Reproductions
The 1938 Paramount film Men with Wings starring Ray Milland featured a reproduction of the Spirit of St. Louis fashioned from a Ryan B-1 "Brougham" similar to one presented to Lindbergh by the manufacturer, the Mahoney Aircraft Corporation, shortly after the Spirit was retired in April 1928. All three reproductions survived with B-153 on display at the Missouri History Museum, in St. Louis, B-156 is part of the collection at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, and B-159 belongs to the Cradle of Aviation Museum located in Garden City, Long Island, New York, not far from the site of Roosevelt Field from which the original departed in 1927. Reputed to have been flown by Lindbergh during the film's production, the connection to Lindbergh is now considered a myth. A 90% static reproduction was also built in 1956 for the film The Spirit of St Louis by the Warner Brothers Movie studio which is now on display at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport.
Through the efforts of both staff and volunteers, the Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh, Wisconsin produced two Spirit reproductions powered by Continental R-670-4 radial engines, the first in 1977 (the first of which was to be based on a conversion from a B-1 Brougham; the aircraft proved to be too badly deteriorated to be used in that manner) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic Ocean and subsequent tour of the United States. This example is now on display in the main museum gallery. A second reproduction, started from scratch in 1977 and first flown in November 1990, continues to fly at air shows and commemorative events. Both of the EAA reproductions were registered under the original's N-X-211.
On the 40th anniversary of Lindbergh's flight a new reproduction was built by Frank Tallman. It first flew on April 24, 1967 and was named Spirit 2. Spirit 2 appeared at the 1967 Paris Air Show and made several flights over Paris. In 1972, Spirit 2 was bought for $50,000 by the San Diego Air & Space Museum (formerly San Diego Aerospace Museum) and placed on public display until it was destroyed by arson in 1978. The museum built a replacement named Spirit 3 which first flew on April 28, 1979; it made seven flights before being placed on display. In August 2003, the Spirit 3 was removed from display and was flown as a 75th Anniversary tribute to Lindbergh. The aircraft is now on display in the museum's rotunda.
The San Diego Air & Space Museum also built a non-flying example which was fitted with an original Wright J-5 engine which was placed on display at the San Diego International Airport in 1999.
Another airworthy reproduction was built by David Cannavo and first flown in 1979, powered by a Lycoming R-680 engine. In 1995 it was bought by Kermit Weeks for his Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, Florida.
Another Spirit of St. Louis static reproduction was built in 2002 and is on display at the Lambert-Saint Louis International Airport. The Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum at Rantoul, Illinois has a static reproduction built by museum volunteers. Two reproductions are also found in Germany, one at the Frankfurt International Airport with the second in a private collection. Another European-based reproduction of the Spirit (Registration ES-XCL), which had been built and certified in Estonia in 1997, was written off when structural failure shortly after taking off at an air show in Coventry, England on May 31, 2003, resulted in a fatal crash killing its owner-pilot, veteran (22,000+ hours) Swedish Saab 340 captain Pierre Holländer.
A still-unfinished Spirit reproduction, intended to eventually be flyable that is owned by Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome and mostly built by former ORA pilot Ken Cassens, still needs its wing covered with doped fabric and is said to have more original, and still functional 1920s-era flight instruments, that match the ones in the original at the NASM, than any other reproduction of the Spirit yet built.
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