The Douglas World Cruiser Chicago, the Nineteen Twenty-Four Around-the-World Flight, and the Biplane Hanging in the National Air and Space Museum

In 1924, two Douglas World Cruisers - the Chicago and the New Orleans - completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. The flight covered 27,553 miles, made 74 stops across 28 countries, and took 175 days. The Chicago now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where it has been on display since 1975.

What Was the Douglas World Cruiser?

The Douglas World Cruiser was a purpose-built aircraft, designed by Donald Douglas and his team in Santa Monica, California, for a single mission: to fly around the world. The design drew from an existing Navy torpedo bomber, adapted for extreme range and versatility.

The most practical engineering feature was interchangeable landing gear. Crews could swap between wheeled undercarriage and twin pontoons depending on where they were landing. On a gravel strip in Alaska, wheels. In a protected Pacific harbor, floats. The mechanics became very fast at that swap.

Each aircraft seated two in open cockpits - a pilot and a mechanic-observer behind him. Power came from a Liberty 12-cylinder, 400-horsepower water-cooled engine. Four aircraft were built for the mission and named after American cities: the Seattle, the Chicago, the Boston, and the New Orleans.

The Eight Men Who Flew the Mission

The U.S. Army Air Service assembled eight men - four pilots and four mechanic-observers - at Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle in the early spring of 1924.

Major Frederick Martin commanded the expedition from the Seattle, with Sergeant Alva Harvey as his mechanic. Lieutenant Lowell Smith, known for airmail flying and aerial refueling experiments, piloted the Chicago with Sergeant Leslie Arnold. Lieutenant Leigh Wade and Sergeant Henry Ogden crewed the Boston. Lieutenant Erik Nelson and Lieutenant John Harding flew the New Orleans.

On March 28, 1924, all four aircraft departed Sand Point and pointed north.

The Route: Alaska to Japan to Europe and Back

The plan called for a westward route: up the Alaskan coast, along the Aleutian Island chain, across the North Pacific to Japan, down through Asia, across the Middle East and into Europe, then back across the North Atlantic to the United States.

In 1924. In open cockpits. On instruments you could count on two hands: a magnetic compass, an airspeed indicator, an altimeter, an oil pressure gauge, and a tachometer.

The Seattle Crashes in Alaska

Alaska ended the expedition for one aircraft almost immediately.

On the third day of the Alaskan leg, Major Martin flew the Seattle into a fog-shrouded ridge near Port Moller on the Alaska Peninsula. The aircraft was destroyed on impact. Martin and Harvey survived and walked out of the wilderness alive - but it took ten days before anyone found them.

Three aircraft remained. Lieutenant Lowell Smith took command, and the Chicago became the lead aircraft.

Crossing the Aleutians on Dead Reckoning

The Aleutian chain stretches roughly 1,100 miles west from the Alaska Peninsula and remains one of the most weather-hostile environments on earth. Fog that rolls in within minutes. Williwaw winds - sudden violent blasts off the mountains. Seas that could kill a crew in minutes. Visibility that could collapse from five miles to zero without warning.

The crews navigated on dead reckoning and compass headings. No radio navigation. No moving map. In some stretches they couldn’t see the water below or the sky above. From the western tip of the Aleutian chain at Attu, they crossed the open North Pacific toward Japan.

Their arrival in Japan drew enormous crowds of aviation officials, military dignitaries, and press. The world had been tracking every leg in the newspapers, and the landing was front-page news internationally.

Asia, the Middle East, and Europe

From Japan the flight continued south and west - through China, Indochina, across the Indian subcontinent toward Calcutta. The route ran south of the Himalayan main range, but the terrain remained mountainous and the landing options thin.

The heat punished the Liberty engines, which had been built to run in cool Alaskan conditions. Every night the crews performed maintenance: oil changes, fabric repairs, fitting checks. The Army had pre-positioned fuel, engine parts, and spare propellers along the route months in advance - a logistics operation requiring diplomatic negotiations with dozens of governments just to secure overflight and landing permissions.

The aircraft crossed Burma, British India, and what is now Iran and Iraq, then flew west into Europe. On July 13, they landed in Constantinople - now Istanbul - more than three and a half months after leaving Seattle.

Paris greeted them with the kind of reception the French reserved for aviation pioneers. London followed. Then north toward Scotland, and the North Atlantic.

The Boston Goes Down in the North Atlantic

Somewhere between Scotland and Iceland, the engine on the Boston failed. Lieutenant Leigh Wade put the aircraft down in the open North Atlantic - an open-cockpit biplane in the North Atlantic in August, on whatever the ocean was doing that day. The destroyer USS Richmond was close enough to respond and pulled the crew out. The Boston sank.

Wade and Ogden were not finished. The Army flew a replacement aircraft over from the United States, designated the Boston Two, and the crew rejoined the flight for the final legs. Officially, however, only two aircraft completed the full circumnavigation in the same machine they started in: the Chicago and the New Orleans.

The Return: September 28, 1924

The North Atlantic crossing came in stages - Reykjavik to Greenland to Labrador, waiting on weather windows, crossing one leg at a time. Then Nova Scotia. Boston, where the city turned out for the aircraft bearing its name. New York. Chicago.

On September 28, 1924, Lowell Smith brought the Chicago in over Sand Point with the New Orleans on his wing. 175 days. 27,553 miles. 74 stops across 28 countries. The first aircraft to fly around the world.

Congress awarded the crew members the Distinguished Service Medal.

Lieutenant Erik Nelson and Lieutenant John Harding of the New Orleans had completed the entire distance without a single serious emergency - a record within the record that history has undervalued. If Smith was the leader who held the expedition together after losing the Seattle, Nelson was the steady hand who never gave anyone a reason to worry.

Why This Still Matters

The Wright Brothers’ first powered flight at Kitty Hawk was only 21 years old when the Chicago and the New Orleans landed back at Sand Point. Orville Wright was alive in Dayton, Ohio, and watched it happen. From the first 12-second hop at Kitty Hawk in 1903 to a circumnavigation of the globe - in twenty-one years.

The Chicago has hung in the National Air and Space Museum since 1975. Walk up to it. There is no glass in front of the cockpit, no windscreen. Goggles, a leather helmet, a sheepskin jacket - and whatever the North Pacific had decided to throw at you that morning. Lowell Smith sat in that seat and dead-reckoned across the Aleutians in fog, across Asia in heat, across the Atlantic in whatever that ocean felt like.

The Smithsonian’s archives and the National Museum of the United States Air Force documentation on the World Cruiser program are the authoritative sources on this history. Both have kept the record accessible.

Key Takeaways

The 1924 U.S. Army Air Service World Flight was the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe, completed by the Douglas World Cruisers Chicago and New Orleans.
The mission covered 27,553 miles in 175 days, with 74 stops across 28 countries, departing and returning to Sand Point Naval Air Station in Seattle.
Of the four aircraft that departed on March 28, 1924, the Seattle was destroyed in an Alaskan fog, and the Boston went down in the North Atlantic - both crews survived.
Navigation relied entirely on dead reckoning, compass headings, and a panel of five basic instruments - no radio navigation, no moving map.
The first powered flight was just 21 years old when this mission launched, making the achievement a measure of how fast aviation advanced in its first two decades.
The Douglas World Cruiser Chicago has been on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., since 1975.