Comments:
This is the engine used by Charles Lindbergh to power his aircraft, the "Spirit of
St. Louis" back on May 21, 1927. Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo non-stop
transatlantic flight in history, flying 3,610 miles between Roosevelt Field on Long
Island, New York, and Paris in 33 hours, 30 minutes. Lindbergh won the $25,000 prize
offered by New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig to the first aviator to fly an aircraft
directly across the Atlantic between New York and Paris.
The Wright J-5 Whirlwind was developed after World War I, when the U.S. military
ceased ordering Wright-built Hispano-Suiza V-8 engines in 1922. With its primary
product no longer needed, The Wright company president Frederick Rentschler purchased
the New York-based Lawrance Company, and assumed production of their successful seven-cylinder
J-1 radial engine. Gradual improvements to the original J-1 design resulted in the
J-5, known as the Whirlwind, in the middle 1920s.
The Whirlwind achieved its greatest fame by powering Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of
St. Louis on his historic May 1927 transatlantic flight. As the military R-790, this
reliable powerplant was also used on the Army Air Corps’ Atlantic C-2 transport,
which in 1927 made the first transpacific flight, from Oakland to Honolulu.
In January 1935 a Curtiss Robin aircraft powered by a Wright Whirlwind, set an endurance
record by staying aloft for 27 days - a record that has never been broken!
It was the heart of the Great Depression, and in Meridian, Mississippi, the future
of the new airport seemed uncertain. The Key brothers, Al, 30, and Fred, 26, were
co-managers of the field. They were also keen flyers, and had learned to fly first
as barnstormers, then instructors. So to earn the airport some valuable publicity,
they decided to make aviation history by setting a record for endurance. They didn't
own the plane, a high-winged Curtiss Robin monoplane. Helped by friends, they fitted
the plane with a 150-gallon fuel tank, and an external catwalk that Fred climbed
around on to service the Whirlwind engine in mid-air.
They also pioneered a spill-free air-to-air refuelling nozzle that would be the forerunner
of those used by U.S. bombers in World War II. Four times a day, fellow pilot James
Keeton flew up in another Curtiss Robin to refuel the plane and transfer down meals,
cooked at the airport by the Key brothers' wives, Louise and Evelyn. As the hours
wore on into days, then weeks, people in Meridian joked that the wives were going
to divorce Fred and Al for desertion. When they came down, at last, on July 1, 1935,
they were filthy and exhausted, their eyes covered with sties. During their 27 days
(653 hours, 34 minutes) aloft they had repeated brushes with death and disaster,
including a fire aboard and a near mid-air collision. They had flown 52,320 miles,
more than twice the distance around the earth.
Designed by Charles L. Lawrance, the Whirlwind was one of the most reliable aircraft
engines of its time in the world. The significance of the Whirlwind was acknowledged
in the awarding of the Collier Trophy, America's most respected aviation award for
1927. The prize in that year went not to the pilot who had flown the Atlantic but
to Charles L. Lawrance the designer of the engine that made it possible.
