91st Anniversary of the Southern Cross’s historic flight

On the 9th June 1928 the Southern Cross, a Fokker F.VIIb/3m Trimotor, settled on to the grass of Brisbane’s Eagle Farm Aerodrome, having left Oakland, USA, 10 days earlier. The aircraft flew 11,585km and had been airborne for 84 hours, with refuelling stops in Hawaii and Fiji.
Chuffed with the first ever trans-Pacific flight, the Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce, presented a cheque for £5,000 to the flight crew. Equally pleased the flight’s financial backer Californian, George Hancock, waived any right to recover his substantial investment.
It was Saturday night and hero Australian pilots, Brisbane born Charles Kingsford Smith “Smithy” and Melbourne born Charles Ulm, together with Americans, radio operator James Warner and American navigator and engineer Harry Lyon were thirsty, cashed up and debt free.
It’s not recorded what beer they celebrated their world record breaking flight with, but “Smithy was heard well in to the night yelling that’s a Fokkin’ Good Beer” .
Last year Alliance Airlines commemorated the 90th Anniversary of the Southern Cross’s historic flight by painting one of their F28's.

ALLIANCE FOKKER F28 MK 100 VH-FGB (CN 11446)       File Photos

The Fokker F28 MK 100 has been aptly registered VH-FGB which stands for Fokken Good Beer..
The Southern Cross is on public display near Brisbane Airport’s International Terminal.

Smithy enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1915 and served in Gallipoli. His wartime experience gave him a lifelong love of flying, and he worked as a pilot after the war. Smithy and Ulm, who worked together as Interstate Flying Services, made the trans-Pacific flight to see if air services across the Pacific between Australia and the United States had a commercial future. For their journey, Smithy and Ulm equipped a second-hand Fokker plane with three new engines and the best navigation and radio equipment available. Named the Southern Cross, Smithy called it the ‘Old Bus’. Captain Harry Lyon joined the pair as navigator, and Jim Warner as radio operator.


Alliance Airlines was established in 2002 when Brisbane-based Queensland Airline Holdings acquired the assets of the dormant Flight West Airlines, which had been established in May 1987 and ceased scheduled services in 2001. Alliance commenced operations with two Fokker 100 aircraft and has since expanded its fleet and operational capabilities to service the growing demand from the mining and energy sector. The airline is wholly owned by Alliance Aviation Services Limited which was listed on the ASX in 2011 and now has over 430 employees. In November 2015, Alliance announced the purchase of 6 Fokker 70 and 15 Fokker 100 aircraft from Austrian Airlines.