Lindbergh Wings Day

What Is Lindbergh Wings Day?

Every May 21st is "Lindbergh Wings Day" (リンドバーグ翼の日, Rindobāgu Tsubasa no Hi) in Japan. On May 21, 1927, American aviator Charles Lindbergh (チャールズ・リンドバーグ) landed his single-engine monoplane "Spirit of St. Louis" at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, completing the world's first solo non-stop transatlantic flight from New York. The 33-hour, 30-minute flight of approximately 5,800 kilometers transformed aviation history and made Lindbergh instantly the most famous person on Earth.

Lindbergh's Transatlantic Flight

Charles Lindbergh departed Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York at 7:52 a.m. on May 20, 1927, flying alone in a specially designed Ryan monoplane with a single Wright Whirlwind engine. He carried no parachute, no radio, and no sextant — only a compass, maps, and 451 gallons of fuel. Flying through night, fog, and ice over the North Atlantic, he navigated by dead reckoning and arrived at Le Bourget at 10:22 p.m. Paris time on May 21, 1927 — where a crowd estimated at 150,000 people rushed the field to greet him. The flight won him the $25,000 Orteig Prize and worldwide celebrity.

Aviation's Golden Age

Lindbergh's flight inaugurated aviation's "golden age" of the late 1920s and 1930s, during which record-breaking flights captured public imagination worldwide and commercial aviation developed from a novelty into a significant transportation industry. The flight demonstrated that crossing an ocean by air was possible, opening the mental possibility of global air travel that would become reality within two decades.

Lindbergh and Japan

Lindbergh's flight was followed with great interest in Japan, where it is still remembered through the phrase "Tsubasa yo, are ga Pari no hi da" ("Wings, those are the lights of Paris") — actually the title of the Japanese translation of his autobiography "The Spirit of St. Louis," not words he really shouted. In 1931, Lindbergh and his wife Anne flew to Japan on a North Pacific route survey, landing their seaplane at Nemuro and then Kasumigaura, where about 1,000 people, including senior officials, welcomed them.

Fun Facts

• Spirit of St. Louis: The original Spirit of St. Louis aircraft is displayed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. — one of the most visited museum artifacts in the world.
• Orteig Prize legacy: The Orteig Prize that Lindbergh won — a privately funded prize for a specific aviation achievement — became a model for the "prize for innovation" approach later adopted by the X Prize Foundation, which awarded the $10 million Ansari X Prize for the first privately funded crewed spaceflight in 2004.