WHY PACIFIC FLIGHT WAS ABANDONED

Hokitika Guardian, 20 January 1928, Page 1

WHY PACIFIC FLIGHT WAS ABANDONED

N.S.AY. GOVERNMENT OPPOSED TO TYPE OF -MACHINE.

WELLINGTON, Jan. 17. Tlie tragic end of the attempted trans-Tasman flight and the cabled news from Sydney that Captain Kingston! Smith had abandoned his proposed lliglit from San Francisco to Australia owing to financial difficulties lend interest to the story told hv Mr AY. A. Todd, late second officer of the Union liner Tahiti, who returned from San Francisco in the .Maknra yesterday. Mr Todd told a newspaper representative that ho first got into touch with Captain C. E. Kingston! Smith, Lieutenant Keith V. Anderson and Mr C. T. P. Ulm when they travelled as passengers in the Tahiti from Sydney, via Wellington, to San Francisco in JulyAugust last year. Their scheme was being backed by the Lang Government of New South Wales, a Sydney newspaper and other interests, and they proposed to buy an aeroplane and equipment, for their flight in America, The disastrous end of the Dole race from San Francisco, in which three aeroplanes went missing, decided them against a single-engined machine, and they purchased a Fokker monoplane fitted with three motors. When the Tahiti returned to San Francisco on her next voyage, Mr Todd was asked to act as navigator for the flight, which was then expected to start in mid-October. The Union Steam Ship Company met Mr Todd very generously in respect of leave, and he accepted the offer. Early in October, Captain Kingston! Smith cabled to the New South Wales Government, asking for a further advance of i'2ooo, as, after buying the Fokker ’plane, the expedition was in debt to that amount. In the meantime, however, the Lang Government had been defeated, and the aviators’ request was turned down, Mr Bavin being opposed to trans-oceanic flights in land aeroplanes. This put the party in a very difficult position, and no financial hacking could he obtained in California to enable them to clear their debts.

Finally Captain Kingsford Smith signed up with the Associated Oil Company to make an attempt to break the worid endurance flight, using that company’s products. Had this been successful, tlie company was prepared to give sufficient backing to enable them to start the trans-Pacific flight.

The machine, which had been nameu Southern Cross, had to be renamed Spirit of California for the endurance flight. In order to get the machine insured, a fully licensed American pilot had to be nominally in charge of the flight, and Lieutenant George Pond, of”the United States Naval Air Service, went up with Kingsford Smith. After two false starts, which failed owing to structural defects, and several delays on account of the wet condition of the flying field, the ’plane went up and made a continuous flight of 49iir 29min, nearly three hours short of the record time of 52hr, 23niin. held l>y German

airmen. Shortage of petrol forced them down, and they had less than five gallons left when they landed on the verge of collapse. The failure of this flight left the party m a very tight corner financially, as, in addition fo the large sum due for wages and other heavy expenses, the mortgagees were talking of foreclosing. As there seemed no way out of tlie difficulty, and Kingston! Smith could hold out no hope of the flight starting at any definite time, AL Todd decided that liis duty to tue Union Company demanded his immediate return. He came down as a passenger in the Alakura and will resume duty as second officer of that ship.