The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum will host a series of special events in May to mark the 75th anniversary of Charles A. Lindbergh making the first solo trans-Atlantic flight, one of the great milestones of the 20th century.
The museum will publish Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis in association with Harry N. Abrams Inc. Written by the chairman of the museum's aeronautics division, Dominick A. Pisano, and curator F. Robert van der Linden, the book examines that 1927 flight between New York and Paris in terms of Lindbergh's sophisticated grasp of aviation technology, his superb skills as a pilot and his undeniable bravery. It also looks at how Lindbergh's almost unprecedented celebrity affected the rest of his life.
The Spirit of St. Louis, one of the museum's most famous icons, hangs in the "Milestones of Flight" gallery. Satisfying a request by Institution officials, Lindbergh presented the aircraft to the Smithsonian in 1928. One dollar was paid for the plane as a legality.
The foreword of the lavishly illustrated book is written by Reeve Lindbergh, youngest child of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh and author of children's books, novels and works of nonfiction.
On May 23, Reeve Lindbergh will deliver the 2002 Charles A. Lindbergh Memorial Lecture in the museum's Lockheed Martin IMAX® Theater. She will share personal recollections of her father and reflect on his pioneering career in aviation. Lindbergh will join the authors of Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis for a book-signing following the lecture.
The Lindbergh Memorial Lecture is free but tickets are required. They are available at the theater box office, and through Tickets.com by calling (800) 529-2440 or by visiting the www.tickets.com Web site. There is a small service fee on all Tickets.com orders. The 2002 Charles A. Lindbergh Memorial Lecture is made possible by Bombardier Aerospace.
On May 21, the 75th anniversary of Lindbergh's arrival at Le Bourget Field in France, the museum will show rarely seen footage of the flight and resulting celebrations. Museum docents will conduct special tours focusing on the Spirit of St. Louis and the museum's many artifacts related to the trans-Atlantic journey and the Lindberghs. The museum's education unit will have its hands-on Aviation Discovery Cart near the Spirit of St. Louis for young people and their families to experience some of the technology Lindbergh used to cross the Atlantic and in his career as an airmail pilot.
On May 22, the authors of Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis will lead a special noon "Curator's Choice" tour of Lindbergh artifacts and discuss the many misconceptions that surround the first solo trans-Atlantic flight. A book-signing with the authors and Reeve Lindbergh will be held at 3 p.m.
From May 11 through Sept. 11, the museum will exhibit 20 large-format, life-size scale color photographs of some of the world's most famous flying machines-taken from the pilot's perspective, including Lindbergh's inside the Spirit of St. Louis. The images in this traveling exhibition are from the new book At the Controls: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Book of Cockpits.
The Lindbergh special events are part of the museum's continuing 25th anniversary celebration, which began July 1, 2001. Since opening in 1976, Air and Space has become the most popular museum in the world, attracting more than 9 million people a year.
The museum is currently building a companion facility at Washington Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia, which will house the 80 percent of the national collection that has not been accessible to the general public. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center will open in December 2003 to mark the centennial of the Wright brothers' first powered flight.