<Tr> <Th> Total hours </Th> <Td> 489 hours, 28 minutes </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Preserved at </Th> <Td> National Air and Space Museum </Td> </Tr> <P> The Spirit of St. Louis (Registration: N-X - 211) is the custom - built, single engine, single - seat, high wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20--21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France, for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize . </P> <P> Lindbergh took off in the Spirit from Roosevelt Airfield, Garden City, New York, and landed 33 hours, 30 minutes later at Aéroport Le Bourget in Paris, France, a distance of approximately 3,600 miles (5,800 km). One of the best - known aircraft in the world, the Spirit was built by Ryan Airlines in San Diego, California, owned and operated at the time by Benjamin Franklin Mahoney, who had purchased it from its founder, T. Claude Ryan, in 1926 . The Spirit is on permanent display in the main entryway's Milestones of Flight gallery at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. </P>

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