Slipstream: the autobiography of an air craftsman

by Eugene E. Wilson

To this suggestion Lindbergh replied to the effect that he hated to seem ungrateful, but he had no intention of going into the movies. If he were to go into the movies, someone would try to make a sheik out of him and he didn’t think he would make much of a sheik. At this comment, I moved a little closer to the cabin skylight.

His advisors now shifted over to the possibilities of Slim’s becoming interested in the air lines. After all, he’d had experience as a mail pilot and could easily take over something big. Maybe Bill Boeing of Seattle would be interested in taking him on—think of all the publicity it would bring.

Lindbergh’s reply to this was again that he disliked appearing ungrateful. It was true he had had some experience in air transport, but he wasn’t too proud of the fact that he had had to parachute from two of his planes and had lost them both. He didn’t know anything much about transportation, and if he went into something he didn’t know about he would likely make a fool of himself. He hoped that from here on he might not make any bigger fool of himself than he had made already.

It now began to appear that a lot more sense was coming from the advised than from the advisors; I moved over and sat down near Jerry Land, who grinned proudly at me. Overhead the Martin T4M seemed to be droning along with confidence.

The third suggestion offered Lindbergh had to do with aircraft manufacture. It was suggested that after all the publicity on the Spirit of St. Louis, a lot of craft of that model might be sold. Perhaps the men from St. Louis who had backed Lindbergh on the flight to Paris might finance an aircraft manufacturing company in St. Louis of which the young pilot might become the president.

Lindbergh shook his head quickly. He had a crazy idea that he would like to have his Paris flight redound to the benefit of aviation as a whole. If he went into manufacture, that would put him in competition with others in the business; he didn’t want to compete with them but rather to help the whole aviation game along. If the flight was worth anything at all, he would like to see it advance aviation. He didn’t appear to be interested in trying to make money out of it.

By the time Charles Lindbergh had received his friends’ advice, the Martin T4M had finished its run successfully and landed at Anacostia. Soon the Sylph put back to the Navy Yard and we all got into cars to ride up to Mr. Hoover’s house. Mrs. Hoover met us at the door and showed most of the group out onto the porch. Four of us remained behind to sit down around a table and hear a report from the agent of Mr. George Palmer Putnam.

Charles Lindbergh took his seat at the head of a table. On his right sat a keen young Army pilot, Lt. Robert Douglas, who had been a student aviator with Lindbergh at Kelly Field. I sat down at Lindbergh’s left while Mr. Putnam’s representative stood at the end of the table opposite him. The man from Putnam’s held the galley proof in his hand and displayed considerable pride over it. The galley had been struck off in record time.

It seemed that the book really divided into three parts: the first had to do with Lindbergh’s early life; the second part reviewed his flight training, his barnstorming, and his experience as an air-mail pilot; the third part, which covered the technical aspects of the New York-Paris flight, had been prepared by someone in the publicity department of the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, makers of the engine of the Spirit of St. Louis.

The first part had been written by a journalist who had accompanied Lindbergh on the trip home in the cruiser Memphis. This section of the book was considered to be the meat of the cocoanut and had been well advertised. It was the part of Lindbergh’s life not already widely publicized. Mr. Putnam’s representative hoped Colonel Lindbergh would not find it necessary to make changes in it; its author would be disappointed. Of course, corrections of typographical errors were in order but extensive revisions would delay publication, and time was of the essence. Some parts of this section might sound a little overdone to the colonel, but, after all, that was what sold books and the publisher had already committed himself to the public in forecasting a few sensations.