Six U.S. Army Air Corps pilots completed the first flight around the globe in September 28, 1924.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Here’s a bit of aviation trivia. A hundred years ago today, the first round-the-world journey by flight reached the finish line in Seattle. The State of Washington is paying for a once-in-a-century party to put the nearly forgotten achievement back on the map. Reporter Tom Banse has our story from Seattle.
TOM BANSE: You’ve heard of the Wright Brothers and Charles Lindbergh, but what about the first flight around the globe? It predates Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic by three years, yet few people know about it. Elisa Law is one of the main organizers for the First World Flight Centennial.
ELISA LAW: It really is Seattle’s best-kept secret in aviation, that we played host to this important – the first-ever flight around the world.
BANSE: On this day a century ago, a trio of U.S. Army Air Corps biplanes landed in Seattle, completing a perilous six-month hopscotch journey. The planes were made of wood and fabric, held together by wires and rods. The pilots were hailed as conquering heroes, the Magellans of the air.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALVINO REY AND HIS ORCHESTRA SONG, “THE ARMY AIR CORPS”)
ALVINO REY AND HIS ORCHESTRA: (Singing) Off we go into the wild blue yonder, climbing high into the sun.
BANSE: The flyers drew excited crowds all along the route, especially on the homestretch from Paris to London, New York, Washington, LA and finally Seattle. But then, Law says, the achievement faded into the mists of time.
LAW: The people that we remember who do amazing things always seem to be singular individuals – Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh. When we think about early flight – because there was a group of them and four planes and eight flyers, that we just – they – it’s too much to remember all of them, and so even their effort is lost.
BANSE: Bob and Diane Dempster of Centralia, Wash., got interested in the story during their own recreational flight around the world in the mid-1990s. Back home, they started to build a flyable replica of an original Douglas World Cruiser, based on Smithsonian blueprints. They restored and installed an authentic Liberty engine and even scavenged a few parts from a crash site in Alaska.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE STARTING)
DIANE DEMPSTER: We have something that people can say, wow, those people flew around the world in something like this? This is the high-tech machine of 1924?
BOB DEMPSTER: And then start to remember the story and all of the adventures they had. Every day was a story, a book.
BANSE: The Dempsters had planned to replicate the first world flight in their reproduction open-cockpit biplane last year to build excitement for this year’s centennial, but Russia closed its airspace, and the shoot-down risk over the Middle East foiled their trip plans.
B DEMPSTER: Unfortunately, we’re ready, but the world wasn’t ready (laughter). And, you know, that’s the way it goes.
BANSE: Also flocking to the centennial are descendants of the Army flyers, including Anneliese Kruger of California. Her dad, Henry Ogden, was a flight mechanic and co-pilot on the history-making trip.
ANNELIESE KRUGER: The pioneers of yesteryear give ideas to the kids nowadays, and we need more of that.
BANSE: The centennial celebration peaks today with an air show, lectures, festival and tours of the former landing strip that’s now in a city park. The Dempsters plan to donate their replica World Cruiser biplane to the Museum of Flight in Seattle. One of the two surviving originals from 1924 is at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
For NPR News, I’m Tom Banse with producer Sarah Waller in Seattle.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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