by empty41 » Sun Sep 02, 2012 1:04 am
I am coming into this discussion late in the piece, but I note a couple of comments that can be answered, so here goes.
Re Albert park and the Smithy landing, I have done a bit of research and we recently had a photo posted on the Fiji Museum site of the Southern Cross after it came to rest at the back end of the park, I was surprised to see that the grass was uncut at that end and stood about 2 feet tall in the old speak, we have to assume this would have assisted in slowing the SC down.
It is known that Smithy when he saw the park from the air commented that it was a postage stamp, they had only cut the trees on the approach over the harbor end down while the plane was in the air from Hawaii to Fiji, talk about cutting it fine, it was a case that the colonial administrators really had no idea what was required for an aircraft to operate, such as landing and take off.
So the park as we see it today is much in size as it was then, we know that Smithy did a ground loop and spun the plane to slow it down and stop when he saw the hill end of the park coming up fast, then it was obvious he could never take off from there with a load of fuel for the next leg to Aussie, the plane was unloaded and with a very light fuel load was flown to a beach north of Suva for take off for the flight to Aussie.
I am already working with the Fiji Archives on some other matters and will see what I can glean from the papers re the Southern Cross flight,it maybe of interest that the road that runs along the side of Albert park is Southern Cross road, the small grandstand on the park is also named Southern Cross
Re the Marlow Dornier,again I will check out what there may be of interest in the Fiji Times of that period, I have been researching, the 2 brothers Marlow myself as i am writing the history of Scouting here and both men played significant roles in the early days of scouting here, I did meet Alf back in the 70s and knew the 2 sons , I now am in contact with Rebecca who has commented above as we are working together on some common aspects of the Marlow history.
Alf's aircraft was the second one registered in Fiji with the VQ FAB signature , the original aircraft registered was a Spartan Float plane, being VQ FAA and as luck would have it while up north this past week I had a beer at the Planters Club in Savusavu, (yes we still have a club so called) and on the wall is a excellent photo of VQ FAA on the water at Levuka, the notation on the back says 1931? so we can assume it may be correct, I will be going back in a week or so and will speak to the club and ask permission to get a good copy of the photo, the one I took using my camera is not to bad and I have posted it on the Fiji Museum Facebook page with lots of good comments coming through,you can go to this said site and see the results.
I was a bit short on time when I found the photo and did not even clean the glass so will do better next trip, as a result of information already on this site I now know that the Fiji Spartan was #47 off the production line, also one of the few that was a float plane. from the factory, was operated in Fiji from June 1930 till about August 1933 when it was shipped out to Australia. I will pass on info as i glean it on this subject as I proceed Michael Thoms