Charles Kingsford Smith, the Southern Cross, and the Nineteen Twenty-Eight Fokker Trimotor That Beat the Pacific in Three Impossible Hops

In 1928, Australian aviator Charles “Smithy” Kingsford Smith made the first flight across the Pacific Ocean from the United States to Australia, covering more than 7,500 miles in three hops aboard a Fokker trimotor named the Southern Cross. His four-man crew crossed the world’s largest ocean with no GPS, no radio navigation aids, and no autopilot - navigating by sextant, compass, and dead reckoning. The aircraft survives today, preserved in a memorial near Brisbane Airport.

Who Was Charles Kingsford Smith?

Charles Kingsford Smith, known to friends as Smithy, was an Australian aviator with exactly the kind of résumé you’d expect from a man willing to attempt the impossible. He flew in the Great War, was shot up and decorated, and lost part of a foot in combat.

After the war he did what most early pilots did: barnstorming, joy rides, and airmail work, scraping together money one paying passenger at a time. Somewhere along the way he fixed on a single ambition - to be the first to fly the Pacific.

Turning that idea into reality took him nearly two years and left him close to broke. Backers pulled out, the Australian government got cold feet, and at one low point he was stranded in California with almost nothing.

Why Was Flying the Pacific Considered Impossible?

The scale is the whole story. The stretch of Pacific between California and Australia runs better than 7,000 miles - the Atlantic that Lindbergh crossed is a puddle by comparison. No aircraft of the era could carry enough fuel to make that crossing in a single leg.

That left only one option: island-hopping. And the problem with island-hopping the Pacific is that the islands are tiny, they’re far apart, and there is no margin for error. Miss your target by a few degrees over two thousand miles of open water and you fly right past it into nothing. There is nowhere to divert. If you go down, the ocean keeps you.

What Was the Southern Cross?

The Southern Cross was a Fokker F.VII trimotor, a large high-wing monoplane powered by three Wright Whirlwind engines - one in the nose and one on each wing. Its thick wooden Fokker wing was famously strong, sitting up on top of a big blue fuselage.

Smithy bought the aircraft secondhand - it had previously served an Arctic and Antarctic expedition - and had it rebuilt with extra fuel tanks until it could carry over 1,000 gallons. He named it after the constellation on the Australian flag.

The Southern Cross was neither fast nor sleek. It was a workhorse built to haul fuel across an ocean, which is exactly what the mission demanded.

Who Was on the Crew?

Four men made the crossing, and the flying was only half the job:

Charles Kingsford Smith - pilot and expedition leader
Charles Ulm - co-pilot and organizer, an Australian who handled much of the logistics and fundraising
Harry Lyon - navigator, an American
James Warner - radio operator, an American

The two Americans in the back were every bit as vital as the pilots up front. In 1928 there were no radio beacons out in the mid-Pacific to home in on. Harry Lyon worked with a compass, a drift indicator, a sextant, a watch, and a chart - computing wind from the whitecaps and betting four lives on his arithmetic through dead reckoning and celestial navigation.

The Three Hops Across the Pacific

The crew departed Oakland, California, on May 31, 1928 - the last day of the month.

Hop 1: California to Hawaii

The first leg ran about 2,400 miles and took roughly 24 hours. It had been flown before, so it was the least of their worries - but a full day over water in a freezing, deafening, open cockpit was still brutal.

The three Whirlwind engines roared with no soundproofing. Within hours the crew couldn’t hear a shout six inches away, so they ran the entire flight on penciled notes passed hand to hand. There was no autopilot - someone hand-flew the aircraft every second.

Hop 2: Hawaii to Fiji - The Impossible Leg

The Hawaii-to-Fiji leg was the one that scared everyone. At 3,100 miles and better than 34 hours in the air, it was the longest over-water flight anyone had attempted at that point, with nowhere to land the entire way.

That night they flew into the worst weather of the trip - towering tropical storms too high to climb over. So they went through them. Rain poured through the cockpit, lightning lit the clouds, and Smithy and Ulm hand-flew on primitive instruments with nothing visible outside but rain.

Harry Lyon couldn’t shoot a single star for hours and navigated blind on pure dead reckoning. When the storm finally cleared, he shot the sky, worked his numbers - and discovered his dead reckoning had held perfectly. Fiji appeared exactly where the math said it would be.

Hop 3: Fiji to Brisbane

The final leg to Brisbane, Australia, ran about 1,700 miles, and the Pacific delivered one more beating in the form of another line of vicious storms. But the Southern Cross held together, the three Whirlwinds kept turning, and on June 9, 1928, the crew crossed the Australian coast and landed in Brisbane.

An estimated 25,000 people were waiting on the field to watch four exhausted men climb down from the blue Fokker that had just done the impossible - the first flight across the Pacific from the United States to Australia, over 7,500 miles in three hops.

What Happened to the Southern Cross?

The aircraft was never scrapped. Kingsford Smith flew it for years afterward, setting more records - including the first crossing of the Tasman Sea and a round-the-world flight completed in stages.

When its flying days ended, Australia preserved it. The genuine Southern Cross survives today in a memorial building near Brisbane Airport - the actual 1928 aircraft, same wing and fuselage, not a replica. Visitors can walk right up and stand beneath the wing that beat the Pacific.

What Happened to Charles Kingsford Smith?

In 1935, Kingsford Smith disappeared during a night flight over the sea off Burma, flying a different aircraft in pursuit of yet another record. He was never found - the ocean that nearly claimed him in 1928 finally took him.

His name endures: Sydney Airport is officially named Kingsford Smith Airport to this day.

Key Takeaways

Charles Kingsford Smith made the first US-to-Australia trans-Pacific flight in 1928, covering more than 7,500 miles in three hops.
The aircraft was the Southern Cross, a Fokker F.VII trimotor with three Wright Whirlwind engines and over 1,000 gallons of fuel capacity.
The four-man crew - Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon, and James Warner - crossed the ocean with no GPS, radio navigation, or autopilot.
The Hawaii-to-Fiji leg of 3,100 miles and 34+ hours was the longest over-water flight attempted to that date.
The original Southern Cross is preserved near Brisbane Airport, and Sydney’s airport is named for Kingsford Smith.