The fuss over the Lindbergh flight is very strange (to a non-American). As many have noted - he wasn’t the first to do it - he was the first to do it solo and non-stop. Previously, flying boats were the means of flying the Atlantic.
Certainly a note-worthy achievement - probably equivalent to Bleriot crossing the English channel. It was always going to be achieved - planes were getting faster, more efficient - but still, it’s a milestone worthy of recognition.
But Lindbergh’s feat was played up as One Of The Most Noteworthy Episodes Of The Century (I’ve seen a poll that asked people (in the US) to rate the Top events of the 20th century - the top 4 (can’t remember the exact order) were WW1, WW2, Moon landing - and Lindbergh. I have a feeling Lindbergh might have been rated higher than WW1).
Bill Bryson’s book 1927 touches heavily on this, and you can’t help but get the impression that it was a media-driven storm that gathered it’s own momentum such that the Celebration of Lindbergh was every bit as important as the actual feat.
When I started this thread, more than seven years ago, the information I had was that Amelia Earhart was the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. This is stated on her official website:
The factoid was something I grew up with. I’d never heard of Bert Hinkler.
But it’s not because ‘he was Australian’, as Giles suggests. Up here, ‘the Atlantic’ means the ocean between North America and Europe. The one between South America and Africa is ‘the South Atlantic’. Admittedly, we tend to be North-centric. Given that wiggle room, i.e., that ‘the Atlantic’ refers to the North Atlantic Ocean, Earhart was the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic. But since ‘North Atlantic’ and ‘South Atlantic’ are subdivisions of one ocean, Bert Hinkler was the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Ignorance fought! (Though Earhart still gets noted with an asterisk. )
You could say that about any achievement. Humans were always going to set foot on the Moon, but Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin were the first to do it. Someone would always run a mile in four minutes, but Roger Bannister was the first one to do it. Someone would always circumnavigate the Earth, but Ferdinand Magellan gets the credit for it. (In actuality, he got croaked in The Philippines; but his fleet made it.) Someone would always circumnavigate the globe, non-stop in an aircraft; but Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager did it first. Achievements need to be looked at in the context of their times.
When Raymond Orteig offered $25,000 for the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris, it was like when Peter Diamandis offered $10 million to the privately-funded team who could fly a three-passenger vehicle to an altitude of 100 km twice in two weeks. There was a lot of interest because it had never been done before. Indeed, the Orteig Prize had no takers for five years, and Orteig re-issued the challenge. Flying non-stop from New York to Paris would ‘always’ be done, but it was impossible in 1919. When anyone can spend a few/several hundred dollars and fly across oceans while they nap, it’s pretty mundane. In 1927 it was A Big Thing – and Lindbergh did it alone, spending 30 hours at the controls. I’ve driven a car for 24 hours, and it’s not easy to go that long. The achievement wasn’t crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The achievement was going it non-stop with the equipment they had nearly 90 years ago – and doing it solo to boot.
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