From the Royal Flying Corps to the Race to Circumnavigate the Globe

The Adventures of Squadron Leader Archibald Stuart-MacLaren

Vanessa Ascough

• Publisher: Fonthill Media
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781036147532
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

"The book relates, in chronological order, all the pertinent stepping stones: family history, education, the spark of interest in aviation." – SpeedReaders.info

Squadron Leader Archibald Stuart-MacLaren OBE MC DFC AFC fell in love with flying when the very possibility of it seemed miraculous. It was a new frontier, exhilarating beyond comparison, and fraught with danger: everything a young man of Stuart-MacLaren’s disposition could wish for.

He joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1914, serving with distinction as a bomber pilot in the Middle East, and was among the first to be commissioned into the Royal Air Force in 1918. With long-distance multi-stage flights to Egypt and India already under his belt, the decision in 1924 to attempt the first flight around the world was in some ways a natural progression.

This biography, written by his granddaughter, is the subject of many years’ research: a reach across time to discover the man she never met but grew up hearing so much about. It is a story of indomitable courage and adventure set in a post-war era, when almost any degree of risk was considered acceptable in the pursuit of greatness. Like the mountaineer George Mallory who died climbing Everest that same year, Stuart-MacLaren was a man driven by a need to accomplish something never done before, something unique, and thereby give his healing nation a triumph worth celebrating.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• MacLaren Family Tree
• Introduction
• 1 The MacLaren Family
• 2 School Days
• 3 The Start of Adventures
• 4 The Middle East Campaign
• 5 The Start of the Royal Air Force and Flight to Egypt
• 6 Second Flight to Egypt and First Flight to India
• 7 The No. 1 Aerial Route
• 8 Work in the Middle East
• 9 Proposal for the World Flight
• 10 Start of the World Flight—Southampton to Cairo
• 11 Cairo to Karachi
• 12 Karachi to Calcutta
• 13 Akyab to Bangkok
• 14 Rangoon to Tokyo
• 15 Tokyo to Alaska
• 16 The End of the Flight
• 17 The Aftermath
• 18 The Final Days
• Epilogue
• Appendix: The London Gazette Notices
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• Plates