In Tribute to Darius and Girėnas

Julius (Jay) Sakas.

In the early hours of July 15, 1933, a heavily laden airplane, the Bellanca 300 christened the Lituanica, lifted off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York City. Two Lithuanian aviators had just taken to the air in pursuit of their dream. Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas were aiming for a world record: to fly 4,446 miles non-stop in a single-engine plane from New York to Kaunas, Lithuania. The famed Charles Lindbergh had already broken the world record six years earlier for non-stop distance across the Atlantic by flying 3,600 miles from New York to Paris. If successful, the Lithuanians would beat him by nearly 1,000 miles.

Tragically, on July 17 at 12:15 am, after 37 hours and 11 minutes in the air and just 400 miles short of their destination, the dream came crashing to an end in the forest of Soldin, in what was then German territory (now considered Poland since the 1945 border-changes). There has been much speculation as to the cause of the crash. The predominant theory suggests bad weather as the most likely explanation: Darius and Girėnas were brought down by a bad storm that had the aviators seeking a landing site in a heavily wooded area in the dark, piloting a plane without lights. Neither of the two aviators survived the crash.

Fast forward to 1953. A 10-year-old refugee boy from Lithuania living in Rochester, New York, hears the story of the flight of Darius and Girėnas from countless commemorative events in the Lithuanian emigré community and becomes infatuated with the aviators and their ill-fated dream. The boy himself dreams of flying and spends hours building model airplanes, which he suspends in a “hangar” of his own creation from the ceiling of his room. What he wants more than anything else is to become a pilot and to complete the last leg of the journey that a storm had deprived his heroes of achieving. He dreams of paying tribute to the memory of Darius and Girėnas by completing their flight from Soldin to Kaunas in a  Lituanica, which he would restore himself.

It is 1996. Decades have passed. I am now Captain Jay Sakas and flying Boeing 747s for a major airline. With the passing years and retirement looming in 2003, my dream of flying from Soldin to Kaunas becomes an obsession. Supported by family and friends, I undertake a painstaking search for a Bellanca 300, like the one Darius and Girėnas had bought and modified. My goal is to restore a Bellanca 300 and convert it into a copy of the original Lituanica.

The search involves a lot of time and effort since most airplanes from the 1930s are either museum pieces or hopeless wrecks that are beyond restoration. The search takes me to places like the tundras of Alaska and the mountains of South America, where the Bellanca 300 had once been used to haul gold and ore because of its ability to carry heavy loads. When I finally locate a Bellanca 300, it is, literally, in pieces in a barn in Portland, Oregon. I buy the “pieces” and bring my “dream” home to Sequim, Washington.

To my surprise, I discover something remarkable on the wing of the Bellanca. Its serial number is only four numbers away from that of the Lituanica (whose registration number, incidentally – NR6888E – is still on record with the FAA.) The proximate serial numbers indicate that the two planes had been manufactured on the same assembly line! I can’t believe my eyes. What I have sitting in my driveway is nothing less than the sistership of the Lituanica.

Finding a Bellanca 300 turned out to be the easy part, however. The hard part is about to come next. It is my intention to build not just a superficial replica of the Lituanica but to actually restore it in the theoretical sense of the word, which is to say, build it to specification and with proper documentation. What complicates the project, however, is the fact that information on the construction of the original Lituanica is scarce. Furthermore, the very process of restoration involves working not only with existing material but also integrating parts of the original aircraft; but how to do that when the Lituanica’s remains are enshrined in the Vytautas the Great War Museum in Kaunas? As a result, the reconstruction to the original specifications requires many trips to Kaunas and the museum. In general, restoration also involves a lot of handmade or junk parts from other restorers. In my case, a lot of both. And a lot of improvising – which Darius and Girėnas did as well when, for example, they welded tin cans together in order to create additional fuel tanks. Finally, restoration also requires volunteers and experts in manufacturing and the assembling of vital parts, which presents further problems for me since I am not a mechanic.

My target date for the reconstruction of Lituanica is the 70th anniversary of the original flight. For me, the “icing” on the entire project is to complete Darius and Girėnas’s original route from Soldin to Kaunas, flying what, theoretically, I will have restored to the “original” Lituanica. Unfortunately, after working on the project on and off for 18 years, I end up having to sell the plane. A well-known saying among restorers is, “when you have the money, you do not have the time, and when you have the time, you do not have the money.” I can testify to the truth of the axiom from personal experience.

I find a collector in the Canadian Northwest Territories who is willing to buy the Bellanca, and, with a heavy heart, I hand my dream over to him. Needless to say, I can hardly expect him to share my aspirations. So I’m not surprised that he spends the next three years removing all the modifications I made restoring it to the original Bellanca 300. At that point, my dream feels dead and buried when, out of the blue, on a cold day in January of 2022, I receive a telephone call from Lithuania. At the time, the caller’s name means nothing to me, but as I am about to discover, he is an affluent and well-connected aviation enthusiast. He is calling to inquire about the Bellanca 300. I provide him with its current owner’s contact information in Canada and fill him in on where things stand. I explain what I have learned the hard way – also axiomatic among restorers – that if you want to reconstruct old airplanes, you have to start with a million dollars.

The next time he calls, it is to say that he has bought the plane and that it has finally arrived in Vilnius. Imagine my surprise and pleasure to learn that the new owner of the Bellanca 300 was the sixth president of Lithuania, Rolandas Paksas. My Bellanca has found itself in the best of all possible hands. 

Thus, in 2023, during the commemorative festivities of July 15-17, precisely 90 years to the day after Darius and Girėnas took to the skies over the Atlantic, I had the privilege of flying their sistership – the airplane of my dreams – at the Kaunas air show. The thrill of the experience was beyond words. Lift-off from Vilnius airport in this diminutive airplane was as exhilarating as the take-off in a Boeing 747. When I first eased myself into the cockpit, I sat in disbelief that two grown men could withstand 37 hours in such a compact space. This was especially impressive considering that one of their modifications to the Bellanca involved removing the seats to make room for extra oil cans. As a result, they had to sit on the cans for the entire duration of the flight. I was in awe of their resolve and endurance.

While the Bellanca 300 is not ready for the commemorative flight, I feel that in restoring her, I was paying tribute to two aviation pioneers who had ties to my native land – a small, inconspicuous nation called Lithuania, tucked away on the shores of the Baltic. These men dared to challenge the achievement of one of aviation’s great folk heroes and almost succeeded.

Although the name on the airplane reads “Bellanca,” in my heart, it will always be the name of Lituanica.  And though I don’t dare tell anyone out loud, I admit to secretly nurturing the hope that maybe, just maybe, I will get the privilege of completing the flight of Darius and Girėnas from Soldin to Kaunas before their 100th anniversary.