Santa Monica Airport Celebrates 100th Anniversary of First Around-the-World Flight

by Stephen R. Hofer
Aerlex Law Group Founder and President

Santa Monica Airport (“SMO”) was recently the site of “Douglas Day 2024,” an event held at the historic airport to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first-ever aerial circumnavigation of the world, a monumental aviation accomplishment utilizing aircraft that were planned, constructed and took wing in Santa Monica, California.

Several thousand aviation aficionados visited SMO on Sunday, September 22nd, and had the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of aircraft-related experiences, including bus tours of the airport, close-up opportunities to see both classic and cutting-edge aircraft, live and recorded musical performances, historical exhibits, kid-friendly science demonstrations, face painting, bracelet making, a bouncy castle and food truck dining.

Joby Aviation, the Santa Cruz, California-based company seeking to develop an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) for use in air taxi services, brought one of its first production model eVTOLs to SMO as well as a flight experience simulator and gave visitors an opportunity to both sit in the cockpit and then enter the simulator to get a sense of what vertical electric aircraft flight will look and feel like.  Not surprisingly, the Joby display attracted long lines of curious attendees all day long.

Rotorcraft devotees could also see a Robinson R44 and an American Eurocopter model AS350B2 helicopter (now called the Airbus Helicopters H125 AStar), the latter ship decked out in the livery of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, while fixed-wing fans could gawk at a Cirrus SF50 Generation 2 Vision Jet, a Cirrus SR22 GTS Carbon Edition and an American Champion Super Decathlon aerobatic trainer.

For many visitors, the main attraction was beautifully maintained vintage airplanes such as a 1941 North American Aviation Harvard MKII, commonly known as the T-6 Texan, the aircraft used to train United States Army, Navy and Air Force pilots from World War II into the 1970s, and a bright yellow 1946 Piper Aircraft Model J3C-65 Cub, on loan from Seattle’s Museum of Flight.  A handsome 1938 Buick Century four-door sedan was also on display, looking as if it had just been driven off the showroom floor.

Douglas Day 2024 was organized and hosted by Spirit of Santa Monica (a group named for Donald Douglas’s DC-3 aircraft) and sponsored by a large coalition of both public organizations and private companies, including the Santa Monica Airport Association, the Museum of Flying, the Santa Monica Conservancy, Angel Flight West, the Civil Air Patrol Clover Field Squadron, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Santa Monica History Museum.  The day’s events included historical presentations by several of the local museums, a speech by U.S. Army Colonel Jason Cook on the history and future of U.S. Army aviation, and welcoming remarks from Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock.

It was a fun, entertaining and enlightening day for aero-enthusiasts but the ultimate and underlying purpose of the event was to recall one of the biggest aviation milestones of the 20th Century, the first successful flight around-the-world.

In 1923, the United States Army Air Service, the eventual precursor of today’s U.S. Air Force, wanted to launch a mission to make America the first country to circumnavigate the Earth by air.  Donald Douglas, who had created the Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica in 1921, presented the Army with a plan to modify the two-man, open-cockpit, biplane DT torpedo bomber that had been operating from the U.S. Navy’s first-ever aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, to create an airplane that would meet the Army’s needs.  Douglas produced a successful prototype in November 1923 and the Army gave Douglas the go-ahead to build four more production aircraft at his factory in Santa Monica.

The modified aircraft, which became known as the Douglas World Cruiser, was powered by a 12-cylinder, 420-horsepower engine, and redesigned to include six fuel tanks in the wings and fuselage with a fuel capacity of 644 gallons.  The World Cruiser was also given a more robust tubular steel fuselage, a longer wingspan of 50 feet, a larger rudder and bigger radiators.  The aircraft were outfitted with both landing gear wheels and pontoons so that they could take off or land on either runways or water.

Four World Cruisers, each named after an American city, Seattle, Chicago, Boston and New Orleans, departed Santa Monica’s airport, then known as Clover Field, on March 17, 1924, flying the initial leg that would take them up the western coast of North America to Seattle.  After more testing, the four-airplane fleet departed Sand Point Airfield, just outside Seattle, on April 6, 1924, the official starting point for the mission.

Two of the aircraft, the Seattle and the Boston, sustained mechanical failures during the expedition and crash-landed, one in Alaska and the other in the Atlantic Ocean north of Scotland, although the crews of both airplanes were unharmed.  The other two, the New Orleans and the Chicago, flew into Boston and then onto Washington D.C. in early September, along with the original prototype World Cruiser, now re-named the Boston II, that had flown from California to join them.

Over the course of nearly six months, the World Cruisers flew a west-to-east across Asia, Europe and North America, traversing oceans, confronting mountains and other formidable terrain, encountering often challenging weather conditions, including both thunderstorms and sandstorms, and periodic mechanical breakdowns, all without radios or advanced navigational aids.  The mission relied on pre-positioned spare engines, other supplies and equipment, and fuel cached by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard to keep the aircraft flying.  The engines and other components of both World Cruisers had to be replaced multiple times in the course of the journey.

The New Orleans and the Chicago finally made it back to Seattle on September 28, 1924, after having logged 27,553 miles in 175 calendar days with an actual flying time of 371 hours, 11 minutes, averaging 70 miles an hour in flight and touching down in 28 countries along the way.  The Douglas World Cruisers also made a stop in Santa Monica in September 1924, on their return to Seattle and a huge crowd, reported to have been 250,000 people, greeted them at Clover Field.  The success of this mission cemented Donald Douglas and his Santa Monica-based company’s place in aviation history.

The crew members of the first successful global circumnavigation by air were four Army Air Service aviators, Lieutenant Lowell Smith (pilot) and First Lieutenant Leslie Arnold of the Chicago, and Lieutenant Erik Nelson (pilot) and Lieutenant Jack Harding in the cockpit of the New Orleans.  Each man flew with a parachute strapped to his back and carried a pistol, fishing tackle, first-aid supplies, navigation charts for the route and emergency rations designed to last 48 hours.

One hundred years later, the all-day event commemorating the success of the Douglas World Cruisers was held on the ramp outside the Atlantic Aviation fixed based operation (FBO) on the north side of SMO, the multi-purpose facility originally constructed in the mid-1980s by the late David G. Price, founder of American Golf Corporation, to house the original Supermarine of Santa Monica FBO, the Museum of Flying (“MOF”) that Price created and the upscale DC-3 restaurant with its scenic views of the SMO runway that diners enjoyed.  The building has a special place in the memory of Aerlex Law Group President and founder Stephen Hofer, because the second-floor business offices above the FBO was Aerlex’s original home.

The Chicago was donated to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and has been on display in the National Air and Space Museum for many years.  The New Orleans was donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and was on loan to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, from 1957 until 1988 when the Santa Monica Museum of Flying opened.  For the next 14 years, the New Orleans was the centerpiece of the MOF’s extensive collection of vintage aircraft and aviation memorabilia.  However, when the museum’s original location adjoining the Supermarine FBO was closed in 2002 and MOF moved into a smaller facility on the southside of the SMO runway, it was no longer possible to display the New Orleans and the World Cruiser was disassembled and placed in storage in Torrance, where it has remained ever since.

Over the course of the past year, the L.A. County Museum of Natural History has begun exploring the possibility of reassembling the New Orleans and again putting the historic airplane on display.  The local sponsors of “Douglas Day 2024” made “Celebrating a Century of Innovation in Santa Monica” the theme of their event.  Perhaps the large turnout for the centennial celebration at SMO may have shown local officials that there is still strong support for aviation in Santa Monica and given airplane and airport fans something to hope for in a community that was, once upon a time, the beating heart of America’s aviation industry.