Do you remember the young midshipman who spent his savings to go to see the Wrights fly their plane for the Army at Fort Meyer? After that it was not long before he decided to leave the Naval Academy to take up a career in the new field of aviation. By 1920 Donald Douglas was one of America’s most promising aircraft engineers. At the age of twenty-eight he was vice president of the Glenn L. Martin Company. At that age most young men would have been happy to be even close to a position like that. But not Don Douglas. He still had his dream of great commercial airliners and he thought that California was the place to build them. He left his job with Martin and started in business for himself, at a time when half the aviation industry was struggling for its very existence. Douglas went to Los Angeles, but friends and bankers alike could see no future in aviation, and advised him to get out of it. Discouraged but not beaten, he kept on trying. A chance meeting with a wealthy man in a barber shop gave him his starting capital and before long the former midshipman was building planes for the U. S. Navy. In 1924, his Army Douglas World Cruiser circled the globe, but his great airliners still were a dream. [Illustration] [Illustration: 1924 WINGSPAN 50 FEET LENGTH 38 FEET THE U. S. ARMY’S DOUGLAS DWC _CRUISERS_ WERE THE FIRST AIRPLANES TO CIRCLE THE GLOBE. POWER ONE 12-CYLINDER 450-HP. _LIBERTY_ ENGINE THE DWC’S WERE POWERED WITH WORLD WAR I TYPE OF _LIBERTY_ WATER-COOLED IN-LINE ENGINES. SPEED ONE HOUR 100 MILES RANGE 800+ MILES CEILING 8,000+ FEET THE DOUGLAS DWC WAS NOT A VERY FAST AIRPLANE, BUT IT WAS A STURDY SHIP FOR ITS TIME. IT WAS DESIGNED FOR THE WORLD FLIGHT AND STOOD UP WELL. THE DWC WEIGHED 6,000 POUNDS EMPTY. FULLY LOADED WITH GASOLINE AND OIL, IT WEIGHED 8,200 POUNDS. THE TWO CREW MEMBERS RODE IN SEPARATE, OPEN COCKPITS THE ENGINES WERE THE WEAK SPOT IN THE SHIP. THE FLIGHT PROVED THE NEED FOR BETTER ENGINES. PAYLOAD TWO-MAN CREW TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO THE FIRST AROUND-THE-WORLD FLIGHT WAS A DARING OPERATION. CREW MEMBERS TOOK SPECIAL TRAINING. A WORLD-WIDE GROUND ORGANIZATION WAS SET UP TO SERVICE THE PLANES. THE DWC’S WERE EQUIPPED TO USE EITHER WHEEL OR PONTOON LANDING GEAR.] [Illustration]