Douglas World Cruiser - Operational History

Operational History

From 17 March 1924, the pilots practiced in the prototype which served as a training aircraft. On 6 April 1924, the four expedition aircraft, named Boston, Chicago, New Orleans and Seattle, departed Sand Point, Washington, near Seattle, Washington. Seattle, the lead aircraft, crashed in Alaska on 30 April. The other three aircraft with Chicago assuming the lead, continued west across Asia and Europe relying on a carefully planned logistics system, including prepositioned spare engines and fuel caches maintained by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, to keep the aircraft flying. The Boston was forced down and damaged beyond repair in the Atlantic, off the Faroe Islands. The remaining two aircraft continued across the Atlantic to North America, where they were joined by the Boston II at Pictou, Nova Scotia. The recently re-christened prototype continued with the flight back to Washington and on the World Flight's ceremonial flypast across the United States. The three surviving aircraft returned to Seattle on 28 September 1924. The flight covered 23,942 nm (44,342 km). Time in flight was 371 hours, 11 minutes and average speed, 70 miles per hour.