The first non-stop circumnavigation of the world

The B-50 Bomber “Lucky Lady II” touches down on runway at Carswell Air Force Base on March 2, 1949, 94 hours and one minute after it took off at the base on February 26th. The B-50, a postwar version of the B-29 Superfortress, flew an estimated 23,452 miles (37,742 km) on the non-stop world-girdling hop – refuelling four times in flight.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives

There’s a certain charm to travelling around the world. No, this is not about criss-crossing countries, travelling to different places, and taking in different cultures and cuisines. Instead, it is about circumnavigating the world, returning to the place where you started.

While circumnavigation has always held human imagination, it became a reality that could be achieved realistically once we mastered flying. With those aboard the International Space Station now circling the Earth about every 90 minutes, it sounds easier now than ever before. And yet, numerous circumnavigation firsts were ticked off in the hundred years or so that has just gone by. The flight of Lucky Lady II is among them.

What’s special about it?

Lucky Lady II wasn’t the first aircraft to circumnavigate the Earth. That was achieved in 1924, as two of the four Douglas World Cruisers flew around the world in about 175 days, with landings in over 20 countries. 

The 5641 minute mark – 94 hours and one minute if you’d like it that way – that Lucky Lady II managed wasn’t a record for flight duration as well. An aircraft that went by the name “Question Mark” (yeah, really!) famously remained airborne for 150 hours in 1929. Major Carl A. Spaartz and his crew achieved this by flying in circles over southern California, pioneering refuelling techniques. 

What Lucky Lady II achieved was to bring the best of these two together, thereby becoming the first to fly non-stop around the world with the help of planned aerial refuelling. The circumstances and political climate of the time had more to do with this circumnavigation, than the engineering or technological need for it. 

Why this demonstration?

World War II might have just ended, but the seeds of the Cold War had already been laid late in the 1940s. With the Soviet Union extending their influence over most of eastern Europe and blocking land access to Berlin in 1948, the U.S. felt the need to showcase their strength. The idea of a flight demonstration was thus born to show that the Soviet Union wasn’t impenetrable and that the U.S. could attack anywhere if they chose to. If that weren’t reason enough, the U.S. Air Force, founded only in 1947, believed that such a show would also help win public recognition at home.

Aerial refuelling was still done along the same lines as it had been done when Question Mark stayed aloft for over six days, 20 years ago. This was the probe-and-drogue system, where gravity did the trick once the two aircraft were connected. 

Even though a number of refuellings for Question Mark had taken place at night time, such a scheme was out of the question during an around the world flight. Radar wasn’t yet entirely reliable, and hence the four-day course of the B-50 aircraft that was going to fly was charted out in a specific way. This meant that four hookups were scheduled such that the B-50 could reach these points in day time and they were also equally spaced along the route. Tankers were therefore dispatched to existing U.S. bases at Lajes Field in the Azores, Dhahran Field in Saudi Arabia, Clark Field in the Philippines, and Rogers Field in Hawaii.

Lady luck shines on Lucky Lady II

A B-50 named Global Queen was chosen for the mission, with another aircraft, Lucky Lady II, serving as the backup. The Queen took off from the Carswell Air Force Base in Texas on schedule and headed east, only to abort the mission and land in the Azores following engine troubles. This meant that Lucky Lady II took the Queen’s place and set off on its historic voyage from Carswell in an overcast morning on February 26, 1949 with a 14-member crew led by Captain James G. Gallagher. 

Even though the flight was a means of flexing their might, the Air Force went out of their way to keep it a secret while it was in progress. The media houses weren’t informed. The ground crews who modified the bombers and tankers for the trip weren’t in the know. What’s more, an elaborate system of switching tail numbers between the Lucky Lady II and a tanker at each refuelling was also on the cards to give the impression that it was flying only a short distance. Their thought process was clear. They would go gung-ho about a success, but didn’t want to explain in the case it turned out to be a failure. 

Four refuelling points

Luckily for them, it was indeed a success. The first refuelling took two hours over the Azores the morning after the take-off. The next one the following day over Saudi Arabia was complicated by turbulence as the aircraft moved through thunderstorms. While the refuelling took place without incident, Gallagher and his crew started showing signs of fatigue. 

Heavy weather followed them to the third refuelling over the Philippines as well. Additionally, a sharp-eyed operations officer on location almost blew the story, when he tried to recall the plane after realising that the distance – if what his books were saying was correct – was beyond the range of the aircraft (the range of the B-29 that served as the tanker was less than the range of a B-50; the officer, of course, wouldn’t have known that the tail numbers were being switched). The disguise remained intact as the Air Force talked him out of it. 

Mechanical problems, crew fatigue, and continuous bad weather meant that the fourth refuelling was also complicated. But with the B-50 still flying well, the end was now nearer. On the morning of March 2, the crew saw the sunrise over Texas. After circling Carswell, they landed safely and took their place in history. 

When it was clear that success was imminent, the reporters and photographers were tipped off. The welcome afforded to Lucky Lady II was fitting the occasion and each of the crew members was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for their efforts. 

Not long after its success, most of Lucky Lady II was destroyed in an accident. Only the original fuselage was salvaged, which is now on display at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California. The Lucky Lady II had by then achieved its purpose and had also illustrated that aerial refuelling was very much practical, allowing for further innovations in the field. 

Aerial refuelling

Modern aircraft use one of two systems for aerial refuelling: the probe-and-drogue system, which was employed by Lucky Lady II, and the flying boom system. 

In the probe-and-drogue system, the receiving aircraft guides a probe into a basket-like drogue, which resembles an oversized shuttlecock, on the tanker. This system is simpler to adapt to many aircraft and reduces collision risk as there is greater distance between the two flying aircraft. 

In the flying boom system, the tanker extends a rigid, telescopic tube directly into a receptacle on the receiving aircraft. Primarily used by the U.S. Air Force, this technique allows for faster fuel transfer.