Wheeler Army Airfield the first transpacific flight from California in 1927; the great Dole Air Race from California to Hawaii; the first transpacific flight from the U.S. to Australia in 1928, and the first Hawaii-to-Mainland solo flight in 1935 by Amelia Earhart. Ms. Earhart visited Wheeler Field in 1935 in her Lockheed Vega and in 1937 in her Lockheed Model 10 Electra. Kingsford Smith, in his plane, the "Southern Cross", also used the airfield on his historic flights across the Pacific. By 1940, Wheeler Field had evolved into a primary base for Army Air Corps pursuit (i.e., "fighter") aircraft such as the P-40
Amelia Earhart flight retraced the route undertaken by Earhart in her August 1928 transcontinental record flight. Dr. Carlene Mendieta flew an original Avro Avian, the same type that was used in 1928. In 2013, Amelia Rose Earhart, a pilot and a reporter from Denver, Colorado, announced that she would be recreating the 1937 flight in the middle of 2014 in a single engine Pilatus PC-12NG. She completed the flight without incident on July 11, 2014. In June and July 2017, Brian Lloyd flew his Mooney M20K 231 around the world to commemorate Earhart's attempted circumnavigation 80 years earlier. Lloyd followed a route