Spirit of St. Louis Flight Characteristics

Interesting. I was not aware there was a 3rd airplane. I am assuming the one made for the movie is still in the Henry Ford Museum.

 

There is a similar Ryan plane in the Woolaroc museum in NE Oklahoma, also used as promotional for Phillips oil company.

(or at least used to be) -

 

The "Spirit" was designed by guys who knew what they were doing and had a specific mission to design to. The airplane has little or no dihedral, a ton of wing and as little tail surface as was needed to keep the pointy end going forward. All of which were done to minimize drag and carry as much fuel as possible. It was a great accomplishment at the time. Things like normal stability margins were known at the time, but were violated in order to meet the design requirements. Easy to fly was pretty far down the list of priorities when they were designing the airplane. While Lindy did a couple of tours with the airplane they put it into Smithstonion pretty early after that. I can imagine that he really didn't want to fly it that much either....

 

was the plane designed to have no forward visibility to emphasize Lindberg's instrument flying capabilities, done for some other reason (i.e. lower drag), or was this a design flaw?

 

I always wondered that, too. My guess is lower drag, anything else just seems unjustifiable.

 

I thought that area was all fuel tank.

 

ah, you are correct sir. thanks!

 

I knew one of the original Ryan employees who helped to build the Spirit Of St.Louis and i know the history of how that was done to suit Lindberg. The NYP was essentially a modified Ryan M-1. the fuselage was lengthened by one bay and a Wright J-5 was installed in place of the older J-4 or Hisso. Where the front cockpit/mail compartment was they made into a huge fuel tank that held something like 450 gallons. That extra weight required two things; a new strengthened landing gear and more wing. The landing gear went from the old type of criss- crossed axle struts to a spread type braced to the fuselage. They kept the same wing, no dihedral, and with a Clark-Y airfoil, and with 5 feet added to each wing tip that was also modernized by squaring it off. Lindberg insisted that the M-1 tail be retained even though it was too small because he didn't want any extra weight and drag. This was probably a misconception because he had to make up for the lack of tail lift by stabilizer trim and control input. The stab. trim set up was by means of a lift jack/bell crank thingy that moved the stab./elevator hinge spar. The trim control was a tall lever that took two hands to move. It was mounted on a big quadrant that had holes in the perimeter into which pegs on the trim handle fit. You had to pry the handle away from the quadrant to be able to move it to a new hole position and if your hands slipped off, the airplane went into an immediate dive. The ailerons were short span and deep chord ( Lindberg) to " eliminate drag". They were simple and lacked gap seals. Old footage of him landing shows him going from stop to stop to keep the wings near level. Lindberg elected to sit BEHIND the fuselage fuel tank because he didn't want to be in front of the tank if he had to ditch or crash, so he had windows to either side and the much ballyhoo'd periscope. If my memory is correct, the airplane had gross weight of 5500 pounds when he left for Paris. It had a 220 HP Wright J-5 up front.
By Lindberg's own admission, it was a terrible flying airplane that worked only because of his great flying skills.
Switches

 

Please see my post.
Switches

 

Lindbergh was a real expert at getting the most out of an airplane. He flew with a P-38 group in the Pacific on actual combat sorties and is even supposed to have shot down a Japanese aircraft. No way he could do that in Europe since he had gotten too cozy with the Nazis before the war and worked hard to get rid of the hit to his reputation.

During one particularly long patrol, everyone came back nearly dry on fuel. Lindbergh, however, still had a third of his fuel left. He taught the group several fuel saving techniques.

The film of his actual take-off in the Spirit is pretty scarey. He barely made it.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I have been in the cockpit of the The Spirit of St Louis and it is not the most inviting. During the skylight project at Air and Space I had the contract to protect the aircraft from falling construction material . I got to sit in every plane on display. Lots of fun.

 

Have you ever read the book about his being lost at sea in the Pacific with the crew of a B17 that ran out of gas? Interesting story. It's title is "We thought we heard the Angles sing". He was a real leader in that situation and several later credited him with their survival.


Interesting man. I went to see his grave site on Maui on one of my visits a couple of years ago. In a very remote area near where they lived.

I do believe he was duped by Hitler and used for propaganda. Too bad, he was forever tainted by it.

 

The San Diego Aerospace museum has a Spirit replica. It was built in the 80's to replace a replica that burned in the Aerospace museum fire of 1978.

I guess that makes 4.

 

If you look at where the fuel HAS to be in the airplane, it is at or near the center of gravity. With the immense change in weight of the airplane over the course of the flight as fuel is burned, the fuel must be removed from the cg so as not to grossly imbalance the airplane. The airplane gets lighter, but the cg is not changed (relatively).

A Vought F4U Corsair is similar with a huge tank in front of the pilot over the planes' cg.

 

Brian- I read it. Pretty amazing stuff. Close to Captain Bligh's keeping his guys alive by force of will, without the great feats of navigation included, however.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Something positive should be said about the Wright J-5 engine that didn't miss a beat for the whole flight (except when Lindy may have been a little late switching fuel tanks). For 1927 that was a remarkable achievement!

 

When I was a kid and living in Washington D.C. I used to walk all the way to the Smithsonian to peruse the old air museum and many times stared up at the Spirit of St. Louis that hung from the ceiling and thought that it was a beautiful airplane and to this day I think the same. It is a great example of a design meeting an objective. I have flown behind a Wright J-4 in a 1929 Travel Air and the torque and the noise with straight stacks is amazing. The J-4 and the J-5 were, in my mind, the best that Wright ever did. The one problem was the single shaft drive that ran both mags. A shaft failure produced great silence but Lindy's J-5 ran for 33 1/2 hours without a miss. I was born in 1926 and I grew up with the mystique of " Lucky Lindy"
Switches

 

Are you sure that was Lindberg? Eddie Rickenbacker went down in the Pacific and survived in a life raft with some of the crew. I think the book was called "And Seven Came Through".

Kurt O.

 

...except for extra fuel

 

You are correct, it was Rickenbacker, my mistake but the book I have is the title I gave.

It was written by the co-pilot in 43. I have a signed copy.

No wonder Terry was familiar with the story. It was about a WW1 guy.

 

Here is the San Diego plane, sorry about the bad shots but that's as far my arm would reach into the cockpit. Ironic that the first trans-Atlantic flight was made by someone who had a bulkhead seat.

Speaking of irony, didn't 'Wrong Way' Corrigan work on building the Spirit?
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You're correct, Douglas Corrigan was one of the mechanics that helped to build the Ryan NYP. The man to whom I referred was Ed Morrow. Both Morrow and Corrigan xan be seen in pictures of the assembly process of the completed airplane.
Switches

 

Brian- Brain fart for both of us. Captain Eddie's family name was Rickenbacher, but they changed it to Rickenbacker so it sounded less German.

Wrong Way Corrigan has his own set of stories.

Taz
Terry Phillips