5 Surprising Facts about the First Nonstop Transcontinental Flight

Today we take flying cross-country for granted, many major airlines can get you there in less than seven hours. But in 1923, just 20 years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, it was a major feat.  

U.S. Army Air Service pilots Lt. John A. Macready and Lt. Oakley G. Kelly made the first nonstop transcontinental flight on May 2–3, 1923, in the Fokker T-2 transport. They took off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, and landed at Rockwell Field, San Diego, 2,470 miles and just under 27 hours later.  

However, what the flight was actually like might surprise you.  

The plane, the Fokker T-2, was specially designed for cross country flight. 

Fokker made a name for itself building fighters in World War I and was successful in building larger airliners and transport aircraft afterwards. So when the U.S. Army Air Service was looking for a plane to make the flight, it turned to the Dutch manufacturer.  

Much of the design was the same as the successful Fokker fighters of World War I. Early trials by the Army Air Service confirmed that the T-2 was capable of carrying heavy loads and could be adapted to make the long-distance flight from coast to coast—however modifications were required.  

The Army increased the fuel capacity, made structural reinforcements, and added a second set of controls inside the cabin to facilitate control of the airplane when the two-man crew exchanged positions. 

The pilots of the first nonstop transcontinental flight had to crawl through a tunnel—in flight—to switch positions.  

You read that right. The first nonstop transcontinental flight was much longer than modern flights cross country, so the plan was for two pilots to take turns flying. Even though both seats had controls, only the pilot in the front seat could see where they were going. Pilots had to crawl through a tunnel to switch seats. 

The pilots couldn’t talk to each other during the 27-hour flight, they had to pass notes. 

The front cockpit was right beside the T-2's single Liberty engine. On top of the engine were two black pipes that directed exhaust away from the plane’s flammable surface. This would have been a constant source of noise and welcome heat during the flight. Given the noise, how did the pilots communicate? If the pilot in the front cockpit felt the control stick “waggle” between his knees, he knew to look for a note from his co-pilot attached to a string that ran from the rear cockpit.

At this point, you might be wondering who were the pilots that would sign up for this? Both pilots were part of the U.S. Army Air Service. 

Lt. John Macready was one of the Army’s best pilots in the years after World War I. In the 1920s, he led America’s first military test pilots. By the time of the 1923 transcontinental flight, he’d set a world altitude record of 40,800 feet and made history with the first crop dusting flights.  

While Lt. Oakley Kelly might not have been as celebrated as his copilot, this flight wouldn’t have happened without him. Along with fellow pilot Lt. Muir S. Fairchild, he had the idea for the first non-stop transcontinental flight and he played an important role in modifying the Fokker T-2 airplane for the flight.  

This wasn’t the first flight across the country—or the first time these pilots attempted it.  

Nine years earlier in 1911, Calbraith Perry Rodgers became the first person to make a transcontinental flight across America. However, his flight was not nonstop. He stopped to refuel … and crash … more than once. The journey took him 42 days with a total of 82 hours and 4 minutes of flying. 

This was Macready and Kelly’s third attempt. The first two attempts were flying West to East in order to use westerly winds and refined fuel available on California. On the first attempt, fog in the mountains east of San Diego forced the pilots back. The second attempt ended in Indianapolis when a cracked water jacket caused the engine to seize.

After adjustments to the plane, and the plan, on this attempt Macready and Kelly flew East to West. As the flight continued and the plane used up more and more of its fuel, it was lighter and easier to control—a key part of their success in crossing the highest point of the flight, the Continental Divide in Arizona. 

To navigate, the pilots only had a magnetic compass and some railroad maps. 

During the flight, Macready and Kelly faced flying over unknown territory at night and through storms and rain for over half the flight. To calculate their position, they used dead reckoning—where you calculate your position using a fixed point on the ground.  

File URL

Finally, after 26 hours, 50 minutes, and 38 3/5 seconds, Lt. Macready landed the T-2 in San Diego on May 3 at 12:26 pm, local time. The flight covered 2,470 miles.  

The flight demonstrated the potential of military and commercial aircraft as practical long-distance technologies.