2027 Show Theme: 100th Anniversary of the First Solo Nonstop Transatlantic Flight

ByPat Morgan

🛩️ The First Solo Nonstop Transatlantic Flight

Charles Lindbergh, May 20–21, 1927

  • Aircraft: Spirit of St. Louis
  • Route: New York → Paris
  • Duration: 33.5 hours
  • Significance: First solo and first New York–Paris nonstop crossing
U.S. #1710
U.S. #C10
U.S. #3184m

Other 1st Transatlantic
Flights













🛩️ The First Transatlantic Flight (with stops)

U.S. Navy NC‑4, May 1919 The NC‑4 flying boat became the first aircraft ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean, though not nonstop. It flew from the U.S. to Europe with multiple stops (Newfoundland → Azores → Portugal).

U.S Navy NC-4 Flying Boat

🛩️ The First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight

John Alcock & Arthur Whitten Brown, June 14–15, 1919

This flight also carried 197 letters, making it the first transatlantic airmail.

Hungry #C401
  • Aircraft: Vickers Vimy IV bomber
  • Route: St. John’s, Newfoundland → Clifden, Ireland
  • Duration: 16 hours, 27 minutes
  • Distance: ~1,890 miles
  • Conditions: Fog, icing, turbulence; Brown repeatedly climbed onto the wings to clear ice
  • Landing: Crash‑landing in Derrygimla Bog, but both survived
  • Outcome: Won the Daily Mail ÂŁ10,000 prize and were knighted by King George V

🛩️ The First Transatlantic Flight by a Woman

Amelia Earhart, June 17–18, 1928

  • Role: Passenger (with pilots Wilmer Stultz & Louis Gordon)
  • Route: Newfoundland → Wales
  • Significance: First woman to cross the Atlantic by air
U.S. #C68

She completed her own solo transatlantic flight in 1932.