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[[image No. 132 - portrait of Leigh Wade, drawing signed by Rafael Alberto.]]

[[image No. 133 - black & white photograph of Leigh Wade (on left} standing next to World Cruiser No. 3]]

[[caption]] Lt. and later Major General, Wade on left, beside his World Cruiser No. 3, the Boston (133), with symbol of epic flight, the American bald eagle. While in Chile, a Santiago artist created a lovely Bainbridge portrait of Wade (132), in a style popular in the late 1920s. [[/caption]]

Leigh Wade

"There was considerable infighting in the Washington military: should we do it, or not. The young pups were all for it, and Billy Mitchell was very aggressive in pushing the idea."

The idea was the first world flight, a daring circumnavigation by aerial Magellans in Douglas hydroplanes. Lt. Leigh Wade, one of  the chosen, had Lady Luck on his tail; he and his mechanic made a forced landing while en route to Iceland. After months of planning and punctilious effort, four planes took off in the spring of 1924, from Clover Field, Santa Monica, Calif. The first mishap was a crash on the Alaskan Peninsula, leaving three world cruisers and six courageous men for the continuing nightmare, at a time when radio and navigation advances were still in the embryo stage. Nearly six months later, six men ended where they had started —their total distance: 27,553 miles. 

"I consider the great achievement of that effort the interest which was stirred in the formation of civilian airlines," Wade says, a bit nostalgic. From 1926 to the start of the World War II, he pioneered a host of South American air routes, and helped establish carriers in many Latin nations. Still, the name of the game was courage; for Wade an old companion. During his years as a military test pilot, and later Chief Test Pilot at famed McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, he was a superb airman, whose many escapes from death provided safe planes for others. 

[[image - small drawing of a propeller]]

Leigh Wade: born Cassopolis, Michigan, February 2, 1897.

[[image No. 134 - three drawings of "DOUGLAS WORLD CRUISER BIPLANE": front elevation, top view, and side elevation]]

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