Everybody wants to fly - just think of Leonardo and Kate on the bow of the Titanic! In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the author of the new Charles Lindbergh biography tells the story that is soaring up the best-seller charts. Also, nature's own aces - the birds and the bees. And a man who searches the skies for severe weather, and then flies right into it.

A. Scott Berg is the author of "Lindbergh." He tells Judith Strasser why Lindbergh's 1927 flight across the Atlantic was remarkable, and why he became such a phenomenally popular figure. Berg also outlines the perceived Nazi-sympathies that made Lindbergh a pariah during WWII.

Pilot and Atlantic Monthly correspondent William Langewiesche tells Steve Paulson what it's like to fly inside a storm; how much today's flyers owe the heroic pilots from aviation's infancy; and that modern airplanes — even little puddle jumpers — are very safe. Also, writer and editor Barry Lopez tells Steve Paulson about his adventures aboard air freighters, and rues what is happening to our temporal sense in this frenzied consumer culture.

Nature writer Jan DeBlieu talks with Jim Fleming about the mysteries of the wind. She says birds ride the wind like a chute; insects get swept off to volcanic islands; and people use everything from airplanes to hang-gliders and hot air balloons to get themselves airborne. DeBlieu is the author of "Wind: How the Flow of Air Has Shaped Life, Myth and the Land."

Distribution dates:

• week of 09/19/99 - hour 3
• week of 10/11/98 - hour 3