Boy, 11--Retracing Lindbergh’s Route--Expected in Paris Today; ‘Weather Nice and Clear’ So Far

A gray, white and blue single-engine airplane soared over the North Atlantic Tuesday with teddy-bear-toting Christopher Marshall still in control of his dream to retrace the trans-Atlantic solo flight of Charles Lindbergh.

Marshall, 11, and Navy Cmdr. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, 46, left Frobisher Bay airport in Canada’s Northwest Territories at 12:42 p.m. EDT and arrived 3 1/2 hours later at the U.S. Air Force base at Sonderstrom, Greenland.

“The weather was nice and clear,” Christopher said in a telephone interview during his 30-minute refueling stop in Sonderstrom. “Nothing unusual happened on the flight from Frobisher Bay.”

Cunningham, a decorated Vietnam War ace, is overseeing Christopher, who does all the flying sitting atop two foam cushions that allow him to peer over the instrument panel.

The pair planned to stop for the night in Reykjavik, Iceland, before flying on to Scotland and Paris Wednesday.

The Oceano, Calif., schoolboy is attempting to become the youngest person to retrace Lindbergh’s first solo trans-Atlantic flight 61 years ago.

Plans call for the 3,650-mile flight to conclude Wednesday at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, where Christopher’s mother Gail is waiting. His father, Lee, is a commercial airline pilot who first put his son behind the controls of an airplane at age 4.

The most treacherous part of the flight is over the North Atlantic, where head winds can reach 100 mph. Seven private pilots have been lost over Greenland and Iceland this year, Canadian aviation officials said.

Cunningham, who commanded the elite “Top Gun” Navy fighter pilot school, has been with Christopher since the journey began in San Diego Thursday.

Christoper is flying a $240,000, four-seat Mooney 252 equipped with thermal survival suits in case it is forced to ditch in the ocean. It also has two life rafts, beacons, flares, emergency food rations and mosquito netting.