THE LAST FLIGHT.

Evening Star, Issue 22085, 19 July 1935, Page 5

THE LAST FLIGHT.

Yesterday the Southern Cross made her last flight, and she will now go into the Museum at Canberra, the Federal capital. The decision of the Commonwealth Government to purchase the monoplane for such a purpose will be applauded, not only, in Australia, but throughout the English-speaking world. Unique is a word that may fitly be applied to the “ old bus.” In it Aircommodore Sir Charles Kingsford Smith has accomplished deeds that place him in the ranks of the immortals. The Southern Cross has had a long life as planes go. Before she came into the possession of Kingsford Smith she had carried an Australian airman over Arctic seas. Then began a series of adventures that have made history. The first was perhaps the most remarkable of them all. Seven years ago, when aircraft had not reached the standard of the most modern machines, Kingsford Smith, with Charles Ulm,*Lyon, and Warner, took off from Oakland, California, their goal being Brisbane, which was safely reached after many perils. This was acclaimed as a wonderful feat of aviation. In three hops the wide Pacific was traversed, the total distance covered being 8,000 miles. Later the Tasman was '• crossed and recrossed. Among many other outstanding flights made by the Southern Cross was one which included the journey to England by air, the crossing of the Atlantic from east to west, and over the American continent to the old starting point in California. The famous airman took the greatest pride in his machine. He remarked that no matter what the severity of the tests imposed on her she came through them all. She braved gales, fogs, blizzards, sand storms, and rain storms. She carried loads that were far too heavy for her. Driven to the bitter limit and even beyond that, she has flown over four continents and three oceans, and over many treacherous seas. Once she was lost in the Australian wilds, and her discovery in a lonely and almost inaccessible spot in the far north-west was one of the most dramatic moments in her chequered career. There is no doubt that Kingsford Smith has infinite capacity as an airman. He would appear to bear a charmed life, but his escape from the many dangers he encountered is due in the main to bis care and foresight in making his plans and his courage, coolness, and resource in times of peril. Another gift he possesses is that of choosing capable subordinates.- Charles Ulm, who met his fate in the lonely Pacific waste of waters, was one of them, and another is Captain Taylor, whose feat of supreme courage in the last attempt by Kingsford Smith to cross the Tasman will be fresh in the memory of everyone. Among the high lights in civil aviation, Louis Bleriot’s crossing of the English Channel in 1909, the flight of Alcock and Brown from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919, and Lindbergh’s lone non-stop dash from New York to Paris in 1927, are vividly remembered. In the years that have passed since Bleriot’s sensational feat was accomplished other adventurers in the air have done great deeds, but when the history of the first halfcentury of aviation comes to be written the old Southern Cross, with the names of, Kingsford Smith and his companions, must have a place in the front rank.