Learning Center Our Enshrinees

Charles Augustus Lindbergh

• Learned to fly in Nebraska in 1922 and joined the flying circus performing primarily as a wing-walker and parachutist.
• Joined the Air Corps in 1924 and became an airmail pilot.
• On May 20th, 1927, in a Ryan monoplane named the Spirit of St. Louis he took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York and flew to Paris, France, therefore becoming the first person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. For this feat, he won the Orteig prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor.
• Promoted aviation flying the Spirit of St. Louis in a nationwide tour where he touched down in 49 states, visited 92 cities, gave 147 speeches, and rode 1,290 miles in parades.
• With his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (enshrined 1979), he helped inaugurate the first transcontinental airmail passenger service, participated in the Pan American expansion in the Caribbean, and made aerial observations of Mayan ruins in 1928.
• Surveyed an air route to East Asia with Anne Lindbergh in 1932.
• Surveyed transatlantic routes with his wife in 1933, covering 29,000 miles and visiting 23 countries.
• Prior to World War II he piloted trips with Anne to Germany, the Middle East and Russia.
• Helped establish B-24 production lines during World War II and participated in combat missions in the South Pacific, destroying at least one enemy plane.
• Continued his role as technical advisor to Pan American airlines after the war.
• Won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for his autobiographical history The Spirit of St. Louis.