earth science

Transpacific flight

Transpacific flight is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Transpacific flight rather than just read about it. In short: A transpacific flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Pacific Ocean from Australasia, East and Southeast Asia to North America, South America, or vice versa. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing aircraft, balloons and other types of aircraft.

Key takeaways

Transpacific flight belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Transpacific flight to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Transpacific flight from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A transpacific flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Pacific Ocean from Australasia, East and Southeast Asia to North America, South America, or vice versa. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing aircraft, balloons and other types of aircraft. Though less common than transatlantic flights, transpacific flights have been commercially available since the mid-1930s and have been used for transport of cargo and passengers across the Pacific Ocean. The time and distance of transpacific flights are longer than transatlantic flights, thanks to the much broader width of the Pacific. The first transpacific flight occurred in 1928, nine years after the first transatlantic flight in 1919.

History In 1927, Ernie Smith and Emory Bronte attempted the first civilian transpacific flight bound for Maui, Hawaii starting from Oakland, California. The duo "flew 25 hours and two minutes at 6,000 feet (1,800 m) in a single-engine Travel Air 5000 monoplane, but ran out of fuel and safely crash-landed on Molokai". A memorial was constructed to mark "the historic end to the first civilian transpacific flight".

First transpacific flight

In 1928, Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew were the first to cross the Pacific by air. Smith and his relief pilot, fellow Australian Charles Ulm, arrived in the United States and began to search for an aircraft. Famed Australian polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins sold them a Fokker F.VII/3m monoplane, which they named the Southern Cross. At 8:54 a.m. on 31 May 1928, Kingsford Smith and his crew left Oakland, California, to attempt the first trans-Pacific flight to Australia. The flight was in three stages. The first, from Oakland to Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii, was 3,870 kilometres (2,400 mi), taking an uneventful 27 hours 25 minutes (87.54 mph). They took off from Barking Sands on Mana, Kauai, since the runway at Wheeler was not long enough. They headed for Suva, Fiji, 5,077 kilometres (3,155 mi) away, taking 34 hours 30 minutes (91.45 mph). This was the most demanding portion of the journey, as they flew through a massive lightning storm near the equator. The third leg was the shortest, 2,709 kilometres (1,683 mi) in 20 hours (84.15 mph), and crossed the Australian coastline near Ballina before turning north to fly 170 kilometres (110 mi) to Brisbane, where they landed at 10:50 a.m. on 9 June. The total flight distance was approximately 11,566 kilometres (7,187 mi). Kingsford Smith was met by a huge crowd of 26,000 at Eagle Farm Airport, and was welcomed as a hero. While Australians Kingsford Smith (main) and Ulm (relief) were the pilots, the other two crewmen were Americans, radio operator James Warner, and Captain Harry Lyon, who was navigator and engineer. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia has a film biography of Kingsford Smith, called An Airman Remembers, and recordings of Kingsford Smith and Ulm talking about the journey.

Kingsford Smith's second flight In early November 1934, Smith undertook a second transpacific flight. The 1928 transpacific flight took 27 hours and 28 minutes and his 1934 flight took 14 hours and 59 minutes. By this point seven pilots, one of them a woman, had died attempting transpacific flights.

First non-stop flight On 5 October 1931, Clyde Pangborn, with co-pilot Hugh Herndon Jr, while piloting a Bellanca called Miss Veedol, crash-landed the plane in the hills of East Wenatchee, Washington, in the central part of the state, becoming the first people to fly non-stop across the northern Pacific Ocean. The 41-hour flight from Sabishiro Beach, Misawa, Aomori Prefecture, Japan, won them the 1931 Harmon Trophy, which symbolized the greatest achievement in flight for that year. The plane was "heavily modified to carry 930 US gallons (3,500 L) of fuel" and made without landing gear to save fuel.

Other attempts In July 1929, Harold Bromley attempted to fly from Tacoma, Washington to Tokyo, Japan in an orange Lockheed Vega monoplane purchased by lumberman John Buffelen, who raised $25,000 to acquire the plane. The gasoline tanks were overfilled causing gasoline to pour onto the windshield and into Bromley's goggles temporarily blinding him. The plane crashed by the runway, Bromley was unhurt and would later try again to cross the Pacific Ocean.

Commercial flights In 1935, the beginning of commercial transpacific flights to and from California began operation. On 22 November 1935, "Pan American Airlines' China Clipper launched its first transpacific flight, covering a distance of 8,000 miles (13,000 km)". A large "Martin M-130 seaplane departed from Alameda, in the Bay Area, and island-hopped to Oahu, Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines before arriving in Canton, China, with a cargo of mail". A year later, passenger flights using the same route were inaugurated by Pan American. California became the undisputed national leader of transpacific flights. For the next year, Pan American planned for passenger flights, the China Clipper and its sister ships, the Philippine Clipper and Hawaii Clipper, focused on cargo transport including mail across the Pacific during this time. The route was ready for passenger service by October 1936.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Transpacific flight

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Transpacific flight claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Transpacific flight before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Transpacific flight ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Transpacific flight

In research: Transpacific flight appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Transpacific flight in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Transpacific flight is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Aviation in the Pacific Ocean, History of aviation, History of the Pacific Ocean, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Transpacific flight outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Transpacific flight in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Transpacific flight means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Transpacific flight out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Transpacific flight in simple terms?

Why does Transpacific flight matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Transpacific flight?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Transpacific flight.