Charles Lindbergh, Donald Hall, and the Plane That Made History

     Chance and coincidence – of such things history is made. Charles A. Lindbergh’s first choice of airplane for an attempt at the non-stop New York to Paris flight, and the Orteig Prize that went to those who first accomplished it, was a Wright-powered Bellanca monoplane whose passenger compartment could be modified to accommodate a large fuel tank. Giuseppe Bellanca himself arranged for Lindbergh to meet with Charles Levine, the millionaire chairman of Columbia Aircraft in February 1927. Levine had the ideal aircraft, but wanted $25,000 for it – $10,000 more than Lindbergh’s backers had secured. When Levine proposed that he absorb the difference in exchange for a share of the venture, Lindbergh’s hopes were momentarily buoyed, and then dashed. As part of the deal, Levine demanded that he choose the pilot. For Lindbergh that was not an option. He hadn’t come this far, developing his dream and assembling backers for a trans-Atlantic attempt, only to hand someone else the controls.1
     About the same time that Lindbergh met with Levine, Donald Hall, a 28-year-old aeronautical engineer and graduate of the Pratt Institute, left his job at Douglas Company in Santa Monica to join San Diego-based Ryan Airlines. Ryan, a small concern that produced two highly successful monoplanes known as the M-1 and M-2, seemed a good fit for young Hall. He’d been freelancing there off and on. Now owner B.J. Mahoney, who had recently acquired sole ownership of the company from founder Claude Ryan, was in the process of building a new model with a 42 foot wingspan to be known as the B-1 Brougham. He wanted Hall on his staff to work on it full time.
     After just a few days of work, however, Donald Hall was pulled off the B-1. A telegram had arrived at Ryan from Lindbergh’s St. Louis backers: "Can you construct a whirlwind engine plane capable
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