Spirit of St. Louis

This shot features the Spirit of St Louis, which was the first aircraft flown non-stop between Europe and America by Charles Lindbergh in 1927. This is the actual aircraft, it was presented to the Smithsonian by Charles Lindbergh on 30 April 1928.

An interesting fact, Charles Lindbergh received a $25,000 prize for completing the flight (I didn't know this before visiting the museum, and thought it was pretty cool).

The aircraft is flanked by Space Ship One (the first private aircraft to reach space) and the Bell X-1 (the aircraft Chuck Yeager flew when he became the first person to break the sound barrier). It is amazing just how many interesting sites and pieces of history are on display in Washington DC, you could spend a month just going to the attractions and museums and you still wouldn't be able to see everything.

Spirit of St Louis