First Tasman Flight CITY’S TREMENDOUS WELCOME TO “SMITHY”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28685, 8 September 1958, Page 10

First Tasman Flight CITY’S TREMENDOUS WELCOME TO “SMITHY”

". . todays when commercial aviation wat an adventure which sometime, paid high dividends and mote, rdf ten a high toil of lives;, when there was a camaraderie of poverty, a struggle for existence and a constant search with makeshift equipment for new fields to conquer,” was the way Beau Shiel put it It was almost the end of an era, the era of the pioneering flights for many of the principal air route* as they are today. One important one remained to .be proven—the link between Australia and New Zealand across one of the stormiest seas in the world. Two men had already lost their lives trying to cross it and now in September, 1928. Squadron Leader Charles Kingsford Smith and three-companions were about to make their own attempt. They planned to take off from Richmond field, near Sydney, on Sunday, September 2, and fly the 1624 miles to Sockburn field (now Wigram) to arrive on Monday. Ulen they advanced their plans a day. Had they actually arrived on Sunday they would have received a cold welcome from a large percentage of the members of the Christchurch Ministers’ Association and no welcome at all from th - Mayor " (Mr J. K. Archer) who, both in his capacity as Mayor and as a minister of the church, acceded to a request of a deputation of ministers to forward to Kingsford Smith a cablegram protesting against their arrival. The cablegram was worded as follows: •■Smith, Ulm, Sydney. ‘‘Christchurch churchmen strongly protest against changed plans involving arrival on Sunday. I support protest Cannot departure be delayed? Archer, Mayor.” As it turned out; the weather took a delaying hand and when the Southern Cross finally took oft on its 14{ hours flight it was on a Monday. The "Old Bns’s” Crew Thirty years ago . . . Their plane, the Southern Cross—known as the “Old Bus” to them—was a three-engine. Fokker monoplane with a “high speed” of 120 miles ah hour. Kingsford Smith, better known as “Smithy,” won the Military Cross as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps and later was awarded

tne Air rorce cross, wnen ne attempted the Tasman crossing, ‘Smithy” was 31. ‘ The other members ot his crew were Charles Ulm, Al Litchfield and T. H. McWilliams, Ulm wa the tall, dark stranger who had advertised Smithy’* air taxi sejrvice organisation with long-dM-tance publicity flights. Litchfield, the third Australian, was navigator. He had been third officer aboard the R.M.S, Tahiti, the ship that took Smithy from Sydney to California for the start of the trans-Paciflc flight. McWilliams, the radio operator, had been lent to the crew by the New Zealand Government which had a live interest in aerial connexion with the outside world. Thirty years ago . . . They took oft at 6.57 p.m. without incident and a tew miles offshore they dropped wreaths to the memory of Moncrieff and Hood, the two New Zealanders who had failed in their own tranSrTasman attempt in January. The first flash of lightning came at 11 o’clock. “Smithy’’ cursed. Couldn't they have just one flight without having to battle through ocean storms?

“Smithy” tried to outclimb the storm, but at 10,000 ft he could go nq higher and the storm went for thousands of feet up beyond that. It was going to be a rough night,’the roughest in “Smithy’s” whole career.

In New Zealand, people were listening to, radio stations for news of the plane—excitedly, anxiously, hopefully. There was a sudden gust and the aircraft was tossed, up 500 ft. then a wing dropped and the Southern Cross shot down in a “stomach-turning,” terrifying sideslip. “Smithy” fought the shuddering controls. Ulm had to help him to keep them steady. “Still Going”

The swinging compass needle* gave the navigator little chance of making anything but the sketchiest of dead-reckoning navigation; and the roar of static from lightning discharges blacked out any possibility of McWilliams using his radio equipment. Nevertheless, he worked doggedly on his broken aerial and soaked gear and at 11.3 pan. New Zealand listeners heard: “Still going.” To the pilots it was by this time not. so much a matter of direction or radio contact but rather survival. They were flying blind. The airspeed indicator

i showed 95 knots. - then zero i "Smithy” dived to gain flying ; speed to counteract the instrument ; —implied stall coming up. The plane had gone to 2500 feet before he realised that the' pitot . head was blocked with iee ano the indicator was not registering. Disregarding airspeed "Smithy” kept the Southern Cross at that height by watching the engine revolution counters. If the revolution* kept up the machine was

divihg; if they decreased, it was climbing. It was a crude method

of flying blind, but until the pitot head ice melted it worked.

The motors began to shudder. Ice had chipped the propellers and they had become unbalanced. McWilliams was working on his radios in the darkness but with the intermittent assistance of a weak torchlight. Then came the worst bump of the flight. Many of his parts went irretrievably into the tail. Radio Working Again Soaked, bruised, aching and dog-tired, he improvised and pieced his gear laboriously together. At 235 a.m.. the silence was broken but signals from the Southern Cross were tod faint to be decipherable.

Finally, at 337 a.m. came this reassuring ’ information: "Hullo, Wellington. How are my signals, please? . Call me—go ahead.” Thousands of people on both 'sides K of the Tasman started breathing again. The. storm was over. Was it only . four, five hours since It started! It seemed a lifetime. Litchfield passed a note through: “Watch clouds on starboard bow.” Something was there —it was the Southern Alps. They kept going. ..There was Wellington. They, were dead on course. "Smithy’s” Old Bus circled and the first New Zealander they saw as they banked low took off hl*

pyjama coat nnfl waved it to them. The sound ot the plane brought people out in their hundreds, many of them having been up fill njght listening. Kingsford Smith turned south, across Cook Strait, skirting' the glistening Kaikoufas and heading for the peninsula ahead. ... )> Ate Force Escort Thirty years ago . . . People were heading for Sockbum nbw. Four Air Force Bristol Fighters took off to intercept the Fokkerl There were nearly 30,000 people waiting. Suddenly they saw the nlanes and thev cheered, but as the Southern Cross came close they were tensely silent and they waited. As the wheels of the Southern Cross.spun, gcross the grass the roar ot its three air-cooled engines Was drowned in the noise of<a welcoming crowd yelling itself hoarse in a triumphant welcome. "There was not <a PW ot eyes which did not scan the . machine in admiration of the monster and the excited crowd and before the machine was fully stopped it was surrounded. Sir JI. Heaton Rhodes was there to congratulate and welcome the. flyers on behalf of the Government, which simultaneously awarded them £2OOO and gave pensions to the widows of Moncrieff and Hood. • It was 9.22 a.m., September 11, 1928.