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 the flight was arranged around Earhart's intention to circumnavigate the globe along with gathering raw material and public attention for her next book. Earhart chose Captain Harry Manning as her navigator; he had been the captain of the , the ship that had brought Earhart back from Europe in 1928. Manning was not only a navigator, but he was also a skilled radio operator who knew Morse code. Through contacts in the Los Angeles aviation community, Fred Noonan was subsequently chosen as a second navigator because there were significant additional factors that had to be dealt with while using celestial