On May 9, 6:05 pm, "ManhattanMan" wrote:
Apollo 13 were the luckiest three guys imaginable when theirs hung on long
enough to get back home! You mentionedLindbergh(Lucky Lindy!), and I kind
of remember reading he landed with fumes (?) left in his gas tanks; [..]

Not a comment on anything you wrote, except to make sure the record is
straight as far as Lindbergh's Paris flight goes: No fumes at all.
He left out radios and many other things just to make sure he had LOTS
of reserve fuel. In fact, after his 33 hour flight, he still had over
16 hours of fuel remaining. He was a master of fuel conservation and
went on later to teach Pacific WW-II combat pilots how to stay aloft
far longer than anyone thought possible.

Kev