Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith

  • He was born

  • become a clerk with the Canadian pacific Railways

  • Become a Senior Cadets Kingsford Smith enlisted in the Australian Imperial force.

  • He tranferred to the Australian flying Corps.

  • he served as an R.F.C Flying instructor.

  • Participating in the England to Australia air race because of supposedly inadequate navigational experience.

  • Back in Australia he worked first in Sydney with another joy-riding organization, the Diggers' Aviation Co., and then as a salaried pilot for Norman Brearley's Western Australian Airways Ltd.

  • He married Thelma Eileen Hope Corboy.

    Get married at Marble Bar in Western Australia
  • Realizing the great potential for air transport in Australia, Kingsford Smith formed a partnership with fellow pilot Keith Anderson.

    Realizing the great potential for air transport in Australia, Kingsford Smith formed a partnership with fellow pilot Keith Anderson.
  • They returned to Sydney to operate with Charles Ulm as Interstate Flying Services.

  • Harry Lyon and Jim Warner, he took off from Oakland, California and flew via Hawaii and Suva to Brisbane, completing the historic crossing in 83 hours, 38 minutes, of flying time.

  • Losing radio contact with the ground and meeting bad weather over north-west Australia

    He was forced to land on the flats of the Glenelg River estuary.
  • Kingsford Smith piloting one of the new Avro Ten planes, the Southern Cloud, on the Sydney-Melbourne route. But 'Smithy' was far from ready to settle down.

  • Kingsford Smith piloting one of the new Avro Ten planes, the Southern Cloud, on the Sydney-Melbourne route. But 'Smithy' was far from ready to settle down.

  • The Southern Cloud, flying from Sydney to Melbourne with pilot, co-pilot and six passengers, was lost in severe storms over the Snowy Mountains.

    The Southern Cloud, flying from Sydney to Melbourne with pilot, co-pilot and six passengers, was lost in severe storms over the Snowy Mountains.
  • When he was knighted for services to aviation, Kingsford Smith was almost back to where he had started, selling joy-flights at ten shillings a trip.

  • A flight to New Zealand added to this precarious income but failed to persuade the New Zealand government to give him a charter for passenger and mail services between Auckland and Singapore.

  • Kingsford Smith and Taylor then flew Lady Southern Cross from Brisbane to San Francisco in October-November in order to sell it and reimburse sponsors.

  • He died

    The result was failure in a setting of spectacular courage. Before dawn and some 500 miles (800 km) out over the Tasman, a damaged propeller blade had put one of the three motors out of action, and a second motor threatened to seize as it rapidly burned oil. Taylor, climbing out of the cockpit, succeeded at great hazard in collecting enough oil from the sump of the dead motor to replenish the other. By jettisoning cargo, and finally most of the mail-bags, Kingsford Smith nursed the Southern Cros