Archibald Stuart-MacLaren

Archibald Stuart Charles Stuart-MacLaren was an early British aviator who led the British attempt to win the race between nations to make the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe in 1924.

Stuart-MacLaren received his Aviator’s Certificate (No. 1310) from The Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom on 4 June 1915. He received training in a Caudron biplane at the British Flying School, Le Crotoy, France.

From December 1918 to January 1919, then Major Stuart-MacLaren was 2nd air mechanic on a flight from Suffolk, England, to Karachi, India, in a Handley Page V/1500 heavy bomber, registration J1936, HMA Old Carthusian, the aircraft later used to bomb the royal palace of Amanullah Khan in Kabul, a mission thought to have precipitated the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War.

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First aerial circumnavigation attempt of 1924

On 25 March 1924, Squadron Leader Stuart-MacLaren, and his team of two other fliers, William Noble Plenderleith and flight engineer Sergeant W. H. Andrews flew on a Vickers Vulture II Mark VI amphibious biplane G-EBHO. Their group became the first of six teams to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation, departing from the Calshot Aerodrome, near Southampton, at 12:09 p.m. toward Lyon in France. From April to July of that year, teams from the U.S., Portugal, France, Italy and Argentina, in that order, set off in concurrent attempts to secure the honour but only the Americans were to succeed in completing the journey. After a mishap-fraught journey in which their engine was twice replaced, the airframe was destroyed on take-off at Akyab Island, Burma.

The American competing flight, then in Tokyo progressing well in its attempt to be first to circumnavigate, learned of the disaster on 25 May, receiving a telegram stating "MacLaren crashed at Akyab.