Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Seaside Oil Airplane???

Cars, gas pumps, and even airplanes. It's amazing, the body of knowledge on this website!

I was skeptical about the claim that it was the actual Spirit of St. Louis and after seeing a flight log for the Spirit online I was doubting it even more.

The story probably started out that it was a plane made by Ryan and after several tellings it became actually Lindbergh's plane.

Still a neat shot of a plane being filled with Seaside fuel. You can even see the drilling towers in the background.

WOW Poor Man!!! I thought that you had me there. I was pretty sure that it was a Ryan plane. But it seems that it has smaller nose section because of the windshield. If I were to guess........ I would say that the "Spirit" was based on this design. I'll have to check that web site that Cessna posted.

Thunder,

The Ryan Brougham was based on the Spirit of St. Louis design.

Cessna195

Thanks Cessna. I still haven't had a chance to check that site out yet. But check your e-mail, I sent you a pic of one of the planes that I had restored.

Hey Guys,
Lindbergh used Red Crown gasoline from the Standard Oil Company of California for the trans-Atlantic flight. I don't know how the deal came about but they had to ship the gasoline from California to the east coast. Note attached photos from the Chevron 100th Anniversary history book, including a letter from Lucky Lindy. (Side note...today Chevron still ships gasoline outside of the current marketing area to Michigan for the Big Three federal mileage and emissions testing. It's the only gasoline they will use. True story.)

Here's the delivery truck bringing those cans of Standard Oil for Lindy's plane...



Note those "milk cans" we were talking about being used to fill the plane in Pablo's picture.

There may be some uncertainty and/or confusion about what FUEL was used in the Spirit of St. Louis on the trans Atlantic flight, but there's none regarding the lubricants used......it was Gargoyle Mobiloil and greases, the best available at the time!!

Richard

Rather than look for my newsletter I did a net search and found;
Imperial Oil had a photo of Lindbergh near Quebec city in 1928 in a field for refuelling. Also there was a pic of a receipt signed by Lindbergh for"100 gallons Imperial Aeroplane Spirits"

This is probably in the newsletter I have, but I thought the plane was on floats in what I had seen.

Also in 1921 Imperial Oil had 2 Junkers all metal monoplanes to " reduce time taken to cover great distances"

In 1933 Wiley Post arrived in Edmonton Alberta during the fastest around the world solo flight! "Aircraft refuelled by Imperial Oil"

This is a really good website about the Spirit of St. Louis and includes the build info and the flight log.

http://www.charleslindbergh.com/plane/index.asp

I guess that even in his day it would make sense to use as many sponsors as possible. This was such a huge event at the time that any affiliation with the plane, the flight or Charles Lindbergh would be worth a great deal to the companies involved.

Just imagine how many sponsor stickers and decals would be on that plane today. Maybe Doc could mock that up for us.

The reason for Chevron fuel was, that it is heavier. Kinda makes you wonder how more weight could increase range doesn't it? The heavier weight of the fuel makes more heat. More heat, more power. More power, more range.

But it goes beyond that. There was a great aviation designer that also increased the weight of the Spirit of St Louis. Does anybody want to guess who that would be? And what was it that he did?

More wing area for better lift ?

Was it Boeing?

OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! the suspense!!!

Well Dick, your guess was the closest.

A young John K "Jack" Northrop, increased the weight of the plane, by adding MORE wing ribs to the wing design. More ribs, allowed closer spacing, which in turn made a smoother wing. There was less undulation between the ribs of the fabric covered wing. That provided for less drag, more lift, and more range.

I never had the opportunity to meet jack, though I did have the honor of working on a few of his flying wing airplanes, and meeting some of the Northrop "Old Timers" What great times we had...

Thunder,
Well maybe not more wing area, but a better wing area. Which did create more lift.