Douglas World Cruisers

Daring young men with their flying machine

I'm reading The Flying Tigers by Sam Kleiner and I come across this line:

"Gibbons grew up in Seattle, and he was only thirteen when four Douglas World Cruisers took off from a nearby lake in the successful attempt to circumnavigate the globe by air." [last page of chapter 3].

Douglas World Cruisers? Never heard of them before. Seems the Army was eager to make it big in the flying game so they contracted the Douglas Aircraft Company to build them four airplanes specifically to fly around the world. They made it all the way around, or at least some of them did, though it took them six months.

Seattle II Reproduction Douglas World Cruiser

Now some guys in Seattle are trying to duplicate this adventure with a reproduction Douglas World Cruiser. They were going to try going this year, the 95th anniversary, but they've decided to wait one more year.

Flight Plan of the Douglas World Cruiser

A couple other round-the-world flight have made been mentioned in this blog. Howard Hughes made a round-the-world flight in 1938, there was the flying boat that made the round-the-world flight at the opening of WW2, and then there were the Russians who flew over the North Pole.