From December 1918 to January 1919, then Major Stuart-MacLaren was 2nd air mechanic on a flight from Suffolk, England, to Karachi, India, in a Handley Page V/1500 heavy bomber, registration J1936, HMA Old Carthusian, the aircraft later used to bomb the royal palace of Amanullah Khan in Kabul, a mission thought to have precipitated the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War.
[1] — On 25 March 1924,[2] Squadron Leader Stuart-MacLaren, and his team of two other fliers, William Noble Plenderleith and flight engineer Sergeant W. H. Andrews flew on a Vickers Vulture II Mark VI amphibious biplane[3] G-EBHO.
Their group became the first of six teams to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation, departing from the Calshot Aerodrome, near Southampton, at 12:09 p.m. toward Lyons in France.
[4] From April to July of that year, teams from the U.S., Portugal, France, Italy and Argentina, in that order, set off in concurrent attempts to secure the honour but only the Americans were to succeed in completing the journey.
[5] The American competing flight, then in Tokyo progressing well in its attempt to be first to circumnavigate, learned of the disaster on 25 May, receiving a telegram stating "MacLaren crashed at Akyab.