Lindbergh's lost flying hat fails to take flight

The flying hat aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh wore when he became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic failed to take flight Wednesday when it went up for auction in the French capital.

The leather and sheepskin cap, which Lindbergh managed to lose while performing loop-the-loops over Paris in May 1927, failed to make the 60,000 to 80,000-euro ($88,000) estimate when it went under the hammer, the Hotel Drouot auction house said.

The "Lone Eagle" had lost the same hat a week earlier after he landed the Spirit of St Louis at Bourget airstrip outside the city after completing the record-breaking flight.

But a mechanic handed the hat in to the US embassy that evening only for Lindbergh to lose it again seven days later when he was given special permission to perform aerobatic feats over the city in a borrowed French fighter.

The next morning a woman found it in her vegetable patch.