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Spirit of St Louis trivia


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Ok, not Mooney related, but I’m a big fan of the Spirit of St Louis....another great cross country plane...  I was at the old Air and Space museum this weekend.  Had not been in years.  In looking up at the plane, I noticed these two oddities.  I couldn’t remember seeing them in historical photos or reproductions.  In a Google search, they only seem to appear in museum images, but can’t find any description.  Anybody know the answer?  No prizes beyond Mooneyspace fame and glory.

69F022D9-3122-44CD-B029-97036F38D513.jpeg

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31 minutes ago, Runway37 said:

Near or directly under the stowed inflatable life raft?

NASM-SI-71-1090.jpg

Yes, but I don’t see these exterior protrusions in original pictures of the aircraft.  Seems draggy...even for the era.  

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After Lindbergh's historic flight to Paris he also flew back about a month later! This may or may not be trivia since we are focused on the flight to Paris. After he flew back from Paris he landed at Lambert Field. He then flew a tour of Latin America. These tubes were not original to the plane but were added for the Latin America tour and were used to store flares. They were dropped by the pilot to aid in night landings.

 

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https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/multimedia/vr?passthrough=/sites/default/files/images/panoramas/files/360/interior/A19280021000_1

Great link, Rich!

The link I copied has an older style 3D view around the inside of the aircraft... I found this while looking around Rich’s link...

I found it interesting that it has a retractable periscope mounted at the instrument panel... with a slide / knob... to retract it...

Would have been an opportunity for Rob’s first Servo driven retract devices... :)

The plane has a wind powered generator...

 

Great learning tool for how things really were... School books always seam to over simplify the good stuff.  :)

Best regards,

-a-

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On this topic I remember reading that Lindbergh’s granddaughter spoke of him traveling to the museum incognito to see his airplane a number of times. He even made arrangements for an “after hours” visit where they made provisions for him to sit in the cockpit again, later in life.

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