Lindbergh's "New Spirit Of St. Louis" Comes Home

The New Spirit of St. Louis -- the Lancair Columbia 300 that carried Erik Lindbergh from New York to Paris in 2002, recreating his grandfather’s historic flights -- is headed home to the city for which it’s named.

At a Tuesday press conference at Lakeland 2007, Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation president Wan Abd Majid handed over the keys to the New Spirit to the St. Louis Science Center, an institution that was central in the New Spirit’s most famous flights.

Gregg Maryniak, director of the J.S. McDonnell Planetarium, Vice President Aerospace Sciences at the St. Louis Science Center, said that the institution and the New Spirit already have a lot of history.

“The St. Louis Science Center was deeply involved in the Lindbergh flights in 2002 as well as subsequent X Prize activities,” said Maryniak. “We’re tremendously excited to receive the New Spirit and thank Columbia for its generosity on so many levels. It’s great to see this historic aircraft return to St. Louis. It may be retired from flight, but it will continue to support aerospace education in our region for years to come.”

Maryniak (shown below) explained that the New Spirit will become part of the St. Louis Science Center’s flight education program for young people, including economically disadvantaged St. Louis teens. The program is primarily offered in a facility that was used as mission control for Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight and was later employed for the same purpose during SpaceShipOne’s successful bid to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize award in 2004.

Maryniak’s personal connection to the New Spirit goes back even farther than that of the St. Louis Science Center. Maryniak was Executive Director of the X Prize Foundation when Erik Lindbergh marked the 75th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh’s historic flights by recreating them in the New Spirit. He credits the funds raised by Lindbergh’s flights and the media attention that they generated with breathing life into the X Prize Foundation at a time when it needed a lift.

“The Foundation was facing a lot of challenges at that time and Erik’s activities, which were enabled by Columbia and the New Spirit, gave the X Prize the boost it needed to keep moving forward toward its ultimate goal of motivating the first privately funded space flights. The X Prize might not have succeeded if it weren’t for Erik Lindbergh, the genrosity of Columbia and the New Spirit.”

In addition to benefiting the X Prize, Lindbergh’s flights also raised money for the Arthritis Foundation and the Lindbergh Foundation.

The New Spirit was originally conceived as Columbia 300 SN 40003, just the third Columbia ever built and the conforming prototype that performed the certification flight tests for the model. When Lindbergh approached Columbia about using one of their aircraft for his planned flights, the management team set about exploring just what would need to be done to make it possible.

“We looked at the requirements for Lindbergh’s flights, particularly the non-stop, trans-Atlantic leg due to its length and exposure to danger,” said Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation Vice President Ron Wright. “As it turned out, very little needed to be modified on the aircraft other than increasing fuel capacity to provide the necessary range.”

The aircraft’s wing was ultimately replaced with a modified, “super wet” wing with a 240 gallon capacity. The back seat was also removed to make room for an 85 gallon auxiliary fuel tank. Satellite video, telephone and telemetry gear was added to the cockpit to assist with communications and documenting the flight for a History Channel special. Other than that, the aircraft was essentially stock.

“The Columbia airframe is extremely robust,” Wright said. “The New Spirit took off about 1,000 pounds over max gross weight without any problem and then carried Erik from New York to Paris at an average speed of better than 210 miles per hour. It made the trip about twice as fast as the original Spirit. Upon landing in Paris, Erik reported that he still had better than four and a half hours of fuel remaining. He could have kept right on going to Russia if he’d wanted to.”

Lindbergh said the New Spirit of St. Louis helped to change his life. “I had been a flight instructor several years earlier, but severe rheumatoid arthritis had made piloting an aircraft almost impossible. A new drug called Enbrel helped me regain my mobility and gave me the chance to undertake this project.

"Then the people at Columbia and the New Spirit provided me with the support and the platform to make my dream a success," Lindbergh said. "I owe them a debt of gratitude for helping me relaunch my aviation career.”

FMI: www.flycolumbia.com, www.slsc.org/