to be. then he got his second wind and he was happy. i survived! now he began to think, i might actually make this. i'm crossing the english channel after that, after 1900 miles and it was a cakewalk to him. when he hit the french coast and i began to worry about details which frankly are kind of funny to you and i. they were not funny to him. the biggest concern was that he forgot to get a visa. [laughter] and his passport. he thought are the even going to let me into the country? and then he thought, my gosh, i figured out that i am three hours early.
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will the even the anybody there at the airport plea because again this is 1927. radios were fairly common but there was no in-state communication like we are used to. he didn't realize along the route, over nova scotia and new finland, england and ireland but people had followed him. they had a course called it in and the newspapers were running updates. continuous updates.a young guy back in america named jimmy stewart, 19 years old, had enough. and every time he got an update from the radio he would run upstairs, he would stick a task in the map to chart the progress it is interesting and intriguing. anyway, it occurs to lindbergh now after some 32 hours or so that he is hungry. so he takes out one of his greasy nasty ham sandwiches that he got back in long island.
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he is about half of it and decides it is not too appetizing.doesn't want to later. so he doesn't throw it out the window. takes a drink, feels pretty good. he finds the river. you can see it at night because of the boat traffic which is exactly what he did. he followed that into paris. now it gets a little dicey. if it was not already. and i can appreciate this because the longest i ever flew in my jet was 15 hours. which damn near killed me. now he's been at this for twice that length of time. more than that! 33 hours by the time he gets to paris. he doesn't know where -- is. there is no flight information handbook, no chart, airport terminal maps and everything else that we have today. all anybody could ever tell him was that it was about five or six miles north of the eiffel tower. so he gets there, finds the eiffel tower and flies around the eiffel tower and then finds
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the biggest darkest spot five or six miles north that he can see. and that is where he goes. another problem, and i was unaware of this until i researched the book. he never landed the spirit of st. louis at night before. which was probably an oversight that could have been corrected and i might have, a lot happened that he could not have foreseen. this when he might appear he flew this at night from california to the east coast. he set a record by the way. but he never landed it at night.tonight he has to land at night after 33 and now 33 and a half hours on a field he has never seen before. remember, it's not airfield with you and i are thinking of. it is truly a field. he flies up and around this dark spot, he cannot really see anything recognizable and continues a little bit further thinking maybe it is further out here. and it's not printed flies right over the position of the airport which is kind of interesting. turns around right over where it is now.
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and comes back to where he thinks it is. there are some spotlights on mark warner that are within around. but that's about the only lighting etc. on the main roads coming up out of paris. there are thousands and thousands of lights on the road. he thought gosh, i didn't know traffic was that bad in paris. is this denver? he does not realize and he starts thinking that there's a traffic jam or an accident. he doesn't realize that all paris is waiting for him. and they had all been trying for hours to get up there. it is a huge traffic jam on the road. he does what most pilots do and he circles around, he drops down low and he figures out you know it may not be and forfeited his parents so i probably run the prize. i got here. and he sets himself up to land finally. about this time, i can appreciate this, he can't really go his legs. and it's almost like he has forgotten how to land because
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he is been flying basically straight and level for so long. he completely waffles the approach once. he comes back around to do it again. and picture driving or flying if you can into a big black hole and designs and waving like that one end. past is waiting lights when they go past you, your back in the blackhole again. and that's what happened to him. he came in over the hangers and he happy because is a windsock and he actually saw one of the hangers. so he is relieved. so he passes and let's go behind him all depth perception goes away because that's what happens and he cannot really see the ground. there is not much of a moon. and he basically just kind of drops the plane onto the dirt. fortunately, nobody can see it. he walked away from it which any pilot site is probably a good landing. and again, he is rolling into the darkness here.
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no beacons, no runaway perimeter lights nothing. it is a grass field. rolling into the darkness. and he realizes that for better or for worse i am down. and he turns around, he spins it around and he sees the blackness, the darkness is moving. he thinks it is moving and he realizes that they are arms. hands. and then he realizes the people coming toward him. he cannot really grasp that transports a landed somewhere where there wasn't supposed to be? did i make someone mad? he says i have to shut the engine so i don't chop any of them up. he barely gets the engine shut down and the plane is surrounded and involved and there he is in paris. the reception he got was not anything that he had planned for. contrary to popular belief the french actually had a plan. they had a double, the us ambassador of france was
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concerned because he did not know lindbergh and relations between america and france were not to get the time. he did not know what charles lindbergh was going to say fear he wanted to get him away from the plane so he could figure out what he is going to talk about and let's not make anything worse. so he was in on the plan. the problem was, the mob got to the plane right about the same time that the french air force officers and he got to the plane. so he started to get out. lindbergh did. he was basically yanked out by frenchmen that were just overjoyed to see him. the devil was trying to get into position but the crowd pulled lindbergh's caught off in his helmet. and somehow he got thrown in the air and a guy caught it. a guy named harry wheeler who happened to be an american student walking through france. he thought he would go see lindbergh land. fortunately he was about six feet tall and blonde. didn't speak any french so he
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catches the thing is is something english and everybody thinks it is lindbergh. [laughter] so they grab this poor guy.and they don't care. they grabbed him and they thought he was the guy that they carry weight it would turn out to be good because the french air force officers grabbed the real charles lindbergh and got him out there they took them over to the military side and kept him there. harry wheeler got drugged up to a reception, a formal reception that they had planned for him. and drop down the front of the ambassador. at that point he was missing his coat, one shoe, no tie and he kept telling everybody i am not lindbergh. in the event are wealth of course you are. who else would you be? finally worked out that he wasn't lindbergh. and the biggest concern is that point was, my airplane. because he had seen people try to tear off pieces of it. the french assured him that in
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fact it was being taken care of and it was at the hangar that they put the airplane and, it is still there at the airport today. it is used by private jet service. i was interested to find out. it was locked and secured so it was all right. and the french army officers then drove lindbergh into paris to stay at the ambassador's residence. a bunch of other things happened. he did not have pajamas obviously had to borrow the ambassador's pajamas. he fell asleep in the bed and woke up the next morning and the world is not the same and his life would never be the same. after that. right? that takes you through the book more or less. i wanted to concentrate specifically on the flying. because nobody besides lindbergh ever written this before from the cockpit. lots of books have been written about this, biographies etc. i think the best one is about -- that they cover both only nine pages were devoted to flight. because he is not pilot.
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so i wanted to take you through it, heavyset in the cockpit with him, fill the controls, push the rotor poles, move the stick. feel him you know, fight off fatigue and dizziness and hallucinations and everything that happened. and take you all the way through the landing in paris. i did put enough in there about his early life so you would know he came from. dispel some myths about the man. he was not raised for. he was the son of a lawyer and a us senator. of course his dad lost everything and ended up for but he was not raised that way. i talked a little bit about some of the things that happened to him later in life. just so that people would know that you know as much as i admire the man he had his faults. you know at all of us. he had some shortcomings. but i pose the question in the book, who of us having all of that thrust upon us at age 25 could have done better?
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right? so i will leave you to read the epilogue and what happened to him after this epic flight. and decide for yourselves. lots of it i think is very interesting because it parallels are on time. the 1920s and our decade have a lot of similarities pretty much. and one reason why lindbergh became the global celebrity and especially the celebrity in north america that he did was because of the united states in the position that it was in. i think people then, like now were starving for a hero. or just somebody they can believe in. you know somebody that was going to tell them the truth. most of the time. somebody that wasn't going to do something stupid every day and have it treated across the world. you know somebody that they can believe in.
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they had a lot of the same issues that we do today and that is one that they make this book especially appropriate. besides, he is an american! and i love my country. i still think and i have seen most of the world that is the greatest country in the world. i think this book was a long way of reminding people.
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he is all right i'm running out of time and i'm going to have an airport built. they were just getting started up they saw this as an excellent chance for good publicity. now, how much thought they gave to what would happen if he disappeared like everyone else had tried to do this, i don't know. but they said we'll do it and for 10,005 a considerable amount of moneyed a time. but not unreasonable. lindbergh put in 2,000 of his own and wents out to california to help don hall design the aircraft. i talked to don hall's son several time when is i was
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writing this and he gave me insight into his dad. linked burg has seen other people try to do this and fail and used big engine crews with crew, renée a french ace had tried it in september the year before. and crashed on takeoff. actually yeah his airplane had red leather seats. they were carrying spare clothes and typical frenchman to celebrate their successful flight across the atlantic. two guys charles and france had taken off on may 8th couple of weeks before lindbergh attempted it. from paris, to new york -- and they disappeared without a trace. they were last seen over a hold in ireland, son plying into the sun heading west. nobody ever saw him again. couple of navy guys had tried it -- they were taken off from north folk in april before linked
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bring did they crashed both of them died. big heavy, multiengineer planes overloaded -- linked burg said i'm going small streamline and i'm going to do it myself. i don't node a navigator and no sec pilot because i can have a single engine soot myself i can appreciate that too. so that's what they designed the spirit around. they had a basic dispien that they used before but they modified it. they made it a little bit longer and a little bit wingspan carried as much fuel as they could. it was raided for 5 gallons appalling number to cross 3600 miles -- [laughter] but, you know, he worked it out and knew consumption and when they fueled plane up, they half fueled it on curtisfield and towed it over to roosevelt and
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pilled it the rest of the with a and another 25 gallons many it so carry 450 gallons. i'm asked a lot about that. people are surprised and i go back to carrage guy when empty light comes on in our car web go farther. overengineered a little bit. and we are too. turns out he didn't immediate it by the time he land in the paris he had enough gas to fly another ,000 miles he wanted to more to tailwind but enough fuel and in planning it, that was his primary concern. he also designed it so that it would not be an easy plane to fly, and i can tell you that it is not. it is like flying a -- lawrm. lawn mower if you let go of it for length of time it will pitch and wine and gyrate and he did that on purpose to keep him awake. maybe it did. had no autopilot, obviously, he could lock the -- horizontal tail in place over
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here on the side but he had to hand fly the rest of it. so he intort nateed it and seen so many pilots get burned alive if they crashed and not like he was thinking about crashes. he had one overhead forward of the skylight. okay. so that's what the plane ftion designed for. it would manage -- max tested it 126 i think out in california. he probably went pasteur than that with with 100 miles per hour tail wind but he wasn't going to complain and plane held up just fine. joel. >> quick question what about linkedburg's life surprised you the most when you you rernlgd this age what's your next big project? [laughter]
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i'm actually for those of you who don't know -- it takes ab year to write a book. and another six months then to edit it and get it to the point where it is published. so i've already go on to the next book before -- the previous book is published. the next book is due in -- january i think and it's on the u.s. test pilot program. sort of before the wright stuff right before the wright stuff. the world of the 1940s and the air force back the way i wished yatd been in. not that way anymore. so that's what the next project is. about lingdz burg's life i think the thing that surprised me the most is when i was looking into his life after the flight okay t to dispel some of the myths -- he was in the america first movement. most of you probably know that. big movement formed during the battle of britain probably not
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the best time to keep the united states out of world war ii. most all of these people had seen the great war world war i. they thought that war in european was another european war and if they were stupid enough to get into it again then why should we go bleed for them. that's true up to a point. pearl harbor hadn't happen yet and figured peel still owe us money for the last world war why should we go interfere he wasn't alone in this. 800,000 americans at its peek were part of this including walt disney gerald ford john f. kennedy junior sinclair lures and bunch of others. public opinion was against the war. 60 to 70% all support for supporting britain materially but didn't wants to get into the war but wasn't being lone wolf railing against nonpatriotic railing against fighting. he didn't see any reason for u to get into it at that point. when pearl harbor happened,
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though, he was one of the first -- unlike a lot of selects and politicians to say hey, my country has been attacked. i'm going to go fight. he had been an army officer tried to get his commission reactivated. roosevelt wouldn't do it because roosevelt hated him for -- very public disagreement they had a few years before so linkedburg warninged and everybody else making airplanes at the time to make the airplanes better, he finally got permission to go after the south pacific as a field rep and against every rule of the bock and anyone in the military know this he flew 50 combat missions as a civilian. which if he had gotten shot down not that the japanese cared they killed everyone, anybody. but they would have -- what they would have done to him he's a civilian you can't
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legally fly, can't legally take part in combat if you're a civilian but that's what he did he wanted to fight for his country 50 missions shot down one plane for sure. probably two, and did a lot of close air support he also stalled lots of small problems with ten or so different airplanes that improved the performance and survivability of the military. the u.s. military. including teaching guys fuel management techniques so that they could fly longer which is how the army air shot down admie beyond range of any u.s. aircraft, and linked burg taught them to stretch to get to him and shoot him down. coining that was one of the things that surprised me the most because i didn't know that. i knew about america first movement but not combat as a civilian. sorry long answer. sir in the back. >> with all of the books that are out there, and i'm sure
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you've had good access to material its available, with i've never come across any kind of documentation of how much money the guy made off of this flight. >> awe. >> you talk in your book that he made a lot of hundred. i know as a collector he endorsed shoe laces. pencil sharpers in my god there was merchandise coming -- everywhere. but i've never heard, seen that he made a million that are or he made 25 million or he was -- any thoughts on that? >> well i know one number. but he was very red. sent a private guy and that's why the press and him never got along. the press, you know, they have a job to do but they interfered with his life quite a bit including sneaking into the morgue in new jersey and taking pictures of his dead baby and precincting them. after that happened -- so he didn't like -- talk much about his private life
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and daughter has been like that all of his life and kept finances to himself. i know that the legitimate offers that given right after he came back totaled in excess of $5 million. which -- in 1927 be about $65 million now okay -- there were a lot more offers but a lot were plain simple and wanted a lucky windy bread he was a hoif maker in hollywood offered him outrageous amount of money to get married -- on camera whether or not he stayed married or not. three newscast tores in new york offered him a million dollars so that he wouldn't have to make any false offers tell me how that makes any sense. a good ideas to me but he didn't take it so he didn't take a lot of them but $5 million was at least a legitimate number probably at the very low end. right after he returned -- >> thank you. there was a what hand over here. >> any -- [inaudible conversations]
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navy or all army? >> first was in of course air. >> carrier did he? >> no. i don't think he was crazy. [laughter] my father over there landed on aircraft carriers and he's nuts. i don't think lundberg did but first in a course air out of -- [inaudible conversations] >> marine -- >> of course who else try with 18 foot propeller. we go round and round -- [laughter] i see you wear withing marine sweatshirt so i see where your sympathies lie. sir. >> what other aircraft did he fly in combat? >> he flew -- he flew all of them in the pacific. at one point or another. everyone, and in a fixed you know lots of little things that you know to a pilot can add up. you know, he fixed hydraulic
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problem, pneumatic problems and sting line engineering picks here and there to basically make things better whenever, whenever he could. and again he saw it as his debt. you know, he wanted -- he wanted to get in there and fight and honest good that he dpght. best book that he wrote and i recommend had to anybody who is seriously interested in the man is called autobiography of values that was published -- a collection of all of his writingses, you know, later in life and he really turned he actually wrote very well. not at first. his first book, we with was horrible and he thought so too. but his books got very, very -- much improved as time went with on. autos biography is values went a lot into his -- thoughts and emotions that he never expressed to anybody including his family and he talked a lot about combat i can tell you having been in more combat than i care to remember good that he didn't do it
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full-time as a commissioned officer because he didn't have -- he didn't have the right mindset. as a civilian he could afford to think the way that he did. and he was a natural pilot and great marx man but not the right mindset for sustained combat so it worked out best that he didn't continue with it. sir -- >> you kind of briefly alluded to millions, his navigation skills over the atlantic as to how he is able to keep that airplane on course -- >> boggled him too. dealing with the psychological walls i'm curious do you think in your own flying experiences you have come close to any of the endurance things that he had to go u up against just to make that -- >> yeah, i wouldn't put -- gee and no up to a point. our physical --
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challenges were fairly nasty, they're different just different as far as he went -- you know he had a chart ticked off 100 mile interval every hundred mile and declaration, magnetic variation everything figured out, you know, so he -- check a few degrees, left usually. to stayen o his plotted course. but he sound like yownsdz this so you know a course is not a heading. a heading you fly off a cockpit or compass whatever you're using you have to correct winds for that, and for 1900 miles at night, he didn't know what winds were. so he's blindly trying to follow this course on the happen he doesn't know the winds are from the side, from behind what they're doing to him and you have to remember he's deviating arranged thunderstorms and whatever. what i think happened was all of his errors and a the winds canceled each other out. they had to or he wouldn't have
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wound up within 25 miles of where he wanted to be but he didn't know that. right. but again he figured assed baa as i may be -- i was on course on heading when i left st. johns. wherever it is i end up on other side it will be europe whether norway or spain and i'll figure it out from there. again, i think again being early confused and then being so close to where he was supposed to be confused then because he didn't plan on being that close. >> a tremendous challenge -- especially given those horrible instruments. you know, and accuracy or lack of accuracy therein with those things and glad it wasn't me. [inaudible conversations] >> by vote he wanted to fly home as she wanted to come back through asia, and the president wouldn't let him. president said no i -- i don't anything to happen to you he said i'm a civilian we can do whatever i want, and he said he reminded lindbergh you
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may be a civilian but you're not really and i'm tell you go, you're coming home on a boat. [laughter] and linked burg smart enough to know crossing president of the united states at that point wasn't a smart thing so they box up the spirit and put it on the uss memphis cruise arer a the a share board, and, in fact, a memphis set a record get back i think it was six days. it's in the book six days maybe from share board to the virginia capes. and interestingly passed over the spot where billy mitchell sank that german pocket battleship, and sailed into the virginia capes realized they were early and anchored up near the mouth of the potomac river and again he really didn't he heard there was a big welcome but i think it overwhelmed him the same.
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3 hushing ,000 people that turned out in washington, d.c., and from indian head all the way up to the cost river into the washington naval yard on both sides -- there were people and flags and bunking and horns and fireworks and boats and therm, you know, firing off cannon they give him a national salute reserve for the president of the united states. they gave hail 21 gun salute and memphis -- finally glided into her anchorage and more right there, and person waiting for him on the dock was his mother. they brought her to see him and up to cruisers deck and few minutes later both of them walked down together. quite a show. what else? anything. >> how long would the trip take an f-16. if i didn't need to refuel every hour. i can go twice the speeds of sound so that's over 2,000 miles per hour.
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but unfortunately i run out of gas in about six minutes doing that. so -- we would -- [laughter] let's see tanker fluid 350 miles an hour seem like to me to cross from the east coast to the coast of usually spain could take about eight hours i think. memory fails sorry memory i put behind me. and i did it in, you know, some bad conditions too. sometimes depending on what was going on wrong side of the world we take off at miengt from the east coast and one time i did it in -- there had to be six inches, eight inches of we are the on runway and thunderstorms all up and down coast it was truly terrifying hate od a hit i was scared but i was scared. you know. 12, f-16s arranged tankers full of fuel and thunderstorms at night you're flying off night vision goggle thinking why didn't i become an architect and
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listen to my mother? seriously like what am i doing here? [laughter] so i know how lipgd linked burg felt when he flew out of the weather and sun came up. you know when you can see it makes all of the difference in the world. even when you can seat clouds, and in the book i talk about -- how happy he was when he got clear of the thunderstorms. it was still cloudy. but he could see from the moon shapes was clouds and it's almost like i'm back in reality. because million that had time it is like flying through a thunderstorm, through a cotton ball you can't see anything. i couldn't. he couldn't so when you free of that you're relieved and next big thing to see laptiond like there's langsd. you know i'm back sort of in an environment that's familiar to human beings. and that's how he felt. and i tried to convey as much of that as i could in the story. sir. >> one last thought 0 years ago tomorrow --
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that's right 90 years ago tomorrow. when he's talking about hourly course corrections referred to it as dead reckoning navigation and didn't like the way that sounded. [laughter] he said not a bad way to do it except only problem is the name. >> is the name that's not something you like to think about but that's all he had. i had gps and satellite and other things and i can get anywhere in the world within six inch of where i needed to go. he didn't even come close to having that luxury. and he, you know, that's the point i get asked this a lot. what do you think people to take away from this book? and i'll back to what i said at the end of my tribe is that i -- this is something that we can all be proud of. you know, i think i closed the book with that is that this transcended nationality, borders, genders, whatever problems we're having or had then this was mankind concurring something that has been
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unconcurrable with nature. it is someplace we're not supposed to be new the air and yet he did it. and america produced him. right -- i think i'm out of time so i'll be happy to sign books and answer any other questions thank you for showing up on a friday and for your attention. [applause] for what covered sale -- here's a look at some of the books published this week. former house speaker newt gingrich offers insight on 45th president. his administration, and how he got elected, in understanding trump. in hunger, "new york times" best selling author red sox an gaye details with weight, self-image and lincoln in the abolitionist
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looks at how john adam is with slavery and shape different points. reflects on becoming unexpected leader of a movement to support women's rights to drive and saudi arabia in daring to drive. in dream hoarders richard reeves offers he has thoughts on income inequality and argues that america is becoming class based society. also being released this week financial executive scott nations examines most significant stock market crashes over past century. and in a history of the united states in five crashes. national republican to eliminate dwroins privatize education and change the constitution in democracy in chains if. look for these titles in book stores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on c-span2. >> one of the reasons i wanted
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to write this book so much attention paid to the ownership i did epidemic in lower middle-class and upper class commit communities, the white aspect gets a lot of attention almost exclusively and fact is we can go to baltimore right now and go to east new york right now, we can em to harlem right now and find many, many people shooting up or using pills who are not white. who are not lower middle-class people this is an epidemic that affects all income groups all races, ages, demographics and that is something that's largely -- looked looked past in the media. i think in part because it is easier for reporters to go most reporters are white. i'm white i'm a reporter, and you know i'm speaking from experience and most news reporters are white. and i think white reporters feel comfortable going to white neighborhoods to write about white drug addicts but that's in
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my experience and more people of color you would see this aspect of the epidemic represented we're failing the press any way, i wanted to cover that. that aspect of it. so i'm going to talk to you be an area in baltimore called oxy alley a small stretch on pennsylvania avenue but a place i spend a lot of time writing about addicts there a place where some of the drugs and many other drugs ended up. they call it oxy alley. on first glance it looks like any other street? west billionth mother filled with homes discarded liquor bottled and addicts stumbling out of carryouts from michael jackson thriller video but out of this stretch of pennsylvania avenue reveals something more troubling. for a nearly every vacant ownership i did addicts are getting high on products two such users kesh sha jones 23 and terry 11, are hold up in one of those roach infested homes
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boiling down a batch of lewded pills and into is liquid form. kesh sha six-year-old son sits in corner playing with a truck while women friends since high school speculate about quality of the drugs they're about to ingest. going to be real nice kesha says melting with a lighter and spoon and terry readies the syringe. these then black 40 mill grandmothers i they'red a good news as hollywood says terry learned she's six weeks pregnant with her first child. she hasn't seen baby's father tyrone in five -- i got to make the most of it today because i can't be fool around with pills no more. terry says these are my sendoff. gives memorable names brndz that change every few weengs weengs berry f-16, hollywoods, body mothers, yellow cakes, mike thai sob, black come to thoughs, and red tails all the of the rage in april.
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in early may it was pink, blue angel and dark nights every addict wanted now black ivory they're clambering for. and bjf wouldn't let us down yet have they says kesha who like terry first began abusing pain pills securing them from bgf trainer. i'm sure they've been right by these too she said. in others addicts just like them people snorting, shooting from dusk till dun and got a product from dealers before pill city came along. this is interject jiminy masters who was this is -- i write about him sort of a crew that was going to battle with pill city over drug corner and in baltimore. the concentration of drug abusers on street is honk highest in the krkt. casualties of ongoing wave of urban addiction with ravaging america inner cities with little notice from wealthier enclaves.
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few outside the game venture to actually oxy alley or streets as places, quote, beyond reare demonstration end quote says christian of baltimore homicide detective who is investigating a number of killings in the area. you come here for one ever three reasons to buy drugs, sell drugs or because you don't care anymore and don't mind dying. she says, only other excuse is you're a homicide or narcotic detective. you can watch this and other programs online, at booktv.org. >> here's a look at some of the arts recently featured on booktv's afterwards, our weekly author interview program. nebraska senator ben argued that america youth are not prepared for adulthood and msnbc host discuss racial inequality in united states and stewart taylor examined college campus sexual assault policies. in the coming weeks on afterwards rachel el snyder and jonathon will report on how low and a moderate income families
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manage money. utah senator mike lee will recall the forgotten men and women who fight against a large federal government during america's founding. and this weengsd on afterwards, new america president and ceo ann marie slaughter comms how technology is exacting foreign affairs. >> it's the countries that have the most diversity internally and are most connected -- then to opportunities abroad that will flourish the most some people will hear that and say you mean like being connected to countries where -- there are criminals you know like drug runners or again, arm traffickers all of that or terrorists. we doangts want to be open to those countries. those countries you know those contacts, those networks bring danger. fair enough and you have to protect are against that.
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but those connections also bring us exports. and talent and the diversity that brings you new ideas all of the people who study innovation say look, innovation and creativity comes from the collision of unexpected things. so if we're all the same people and we grew up in the same place and we think about the same stuff, we are much less likely to come up with something new then when you reach out to the people you don't know so well and you expose yourself to new experiences and new ideas and you put those together with your older ideas. that's had the magic of the spark of create arivety and when you look at that from perspective of a country the united states of a country of grants, country that has connections -- all around the world again through our culture through our business, through our people, through our educational system -- in the world of the web, that
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openness is our greatest asset. afterwards airs on booktv every saturday. at 10 p.m. and sunday at 9 p.m. eastern. you can watch all previous afterwards programs on our website booktv.org. good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the baptist church in the city of new york. we're delighted that you can join us tonight. we're looking forward to a very informative and inspiring night. tonight you're joining us for a conversation on

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