Dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight across the United States

The military purpose of the flight would be to demonstrate the utility of rapidly moving air units from one side of the nation to the other, a capability that the Army and Navy did not possess.

McCook Field, Ohio; Saint Joseph, Missouri; Cheyenne, Wyoming; and remote Salduro Siding, Utah, were selected as refueling points, following a recently established mail route.

Maughan was chosen to make the flight because he was an experienced test pilot and a combat veteran accustomed to dealing with in-flight emergencies, and because he had already established speed records in 1922 and 1923 in the R-6.

The Allegheny Mountains were obscured by a thick undercast, and unable to navigate by landmarks, Maughan flew by dead reckoning, arriving at McCook Field 90 minutes behind schedule, where a broken tail fin rib caused an additional delay.

Approximately 90 minutes after leaving Cheyenne the oil line ruptured again and the nausea forced him to land at the air mail field at Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Maughan rose before dawn and ate breakfast at the Mitchel Field Officer's Open Mess: scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, plus a slice of cantaloupe he found in the club's refrigerator.

He landed at the air mail field at Salduro Siding, a railroad stop adjacent to the Bonneville Salt Flats, at almost 6:30 p.m. local time and calculated that reaching San Francisco by dusk was still possible.

He used a revolving light on Alcatraz Island to guide him to Crissy Field, the military airfield at the Presidio of San Francisco, where he landed in front of an estimated 50,000 spectators at 9:46 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, reportedly a minute before dusk.

Maughan's record was not eclipsed until August 20, 1928 when Hollywood stunt flier Arthur C. Goebel, in what was the first nonstop flight across the continent from west to east, flew from Los Angeles, California to Curtiss Field, New York in the Lockheed Vega Yankee Doodle (NX4789), in 18 hours and 58 minutes, averaging 142 mph (229 km/h).