THE GREATEST FLIGHT
THE MID-1920S WAS AN ERA MARKED BY AVIATION CHALLENGES, AS PILOTS PUSHED THEMSELVES AND THEIR AIRPLANES TO THE LIMIT ON RECORD-BREAKING FLIGHT ATTEMPTS. In April 1924 four Douglas World Cruiser biplanes, each with a two-man crew, began an around-the-world trip, taking 175 days to fly almost 24,000 miles, with two of the aircraft completing the circumnavigation. Charles Lindbergh’s May 1927 transatlantic crossing took less than 34 hours, earned him a $25,000 prize and sparked even more interest in challenging, high-risk, over-ocean flights. Three months after Lindbergh’s celebrated flight, Ed Schlee and Bill Brock attempted to fly around the world in an aircraft not much larger than Lindbergh’s Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis—a truly herculean effort.
Edward F. Schlee was born in Detroit in 1887 and with his brothers formed the Wayco Oil Corporation after World War I, eventually owning about 100 gas stations in the metro area. Schlee learned to fly and also owned an air taxi service using Stinson biplanes. His chief pilot was Bill Brock.
Born in 1895, Ohioan William S. Brock had at age 15 traveled to Glenn Curtiss’ flying school in Hammondsport, N.Y. Brock didn’t have the $150 tuition, so Curtiss told him to write home for funds. In the interim, he worked in the kitchen to
