lot but a quite capable pilot as well. A New York City hotel owner named Raymond Orteig started the Orteig Prize. The Orteig Prize was a twenty five thousand dollars for the first man to fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo and without stopping in between. Many pilots were injured or even killed trying to win the Orteig Prize. Raymond Orteig started the competition in 1919 and Charles Lindbergh had begun to take interest in it in the year 1926. In 1927 when somebody had yet to win the Orteig Prize Lindbergh found nine St. Louis businessmen to sponsor him because he thought with the right plane he would have no problem flying across the Atlantic Ocean. The businessmen began to promote the flight. That right plane was known as the Sprit of St. Louis. Ryan Aircraft Company in San Diego built the Sprit of St. Louis. He gave the Spirit of St. Louis a test drive from San Diego, California to New York, New York making one stop in St. Louis. That flight took twenty hours and twenty-one minutes setting a new transcontinieal record. Charles Lindbergh started his transatlantic flight in Roosevelt Field on Long Island; the time was seven fifty two a.m. He flew from Roosevelt Field to Le Bourget Airport in Paris. He landed at ten twenty two P.M. on May 21. It took him thirty-three and half-hours to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. He traveled three thousand six hundred miles until he finally reached Paris. At the airport one hundred thousand people gathered after hearing that he was sighted flying over Ireland. A few days later he flew to Croydon Airport in London. It was dark when he landed and there were not many people there to witness the landing. As a result of having few people there, there were no photographs taken. When he returned to America there were several photographers waiting to get a picture of him. The press began to give him nicknames such as Lucky Lindy and the Lone Eagle. The world instantly made him a hero and an international celeb...
