("Kev" wrote)
1) There was a competition involved.
2) There was national pride at stake.
3) Others had died attempting the same feat.
4) He was likeable and a newcomer.
5) He was alone.
6) There was no way to know if he was alive until near the end.
7) He had to navigate by dead reckoning
8) The technology was just barely there.


The post WWI population understood his craft: small plane + motor + fuel.
There was an accessibility, a connection, to this technology as in, maybe
"I" could have built that. Maybe "I" could have done that. Perhaps that
resonated in people's imagination back in 1927.


Montblack