Kingsford Smith.1
Smithy and The Southern Cross - Making the Impossible Dream Come True
No great human achievement is ever done solo. Without his friend Charles Thomas Ulm and the aircraft they piloted on the first around-the-world flight, Charles Kingsford Smith could not have fulfilled his Impossible Dream.
No great human achievement is ever done solo. Sir Edmund Hilary climbed Everest with Tensing, their backup team, and state-of-the-art equipment. The marathon swimmer Susie Maroni slogged her way through the world's oceans protected within a shark cage and watched over by her team in the backup boat. Neil Armstrong took that first step onto the Moon's surface suited-up in a miracle of engineering and watched by a technical crew back on Earth. William Wordsworth was inspired and encouraged by his sister Dorothy and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge to revolutionise the established forms of English poetry. Their brilliant innovations were viciously attacked by critics but found an appreciative audience through the technological advance of mass publishing.
Without his friend Charles Thomas Ulm and the aircraft they piloted on the first around-the-world flight, Charles Kingsford Smith could not have fulfilled his Impossible Dream. Together, the pair had purchased a three-engined Fokker VIIb-3m on a trip to the USA, following their successful round-Australia jaunt in 1926. The plane had a weight of 6000 kilograms, a wingspan of 23 metres, and was 15 metres in length by 4 metres high. Its cruising speed was only 150 kilometres per hour. The name they bestowed on this aircraft was one that already resonated in the Australian psyche: The Southern Cross.
You are probably aware of the constellation that is visible all year round from locations south of the Tropic of Capricorn. The five stars of the constellation are featured in the fly of the Australian national flag, alongside a seven-pointed star representing the federated States. But long before this symbol of a united Australia flew from any flagpole, another version was raised above the first battle field on home soil. On 3rd December 1854, the battle of Eureka Stockade was fought in Ballarat, a gold mining town in Victoria. United in defiance of increased prospecting fees, lack of representation, and corruption among police who inspected their licenses, the rebel miners were a mixed bag of fortune seekers from across the globe.
Included were members of the Independent Californian Rangers Revolver Brigade, Frederick Vern (German), Raffaello Carboni (Italian), Kennedy (a Scot), George Black (English), John Humffray (Welsh), and the Irishmen Timothy Hayes Peter Lalor, leader of the protesters. Yet all held a common vision of freedom, symbolised in the beautiful flag raised above the Stockade they built as defence against two regiments from the garrison at Ballarat. When it was all over, the body count was twenty-two diggers, five soldiers of the Queen, from the British Imperial Forces. Above them all still flew the starry flag that remains an iconic reminder of hard-won freedoms and an heroic era in aviation history.
© Dorothy Gauvin
see more on Smithy