Southern Cross (aircraft)
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Southern Cross is the name of the Fokker F.VII/3m three-engine monoplane aircraft which was flown by pioneering Australian aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and three other aviators, in a mixed American-Australian crew, in the first-ever flight across the Pacific Ocean. The crew flew from San Francisco, California, USA to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 1928, by way of stops in Hawaii and the Fiji Islands. Thus, the flight was broken into three legs. The remainder of the crew consisted of Australian co-pilot Charles Ulm, and Americans James Warner and Capt. Harry Lyon, who acted as navigator, radio operators, and flight engineer.
Kingsford Smith and Ulm also made the first nonstop flights over the Tasman Sea in the Southern Cross - from Australia to New Zealand, and vice-versa. In honour of this, Guy Menzies named his plane the Southern Cross Junior, and completed the first solo trans-Tasman flight in 1931.
The Southern Cross is now preserved in a special glass 'hangar' memorial on Kingsford Smith Drive, near the International Terminal at the Brisbane Airport in Australia.
The road, Southern Cross Drive, which runs through the suburbs of Macgregor, Holt, Higgins, Latham, Scullin, Florey and Page in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, is named in its honour.
