science · 02 March 1949 · 75 years ago
In 1949, the first round the world nonstop airplane flight was completed in a U.S. Air Force B-50 Superfortress bomber, the Lucky Lady II with a crew of 14 headed by Captain James Gallagher. They landed back at Carswell Air Force base, Fort Worth, Texas, which they had left on 26 Feb 1949, about 94 hours earlier. The airplane was refueled several times in midflight on its 23,452 journey. Its average speed was 249-mph. This was at the time of the Berlin Airlift and the Cold War. The flight showed that the USAF was capable of projecting air power anywhere in the world. The first jets - three U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers - to fly nonstop around the world - took 45 hours (16-18 Jan 1957), completing 24,325 miles at an average speed of 525-mph.
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