One of the two remaining Douglas World Cruiser aircraft that took part in the first ever aerial circumnavigation of the world is set to return to the place where it was originally conceived designed and built, Santa Monica Airport.
This awe-inspiring aeronautical accomplishment was completed in 1924 by four aviators from the US Army Air Service, the precursor of the US Air Force. Traveling east to west, around the northern-Pacific Rim, through to South Asia and Europe before returning to the United States.
Four aircraft, each named after a US city, Seattle, Chicago, Boston and New Orleans, left Clover Field, Santa Monica, on 17 March 1924, for Sand Point in Seattle, Washington for the official start of the journey. The Seattle crashed in dense fog on the Alaska Peninsula on April 30, but thankfully everyone survived. Then on August 3, an oil pump failure forced the Boston down into the Atlantic Ocean between the Orkney Islands and Iceland. Again, thankfully everyone survived.
The New Orleans and the Chicago flew into Boston and then onto Washington DC in early September, along with the original prototype World Cruiser, now named the Boston II, that had flown to join them from California. Logging 27,553 miles in 175 calendar days with an actual flying time of 371 hours, the New Orleans and the Chicago touched down in 28 countries and had to replace entire engines and other components multiple times along the way.
The Chicago eventually ended up at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC and the New Orleans was donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History before being moved in 1957 to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
What is now the Santa Monica Museum of Flying at 3100 Airport Ave first started life as the Douglas Museum and Library and was located on the north side of the airport runway. During the late 80s it was decided to construct a new, dedicated building to house all the beautiful aircraft and aviation memorabilia and for over 10 years, the New Orleans was on display. However, when this incarnation of the museum was closed in 2002, the World Cruiser was disassembled and put into a storage facility in Torrance, where it has remained ever since.
When the museum was built at its current location, on the south side of the runway, conversations were conducted between the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Flying and it was decided that a special air-conditioned, climate controlled environment would be needed to preserve the fragile skin of the airframe. The 50ft wingspan also provided its own unique set of challenges. Ultimately however, the Museum of Flying was unable to fund such a specific and expensive dedicated structure, but it looks like that’s going to change.
“It's always been disappointing that this symbol of Santa Monica’s aviation heritage hasn’t been at the current Museum of Flying. It really all came down to economics between the time that the museum was closed and then relocated on the south side," Steven Benesch, Operations Manager at the Museum of Flying, told the Daily Press.
“If there’s a possibility that it could return to Santa Monica, that would be wonderful and would give everyone, young and old, a chance to enjoy and learn about the pivotal role this city has played in global aviation, giving visitors and tourists from around the world the chance to learn how important this was in creating the world of flying that we see today,” Benesch said.
During a recent event held at the Cloverfield on the anniversary of the World Cruiser aircraft departing Santa Monica’s Cloverfield airstrip, Beth Werling, Collections Manager for the Natural History Museum (NHM) of Los Angeles County said, “The museum’s intention has always been to display the New Orleans someplace locally … We’re at the beginning stages and [we’re] listening to the new vision for the Santa Monica airport and how they intend to revitalize not just as a center for aviation in the 21st century, but also as more of a community center, which really taps into what NHM is trying to do as far as taking history, taking our collections outside the museum walls and into the community and making it more of a dialogue, rather than just a one sided feeding of information.”
“So we're at the very beginning stages, as I said, discussing partnerships and seeing what's available and of course, a lot depends on what the city of Santa Monica and the community decide on what they want here,” Werling said.
scott.snowden@smdp.com