Southern Cross Flight

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 700, 27 June 1929, Page 1

Southern Cross Flight

MONOPLANE LANDS AT DERBY

Singapore Is Next Hop

SYDNEY, Wednesday. Squadron-Leader Kingsford Smith, Flight-Lieutenant C. T. P. Ulm (copilots), Mr. H. A. Litchfield (navigator) and Mr. T. H. McWilliams (wireless operator) safely completed the first stage of their flight to England today in the monoplane Southern Cross. The airmen landed at Derby. Western Australia, at 10.30 a.m. Western Australian time, or 12.30 p.m. Sydney time. They left Richmond yesterday at 2.25 p.m. Sydney time, so that the journey took 22 hours 5 minutes. In a wireless message to Sydney dispatched after the landing the crew of the monoplane said: —“We are all very tired after our 22 hours in the

jair. hut we had the best trip of our lives/* The flyers will leave Derby for Singapore about 4 p.m., tomorrow, j weather permitting. They must time their departure from there so as not to arrive at the Rangoon racecourse on Saturday, where a race meeting ! will be in progress on that day. j A message from the Southern j Cross two hours before Derby was ; reached stated: “We are progressing j steadily after a cold night. Now we are flying at an altitude of about 400 feet in order to obtain warmth from I the ground." | The distance from Derby to SingaI pore by air is about. 1,650 miles, anil from Singapore to Rangoon about I 1,000 miles.