alt=Photograph of three Douglas World Cruiser aircraft on a beach, Alaska, 1924. New Orleans is in the foreground.|thumb|Photograph of three Douglas World Cruiser aircraft on a beach, Alaska, 1924. New Orleans is in the foreground.
The first aerial circumnavigation of the world was completed in 1924 by four aviators from an eight-man team of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force. The 175-day journey from April to September covered over . The team generally traveled east to west, around the northern Pacific Rim, through to South Asia and Europe and back to Seattle's Sand Point Airfield in the United States. Airmen Lowell H. Smith and Leslie P. Arnold, and Erik H. Nelson and John Harding Jr. made the trip in two single-engined open-cockpit Douglas World Cruisers (DWC) configured as floatplanes for most of the journey. Lead aircraft Chicago, and the New Orleans completed the expedition. Four more flyers in two additional DWC began the journey but their aircraft crashed or were forced down. All airmen survived. They were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, and the flight won the Mackay Trophy aviation award for 1924.
U.S. preparation for circumnavigation attempt
In the early 1920s several countries were vying to be the first to fly around the world. The British had made one unsuccessful around-the-world air flight attempt in 1922. The following year, a French team had tried; the Italians, Portuguese, and British also announced plans for world-circling flights. This high-level Army enterprise, under the command of Major General Mason M. Patrick, Chief of the Air Service, would have the support of the Navy, Diplomatic Corps, Bureau of Fisheries and Coast Guard Services.|group=N Although deemed satisfactory, the planning group considered other US Air Service military aircraft both in service and production, with a view that a dedicated design that could be fitted with interchangeable landing gear, wheeled and pontoons for water landings, would be preferable.
When the head of Davis-Douglas, Donald Douglas, was asked for information on the Davis-Douglas Cloudster, he instead submitted data on a modified DT-2, a torpedo bomber that Douglas had built for the US Navy in 1921 and 1922. The DT-2 had proven to be a sturdy aircraft that could accommodate interchangeable wheeled and pontoon landing gear. Since the aircraft was an existing model, Douglas stated that a new aircraft, which he named the Douglas World Cruiser (DWC), could be delivered within 45 days after a contract was awarded. The Air Service agreed and sent Lieutenant Erik Henning Nelson (1888–1970), a member of the planning group, to California to work out the details with Douglas.