This coin commemorates the 1928 Southern Cross flight, in which Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm piloted a Fokker Trimotor from Oakland, California to Brisbane — the first transpacific crossing by air. The journey covered roughly 11,900 kilometers across three legs, with stops in Hawaii and Fiji, and took just under 84 hours of total flying time. Two American crewmen, Harry Lyon and James Warner, served as navigator and radio operator respectively, making the "first flight from USA to Australia" an American–Australian joint effort that Australian popular memory has largely claimed as its own.
Tuvalu's use of the Australian dollar and its constitutional link to the Crown made it a frequent vehicle for Australian-themed commemoratives in the early 2000s.
This coin commemorates the 1928 Southern Cross flight, in which Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm piloted a Fokker Trimotor from Oakland, California to Brisbane — the first transpacific crossing by air. The journey covered roughly 11,900 kilometers across three legs, with stops in Hawaii and Fiji, and took just under 84 hours of total flying time. Two American crewmen, Harry Lyon and James Warner, served as navigator and radio operator respectively, making the "first flight from USA to Australia" an American–Australian joint effort that Australian popular memory has largely claimed as its own.
Tuvalu's use of the Australian dollar and its constitutional link to the Crown made it a frequent vehicle for Australian-themed commemoratives in the early 2000s.