“I’m still flying at four thousand feet when I see it, that scarcely perceptible glow, as though the moon had rushed ahead of schedule. Paris is rising over the edge of the earth.”
At the end of his grueling 33-hour solo flight over the Atlantic, Charles Lindbergh was searching for the airport, north of the French capital, on which to land the Spirit of St. Louis. The pilot would recall the unconventional but dazzling navigation aid he used: “Far below, a little offset from the center, is a column of lights pointing upward, changing angles as I fly—the Eiffel Tower. I circle once above it and turn north-eastward.”
