continued... Charles Lindbergh went on to set more records. The one that we found most notable was In 1931 and 1933, he and his wife, Anne, traveled in an airplane to five continents via never-before-flown routes. Ships supplied them with fuel and oil. They carried supplies to maintain and repair the plane and did the work themselves. They tried to plan stops where there was lodging and meals, but they often slept in the plane and ate canned rations. Sometimes, the landings were on a body of water and they’d spend the night anchored. When they knew they would be doing a water landing, they’d switch their wheels for pontoons.
Anne was one of the first women — maybe even the first — to get a glider pilot license in 1929. She earned her pilot’s license in 1931. He operated the radio (in morse code) and took over flying when Charles slept or took sextant sightings. We believe this was the Lindbergh’s plane.
Another large display was about the US Army’s around-the-world trip in Douglas World Cruisers in 1924. The craft had originally been a torpedo bomber that had been modified after World War I. The goal was to prove that an airplane could make it around the entire globe and to show the value of the new US Army’s Air Service. They sent out four of these 2-seat biplanes, each with 2-men crews. Seventy-four landing sites had been pre-selected. US Navy escort ships followed below. At each landing site, the ship’s crews helped with maintenance, repairs, and refueling. The ships carried 35 replacement engines. Like the Lindbergh’s they often had to change back and forth between wheels and pontoons. The signs didn’t say how the Lindbergh’s managed to switch between the two, but for the Douglas World Cruisers, the ships would lift the planes out of the water with a crane. Two planes completed the 27,553-mile journey, which spurred global air travel and trade. We think this was the plane, but again, it was hard to match the planes hanging from the ceiling with the signs on the ground.
