Sir Charles Kingsford-SmithPrint Page 
The Kingsford Smith Centenary Park commemorates aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith.
In 1928, Kingsford Smith, in the aeroplane Southern Cross, with co-pilot Charles Ulm, and navigation crew Harry Lyon and Jim Warner, had made the first trans-pacific flight from San Francisco to Brisbane, with refuelling stops at Hawaii and Fiji. Leaving Oakland Field on 31 May, they crossed the coast over Ballina at dawn on 8 June and turned north along the coast for Brisbane to refuel, landing at Eagle Farm.
They then flew south to Sydney on the same day, where they were welcomed by a crowd of 300,000 people at Mascot. Smith and Ulm had spent over 83 hours in the air in an open cockpit, numbed by cold and lashed by storms, without sleep and deafened for several days after the flight by the engine noise. Being unable to hear, the only way they could communicate with each other and with Lyon and Walker in the cabin behind was via pencilled notes passed between them, these jottings on scrap paper are now preserved in the State Library of New South Wales.
On 8 November 1935, Smithy, at the age of only 38, was killed when he crashed into the sea near Aye Island in the Bay of Bengal, while making an attempt on the England-Australia speed record in the Lady Southern Cross, only the nose wheel of the aeroplane was recovered.
Location
| Address: | 75 Airport Road, Latrobe Regional Airport, Kingsford Smith Centenary Park , Traralgon, 3844 |
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| State: | VIC |
| Area: | AUS |
| GPS Coordinates: | Lat: -38.210831 Long: 146.476123 Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate. |
Details
| Monument Type: | Park |
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| Monument Theme: | People |
| Sub-Theme: | Aviation |
| Actual Event Start Date: |
Dedication
| Actual Monument Dedication Date: | Sunday 9th February, 1997 |
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Plaque :
Kingsford Smith Centenary Park
This park is named in honor of the world`s greatest aviation pioneer
Sir Charles Kingsford Smith
1897 - 1935
Opened by D. P. Kelly AM.
9th February 1997
