“It seemed to us that we had just finished a hard test flight, and we were mighty glad that it was over.”

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The pilots received congratulatory telegrams from President Warren Harding, General John Pershing and hundreds of other well-wishers. A banquet was held in their honor, and they became the darlings of the press. The Air Service needed this type of publicity.

Kelly and Macready hoped to take an extended leave once they got to San Diego, especially since Macready had gotten married a few days after they landed. Instead, the fliers were soon ordered to report to Washington, D.C., with the T-2. There, the airplane was donated to the Smithsonian Institution, where it is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum.

Joseph B. Haymore is a freelance writer living in Washington, D.C., and a self-avowed third-generation aviation fanatic who has been studying the history of aviation since preadolescence. For further reading, he suggests: Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919-1939, by Maurer (U.S. Government Printing Office); Smithsonian Annals of Flight, Vol. 1, No. 1, by Louis S. Casey (Smithsonian Publications); and “The Non-stop Flight Across America” by John A. Macready, National Geographic magazine, July 1924 (available as a back issue).

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