“May 21st was set for the christening of the plane. The christening-was changed into a celebration of the successful flight of Lindbergh. Bennett was pleased with Lindy’s achievement, since Lindy had proved the very things that Byrd himself had set out to prove—that with careful preparation, the ocean could be spanned; and that a successful ocean flight would stir the imaginations of the people, making them more conscious of aviation and its strivings. Then, too, Lindbergh cemented relationships between France and the United States, which was one of Byrd’s purposes in flying to France instead of to England, or any other country. “Well, after the ocean had been crossed, there was no need for hurry. Not that Byrd had been in a rush; but there was a great deal of criticism concerning the delay of his trip. Nobody knows how these things start, or why. It seems that it should have been Byrd’s, and Byrd’s business alone, as to when he chose to cross the ocean. After all, it was his life being risked, and his glory if the flight were successful. But a great many people in the United States felt that there must be some ulterior motive in his not starting immediately; and that he had been bested by a mere boy when he let Lindbergh be the first man to conquer the ocean. “But Byrd didn’t care. He knew what he was about. He was a southern gentleman, and he said nothing to his defamers. And he went on completing his preparations. Chamberlin, with his passenger Levine, broke the world’s record for flying to Germany, in a remarkable flight. Byrd hailed their success. “Then at last, on June 29th, early in the morning the weather man reported that weather conditions, while not ideal, were favorable. Dick Byrd decided to delay no longer. He called together his crew, and met them on the field at 3:00 o’clock in the morning. It was a miserable morning, and a light rain was falling. By the light of torches the crew was putting the finishing touches on the huge’ America. There she was, atop the hill that they had built for her, so that she would get a good fast start. And a good fast start she needed, all 15,000 pounds of her. Think of the speed they had to get up in order to lift that bulk from the ground! They’d have to be going a mile and a half a minute! “Bert Acosta was at the wheel; Noville, recovered from his serious injuries in the trial crash, sat with his hand on the dump valve, by means of which he could dump a load of gasoline if they didn’t rise into the air; Bert Balchen, the young Norwegian relief pilot and mechanic, was busy with the spare fuel.