Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the First Flight Around the World

Before Southern California gave the world McDonald’s, Disneyland, and Trader Joe’s, we were really good at making airplanes. The Santa Monica Airport is marking the centennial of the the first-ever flight around the world with Douglas Day this Sunday.

The first air show in the United States was held near Compton in 1910 a little over six years after the Wright Brothers' first flight. Northrop, Lockheed, and North American Aviation/Rockwell International all have roots near L.A., as seen in the Oscar-winning film Wings (1927), which made flying look sexy. Angeleno Howard Hughes took flight to a whole new level of innovation and invention as well.

L.A. boasts several flight museums that show off the early years of air travel and you can visit the Santa Monica Airport this weekend to mark the 100th anniversary of the first worldwide flight, which departed from that historic location. Four pilots from what would become the U.S. Air Force left from the airport (then known as Clover Field) on March 17, 1924. The planes, named Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, and Seattle, didn’t “officially” start the journey until they arrived near Seattle, Washington and headed west towards Asia and Europe.

The aircraft were beleaguered by forced landings, mechanical failures and bad weather and did not have radios or advanced navigational aids. The Boston and Seattle planes both crashed. The two remaining craft traveled 27,553 miles in 175 days to reach Washington, DC in September.

During the flight, a young museum aide at the Smithsonian Institute suggested that the craft should be preserved at the museum. The Chicago has been on display there since 1925, while the only other survivor, the New Orleans, was donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

“The museum’s intention has always been to display the New Orleans someplace locally,” Beth Werling, Collections Manager for the Natural History Museum told the Santa Monica Daily Press . “We’re at the beginning stages and [we’re] listening to the new vision for the Santa Monica airport.”

Hopes are that the giant, fragile antique aircraft can find a new home in Santa Monica. Register here for the free event, which takes Sunday, September 22 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be fun for the whole family with music, tours, science demos for kids and cockpit tours of a new Joby electric air taxi coming to the airport.