Aviation in Australia
Useful websites
Some useful websites about aviation in Australia include:
- The State Library of New South Wales Aviation in Australia website.
- The Australian National Aviation Museum Aviation History page.
- Lawrence Hargrave: Australian Aviation Pioneer is a site maintained by Monash University. It contains biographies of several other aviators as well as an aviation timeline.
- The Air Force 2021 Centenary website as archived in Trove.

Charles Kingsford Smith examining the propeller of a plane, New South Wales ca. 1930, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-162452492
Charles Kingsford Smith examining the propeller of a plane, New South Wales ca. 1930, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-162452492
Useful print items
Some useful print items include:
Discovery video
The first Trans-Pacific flight
Australia holds a number of aviation firsts and 2018 marked the 90th anniversary of the first Trans-Pacific flight made by Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm in 1928.
There are many items in the Library collection and good online resources that provide a wealth of information about the first Trans-Pacific flight, including:
- Newspaper cuttings, 1928 and Papers of Charles Kingsford-Smith, 1917-1935 and Papers of Charles and John Ulm 1803-2000, all held in our Manuscript collection.
- Crossing the Pacific, the flight of the Southern Cross 1928: mementoes from the Crome Collection and other aviation collections of the National Library of Australia
- Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm on their trans-Pacificflight 1928 (sound recording) held in our oral history collection
- The great trans-Pacific flight: the story of the Southern Cross
- The Pioneers: An Anthology: Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith is maintained by Monash University and includes information and further links as well as recommended reading.
- Australian Dictionary of Biography Online contains a useful article on Charles Kingsford Smith.
- The National Archives of Australia's Fact sheet 196 (PDF, 256KB) provides details of records held by the archives relating to Kingsford Smith and his flights.
Trove can help you find and get items at libraries near you. The Library's Copies Direct service can provide copies of certain materials.

The Southern Cross, Fokker monoplane VH-USU, on its arrival at Mascot Aerodrome, Sydney, after the flight across the Pacific Ocean, 10 June 1928, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-147705332
The Southern Cross, Fokker monoplane VH-USU, on its arrival at Mascot Aerodrome, Sydney, after the flight across the Pacific Ocean, 10 June 1928, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-147705332