By Steve Schapiro
“The world never forgets its pathfinders,” New York Senator James Wadsworth said in 1924 as he welcomed six intrepid US Army aviators to New York as they were nearing completion of the first circumnavigation of the globe by air.
But 100 years later, few people even know about this historic achievement, much less recall the names of the daring pilots.
At 1:28 p.m. on Sept. 28, 2024, a bell rang out in Magnuson Park in Seattle in an effort to rectify that.
It was part of the First World Flight Centennial Celebration to remind people that in this very location, at this exact time 100 years ago, three specially built aircraft touched downed simultaneously, wingtip to wingtip, completing the first flight around the world.
Approximately 50,000 people were on hand to witness the completion of a journey that began 175 days earlier, on April 6, 1924, in the waters of Lake Washington adjacent to Sand Point, now called Magnuson Park.
On that spring day, four Douglas World Cruisers on pontoons took to the air — the Seattle piloted by Maj. Frederick Martin and SSgt. Alva Harvey; the Chicago piloted by Lt. Lowell Smith and Lt. Leslie Arnold; the Boston piloted by Lt. Leigh Wade and SSgt. Henry Ogden, and the New Orleans piloted by Lt. Erik Nelson and Lt. John Harding, Jr.
Remarkably, all eight crew members would survive the historic flight despite the loss of two of the aircraft.
“The goal of the celebration was to take something that was lying dormant and bring it up to the public’s attention so it can get the honor it deserves among the other aviation feats,” First World Flight Centennial Celebration Co-Chair Frank Goodell said.
Sponsored by the Friends of Magnuson Park and The Museum of Flight, the organizers wanted “to get this thing out of the secret category and get the public to understand what a great mission this was in 1924,” Goodell said. “We did achieve that.”
During the week, a number of Earthrounders — pilots who have flown around the world — displayed their aircraft at The Museum of Flight located at Boeing Field (KBFI), along with the Commemorative Air Force’s B-29 FIFI.
The event was a homecoming of sorts for FIFI, which was built in Boeing’s Renton factory in 1945. Today it is used to build 737s.
The Mission
Twenty years after the Wright brothers’ first flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, aviation was still in its infancy. World War I led to advancements in technology and proved the viability of the airplane as a weapon of war. But U.S. military officials weren’t convinced, and the fledgling American aviation industry was falling behind Europe.
Several countries were vying to be the first to fly around the world. The goal for the circumnavigation for the Americans was to demonstrate the United States was still the leader in aviation and to show government officials that the Army Air Service could be more than just a reconnaissance arm for the artillery.
Legendary aircraft designers Donald Douglas and Jack Northrup modified a Douglas DT-2 torpedo bomber designed for the Navy to create the Douglas World Cruiser. The large biplane could easily change from pontoons to wheels, was powered by the 420-hp Liberty V-12 engine, and carried 644 gallons of fuel.
The attempt was nothing short of remarkable. These eight aviators were flying in single-engine, open cockpit aircraft. To save weight, they flew with no radios, no navigation equipment, no parachutes, and no life preservers or rafts. They flew by dead reckoning and a whiskey compass. No one had ever flown across the Pacific, which remains the most difficult part of flying around the world today. These brave men were trailblazers who set out to advance aviation and bring the world closer together.
The eight men “were the astronauts of their generation,” Goodell said. “They paved the way into the unknown and they were successful at it. They were opening up the world to people.”
But just weeks into the flight, disaster struck. Flying in dense fog, Martin and Harvey crashed into a mountain in Alaska. They trekked through the unforgiving wilderness for 10 days before being rescued. The remaining aircraft continued on to Russia, Japan, and through Southeast Asia.
Flying legs of about 500 miles each, the Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans made their way across India, and the Middle East to Constantinople (now Istanbul). In many of the countries they went to, people had never seen an airplane.
As the flyers “hit India and people started to think these guys may make it, people started to come out at every stop and the crowds got bigger and bigger,” Goodell said. “They were heroes.”
They continued through Europe landing on Bastille Day to adoring crowds in Paris — much like Lindbergh would three years later.
In England, they put the pontoons back on for crossing the North Atlantic.
Disaster struck again as the Boston had to make a forced landing in the ocean on the way to Iceland. The crew was picked up by one of the U.S. Navy ships supporting the flight and the plane was hooked up to a tow line. But rough seas caused the plane to capsize and it sank. The Chicago and New Orleans continued on.
The prototype World Cruiser was christened the Boston II and Leigh Wade and Henry Ogden resumed the flight from Nova Scotia.
The three aircraft flew down from Canada to Boston, New York, and to Washington, D.C. where President Coolidge waited four hours in the rain to meet the aviators. From there, they continued on to Chicago and then down to Texas as they made their way back to the West Coast.
By the time these trailblazers touched down in Sand Point, they had flown 26,345 miles in 363 hours and 7 minutes over 175 days. Compare that to the five hours it took John Glenn to orbit the earth not once, but three times, in the Friendship 7, just 38 years later.
Many would say going to the moon was man’s greatest accomplishment in the 20th Century. But Spencer Lane, author of the book “First World Flight, the Odyssey of Billy Mitchell,” the man who conceived the around the world flight, has a different opinion: “The first world flight was, by any standard, the greatest aviation achievement of the 20th century.”
The Forgotten Flight
But somehow it has become just a footnote in history. If you ask almost anybody about the First World Flight, most have no idea what you’re talking about — including pilots.
“Think of it this way. Do you know of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth?” Goodell asked. “Do you know who was on the first Apollo? History rewards solo activities, not group activities. The First World Flight was a group and they were military. Lindbergh was a civilian and solo. It’s the difference how we treat group winners versus how we treat solo winners. It’s just our culture.”
For the record, the first crewed Apollo mission, Apollo 7, was commanded by Wally Schirra, Don Eisele was the Command Module Pilot, and the Lunar Module Pilot (even though they did not carry the LEM) was Walter Cunningham.
To Goodell’s point, I had to look it up.
Earthrounders
One group of people who remember Frederick Martin, Alva Harvey, Lowell Smith, Leslie Arnold, Leigh Wade, Henry Ogden, Erik Nelson, and John Harding, Jr. are the Earthrounders — general aviation pilots who have flown around the world.
Several of them were invited to display their aircraft at The Museum of Flight and participate in a fly-by during the centennial celebration.
Among the aircraft were several homebuilts, two Mooneys, a Cessna, a replica of Miss Veedol, a Bellanca CH-400, which was the first aircraft to fly non-stop across the Pacific in 1931, and a Twin Commander 900 named “Citizen of the World,” which Robert DeLaurentis flew pole to pole.
CarolAnn Garratt and Carol Foy, Mooney 20J
“Participating in this event is really special. This is hallowed ground,” said Carol Foy, who broke a speed record flying around the world with CarolAnn Garratt in a Mooney M20J in 2008. “Being here is the realization that our accomplishments stand on the shoulders of their accomplishments, and how inspirational those that have gone before us have been.”
The record-setting flight was CarolAnn’s second of three circumnavigations. The first time she flew around the world was in 2003 and she took seven months to complete the journey. The flight in 2008 took just eight and a half days, totaling 158 hours of flight time. The average speed was 115.35 mph, shattering the previous westbound record of 54.6 mph set 20 years earlier by a Bonanza.
An around the world record is the total time for the flight from takeoff to landing at the initial departure airport. All ground time is included with the flight time.
“Being part of the 100th anniversary of something that we have done kind of makes it sink in a little more,” CarolAnn said. “Think about how they did it back then with the engines and lack of instrumentation and how lucky we are today.”
CarolAnn’s first flight around the world was inspired in part by her mother passing in 2002 after a three-year battle with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Her father, who was in his 80s, wanted to visit his sister in New Zealand. They had only seen each other once since World War II and he wanted to see her one more time. Around the same time, CarolAnn saw an article about a Mooney being ferried to Australia and that gave her an idea.
“I thought, wow wouldn’t that be neat to get my Mooney to New Zealand, take dad flying around New Zealand, get him reunited with his sister, get him over to Australia where he had friends, and then get him back to the states,” CarolAnn said. “I started planning it. I thought, I don’t want to fly across the Pacific twice. I have relatives in England, and I worked in France for eight years. If I could get to Europe, I could take all these friends flying and then come back, and so that’s how it happened.”
CarolAnn dedicated the flight to her mother and raised money for ALS research, something she did on all three of her circumnavigations. According to her website, she has raised more than $510,000 to date.
Ed Galkin, Cessna 210
CarolAnn’s not the only pilot who chose to use their flight around the world to help make a difference for others. Ed Galkin has flown around the world four times in his Cessna 210. He had flown across the Atlantic from New Jersey, and then flew from New Jersey to Australia with a friend, Bobby Zuber, who he had done training with for his instrument and commercial ratings.
“I said you know, Bob, we flew halfway around the world. Why don’t we go all the way around and that’s how in 1988 I made my first trip around the world,” Ed said.
His most recent trip was in 2022 with copilot Zvi Mosey. Ed was 86 years old, making him the oldest person to fly around the world. He raised money for FOP (fibrous dysplasia ossificans progressiva), a rare genetic disease on one flight, and Alzheimer’s disease on two others. His website is called Fly for the Cure, and he’s raised about $80,000 for the two causes.
“It’s much more fun when you can do it for a cause,” Ed said. “You enjoy the trip, and you feel other people are benefitting too.”
One of the highlights of the Centennial event was inspiring kids by showing them his plane and putting them in the pilot’s seat. Another was flying over Magnuson Park during the ceremony.
“It was really one of the nicest things that has happened in my flying career,” Ed said. “I had goosebumps on the fly-over on Saturday. It was just incredible. Just knowing 100 years ago on that particular day, these guys got back and how brave they were. It was almost like a suicide mission with the odds that were against them back in 1924.”
John Koehler, RV-9A
John Koehler also used his around the world flight to raise money for Alzheimer’s research to honor his mother, who passed from the disease.
He has always been interested in travel and experiencing different cultures.
Originally, he tried to sail around the world, but he got seasick and decided to try something else — he built his own plane, a Van’s RV-9A.
“I wanted the ultimate aviation test — to fly my homebuilt experimental plane around the world,” John said.
The Earthrounder community is small, with fewer than 250 people who have circled the globe. The number of people to have done so in a plane they built themselves is even more exclusive. Only about 25 people have that distinction.
“The RV was an ideal choice for my mission,” John said. “It is a proven kit aircraft that has speed, predictable flight characteristics, and the capacity to carry a large amount of fuel for long flights.”
He modified the plane to increase the fuel capacity from 36 gallons to 127 gallons with three additional tanks in the cabin.
John is an example of what’s possible. When he began his journey, he had 300 hours and a new instrument rating. Along his journey through 19 countries he learned patience and to smile when dealing with difficult officials.
“Despite language differences, I learned that people are essentially the same. If you give respect, you tend to receive it,” he said.
“I felt honored to participate in an event celebrating the first aerial circumnavigation of the world,” he added. “The team of eight army pilots flying Douglas World Cruiser aircraft were extremely brave, courageous, and determined aviators. The Earthrounder pilots at the centennial event recognize their achievement and grit.”
Bill Harrelson, Lancair IV
Bill has a lot in common with some of the other Earthrounders who participated in the centennial celebration. Like CarolAnn and Ed, he has flown around the world multiple times.
Like John, he flew around the world in a plane that he built — a Lancair IV. What makes Bill a little different is that one of his flights was a polar circumnavigation.
“We built the airplane specifically for the polar route. It’s a pretty rare record and in this weight class, it’s only been done once,” Bill said. “Antarctica is hard. A lot of people have done the North Pole. I don’t want to say it’s a breeze or that it doesn’t require anything. It does. But the South Pole is really, really tough.”
His Lancair has three configurations. In the four-place configuration it holds 108 gallons in the wings and 13 gallons in a header tank. In the two-place configuration, there is a tank in the back seat that holds 45 gallons and another in the foot well that holds 10 gallons, bringing the total to about 175 gallons.
In what Bill calls the expedition configuration, he removes the co-pilot seat and rudder pedals and adds another fuel tank. The expedition configuration holds 361 gallons and has a max range of 8,114 miles. How does he know that? That’s how far it is from Guam to Jacksonville, Florida — a record-breaking nonstop flight Bill completed in 38 hours and 39 minutes in 2013.
The polar flight had long legs too — but not quite that long. Bill flew from Kinston, North Carolina, to Montevideo, Uruguay, the longest planned leg of the flight at 28 hours. The next stop was a short seven-hour hop to Punta Arenas, Chile, and from there the South Pole.
Strong headwinds forced Bill to fly over the Pole and head back to Chile instead of continuing on to New Zealand. He revised the flight plan and flew from Chile to Tahiti, then New Zealand and Hawaii. The plan was to go from Honolulu to Fairbanks, but because of icing concerns, Bill chose to go to northern California and then to Alaska. From Fairbanks, he flew over the North Pole and back to North Carolina breaking a speed record going around the world over the poles.
One of the highlights of participating in the centennial celebration was displaying his airplane and sharing with people what is possible.
“Most people don’t believe that individuals can own an airplane. Very few people believe an individual could build their own airplane. And damn few believe they could do that and take it around the world,” Bill said.
Brian Lloyd, Mooney 231
While the world has trouble remembering the First World Flight, it has an obsession about an around the world flight that was never completed — that of Amelia Earhart. Brian Lloyd decided to fly the same route in 2017, the 80th anniversary of her failed attempt.
Brian began long distance flying with his father in 1985 when they flew a Piper Comanche from Frederick, Maryland, to Paris. They had talked about doing other long flights but hadn’t done any. When his father passed away in 2012, Brian said, “I’ve got to do this.” He bought a Mooney and spent five years configuring it for long distance flight.
“I decided the best way to do it would be to find the most challenging flight I could do, and that was Amelia Earhart’s flight,” Brian said. “I tried to stay to her schedule as much as possible — land in the same places, stay the same periods of time. It didn’t quite work out. I had some mechanical issues.”
Among the harrowing experiences during Brian’s flight was getting caught in a thunderstorm that didn’t show up on radar or storm scope until after he got into it on his way to Myanmar. The storm flipped him upside down in IMC, but he was able to right himself.
If that isn’t scary enough, things would get worse. Just after leveling off at 21,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, Brian had an engine failure. Would he go down like Amelia never to be heard from again?
Fortunately, he was able to descend and get the engine restarted well enough to make it back to New Zealand. It turned out he had a vapor lock caused by fuel contamination. He flushed the lines and was able to complete his journey.
By taking on the challenge of flying and completing Amelia Earhart’s route, Brian has a direct connection to an aviation legend. That connection hit home while he was halfway around the world.
“It’s an iconic thing. Think about it. Aviation is only 120 years old. To have flown around the world means I have a connection to these people, the people way back when who did this,” Brian said. “On my flight around the world, one of the most significant moments was when I got to Dakar, Senegal, and the Aeroclub d’Dakar, which is one of the oldest continuously operating aeroclubs in the world. I went into their clubhouse and it was like stepping back 80 years. I walk out on the back patio and here is a mural of the Little Prince, L’ Petite Prince, that was written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I’m looking at that and get chills, it just hit me. I went back in and said was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry a member of this club? Oh yes, he was. Charles Lindbergh was. Amelia Earhart was. I am part of that. I am here because I am part of that.”
That’s what the First World Flight Centennial was all about — honoring the brave aviators who took off from Seattle on a mission to demonstrate how aviation could bring the world together — over the miles and over time. Their flight helped shrink the world and bring people together.
It’s a lesson worth remembering.
One of the things Bill realized by circumnavigating the globe is that we’re all the same.
“When you’re looking down you can’t tell the difference between the US and Canada when you fly over the border. It’s just the world,” he said. “The differences are all caused by us. I found people all over the world to be nice, and that we have a whole lot more in common than we do in conflict.”
Flying — and certainly flying around the world — is about imagination, planning, and executing.
“I love the quote, ‘A mile of highway takes you a mile. A mile of runway can take you anywhere,’ and that includes around the world, one leg at a time,” Carol Foy said. “Whatever you dream you want to do, you can do, one step at a time.”
The First World Flight pilots understood the magnitude of their achievement and foresaw how their flight would literally transform the world, as evidenced by how they closed the foreword to their book, “First World Flight” as related by Lieutenants Smith, Nelson, Wade, Arnold, Harding, and Ogden to Lowell Thomas:
“We like to think that this United States Army Air Service flight, in which it was our privilege to play a part, is just one more step in advancing the history of civilization. And we hope that it will contribute thereto by impressing you with the boundless possibilities of aerial transport. Some day — soon perhaps — we shall look back and smile at the difficulties we encountered, for we are now entering upon a new era, in which travel by air will be as commonplace as travel by covered wagon for our forefathers.”
100 years later we should all remember these names — Frederick Martin, Alva Harvey, Lowell Smith, Leslie Arnold, Leigh Wade, Henry Ogden, Erik Nelson, and John Harding, Jr. — and thank them for their part in making the world accessible by air.
That was a wonderful article. Mr. Schapiro packed an amazing amount of history in there. I have known three Earthrounders from New Jersey. Ken Johnson in a Glasair III in 1992
and Bill Moore and Richard Sollner in a Piper Twin Comanche in 2002. All of these gentlemen had some nerve and a lot of good fortune.
Hats off to Steve Schapiro for writing this article!!
Thank you for including me in your article. I appreciate it. I suspect most people have noticed that the aircraft I am leaning on in the picture is a SIAI Marchetti SF260D and not a Mooney. I sold the Mooney to acquire the SF260D. The young man who purchased my Mooney is planning a pole-to-pole circumnavigation in it. The world keeps turning.
A year ago I flew that SF260 back from Italy where it had lain dormant in a hangar for 18 years. I flew it back to the US using what was essentially 50-year-old technology. No problem. Aviation is timeless.
Major Alva Harvey made another around the world flight in 1941 when he piloted a B-24 carrying members of the US lend-lease mission to Russia then back to the USA via the Middle and Far East, Wake Island and Hawaii. Just occurred in October just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Yes, this 1924 round the world flight in the Douglas cruisers was totally remarkable for that day and age. When faced with adversity, the pilots figured out what had caused the problem, fixed it to the best of their abilities, and the remaining pilots with their aircraft returned to the starting point. Yes, an amazing feat!
I wrote an earlier comment about my being the first to fly a Lockheed 10 Electra around the world on the Earhart Trail. There is an error in that item.
We left Oakland, California, on June 9, 1967, and returned on July 7, 1967, thus completing Amelia’s flight for her. Two days later Amelia’s sister Muriel, thanked me for doing that.
I dropped a wreath on Howland Island on July 2, 1967, exactly 30 years after Amelia had been looking for it on July 2, 1937.
Ann
❤️ Love it, Ann! I hope someone does another feature on you. Well worth it.
In 1967 Ann Pellegreno with her crew of three:
Bill Payne, copilot; Bill Polhemus, navigator; and Lee Kopke, mechanic and owner of Lockheed 10 Electra N79237 flew around the world on the Earhart Trail. She found Howland Island on the morning of July 2, 1967, exactly 30 years later after Amelia and Fred had been searching for it on July 2, 1937. Ann dropped a wreath in memory of Amelia and her navigator. Hopefully, it landed where another pair of Locheed 10 Electra wheels should have touched 30 years earlier. Ann flew on to Canton Island, to Honolulu, and finally back to Oakland, California, on July 7, where they had departed on July 7, 1967. Two days later Muriel Morrissey, Amelia ‘s sister, thanked Ann for completing her sister’s flight. Lee had wanted to make the world flight to prove that it hadn’t been the airplane that had contributed to the disappearance of Amelia. Lee’s Lockheed 10 Electra had performed flawlessly. Not one squawk during the entire 28,000 miles.
Quite a record for a 1937 era plane that Lee had restored, and helped equip for that remarkable and historic flight. World Flight, the Earhart Trail is Ann’s book. She has continued sharing this flight with audiences and readers since returning from the flight in July 1967. She enjoys that, because she once, again can fly that gallant Locheed as she takes audiences with her on the world flight.
The above article fails to mention Ann Pellegreno’s historic flight around the world in 1967, the 30th year anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s flight. Ann flew without GPS. A 2017 article about Ann’s flight (Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Earhart Commemorative Flight) is available at this link: https://generalaviationnews.com/2017/07/02/celebrating-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-1967-earhart-commemorative-flight/
Wow !
These men were brave beyond words.
My hat is off to them.
We really should appreciate their contributions to the world of aviation that we have inherited !
Keep em flying,
Flyboy Stinson
🛫🤩🛬👍
I have been researching the FWF for over two years. Jack Harding is one of my home town Nashville heroes. I compare this epic event a combination of “The Right Stuff”, the First Moon Landing, and the Beatles coming to the USA.