June 9, 1928: Across the Vast Pacific, by Air

1928: A crew of pilots led by two Australians becomes the first to fly an airplane across the Pacific Ocean. It’s the longest flight ever attempted, covering more than twice the distance of Charles Lindbergh’s fabled 1927 trans-Atlantic trip. Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith, a World War I fighter pilot and pioneer of Australian commercial aviation, had […]

charles_ulm

1928: A crew of pilots led by two Australians becomes the first to fly an airplane across the Pacific Ocean. It’s the longest flight ever attempted, covering more than twice the distance of Charles Lindbergh’s fabled 1927 trans-Atlantic trip.

Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith, a World War I fighter pilot and pioneer of Australian commercial aviation, had long dreamed of flying across the Pacific Ocean. While working at a series of aviaton jobs in Australia, he met Charles Ulm, a fellow pilot who shared his vision.

Together they crafted a plan to fly from California to Australia, and in 1927 they headed to America seeking a plane to make the journey and money to finance it. Kingsford-Smith was the visionary; Ulm was the businessman. The two men convinced an investor they weren't crazy, and he set them up.

Financing secured, they obtained a Fokker F.VIIb/3mthey christened the Southern Cross. The plane weighed 15,000 pounds with had a wingspan of 71 feet. It could carry 700 gallons of fuel and 45 gallons of oil, making it well suited for a transoceanic flight.

It's a long way from California to Australia, and the two men knew they'd need some help. Two Americans joined them for the three-stop, 7,000-mile flight: navigator Harry Lyon and radio operator James Warner.

The Southern Cross took off from Oakland, California, on May 31, bound for Brisbane on Australia’s east coast.

By all accounts, the journey was tough. The first takeoff attempt was aborted when Ulm’s clothing caught on a switch in the cockpit, accidentally shutting down an engine. The plane lost its directional beam about 300 miles into the trip, forcing Lyon to navigate the next 2,000 miles by dead reckoning. It's an imprecise method of estimating current location by tracking movement since the last known location. As if that weren’t enough, the crew struggled against heavy cloud cover. But 27½ hours after leaving California, the Southern Cross touched down 2,400 miles away in Hawaii.

The second leg, a 3,200-mile flight to Fiji, was tougher still.

After crossing the equator, the Southern Cross flew into severe headwinds and terrible storms that tossed the plane violently and strained its engines. The weather was so dire, Later, Kingsford-Smith later admitted, the crew spent part of the journey flying just above the waves, wondering all the while if they were going to make it.

But the crew made it to Fiji, and continued on through dangerous squalls for its final 1,800 mile leg to Brisbane. The Southern Cross touched down on June 9, after more than 83 hours of flight time. Roughly 300,000 people greeted the crew when it arrived in Sydney, and President Calvin Coolidge sent a congratulatory telegram. The investor who financed the trip wrote to say Kingsford-Smith and Ulm could keep the Southern Cross. Life was good.

But the two men didn't stop there. In 1930, Kingsford-Smith broke a speed record flying the 8,400-mile run from London to Darwin, Australia, in nine days, 22 hours and 15 minutes. Four years later, he flew from Brisbane to Oakland, becoming the first person to fly from Australia to the United States over the Pacific.

As for Ulm, he gained further fame in 1933 when he traveled to Australia from England in just 6 days, 17 hours and 56 minutes, and a year later carried the first airmail between Australia and New Zealand.

But their love of flying proved to be their ultimate undoing.

Ulm's twin-engine Airspeed Envoy, the Stella Australis, vanished in 1934 en route from California to Hawaii. It was never found. One year later, Kingsford-Smith got caught in a monsoon over the Bay of Bengal during a flight from London to Sydney, Australia. He, too, was never heard from again.

Australia hasn't forgotten its beloved aviators and pioneers. Sydney's largest airport is officially known as Kingsford-Smith International. And just last year, Qantas Airlines named one of its massive Airbus A380 jetliners in honor of Ulm.

Sources: Various

*Photo: Australian aviator Charles Ulm poses in front of his Avro X VH-UXX, the Faith in Australia, in 1934. The text on the side of the aircraft lists the long-distance flights it has made.
*

See Also: