Lockheed Sirius "Tingmissartoq", Charles A. Lindbergh

Charles A. Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, purchased this Lockheed Sirius airplane in 1929 for $22,825. Designed by Gerald Vultee and Jack Northrop, the Sirius was a low-wing monoplane with the same monocoque (molded shell) fuselage as the popular Lockheed Vega. Originally an open-cockpit landplane, the Lindberghs' Sirius was modified with a sliding canopy and Edo floats for their two overwater journeys in 1931 and 1933.The Lindberghs set a coast-to-coast speed record in the Sirius on April 20, 1930, but its most significant flights were in 1931 and 1933. In 1931 the Lindberghs flew to the Orient, proving the viability of traveling from the West to the Far East via the Great Circle route to the North. In 1933 they flew survey flights across the North and South Atlantic to gather information for planning commercial air routes. During their 1933 trip a Greenland Eskimo boy gave the Sirius its nickname: "Tingmissartoq"-"One who flies like a big bird."Upon returning from their transatlantic trip in late 1933, the Lindberghs donated the "Tingmissartoq" to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It was displayed in the Hall of Ocean Life until 1955, when it was sent to the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. After deciding that the Lindberghs' plane did not really represent the Air Force, the Air Force Museum transferred it to the Smithsonian Institution's Air Museum in 1959.