HISTORY
I was assaulted by the smell of old paper. It felt really remarkable. I didn’t know at the time that it would change everything.” NOVA HALL
The Spirit of St. Louis, piloted by Lindbergh, photographed over San Diego on the way to St. Louis, bound for Paris May 11, 1927 (above). Army Air Corp Cadets in 1925 at barracks pool during flight training at Brooks Field in Texas (left). Nova Hall is on the right.
An April 1927 team photo of the men and women who built the plane. Donald Hall is in the black suit, fourth from the right at Dutch Flats airfield in San Diego (above). A May 1944 portrait of Nova Hall’s great-grandfather Don Hall Jr. with his new kitten in Point Loma, San Diego (left). Donald Hall’s undated self-portrait (right).
The plane truth Man uncovers family secret about Lindbergh’s famous flight
did “say a few words” as part of the program. The timing was right — soon The Learning Channel would shoot an episode of its show The Hunt for Amazing Treasures about the Spirit of St. Louis, which featured a lengthy on-camera interview with Hall. Hall published a book, Spirit and Creator: The Mysterious Man Behind Lindbergh’s Flight to Paris , largely composed of his grandfather’s high-quality photographs. He also worked
where Lindbergh and Hall had first tested their new plane in April 1927. “It was the first time any Hall had ever shown up” at such events. Nova met Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles, who in 2002 would celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Spirit of St. Louis by recreating the flight in a small, single-engine aircraft. Having recently started participating in Toastmasters International to become more confident in public speaking, Hall
sense of independence, a belief in hard work and discipline, and a love of flight. … They apparently got on famously, their partnership being a phenomenal complementing of two brains and spirits.” While the successful 33-hour flight in the spring of 1927 became an enduring part of American and aviation history, the construction details remained out of the spotlight. Lindbergh’s autobiography in the 1950s did some to credit Hall’s efforts, but it didn’t tell the whole story — a story that would not be fully known until Nova Hall’s 1999 discovery. Donald Hall passed away in 1968, before his grandson was born. Nova grew up an only child in Sedona, dropping out of school to run the family herbal business “that he never wanted to be in” as it meant work in sales and marketing that didn’t appeal to him. The discovery of the chest, however, “changed everything for me,” and he ended up in sales and marketing roles ever since. Hall moved to the Valley in 2001 and settled in Maricopa in 2021. Sharing the story The evolution was not immediate, as Nova Hall admits it probably took a year to fully realize what he had discovered. Another milestone occurred in 2001 when he attended an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics dedication ceremony at Dutch Flats in San Diego. This was
BY TOM SCHUMAN
C
How it all began Donald A. Hall Sr. was born in 1898 in Brooklyn. He served in the U.S. Army’s Student Army Training Corps before being employed by several aviation companies beginning in 1919. Hall earned an award in 1922 for the design of a night bombardment plane. In 1927, he moved to a new role with San Diego-based Ryan Airlines. Just a few days later, the company received a telegram from Lindbergh’s financial backers asking about the viability of constructing a new plane for the pilot’s proposed feat. More established organizations passed on the speculative venture, leaving Ryan Airlines as the only possible partner. Hall had proposed a 90- day timeline that was later slashed to 60 days at Lindbergh’s insistence. Ryan Air was based in one run-down building. But an aviation historian who interviewed Lindbergh several times years later wrote the following about the pilot-engineer relationship: “The two were about the same age and shared a passion for the outdoors, a
movie and said, “that’s your grandfather.” It was 1999 when the veil slipped on decades of almost-forgotten family history. Hall reveals how it happened. “I was in the garage, trying to decide what to keep and not to keep. Behind some boxes was an old World War I steamer trunk. I had never seen it before. It had a cracked, rusted lock on it. I found my grandpa’s crowbar and popped the lock, and I remember the sound the lock made scraping across the concrete floor. “I was assaulted by the smell of old paper,” he continued. “It felt really remarkable. I didn’t know at the time that it would change everything.” The trunk contained hundreds of never- before-seen photographs, letters, designs and other documents that revealed the actual story of the construction of the Spirit of St. Louis. The movie and other depictions of the famed flight had credited a team from Ryan Airlines when, in fact, the elder Hall had clearly led the way as chief engineer and developed a strong partnership with Lindbergh.
HARLES LINDBERGH FAMOUSLY completed the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927. Nearly a century
later, one Maricopa man has made it his personal mission to tell the rest of the story behind the Spirit of St. Louis. Nova Hall’s grandfather, Donald A. Hall, designed the plane that flew Lindbergh to fame. And while Hall amazingly accomplished that task in just two months — allowing the pilot to win the $25,000 Orteig Prize for being the first to connect the two famed cities via air — it would take 72 more years for the engineer’s pivotal role to be meaningfully acknowledged. “It has been a journey,” Glennwilde resident Nova Hall, 48, said of his now-25-year quest. “There has been a lot of blood, sweat and tears.” Hall knew his grandfather was involved in the Lindbergh story somehow. In fact, when he was with his father watching the 1957 film The Spirit of St. Louis starring James Stewart, Donald Hall Jr. pointed out an actor’s role in the
EDUCATION REMAINS THE FOCUS
It’s not difficult to engage young people, he asserts. “You don’t have to spice it up. There’s life and death in this story. You have an underdog and miraculous engineering. By all intents and purposes, they should have lost.” Hall will at times begin his presentations by throwing paper airplanes at some students. He later cautions not to throw them away as they
contain money, certificates or the opportunity to receive a free book. “Schooling has changed,” Hall added, citing the well-documented need for more pilots, engineers and other STEM-related positions. “As an education nonprofit, we are really doing workforce development.
The mission of Flying Over Time is empowering future innovators in aviation and STEM through immersive education and storytelling, inspired by the legacy of Donald A. Hall and the Spirit of St. Louis. Donald’s grandson Nova Hall attempts to teach art and science through the lens of history.
We have to meet the kids where they are.”
InMaricopa.com | October 2024
October 2024 | InMaricopa.com
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