A vintage magazine photographic portrait of the AUSTRALIAN AVIATOR CHARLES KINGSFORD SMITH, who made the first Trans-Pacific flight from the United States to Australia.

Argentina: El Grafico, [1928]., [1928].. Good. - A 12-1/8 inch high by 8-3/4 inch wide leaf from the Argentinian sports magazine "El Grafico", with a full-page illustration of the Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith portrayed in three-quarter profile from the chest up. Attired in a wool fleece-collared heavy coat, "Smithy" gazes upward as he reaches for a cigarette between his lips. The corners are slightly creased and there are stab-marks along the page's right edge and a short tear to the bottom edge. A color illustration of the equestrian "Victor Fernandez Bazan" riding his horse as he jumps an obstacle is pictured on the verso. Good.

Nicknamed "Smithy", the early Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (1897-1935) made the first Trans-Pacific flight from the United States to Australia. Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm purchased a Fokker monoplane "The Southern Cross" from the polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins and set off with a 4 man crew from Oakland on May 31, 1928. Stopping over at Wheeler Army Airfield in Hawaii, they then completed the journey to Brisbane, Australia. Kingsford Smith was also the first aviator to fly non-stop across the Australian mainland and also the first to fly between Australia and New Zealand. He repeated his Trans-Pacific feat, this time flying from Australia to the U.S. and subsequently set a new time record flying from Australia to London. In 1935, he and his co-pilot John Thompson Pethybridge, disappeared over the sea as they fought a storm while trying to set a new overnight speed record in flying from Allahabad, India to Singapore.

Founded by Constancio Vigil in 1919, "El Grafico" was an Argentine sports magazine which started as a weekly newspaper before subsequently turning exclusively to the coverage of sports. One of the most highly regarded sports magazines in Latin America, it came to earn the nickname "La Biblia de deporte" ("The Bible of sports").