In the 1920s, getting around the world on a boat was easy and could be done in less than 60 days. But, according to the wisdom of the day, circumnavigating the earth by air was an impossible challenge since no landing strips existed in most parts of the world and the Pacific Ocean, which had never been crossed by air, would kill anyone foolish enough to tempt an aerial crossing.
The Great Air Race of 1924 involved pilots from the United States, Britain, Argentina, France, Italy and Portugal. The above chart, published in the March 27th, 1924 edition of Flight, shows the proposed route of the Americans and English in the Great Race. A full archive of the magazine's Great Race reports from 1924 can be viewed at www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/1924.html
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Below are the Commanding Pilots for each country in the Race.
Lieutenant Lowell Smith was put in charge of the US planes when the commander of the US Army Air Service World Flight, Major Frederick L. Martin, crashed in Alaska during the first month of an adventure that would last for 175 days.
Zanni (Argentina) Locatelli (Italy) Pais (Portugal)
Lowell Thomas's second book, which he wrote after Lawrence of Arabia, is titled The First World Flight and was published in 1925. The Book follows the adventures of my great Uncle, Lowell Smith, and the pilots that flew with him.
The dust jacket of The First World Flight proclaims that its story “is an authentic and thrilling narrative of one of the world’s great adventures, an American Odyssey from real life more thrilling than the fabled Odyssey of Homer”. To read Chasing Horizons is to realize that the dust jacket of The First World Flight contains very little exaggeration.
Chicago: Lowell Smith pilot / Leslie Arnold mechanic
New Orleans: Erik Nelson pilot / John Harding mechanic
Boston: Leigh Wade pilot / Hank Ogden mechanic
The photos were provided c
