I'm John Batson with the author David Rooney.

His new book is The Big Hop.

This is the story of the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean and into the future.

You raise your arm and you say, but what about Lindberg?

Yes, indeed.

What about Lindberg?

1927. He crosses from Long Island to Paris, and is the first

man, isn't he? No. And David, what did Lindberg say when he was confronted with being

celebrated in Paris and New York? Well, he's said to have told the crowd, why all this fuss?

Alcock and Brown showed us the way.

Alcock and Brown showed us the way is accurate, because that was the breakthrough moment.

But meanwhile, we have to collect the check.

If you've got to show a check in the first scene, you've got to show it in the fifth act.

Okay. The check is for 10,000 pounds, all cock and brown are being celebrated from Ireland all the way to London. And they go for the dinner, the luncheon where the check

will be rewarded. Lord Northcliffe is ill. He will be dead, I believe, within a few years of an infection

that we could cure today easily with antibiotics, but they did not exist in 1919. And so in attendance

are, and this is amazing, I kept thinking this scene can't be true. It's too economical.

H.G. Wells is in the room.

I was keen on that part.

But these two young men standing at the front taking a check from Winston Churchill.

Why, David?

Why was Churchill at the luncheon?

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