Transpacific flight

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 in a single-engine Travel Air 5000 monoplane, but ran out of fuel and safely crash-landed on Molokai".

[8][9][10][11] 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.

[15] 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.

[18] 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.

On 22 November 1935, "Pan American Airlines' China Clipper launched its first transpacific flight, covering a distance of 8,000 miles (13,000 km)".

[22] The four-man crew consisted of Albuquerque balloonists Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman, and Ron Clark, and thrill-seeking restaurateur Rocky Aoki, who helped fund the flight.

After crossing the Pacific the helium-filled Double Eagle V, weighed down by ice and buffeted by a storm, crash-landed in northern California, ending the nearly 10,000-kilometre (6,000 mi) flight.

[23] [24] On February 21, 1995, aviator Steve Fossett was the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon from South Korea to Leader, Saskatchewan.