Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, was both the start line and the finish. A B-50A bomber named Lucky Lady II left there on Feb. 26, 1949, and landed back at Carswell at 9:22 a.m. on March 2, 1949, after flying around the world without landing. The Air Force records the flight as the first nonstop circuit of the globe, and puts its time aloft at 94 hours and one minute.
Four aerial refuelings made it possible. The tankers worked from U.S. bases in the Azores, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and Hawaii, and the flight’s stated purpose was to show that refueling in the air could carry a bomber that far.
The 43rd Airlift Wing’s history office at Pope tells the story in “Historian highlights Lucky Lady II,” by Staff Sgt. Jessica Tope, the wing historian. “Feb. 26, 1949, the Lucky Lady II, a B-50A, went on the first non-stop flight around the world lasting 94 hours and one minute to demonstrate the effectiveness of air refueling,” the article opens. It says the bomber landed at Carswell “after completing the first successful aerial refueled flight around the world.”
B-50A serial 46-010 and its crew
The Air Force Historical Support Division’s fact sheet on the three “Lucky Lady” flights identifies the bomber as B-50A serial number 46-010. Both that fact sheet and the Pope article say a crew of 14 flew it, commanded by Capt. James Gallagher. The Pope article places the crew in the 43rd Bomb Group and the 63rd Bomb Squadron.
The Historical Support Division fact sheet is also the official page that gives a distance. It says Lucky Lady II “completed the first nonstop round-the-world flight–23,452 miles–in 94 hours and 1 minute.” It records the departure from Carswell on Feb. 26 and the landing at the same base on March 2, 1949.
Four tanker meetings
The fuel came from the 43rd Air Refueling Squadron, which supplied “four pairs of KB-29M tankers to refuel the aircraft four times while in flight through a technique developed initially by the British,” according to the fact sheet. In that method, the fact sheet explains, the tanker flew above and ahead of the B-50A and unreeled a long hose; the bomber’s crew snagged it with an apparatus extended from the rear of their aircraft, connected it to the refueling manifold, took the fuel and released the hose back to the tanker crew.
Air & Space Forces Magazine named the tanker bases in Bruce D. Callander’s March 1999 history of the flight. “SAC dispatched the tankers to existing US bases at Lajes Field in the Azores, Dhahran Field in Saudi Arabia, Clark Field in the Philippines, and Rogers Field in Hawaii,” Callander wrote.
Air refueling was new enough that the mission was kept quiet. The Pope article says that “due to the nature of the mission and the relative infancy of the air refueling mission,” Lucky Lady II “traded tail numbers with the tanker aircraft during each refueling.”
Mackay Trophy and Air Age Trophy
The crew collected two trophies for 1949. The Pope article says the flight “won the crew the Mackay Trophy and the Air Age Trophy that year.” The Historical Support Division fact sheet describes the Mackay as the National Aeronautic Association’s annual award for the outstanding flight of the year, and notes that the Air Force Association’s Air Age Trophy was later renamed the Hoyt S. Vandenberg Trophy. Callander’s article adds that each crew member received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
The Air Force’s own reading of the flight was strategic. The fact sheet says its success “demonstrated even more rapid flight capability, supported by the fledgling ability to refuel in flight, and the ability to project global power through the USAF’s Strategic Air Command.” Callander put it more bluntly: the flight showed “that distance and geographical barriers no longer offered sanctuary from airpower.”
Lucky Lady I and Lucky Lady III
The name ran across three flights, per the fact sheet. In July 1948, three B-29s from the 43rd Bombardment Group set out from Davis-Monthan to circle the globe in 14 days; two of them, Lucky Lady and Gas Gobbler, landed a day late after flying more than 20,000 miles.
Lucky Lady III came in January 1957, when a B-52B led by Lt. Col. James H. Morris flew Operation Power Flight. The fact sheet credits that jet flight with 24,325 miles in 45 hours and 19 minutes, less than half the time Lucky Lady II spent in the air eight years earlier.
Top image: Lucky Lady II (46-010) being refueled in flight by a B-29M tanker. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.