Not luck... I just saw that they had opened it up for paying customers on their web site and went up there and forked over $100 for a flight. They do rides in many of the planes at Pioneer, rotating some off the line every year... this year the NYP had the year off. Hopefully they'll put it back on the flight line next year. They also have a Fantasy Flight Camp built around that plane, too (as well as others... including their B-17). Check it out!
As for how it flew... it flew badly (i.e. faithful to the original). The NYP was a scaled up Ryan M1 mail plane, which itself was a plane of the period. They minimized changes to save time and money, trading that for favorable flying characteristics. The EAA replica (it's NOT a reproduction, and purists slam EAA repeatedly about this, even though it was never intended to be a reproduction) is, oddly enough, easier to fly than the original because of some changes between it and the original. The best way I can sum up the feeling of flying it was that it was like trying to roller skate on ice blindfolded... all your physical cues are misleading and inputs are not rewarded with what you expected or are at least delayed. The stick is about the size of a baseball bat. Shove it with both hands to one side and eventually the thing will roll. In yaw it's even more interesting (the small tail of the M1 was retained at Lindbergh's request). Since you can't really see forward, you have to guess if it's coordinated, and it won't stay coordinated on its own. Shove a pedal, and several seconds later (or so it seems) the tail starts to slew around. You need to lead the opposite rudder to cancel out the input, too, as it takes the same amount of time to reverse the input. Astronaut Hoot Gibson flew the replica (along with Neal Armstrong, Deke Slayton, Chuck Yeager, etc.) and described it as the worst flying airplane he'd ever flown.
EAA had a great video on the NYP and their replica; not sure if it's still available. A great read on the airplane is "The Untold Story of the Spirit of St. Louis" available lots of places online.
See what happens next May when they re-open Pioneer at Oshkosh... if they put the NYP back on the line, all you gotta do is show up with cash, and you're in.
TM
