In 1931, a Bellanca fitted with a Packard DR-980 diesel, piloted by Walter Lees and Frederick Brossy, set a record for staying aloft for 84 hours and 33 minutes without being refuelled.

Canadian-operated Bellancas were initially imported from the United States, but later, six were built by Canadian Vickers in Montreal and delivered to the RCAF (added to the first order of 29 made in 1929), which used them mainly for aerial photography.

One of the first records set by a Bellanca CH-300 series aircraft occurred on July 28–30, 1931, when Russell Norton Boardman (age 33) and John Louis Polando (age 29) flew from Floyd Bennett Field — a famous New York City-area early airport on western Long Island from which many record flights originated — to Yeşilköy Airport (present day Atatürk Airport), Istanbul, Turkey aboard an earlier model of the Wright R-975-powered CH-300, a Bellanca "Special J-300" high-wing monoplane named Cape Cod, registration NR761W, making it safely to Istanbul nonstop in 49:20 hours, establishing a distance record of 5,011.8 miles (8,065.7 km), the first known nonstop record flight in aviation history whose distance surpassed either the English (5,000 mi) or metric (8,000 km) mark.

[1] On June 3, 1932, Stanislaus F. Hausner, flying a Bellanca CH Pacemaker named Rose Marie, powered by a 300-hp Wright J-6, attempted a transatlantic flight from Floyd Bennett Field, New York, to Warsaw, Poland.

[2] On July 15, 1933 6:24 AM two Lithuanian pilots Steponas Darius ir Stasys Girėnas flying a heavily modified CH-300 named Lituanica lifted off from Floyd Bennet Field to attempt a non stop transatlantic flight.