Circumnavigation

To circumnavigate a place, such as an island, a continent, or the Earth, is to travel all the way around it by boat or ship. More recently, the term has also been used to cover aerial round-the-world flights. see also modern circumnavigation

Notable aerial circumnavigations

• United States Army Air Service, 1924, first aerial circumnavigation, 175 days, covering 44,360 kilometres (27,553 miles).
• LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin, 1929, first circumnavigation in an airship by Hugo Eckener, 21 days.
• Wiley Post, 1933, first solo aerial circumnavigation, 7 days, 19 hours, 49 minutes covering 25,110 kilometres (15,596 miles).
• United States Air Force, 1949, first non-stop aerial circumnavigation, 4 in-air refuelings, 94 hours, 1 minute, covering 37,743 km (23,452 miles) in the B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II.
• Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1 was the first human spaceflight and orbited the Earth in 1961.
• Geraldine Mock, 1964, first woman to complete a solo aerial circumnavigation.
• Don Taylor, 1976, first general aviation circumnavigation by homebuilt aircraft.
• Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, 1986, Voyager, first non-refueled circumnavigation in an airplane, 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds.
• Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, 1999, first non-stop balloon circumnavigation in Breitling Orbiter 3, 19 days, 1 hour and 49 minutes, covering 42,810 kilometres.
• Steve Fossett, 2 July 2002, first solo balloon circumnavigation.
• Steve Fossett, 3 March, 2005, first non-stop, non-refueled solo circumnavigation in an airplane, 67 hours, covering 37,000 kilometres.