Schlepp Recreates the 1924 First Round-the-World Flight

This Fall, I learned about the amazing feat of the US Army Air Corp (with considerable help by the Navy) and the first successful round-the-world flight in 1924.  A friend from Seattle had been hiking around Sand Point and stumbled across a broken and neglected commemorative plaque set in the ground near the old seaplane ramps.  

These intrepid aviators began with four Douglas World Cruisers (DWCs) on April 6^th and, 17 replacement engines later, two of them reached Seattle on September 28^th.  This historic flight is chronicled beautifully at the US Air Force Museum Website.  

So, I set out to recreate this amazing flight using Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2004.  Starting at Sand Point, Seattle Washington, I attempted to fly the course the original DWC aviators flew by using the USAF logs on their Website.  What I quickly learned is that many names have changed and airports have come and gone.  But with some Internet research, I largely got the job done.  I've added my navigational notes to my copy of the USAF Museum log tables and that should make it much easier for others to retrace the DWCs' steps.  

The original DWCs could be fitted with either pontoons or landing gear, but it took a couple days to change from one to the other.  I chose the Cessna C208 Caravan Amphibian (standard with FS 2004), which can go from landing gear to pontoons at the flick of a switch.  You'll start with pontoons, change to landing gear at Calcutta, switch back to pontoons at Brough, England for the trans-Atlantic leg, and finally change back to landing gear in Boston.   

To fly this round-the-world flight yourself, grab your copy of MS Flight Sim 2004, load up a Cessna Amphibian, set the time for 8:47 AM, the date for April 6, 1924, and head for Sand Point.  The details you'll need are in the summary of the log below.  Most importantly, it contains my notes on where the DWCs landed, especially water landings, old air fields, and places with obsolete or changed names.  You'll need to either fly by pilotage, following the terrain, dead reconning, or simple compass bearings. For the latter, you'll need to know how to calculate great circle navigation routes, adjust for magnetic declination, allow for winds aloft, and interpret maps.  Of course, you can "cheat" by using Flight Simulator's GPS and route planning tools. You can even use the Cessna's instrument landing capabilities.  

Unlike the purists, I used time acceleration and autopilot to allow me to squeeze this flight into the spare time while making dinner, grading papers, or cleaning house.  I used real world weather but set the time and date to the correct takeoff time and date (see below).  Because the Cessna cruises much faster than the DWCs, I finished each leg much quicker.  Also, since I used a virtual start time and date but real world weather, I ran into some oddities like midday fog (since it was really nighttime in England) and no monsoon (since it was November real time not July when they actually flew across India).  To me the biggest challenges were determining headings and locating historically correct landing sites.  

Its absolutely amazing to think that those pilots flew around the world in every kind of weather in open-cockpit, wood-and-canvas, two-engine, two-seater biplanes. Their accomplishment was over-shadowed by Lindbergh only three years later, who crossed the Atlantic in a closed-cockpit, metal, single-person, single-engine monoplane.  But don't forget, the Atlantic was first crossed in 1919, by US Navy and Coast Guard pilots in Curtiss NC-4 "flying boats" and then less than three weeks later non-stop by a Vicker's Vimy.   (http://www.firstflight.org/shrine/trans_atlantic.cfm).

Several accessory Websites are helpful to recreating the historic DWC flight.  These are links to historical pages, some with lots of interesting details:  

• The must-read USAF Museum online log commemorating the 80^th anniversary of the flight -- http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/dwc/dwc.htm
  
• A discussion of the accomplishment with a photograph of the aircraft "Chicago" -- http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1715.htm
• The First Flight Society's description of the DWC adventure with links to many other historical summaries -- http://www.firstflight.org/shrine/worldflight.cfm
• History and technical details -- http://www.galcit.caltech.edu/seaplane.shtml
• More historical information and some interesting tidbits and quotes -- http://www.afa.org/magazine/Sept1999/0999around.asp
• Photo and specifications, although they flew higher than specified in Turkey -- http://www.aviationtrivia.homestead.com/WorldCruiser.html
• Some information on the current location of the two remaining DWCs -- http://www.landings.com/_landings/pacflyer/mar7-2002/Mn-41-Douglas-World.html
• Seattle World Cruiser site -- http://www.seattleworldcruiser.org/historic.htm
• The National Air and Space Museum's DWC page -- http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/aircraft/douglas_dwc.htm

Here are links to useful tools:    

• Little-known US airports, like Chrissy Field in San Fran and Bolling Field in DC -- http://www.airfields-freeman.com/index.htm
• How to navigate as they did without radio navigation aids -- http://www.dc3airways.com/TechEd/te_nav_lr_nav.html
• A Website for calculating great circle routes between airports (not so easy to use when looking for anchorages) --  http://www.landings.com/evird.acgi$pass*69232897!_h-www.landings.com/_landings/pages/search/search_dist_apt.html
• Magnetic declination calculator -- http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/geomag/jsp/struts/calcDeclination

And these links go to round-the-world flight simulation pages:  

• Around the world in a Beachcraft Baron 58 -- http://rtw2003.tripod.com/
  
• In a Boeing 314 Clipper "flying boat" with Flt Sim 2002 -- http://www.gbairports.co.uk/clipperrtw/old_progress1.htm
  
• A virtual around-the-world flyer by a different route -- http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~akesanie/fs2004/
• And another global flyer -- http://www.itsnotpersonal.com/fly/mainframe.htm
• And still another... http://www.e-typedesign.co.uk/games/flightsimulator/fs2000_articles_aroundtheworld_intro.asp
• Yet another fellow trying to fly around the world, but this guy overlapped some of the DWC route -- http://home.hccnet.nl/ruud.bijlsma/n_atlantic.htm

There are other sites out there.  Try Googling or Yahoo!ing for "around the world," "Douglas World Cruiser," and "Flight Simulator."  

Here's the annotated logs for the DWC flight.  Good luck.  Send me an e-mail at schlepp@swcp.com if you try this yourself.