Posted on 11/13/2010 5:17:28 AM PST by atomic conspiracy
Charles Lindbergh is renowned as the first person to fly across the Atlantic, but according to new research, he was beaten to the achievement ten days earlier. According to French aviation enthusiast Bernard Decré, Lindbergh was only the first to complete the crossing and survive, with two French pilots believed to have reached the coast of Canada ten days before Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis touched down in Paris in May 1927. New documentary evidence found in the U.S. national archives may prove that Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli completed a transatlantic crossing and were the first men to do so, though they were likely killed in the process. The fate of Nungesser and Coli has been called the 'Everest of aviation mysteries' with their disappearance sparking a raft of conspiracy theories, including speculation that their sea plane, L'Oiseau Blanc, was shot down by Maine bootleggers who feared police surveillance. But the discovery of a U.S. Coast Guard telegram which tells of the wreckage of a white aircraft seen floating some 200 miles off the New York coast on August 18 1927 could have solved the riddle - and changed Lindbergh's role in the history books. The American aviator successfully flew the Spirit of St Louis from New York to Le Bourget in France on May 20-12 1927, winning a $25,000 prize offered by hotelier Raymond Orteig as well as claiming the U.S. Medal of Honour and the French Legion d'Honneur. Yet according to Mr Decré, 70, Lindbergh's triumph - and the improved U.S.-Franco relations that followed - was only made possible by a cover-up of the fateful flight of L'Oiseau Blanc. Wrecked: Documentary evidence tells of the remains of a white plane, possibly Nungesser and Coli's L'Oiseau Blanc (pictured), being found 200 miles off the New York coast
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The first people to fly across the Atlantic were the crew of the US Navy flying boat NC-4, who flew from Newfoundland to Plymouth England via the Azores and Portugal in 1919. They arrived on May 31st, but the landing in Lisbon a few days earlier completed the crossing so far as a record is concerned. They were followed shortly by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, who flew non-stop from Newfoundland to Clifden, Ireland in mid-June.
The British airshp R-34 made the first east-west crossing from East Fortune Scotland to Mineola New York between July 5-9 1919. The airship carried 34 people including a stowaway. It returned to Britain a few days later, completing the first double crossing.
Note that all of these flights took place within a few week's time nearly 8 years before Nungesser, Coli, and Lindbergh. There were a number of others in the intervening time.
Lindbergh's flight was a highly publicized attempt to collect a specific prize for the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris. It was also the first solo flight across the Atlantic and the first non-stop flight from the US to mainland Europe. More than 80 people had flown the Atlantic before him and lived to tell about it (unlike Nungesser and Coli). As for the disparaging comment about Alcock and Brown's flight being "short," even that qualification does not justify the headline, since the non-stop delivery flight of the Airship Los Angeles in 1924 was actually much longer than Lindbergh's (Friedrichhafen Germany to Lakehurst New Jersey).
Btw, headline edited to fit 100 character limit.
Fine with me. In later years, Lindbergh was an envirofascist, an anti-civilization, tree-hugging, earth worshipping whackjob.
True but let’s go to war with France anyway....
If the wreckage was 200 miles off the coast, then they didn’t make it. Also I know that it takes 2 frogs to equal 1 American, but if there were 2 of them then it was not a solo flight.
Case closed.
He had his faults but P-38 pilots in the Pacific seemed to like the modifications he made to the plane to get better mileage.
Seems like I read in Ripley’s when I was a kid that a couple dozen people preceded Lindy in dirigibles and larger, multi-passenger aircraft.
I’ve always known he wasn’t the first, just the first solo flight.
two French pilots believed to have reached the coast of Canada ten days before Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis touched down in Paris in May 1927.
(2) They crashed. Landing the plane is part of the process. I know any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, but they didn’t walk away—they were killed.
It was more like 80. Alcock and Brown made a dual flight in 1919, just like Nungesser and Coli would have 8 years later.
Yes, I saw this story on a show about the air war in the Pacific.
Did I mention he was chummy with Nazis?
It doesn’t count if you die tryin’.
Lindbergh’s claim wasn’t the first crossing but the first solo crossing.
http://www.esbnyc.com/tourism/tourism_facts_esbnews_july2000.cfm
Yeah, I know...but he was Scanian too, so I had to say something good about him.
Shoot, half the British Royal Family as well as Old Man Kennedy were taken in by the Nazis early on.
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