Round-the-World Flights

Brooke Knapp flies RTW across the Soviet Union/China in a Gulfstream III (#3)

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Brooke Knapp, Pilot	Gulfstream III	Flown Cover	Knapp & Crew	Co-pilot Smyth

	Brooke Knapp graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of California in Los Angeles 
and has been recognized with two honorary doctorate degrees and numerous honors and awards.  
She made contributions in many fields, including real estate, civic leadership, environmental
entrepreneurship, international women's causes, children's charities and aviation.  

	Knapp made her mark in business as founder and president of Jet Airways, an aircraft 
management company which she headed for eight years.  She then turned to real estate and 
accumulated a nationwide portfolio that included income-producing as well as citrus production 
properties.  As a licensed realtor, she was associated with Sotheby's International Realty in 
Beverly Hills specializing in residential estates in desirable Los Angeles CA communities.

	As a pilot, Knapp secured her place in the aviation record books by setting or breaking 
more than 100 world aviation speed records including the fastest speed round-the-world in a 
Learjet 35A (American Dream I ~ N35BK).  Knapp made this record-setting RTW flight with her 
co-pilots, James Topalian and Paul Broyles and crew chief, Jim Magill in 50H 22M 42S.

	Following this earlier 1983 RTW Learjet success, Knapp flew a Gulfstream III (N300BK) 
named American Dream II attempting to set new speed record RTW in a higher aircraft weight 
category. Along with co-pilots, Bob Smyth, Paul Broyles, Curt Olds & crew chief, CB Allen, 
Knapp set out to break the polar circumnavigation record. Also as a passenger was newspaper 
reported, Bella English. Landing gear problems in Tenerife Canary Islands ended her attempt 
at a speed record. The RTW circumnavigation over both the north and south poles took 
85H 1M 44S and covered 28,470 miles. 

	This Knapp flight is remembered for setting two new records. It was the first business 
jet to land at McMurdo Sound Antarctica on a RTW flight and was the first business jet to 
make a flight over both north & south poles.

	Following her earlier Gulfstream III RTW, Knapp made another RTW flight in the Gulfstream 
III (N300BK) now renamed American Dream III between February 13-15, 1984. Along with her crew 
of co-pilots, Bob Smyth, Paul Broyles, Curt Olds and crew chief Jim Magill, they beat the record 
set in 1976 by Pan Am's 747SP, Liberty Bell. Three news reporters accompanied the flight as 
passengers. The eastbound RTW flight departed from Washington DC and followed a route across the 
Societ Union. This was the first time a US plane was allowed to use Soviet air space in forty 
years.  

	This RTW flight took 45H 32M 53S covering 23,340 miles and setting 43 point-to-point speed 
records. It raised in excess of a half-million dollars for UNICEF, an agency of the United 
Nations responsible for programs to aid education and the health of children and mothers in 
foreign countries. This "Flight for World's Children" delivered letters of peace and friendship 
from children in the US to foreign children at re-fueling stops as Knapp circumnavigated the 
world. On completing this RTW flight Knapp said, "It's the most exhilarating thing I've ever done."   

	Knapp received the Federal Aviation Award for Extraordinary Service, the Harmon Trophy, 
the Paul Tissandier Award of La Federation Aeronautique Internationale in Paris, the Los 
Angeles Chamber of Commerce Kitty Hawk Award and the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management
Distinguished Leadership Award.  

Itinerary: 

Departed Washington DC                        02/13/84
          London, England
          Moscow, Soviet Union
          Peking, People's Republic of China
          Tokyo Japan
Arrived Washington DC                         02/15/84

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