1. Charles Ulm partnered with Charles Kingsford Smith in achieving a number of aviation firsts, serving as Kingsford Smith's co-pilot on the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand.
13 Facts About Charles Ulm
1. 2.
Charles Ulm was the third son of Ada Emma and Emile Gustave Ulm.
3.
Charles Ulm's father was a French-born artist and his mother was an Australian.
4.
Charles Ulm spent his early years in Melbourne, moving to Sydney as a child where his family settled in Mosman.
5.
Charles Ulm fought and was wounded at Gallipoli in 1915, and on the Western Front in 1918.
6.
Charles Ulm was the "business brains" in the partnership, and acquired the funding necessary for the journey.
7.
Charles Ulm was Kingsford Smith's partner in establishing Australian National Airways.
8.
In 1934, flying in Faith in Australia, Charles Ulm carried the first official airmail from New Zealand to Australia, and the first official airmail delivery from Australia to Papua New Guinea.
9.
Charles Ulm established a new company in September 1934, Great Pacific Airways Ltd, intending to operate a San Francisco-Sydney air service.
10.
Charles Ulm disappeared in December 1934, together with copilot George Littlejohn and navigator Leon Skilling, on a test flight from Oakland, California to Hawaii in VH-UXY Stella Australis, an Airspeed Envoy.
11.
Charles Ulm had chosen not to carry a life raft on board, preferring to save weight and predicting that the aircraft would float for two days if it were forced to land on the water.
12.
Charles Ulm communicated by speaking tube but could not see the charts or calculations.
13.
Sydney Airport former office building was known as the Charles Ulm Building, until it was replaced by the Central Terrace Building in the 2000s.