The Atlantic has been flown before, but never was a
wonderful feat performed with such nonchalance as by Captain Charles Lindbergh, who started from Long Island on the morning of Friday, May 20th, and reached Paris in 331 hours. Other pilots who have crossed the Atlantic have had companions, but Captain Lindbergh flew alone. He had talked little about his adventure and started on it in the casual and negligent manner which has earned him the reproachful but admiring nickname of " the flying fool." The night before he started he slept only for a couple of hours—an unusual preparation for what was, among many other things, a supreme test of endurance. His machine was not designed for ocean flying ; he carried hardly any navigating instruments ; he had no wireless and he took with him for food and drink only some sandwiches and four quarts of water. When he disappeared into the rain few people expected to hear of him again. The excitement caused by his arrival in Paris was as great as that caused in the United States by the news of his arrival. On the same morning on which Captain Lindbergh left for New York Flight- Lieutenant Carr and Flight-Lieutenant Gillman started from Lincolnshire to try to fly without stopping to Karachi, a distance of more than 4,000 miles. They came down in the Persian Gulf through a lack of petrol but were rescued by a steamer. Their seaplane was destroyed.
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