The journey from San Francisco to Honolulu at first glance seems to be a relatively easy jaunt of 2,400 miles (3863 km) compared to the 3,610 miles (5810 km) flown by Charles Lindbergh on his historic flight. However, appearances can be deceiving. Lindbergh had the advantage that, barring any engine failure, he would eventually pass over land, even if his navigation took him past the British Isles. On the other hand, flying to the Hawaiian Islands required pinoint navigation. An error in calcuating wind drift or heading could, and did, spell disaster. Moreover, the pilots would be flying into the Westerlies, or headwinds, which would contribute severly to fuel consumption. How much that could impact range is evidence by the flight of Charles Kingsford-Smith. In flying eastbound from Hawaii to California on November 3, 1934 he completed the flight in 15 hours, just over half the time it had taken him to make the flight from San Francicso to Hawaii in 1928.
The first attempted flight from San Francisco to Hawaii was made by Cdr. John Rodgers of the U.S. Navy, in the PN-9 No. 1 seaplane on Aug. 31, 1925 (right). 
The flight was forced to land at sea due to lack of fuel shortly before 4 p.m. on September 1.
Lost at sea for 10 days in spite of an extensive air and sea search, Commander Rodgers and his crew rigged a sail from the wing fabric, used interal decking to make a centerboard, and set course for the island of Oahu.
After covering about 450 miles by sail, they were sighted on September 10 by the submarine R-4 (SS-81) ten miles from Kauai and were towed in.
The 1,841.12 statute miles flown from August 31 to their forced landing was accepted by the F.A.I. as a new world airplane distance record for Class C seaplanes that remained unbeaten for almost 5 years.
Charles Lindbergh flew from Roosevelt Field on Long Island on May 17, 1927. His destination, Le Bourget Aerodrome, was about 7 miles (11 km) outside Paris and 3,610 miles (5,810 km) away. His feat of crossing the Atlantic would spur avaitors to try and span the distance from San Francisco, Caliafrnia to Honolulu, Hawaii.
On June 28-29, 1927 the first non-stop Hawaiian flight (Oakland to Wheeler Field) was made by Army Lts. Lester J. Maitland and Alfred F. Hegenberger in a Fokker C2-3 Wright 220 named the Bird of Paradise.
They flew 2,407 miles in 25 hours and 50 minutes in the mdoified Fokker C2. The original wing, 61 feet in length, was replaced with a 71 foot wing with extra full tanks to carrry 1046 gallons of fuel. They started with a radio compass and a directional radio receiver,
but both failed shortly after take off from Oakland.
They were awarded the Mackay Trophy for 1927 and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
On July 17, 1927, Ernest Smith and navigator Emory Bronte took off from Oakland, California, in a single-engine Travelair 5000, named the Spirit of Oakland (left).
The plane was modified from its 75 gallons of gas to 425 gallons for the flight. Aside from radio earphone problems, their 25-hour trip went well until they began to run low on fuel hours from land.
Smith and Bronte managed to reach Molokai before their engine finally sputtered to a stop.
Seeing no good place to land, Smith skillfully glided their plane down onto a clump of thorny kiawe trees, amid "startled mynah birds and a terrified flock of quail."
They were the first civilians to make the crossing.
Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic had created a frenzy for long distance races, and inspired pineapple magnate, and a member of the National Aeronautic Association, James D. Dole to offer $25,000 (the amount Raymond Orteig had offered for the first transatlantic flight) to the first crew, and $10,000 to second place, to fly a single engine airplane nonstop from Oakland, California, to Honolulu. It would be a fatefully contest. It had been indended as the first flight to hawaii, but the Army flight, and that of Ernst Smith, had upstaged it. Oringinally, there were fouteen entries, but between August 10 and 12, three planes crashed and three contestants died. There were delays and dsiqualifications and of eight finalist entrants, only five were able to make the journey from Oakland Airport on August 16, 1927. but only two made it to Wheeler Field. Art Goebel with Lt. W. T. Davis as navigator was the winner in a Travelair monoplane Woolaroc with Martin Jensen and Paul Schluter coming in second in the Aloha. The other three were lost at sea and despite a frantic search by the U.S. Navy no trace of the any of the aircraft was found. In total, a dozen people died in the Dole Derby, which the Philadelphia Enquirer would call “an orgy of reckless sacrifice.” The tragic results of this flight would stop any further attempts at the 2,400-mile over-water flight by single-engine land planes until 1934.
Squadron Leader Charles Kingsford-Smith of Australia made the first Trans-Pacific flight from 
Oakland, California to Brisbane, Australia via Hawaii and Fiji in 83 hours and 21 minutes.
The flight in a modified Fokker VIIB from Oakland to Wheeler Field, Oahu took 27 hours 30 minutes. The aircraft was a Fokker F10 with three new Wright J-5 engines called the Southern Cross (left).
The navigator, Harry Lyons was from Honolulu and the radio operator, James Warner was another American, thus the effort was somewhat international.
On December 1, 1932, Pan American Airways announced plans for service to Hawaii. It wasn’t until April 17, 1936 that Pan Am began carrying passengers from San Francisco to Hawaii on its luxurious Martin M-130 Clippers. Richard F. Bradley, aviation manager for Standard Oil, paid $5,500 (the equivalent of $51,000 today) to be among the passengers on the first flight.
On January 10, 1934 the Navy made a mass flight of six Consolidated P2Y-1 Ranger seaplanes from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor without incident in 24 hours, 45 minutes.
While the flight of the P2Y Rangers showed true feasiblity of commercial flights to Hawaii from the mainland, the lost of an Australian twin-engine aircraft coming from California with a crew of three was lost at sea just short of Hawaii showed that it was not an easy flight.
