Moye W. Stephens - The Flying Carpet Expedition

The Flying Carpet Expedition

A few years after Charles Lindbergh's New York to Paris flight, Stephens flew an open cockpit biplane around the world. He was approached by famous travel-adventurist Richard Halliburton, who proposed up to two years away, visiting well-known and less known places. Stephens chose a Stearman C-3B with Halliburton, taking eighteen months, and reaching places such as Timbuktu in Africa, Mount Everest in the Himalayas, The Taj Mahal in India, Petra in Jordan, Singapore in Southeast Asia, and Sarawak in Borneo.

The two men simply shook hands. Moye had no pay, but unlimited expenses. When Crown Prince Ghazi of Iraq was a boy, Stephens and Halliburton flew the lad over a school yard so class mates could see the Prince in an open-cockpit airplane. They performed acrobatics for the Maharajah of Nepal. They were feted by Sylvia Brett, wife of the White Rajah of Sarawak.

In a 23 January 1932 letter to his parents, Halliburton wrote, "Moye continues to be the world's best pilot. Once we are in the air, no matter where, everything goes like clock-work."

For Halliburton, he piloted a Stearman C-3B biplane, The Flying Carpet, and Halliburton wrote a book of the same name, published in 1932, which became a best seller. They flew to French Foreign Legion outposts, and across the Sahara to Timbuktu. Their flight took them to Asia, including India, Persia, Malaysia, and other countries. In Iran, they met young German aviatrix Elly Beinhorn, famous in her day, who had also flown to Timbuktu in a Klemm, although her plane had been forced down because of mechanical failure.

In 1931, Richard Halliburton, a famous travel-adventure writer of the time, asked Stephens to pilot and mechanic for him in an around the world flight. The purpose was to gather material for Halliburton's next book, The Flying Carpet, which became a best seller. The trip in a biplane called The Flying Carpet, a Stearman C-3B, took eighteen months, covered 33,660 miles, visited 34 countries, and included France, the Sahara, Persia, Singapore, and the Philippines. In that global flight, Stephens performed aerobatics for the first air meet in Oran, Algeria, aerobatics for the first air meet in Fez, Morocco, rescued Elly Beinhorn a famous German aviatrix, and flew aerobatics for the Maharajah of Nepal.

Among the highlights of his trip was the first aerial photograph of Mount Everest. He and Halliburton were the first Americans to fly to the Philippines. He flew Crown Prince Ghazi of Iraq. In Persia, Princess Mahin Banu climbed into the front cockpit for a ride with him. In Borneo, he took Sylvia Brett, known as Ranee Sylvia of Sarawak, for a ride, the first woman to fly in that country. At the Rajang River there, he took the chief of the Dyak head-hunters for a flight.