Not ready to take off

A GoFundMe page is trying to raise $220,000 to allow two historic plane replicas to remain where they are being exhibited.

The futures of replicas of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith’s Southern Cross plane, used in a TV series on the famous airman in the 1980s, and the Lady Southern Cross are uncertain because of an impending sale of their current home.

Replicas of both planes are housed at the Murrumbidgee town of Balranald in NSW and $220,000 is needed to purchase the building where they are exhibited.

The original Southern Cross was flown by Kingsford Smith when he made the first air crossing from America to Australia in 1928. The Lockheed Altair Lady Southern Cross was the plane he was flying when it disappeared in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Burma in November 1935..