FIRST TASMAN CROSSING

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1934, Page 5

FIRST TASMAN CROSSING

FLIGHT OF SOUTHERN CROSS.

SIXTH ANNIVERSARY YESTERDAY.

Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of the first crossing of the Tasman Sea by air. Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, flying the monoplane Southern Cross, landed at Wigram aerodrome at 9.22 a.m. on September 12, 1928, after leaving the Richmond aerodrome in New South Wales a little more than 14 hours before.

The landing at the Wigram aerodrome was witnessed by a crowd of 30,000, and scenes of great enthusiasm followed immediately the machine touched ground. With Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith (then Squadron Leader), there were in the Southern Cross Flight Lieutenant C. T. P. Ulm, Mr. H. A. Litchfield, as navigator, and Mr. T. H. McWilliam, a New Zealander, as radio operator. The actual flying time taken in the journey was 14 hours 25 minutes, and the average speed for the trip was 119 miles an hour.

After leaving the specially prepared runway at the Richmond aerodrome the Southern Cross rah into thick weather, with bad visibility, and the navigator set a course for a point about the middle of Cook Strait. Early in the journey it became obvious to those in the aeroplane that bad weather was ahead, and the machine climbed to a high altitude in an endeavour to pass over the storm ahead. BAD WEATHER MET. Nearly five hours after leaving, however, the Southern Cross ran into heavy rain, and Sir Charles Kingsford Smith had to fly blind. During this storm tire lightning was so close and so severe that, according to an interview given by Flight Lieutenant Ulm, circles of fire covered the diameter or each of the three propellers. The hour following that storm was described as the worst stretch through which the Southern Cross had flown. At an altitude of 7000 feet, ice formed not only on the windshield, but on the undercarriage, the engine bearer shafts, and the wing itself. The pilot tube, controlling the air speed indicator, also became choked with ice.

Lightning storms alternating with exceptionally cold snaps of fine weather lasted until 3.30 a.m. (Sydney time), about ten hours after leaving Australia, and from then on the weather cleared. New Zealand was sighted and the crew of the Southern Cross saw a snow-capped mountain in the northern part of the South Island.

Crossing Cook Strait the Southern Cross flew over Wellington and its suburbs for ten minutes, and then made for Canterbury. Four escorting aeroplanes met the Southern Cross between Wellington and Christchurch and at 9.22 a.m. the Southern Cross landed and made tire crossing of the Tasman Sea by air an accomplished fact. During the crossing wreaths were dropped in the Tasman Sea in memory of Messrs. Hood and Moncrieff, the first to try the flight accomplished by the Southern Cross.