Westward

A plane flew from California to Hawaii last week. Inhabitants of the U. S. took the news calmly. Four planes had done the trick before. Nine men and one woman had died last year trying to do it.

In last week's plane were four men: Capt. Charles F. Kingsford-Smith, commander, organizer; Capt. Charles T. P. Ulm, copilot; Capt. Harry W. Lyon, navigator ; James Warner, radio operator. They made the 2,400-mile hop from Oakland Airport, Calif., to Wheeler Field, Honolulu, in 27 hrs., 28 min.--having no trouble except that they thought they were going to run out of gasoline. Their plane, called the Southern Cross, is a Fokker monoplane equipped with three Wright Whirlwind motors.

Two days after alighting on Hawaiian grass, the four of the Southern Cross planned to do something that no man had ever before attempted: a 3,138-mile flight entirely over water, aiming at a pinhead in the Pacific called Suva in the Fiji Islands. The 850 inhabitants of Suva were atwitter with anticipation; the municipal council gave orders to cut down trees and remove electric wires in Albert Park, so as to make a landing field for the Southern Cross.

They left Honolulu. Their radio worked beautifully. It sent a babble of reports every few minutes, and the world knew that they were fighting clouds, wind and storm for more than 30 hours. They grew haggard. Suva waited. They saw Suva. Then with engines roaring but little louder than the crowd, they landed, their longest overwater flight accomplished, their gasoline almost gone.

From Suva, the four fliers planned to hop 1,795 miles to Brisbane, Australia.