First aerial circumnavigation

Photograph of three Douglas World Cruiser aircraft on a beach, Alaska, 1924. The "New Orleans" is in the foreground.
Photograph of three Douglas World Cruiser aircraft on a beach, Alaska, 1924. The "New Orleans" is in the foreground.

The first aerial circumnavigation of the world was completed in 1924 by four aviators from an eight-man team of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force. The 175-day journey from April to September covered over 26,345 miles (42,398 km).[1] The team generally traveled east to west, around the northern-Pacific Rim, through to South Asia and Europe and back to the United States. Airmen Lowell H. Smith and Leslie P. Arnold, and Erik H. Nelson and John Harding Jr. made the trip in two single-engined open-cockpit Douglas World Cruisers (DWC) configured as floatplanes for most of the journey. Four more flyers in two additional DWC began the journey but their aircraft crashed or were forced down. All airmen survived. They were all awarded the Mackay Trophy aviation award for 1924.

  1. ^ "MAJOR GENERAL LEIGH WADE". af.mil. Archived from the original on 13 August 2024. Retrieved 13 August 2024.