Page 10 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1978
Just lihe Lindy’s
‘Spirit’replica built
United Press International
SAN DIEGO — It is 1927 and Ed
Morrow labors under the gun to
meet the 60-day deadline for com
pletion of Charles A. Lindbergh s
Spirit of St. Louis.
The 30-man crew originally had
been given 90 days to build the
load-lifter monoplane, but the pace
had to be quickened because other
aviators with bigger bankrolls also
wanted to be the first to cross the
Atlantic and were hurriedly con
structing their own planes.
“Nobody knew better than I what
that meant — cutting a whole
month from the production
schedule when we would have been
doing well to get it done in 90 days, ”
Morrow said.
But the crew developed a system.
When one group finished a part, it
would double up with another crew
to complete another part.
They worked around the clock,
some grabbing cat naps on the floor
while others “didn’t sleep at all.”
“It was a very tired bunch that
moved that plane out to the field for
final assembly,” Morrow said.
With Lindbergh’s feather-light
wicker chair set in the cockpit as the
crowning touch. Morrow was the
last person in the factory to bid
“Lucky Lindy” goodbye.
“He bowed his head over and
V2
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said, ‘Well, Ed, I guess this is good
bye,”’ Morrow recalled. “He ex
tended his hand to me, then paused
for a second, and said, T might get
wet.”
Morrow snapped back, “We
didn’t break our necks on this plane
for 60 days just to have it or you get
wet!”
Lindbergh smiled. “That makes
me feel a lot better. ”
History books will note that
Lindbergh took off from San Diego
May 10, 1927, for New York en route
to the first solo crossing of the Atlan
tic Ocean by airplane.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh died
on the island of Maui on Aug. 26,
1974, but the screeching sound of
metal files meeting metal can still be
heard in a small airplane hangar on
San Diego’s Harbor Island.
It is 1978, and 78-year-old H.
Edwin Morrow is laboring — not so
much under the gun this time — to
build an exact replica of the Spirit of
St. Louis, right down to
Lindbergh’s wicker chair.
“We don’t have a tight deadline
this time,” said Morrow. “There are
only about a dozen of us, all volun
teers and mostly amateurs to the
job. We just want to fly this plane to
say it has been flown. ”
While the 1927 project was dedi
cated to Lindbergh’s dream of cros
sing the Atlantic, the 1978 efiFort is
to restore what an arsonist’s match
destroyed.
Last Feb. 22, an intentionally set
fire reduced to ruins the city’s
landmark Aero-Space Museum, tak-
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ing with it a reproduction of the
original Spirit of St. Louis which
hangs in the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington.
The reproduction was built for
Jimmy Stewart’s 1957 movie about
the famed aviator and was flown in
the Paris Air Show in 1967.
“It was a real good machine, but it
was a little on the rough side,” said
Jim Dewey, 72, an aviator for more
than 50 years who is project man
ager of the 1978 “Spirit.”
“It was built for the movie so they
didn't have to go into that much de
tail, ’ Dewey said. “The aircraft
we’re working on will be an exact
replica.
The new “Spirit,” currently look
ing like some giant yellow insect
with metal tubing outlining its
fuselage, is more than 40 percent
completed.
Dewey says he hopes the plane —
with himself at the controls — can
be flight-tested before Dec. 17.
That is the date the new Museum
of International Aerospace Hall of
Fame is to be formally dedicated to
commemorate the Wright Brothers’
Kitty Hawk flight.
Dewey, famed for his replicas of
classic airplanes, heads several vol
unteers ranging in age from 21 to 83
(the average age is about 70) who are
using old photographs, plans of the
original and sometimes just memory
in the production of the copy.
Morrow is the only member of
the group who worked on the first
“Spirit.”
Another difference will be the
fabric used to cover the airplane and
the method of drying it.
Irish linen was the original cover
and dope the drying agent.
to build up his endurance. He
meticulous type, a very good
ner who had more experience
Thi
et '
iant
ited
anyone of his day.
ith i
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Dewey revealed that there will be
some differences between
Lindbergh’s original and the flying
model of the replica.
For example, the first “Spirit”
had no brakes and was dependent
on the pilot’s skill to land it “by the
seat of his pants on a dirt runway
with only a rudder to dig into the
ground to slow it down.
Dewey said the final museum re
plica also will be without brakes, but
when it is flown it must be equipped
with updated equipment to meet
FAA requirements for landing on
today’s concrete runways.
The Spirit of St. Louis, 1978
style, will be covered with Dacron,
tightened by blasts of hot air from a
lady’s hairdryer.
"It lasts longer, is endlessly easier
and amateur hands can’t louse it
up,” Dewey explains.
The fuel tank of the flying replica
also will be different. While
Lindbergh’s plane had a 450-gallon
tank, the copy will have but a 50-
gallon capacity.
“It will be just enough to pitty-
pitty-put around town for about four
hours,” Dewey says.
The world may remember
Lindbergh by his nickname, “Lucky
Lindy,” but Dewey says luck played
little part in the aviator’s single-
handed trans-Atlantic crossing.
“While the plane was being built,
he would walk up and down the
beach, staying awake for 24 hours.
"They called him ’Lucky Liti
but it was not true. It was'noli
ter.
dec
It was planning. It was real
planning. He hit the coastofli
three miles off course froa
York and you can’t even doif
today with a modern airplane'
tur
ored
The
m d
Mo:
orth
d ar
"The plane was the bestofitsilleavy
ieoj| fem.
He could have gone to Romeocl
fuel he had. The Spirit of St. Li ashe
can still outdo 99 percent oft The
airplanes in the sky today in tens ™ec
endurance. Only the 747canB rtun
far. ®nter
Dewey said Lindbergtnvalj s y(
"do-it-yourself hero" who was Be re
what the world needed. |s 0ll
The
“We need another hero likelk
Maybe someone going to themj§Eoc
in his own rocket that he madeic
own backyard. That would bes:
•ar to Lindbergh's accomplish
"The age of adventure is not«
it’s just a little harder today.”
'ALTERATIONS'
in the grand tradition of
OLD TEXAS WHERE MOTHER
TAUGHT DAUGHTER THE FINE
ART OF SEWING — SO HELEN
MARIE TAUGHT EDITH MARIE
THE SECRETS OF SEWING AND
ALTERATIONS.
AT WELCH’S CLEANERS, WE
NOT ONLY SERVE AS AN EXCEL
LENT DRY CLEANERS BUT WE
SPECIALIZE IN ALTERING HARD
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TAPERED, SHIRTS, JEAN HEMS,
WATCH POCKETS. ETC.
Deejay sets record
(WE RE JUST A FEW
BLOCKS NORTH OF FED
MART.)
MSC
Human Rights in
EASTERN EUROPE,
SPAIN,
United Press International
MARQUETTE, Mich. — Disc jockey John Heller has talked him
self into the record books by staying on the air for 240 hours and 13
minutes.
Heller, 23, who works for radio station WDMJ, set a world reccnf
for non-stop broadcasting when he beat the old on-the-air markofS
hours and 22 minutes held by a Milwaukee broadcaster.
Heller finally called it quits at 12:13 p.m. Saturday.
“He had some rough moments, but always managed to make#
through,” a station spokesman said Saturday.
Heller’s radio stunt, fourth in a series of four fund-raising stunts,
was part of a station effort to collect $6, (XX) for a local exercise trail
Listeners pledged a total of $1,483 during Heller’s broadcasting
marathon, station officials said.
Record-book rules allowed Heller to take a five-minute breakeadi
hour, although he occasionally saved up some of In's breaks to take
longer rests.
The spokesman said Heller used neither coffee nor pills during hi'
non-stop performance, which began Sept. 13.
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