He had been awake for 23 hours before he even took off. Charles Lindbergh spent the night of 19 May 1927 in a hotel near Roosevelt Field, Long Island, unable to sleep, while rain hammered the airfield and weather reports from the Atlantic were ambiguous at best. At 7:52 AM the next morning, so loaded with fuel that his Ryan NYP barely cleared the telephone wires at the end of the runway, he pointed the Spirit of St. Louis east and climbed into cloud.

The Spirit of St. Louis had no forward-facing window. To reduce weight, Lindbergh had replaced the windshield with a large fuel tank. To see ahead, he had to lean out of a side window, or use a periscope he could extend from the instrument panel. He was flying the most famous aeroplane in the world with less visibility than a tank driver.

He flew through sleet. He flew through fog so thick he couldn’t see his wingtips. Somewhere over the North Atlantic, ice began forming on the wings. He descended to within 10 feet of the wave tops to find warmer air. He was so sleep-deprived that he began hallucinating — seeing ghostly figures in the cockpit beside him, hearing voices. He flew 27 hours before the Irish coast appeared beneath him, exactly where his dead reckoning said it would be.

The Welcome at Le Bourget

What greeted him at Le Bourget airfield outside Paris on the night of 21 May is one of the most extraordinary scenes in aviation history. An estimated 150,000 people had gathered at the field, their cars forming a vast sea of headlights on the roads for miles around. As the Spirit of St. Louis touched down at 10:24 PM, the crowd surged onto the runway. Police were overwhelmed. Men tore at the fabric of his aircraft for souvenirs. Lindbergh was lifted from the cockpit and carried through the mob on shoulders, his helmet torn from his head. He later said it was the most frightening experience of the flight.

He had done what six pilots before him had died attempting. The Orteig Prize — $25,000 for the first non-stop transatlantic flight — had gone unclaimed for eight years. Lindbergh had entered the race on a shoestring budget, backing from a group of St. Louis businessmen, and a plane built in 60 days by a small California company. He had chosen to fly solo to save weight and avoid having to share responsibility.

The flight made Lindbergh the most famous man in the world overnight. He toured 82 cities in 48 states in the Spirit of St. Louis and was received by presidents and kings. The aeroplane is now displayed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, hanging next to the Wright Flyer — the two great symbols of American aviation ambition, 24 years apart. Lindbergh’s story is complicated by his pre-war isolationism and sympathy toward Nazi Germany, but the flight itself remains a monument to human courage and preparation. Thirty-three hours. No sleep. No forward-facing window. And a landing so perfect the French crowd wept.

Watch: Documentary