In 1927, the first flight across the Pacific Ocean from the USA to Australia was made by Charles Kingsford-Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon and James Warner, in a three-engined Fokker monoplane, ‘Southern Cross’.
They made the 7000 mile journey in three stages; 2100 miles San Francisco-Hawaii, 3100 miles Hawaii-Fiji, and 1700 miles Fiji-Brisbane. Only the leg San Francisco-Hawaii had been done before.
In September 1928, Kingsford-Smith and Ulm made the first crossing of the Tasman Sea, 1400 miles wide, from Australia to New Zealand. Thy returned the following month.
In June and July of 1929, they flew to London, completing the journey from Australia in twelve days fourteen hours eighteen minutes. Then in June 1930, after the Southern Cross had been overhauled at the Fokker Works in Holland, Kingsford-Smith, with Evert van Dyk as co-pilot and John Stannage and Patrick Saul as crew, made the flight from Great Britain to the USA.
He flew on to San Francisco to complete the 25,000 mile circuit of the world. Kingsford-Smith was knighted in 1932.
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