Do you remember The Day the Southern Cross Landed at the Albert Park?
The first trans Pacific airplane made an historic landing in Suva’s Albert Park in 1928. A Fokker Trimotor named the Southern Cross was the first aircraft to land in Fiji on June 6, 1928.
Australian Charles Kingsford Smith, affectionately known as Smithy, was the first aviator to cross the Pacific from California to Australia, including from Hawaii to Fiji.
Albert Park, with its hill at one end and the Grand Pacific Hotel at the other side, was made into a makeshift strip for his arrival. The trees were still being cleared when Smithy left Hawaii.
Smithy and his crew’s journey became an act of extraordinary human endeavour and courage, signaling the opening of international air travel across the Pacific and the boost to trade and tourism enjoyed today.
Smithy, together with Charles Ulm (co-pilot), Harry Lyon (navigator) and James Warner (radio operator) took off from Oakland, California in the Southern Cross on 31 May, 1928.
The Southern Cross, a Fokker Trimotor, had to lift a total of seven tons of men, fuel and gear into the air.
Smithy and Ulm sat in the two pilot’s seats near the front of the long fuselage. Behind them was an 800-gallon tank full of petrol.
Behind that Lyon and Warner, both ex-U.S. Navy men, worked the instruments.
Smithy and the crew landed Southern Cross first in Hawaii before setting off for Fiji.
This leg set a record 34 and one half hours flight across open seas before gliding past the Grand Pacific Hotel where a large and enthusiastic crowd saw it touch down at Albert Park.
Eight and a half days after leaving Oakland, including over 83 hours in the air to travel almost 12,000 kilometres, they landed in Brisbane where they were welcomed by over 15,000 people.
The Southern Cross is now on permanent display at Brisbane’s Eagle Farm Airport.