Hey Boris,
I had an entire thread running in the "photos" section about Erik's flight. (Now the thread is called "Where's My Thread?") It got deleted some-how. It had a picture of Erik Lindburgh, his mother and me. I spent 20 minutes with him talking about his trip that duplicated his great grandfather's trip! Nice guy. The company I work for did all the media production for a big event here in Long Island, New York at the "cradle of Aviation" museum honoring his accomplishment. It re-anacted the flight of Charles while Erik narrated it and told his story along with music, video and an array of A-V magic!
The plane his great grandfather flew was built by RYAN AVIATION. The plane Erik flew was custom built (I do not remember the company). It was equipped with all the latest GPS and Satelite technology you could ask for. He had constant communication and enough food and water for the long trip. Alot MORE than his great grandfather had!
The only complaint Erik had was cramping of his legs.
Before Erik flew across the Atlantic on the same route as Charles, he had started his flight exactly where Charles did. He stopped at the same 3 points here in America before he left from a small airport here on Long Island called Republic Airport. I was there to wish him off along with sponsors, fans, air enthusiasts and his family. It was the most dangerous take off he had ever done because the special over-sized wings were FILLED to the brim with enough fuel to take him across the Atlantic. He said he was nervous about lift off because this plane had not been tested with that much weight and an accident would certainly end in a fiery explosion!! The time this happened was sometime in late spring, early summer because the event we did with him was in late June.
Here is the pic of Erik, His Mom and I at the 75th anniversary of the flight that his great grandfather took and the one he replicated!
Here is a shot of our system and the "Blue Angels Jet" overhead durring set-up!
Hope you like!
Dave