Fiji Aviation—25 Years Ago

The Solomon Islands Arts Club, which includes sketching, music and dramatic groups, is going ahead in Honiara. A recent musical evening, held at the home of the District Commissioner, Central Solomons (Mr. G. A. Skipper) was much appreciated. The dramatic group held a play-reading evening at Gov ernment House on July 2, when “The Taming of the Shrew” was read.

The opening of the new Vuda Pt. oil terminal in Fiji—the purpose of which Is primarily to serve Nadi airport—is a good time to look back 25 years to 1928, when Sir Charles Kingsford Smith first con quered the vastness of the Pacific Ocean by air. To-day trans-Pacific commercial services take a matter of hours to do the job, whereas “Smithy’s” epic flight of 7,054 miles from Oakland, California, to Brisbane was achieved in a flying time of 83 hours 11 minutes.

The middle and longest hop of “Smithy’s” flight (Honolulu to Suva, 3,138 miles) was probably the greatest aspect of his memorable flight. The “Southern Cross” landed at Albert Park, Suva, on June 5, 1928, and, although un realised then, foreshadowed the part Fiji was to play in the years ahead during the great development of international aviation.

These events are recalled in a booklet

issued recently by the Vacuum Oil Co. on the occasion of the opening: of their oil terminal at Vuda Point.

Our photograph shows the “Southern Cross” at Albert Park after it landed there on June 5, 1928.