Seventy-nine years ago this week, Charles Lindbergh touched down in Denver and thousands gave the world-famous aviator a hero’s welcome.
Lindbergh’s grandson, Erik, will be in Denver on Tuesday to kick off a “barnstorming” educational program for Colorado schoolkids that would have made his grandpa proud.
“The most important gift we can give to the younger generation coming up is motivation,” Lindbergh said. “Aviation has the ability to motivate.”
As a child, Erik Lindbergh saw his grandfather as a pleasant man who took joy in wiggling his ears to entertain children – not as the pioneering aviator and first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927.
“I knew there was something about him that made him extra-special, but I didn’t know what it was, really,” said Lindbergh, who was 9 when his grandfather died. “It was pretty abstract to me.”
Lindbergh said he never felt family pressure to fly. He took it up as an adult when a relentless friend talked him into it.
For the next month, the Spreading Wings Colorado Barnstorming Tour will provide a hands-on aviation learning experience for hundreds of students at local airports throughout the state.
Volunteer pilots will land a vintage plane along with a modern general-aviation aircraft in 17 Colorado communities and teach kids lessons including how to chart a course, how to read instruments and how to judge winds.
Kids will also be able to take off and land aircraft using computer flight simulators.
Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum is a sponsor of the tour, which will run through Oct. 6.
“We see this as a great opportunity to turn kids on to the incredible experience of learning math and science through aviation,” said Greg Anderson, museum president and chief executive.
A self-described weak-to- marginal student in high school and college, Lindbergh turned things around and got straight A’s through flight school.
“I had a lot better things to do, more things capturing my attention than schoolwork” as a youngster, Lindbergh said.
Students at Mt. Garfield Middle School in Grand Junction have been staying after school to prepare for the visit.
“They really want to do it; they are excited,” said Ginger DeCavitch, an eighth-grade teacher at Garfield.
On Sept. 13, Garfield kids, who have plotted a flight plan from Denver to Grand Junction, will get to meet the pilots, fly simulators and build planes from balsa wood.
“It’s one thing to talk to kids about flying, it’s another thing to hook them up with the community – the pilots,” DeCavitch said. “To actually do the hands-on, that is what I really like.”
Lindbergh won’t draw as much fanfare as his grandfather did when he sets down in Denver. Still, he’s looking forward to helping a top-flight program, he said.
“Most of this comes from my own perspective on not really being engaged and not being captivated as a kid by the things that were imposed upon me at school,” Lindbergh said. “Aviation absolutely captures my body, brain and soul.”
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
