PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Re First Hard Runway On Airfield / Aerodrome
Old 26th Sep 2002, 14:08
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Iron City
 
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Checked the FAA history web site and found no refs. to first paved runway. Recall seeing pictures of Lindbergh at Le Bourget and it being paved where the aircraft rolled out, at least.

Thought the entry for Lindbergh's flight, reprinted here in it's entirity, would be interesting to readers of this forum.

May 20-21, 1927: Charles A. Lindbergh, a former air mail pilot, made the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic in an airplane, a Ryan monoplane dubbed the Spirit of St. Louis. He flew the 3,610 miles from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, N.Y., to Le Bourget Field, Paris, France, in 33 hours 29 minutes.
Lindbergh's feat provided a strong stimulus to U.S. aviation, and made him a world hero whose fame overshadowed earlier Atlantic crossings by air. The first transatlantic flight had been made in stages on May 16-27, 1919, from Newfoundland to Lisbon, via the Azores, by a U.S. Navy Curtiss NC-4 seaplane, flown by a six-man crew commanded by Albert C. Read. That same year, on Jun 14-15, Royal Air Force pilots John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown crossed the Atlantic nonstop from Newfoundland to Ireland in a Vickers Vimy. The following month, another Royal Air Force crew, commanded by G. H. Scott, flew the airship R-34 from Scotland to New York (Jul 2-6), then returned to England (Jul 9-13). Between Jul 30 and Aug 31, 1924, two U.S. Army Douglas World Cruiser seaplanes (manned by Lowell H. Smith, Leslie P. Arnold, Erik H. Nelson, and John Harding), flew from England to Labrador during the course of history's first round-the-world flight. Three other aircraft with multiple crew members had also crossed the Atlantic before Lindbergh's "Lone Eagle" flight.
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