Poking through my archive I found this shot, photographer unknown, taken at Blackbushe after the Shoreham accident of August 1951.
The fuel tank was not removed for these flights. IIRC they perched behind the pilot but there was no seat there so it must have been a tad uncomfortable. And let’s not talk about weight and balance issues… 😀
Edited to add: all the flights where he carried others were of fairly short duration, 10 to 15 minutes at most. That ties in with the fact that there was no real accommodation for passengers.
That must have been a tight squeeze! I was in the pilot’s seat and I can tell you there is not much room – panel right in front of you. I kept thinking of Jimmy Stewart and that fly 🙂
Confirmed
Syracuse NY Journal 1927 Friday Aug 12, 1927
“Universal Staff Correspondent.
DETROIT, Mich.. Aug. 12.—Henry Ford and his son Edsel Ford, took their first airplane ride yesterday and chose as their pilot Col. Charles A. Lindbergh , the Nation’s air hero. Who flew them around Ford Airport in his Spirit of St Louis. “Can read whole article here
Interesting that he flew the Ford Fliver at Detroit, the EAA have a replica of that too!
Came across this shot in my archive. Got it years ago and can’t recall where from but it was taken at the old York aerodrome sometime in the late 1940’s to mid-1950’s.
They probably sat in front of the pilot, I have sat in one of the EAA replica’s of the Spirit at Oshkosh and it is configured to seat passengers in a small cabin between the pilot and the firewall which was occupied by a large fuel tank in the original – it has side windows too (which the original doesn’t have). I’m guessing that Lindy had the tank removed after the Trans-Atlantic flight.
This is the passenger-carrying replica at Oshkosh:
This is the original (the replica has panels which can cover the cabin windows to look like the cowlings of the original):
Another shot of the original …
When you see what they started with they did a pretty good job of putting together a representative high-back, Griffon Spit 🙂
Here she is at Redhill c.1973 when I was a member of the Midland Aircraft Preservation Society and we had just acquired her for preservation:
Sign In
