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Vintage Kingsford Smith Lockheed Altair Lady Southern Cross VH-USB Photo 8x10 For Sale

Vintage Kingsford Smith Lockheed Altair Lady Southern Cross VH-USB Photo 8x10
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Vintage Kingsford Smith Lockheed Altair Lady Southern Cross VH-USB Photo 8x10:
$99.99

Vintage Kingsford Smith Lockheed Altair
Lady Southern Cross VH-USB Photo 8x10
Lost With Kingsford Smith Over the Bay of Bengal, 1935DESCRIPTIONVintage 8x10 photograph of the Lockheed Altair 8D Special, registration VH-USB, "Lady Southern Cross," flown by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith with Captain P.G. "Bill" Taylor as navigator on the pioneering October to November 1934 eastward trans-Pacific flight from Australia to the United States, a 3,150 mile leg from Suva, Fiji to Wheeler Field, Hawaii that was part of the first crossing of its kind in that direction. The aircraft was rebuilt from an earlier Lockheed Sirius and was originally to be named "Anzac," but the Australian government objected to commercial use of that name, so it was renamed "Lady Southern Cross" before delivery. The photograph shows the aircraft's distinctive striped tail and cowling with "Lady Southern Cross" lettered along the fuselage, photographed inside a hangar at Floyd Bennett Field in New York. A little over a year after this photograph was taken, Kingsford Smith and navigator Tommy Pethybridge disappeared over the Andaman Sea on the night of November 7 to 8, 1935, while flying this same aircraft from Allahabad, India toward Singapore in an attempt to break the England to Australia speed record set during that year's MacRobertson Air Race. Eighteen months later, Burmese fishermen recovered an undercarriage leg from the aircraft near Aye Island, authenticated by Lockheed and preserved today in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, giving surviving photographs of this specific airframe a documented and lasting link to one of the defining stories in Australian aviation history. This print comes from the Aitken Collection, a large single owner archive of vintage aviation photography, and carries a period photo lab stamp on the reverse from MDC St. Louis dated 1979, identifying it as a company print pulled from the original press negative rather than an original 1930s period pull. It is represented and priced accordingly as a 1979 archival print, not an original period photograph. A typed caption card is affixed to the back, identifying the aircraft, registration, crew, and history, and the image was archivally scanned at 600dpi. Every effort is made toward fact checking and provenance, including background research through news and historical archives. If any listing is incorrect in any way and you're unsatisfied with the item, please connect with me and I'll make it right. Orders placed before Noon CDT ship same day via Ground Advantage with tracking. Returns accepted on all items exceeding $25 in cost. All shipments receive rigid, professional packaging, sealed and protected in acid free sleeves. Shipping is free and already built into the price, so the BIN price is exactly what you pay, no surprise shipping costs at checkout.CONDITIONVery good condition for its age. The image is crisp and well contrasted with no fading, showing the aircraft clearly inside the hangar with the "Lady Southern Cross" lettering fully legible. Corners show light softening consistent with long-term archival storage, with no tears, creases, or writing on the front of the photograph. The reverse carries an intact typed caption card with full identifying text, along with the period photo lab date stamp and a "NEGATIVES NOT FILED" stamp. Ships in a rigid, acid free sleeve for protection.
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