US Army Pan-American Goodwill Flight Stationery and Diary Form

The historic US Army Pan-American Goodwill Flight of 1926 and 1927 through Mexico and Central and South America was intended to improve relations with Latin American countries, to encourage commercial aviation, and to provide valuable training for Air Corps personnel. This collection consists of an unused correspondence card and envelope, and an unused diary form, from this flight.

The historic US Army Pan-American Goodwill Flight of 1926 and 1927 through Mexico and Central and South America was intended to improve relations with Latin American countries, to encourage commercial aviation, and to provide valuable training for Air Corps personnel. The flight was made by ten pilots in five Loening OA-1A amphibian aircraft. To stimulate public interest, each airplane was named after a major US city, the New York, the San Antonio, the San Francisco, the Detroit, and the St. Louis. The 22,000 mile (35,200 km) flight began on December 21, 1926, from San Antonio, Texas, and the route extended through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica; across the Panama Canal to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia; down the west coast of South America to Valdivia, Chile; across the Andes Mountains to Bahia Blanca, Argentina; north to Montevideo, Uruguay; up to Paraguay; back down the Paraná River; along the coasts of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, the Guianas, and Venezuela; thence through the West Indies and up the coast of the United States. An accident occurred on approach to the Argentine Air Service Field at Palomar, Buenos Aires when the Detroit and the New York collided midair, killing the crew of the Detroit, Clinton F. Woolsey and John W. Benton, and destroying both aircraft. In total, the journey took 59 flying days, interspersed with 74 days for scheduled maintenance and diplomatic meetings and ceremonies. The flight concluded at Bolling Field in Washington, DC, on May 2, 1927. One of the long-term legacies of the Pan-American Goodwill flight was that it helped pioneer a trail for later commercial air transport operations. The crews of all five aircraft, Herbert A. "Bert" Dargue, Ennis C. Whitehead, Arthur B. McDaniel, Charles McK. Robinson, Ira Clarence Eaker, Muir Stephen Fairchild, Bernard S. Thompson, Leonard D. Weddington, and Woolsey and Benton (posthumously), were awarded the MacKay Trophy.