Charles Ulm

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Charles Ulm at the end of a flight (1928)

Charles Thomas Philippe Ulm (born October 18, 1898 in Middle Park , Melbourne ; † December 8, 1934 missing on a flight from Oakland to Hawaii ) was an Australian aviation pioneer and founder of Australia's early airlines.

Early life

Charles Ulm was the third son of the French Emile Gustave Ulm, an artist, and his wife Ada Emma, ​​nee Greenland. Charles Ulm went to school in Melbourne and Sydney . After graduating from school, he worked as an employee in a stock exchange office. During the First World War he served from September 16, 1914 under a false name in the Australian Imperial Force . In 1915 he took part in the Battle of Gallipoli . Ulm suffered a wound in the mouth from a shrapnel, which led to his discharge from the army. In January 1917 he rejoined the Australian Army under his name and served in an infantry unit on the Western Front . He was badly wounded in the knee by a shrapnel and was then transported to Great Britain. In March 1919 he was discharged from the military. On November 20, 1919, he married Isabel Amy Winter, with whom he went to Western Australia . He was divorced and married Mary Josephine Callaghan on June 29, 1927 in Sydney.

Aviation pioneer

The Southern Cross , which in 1928 was the first the Pacific crossing

In 1927, Charles Kingsford Smith and Ulm circumnavigated Australia in a plane in 10 days and 5 hours. In doing so, they halved the previous record.

After this record-breaking flight, they raised funds for the first crossing of the Pacific from the United States to Australia. On May 31, 1928, they started with two crew members in a three-engine Fokker F.VIIb-3m in Oakland , California , which they named Southern Cross . Ulm was deputy commander and co-pilot on this flight , although he did not have a pilot license at the time. After a flight of 83 hours and 17 minutes in three stages, they reached Brisbane on June 9th. This flight made them popular heroes in Australia. They were awarded the British Air Force Cross and were made honorary members of the Royal Australian Air Force .

On September 10th, Charles Ulm flew the first 14-hour flight from Sydney to Christchurch , New Zealand . Only then was Ulm in possession of a pilot's license.

Entrepreneur

Kingsford Smith and Ulm founded the Australian airline Australian National Airways Ltd (ANA) in December 1928 . This airline started transporting passengers, cargo and air mail between Sydney and Brisbane from 1930 . The airline expanded its destinations to Melbourne in Victoria and Launceston in Tasmania , making ANA the first domestic airline in Australia. On March 21, 1931, one of the airline's five Avro 618 Ten was lost on the flight to Melbourne. This event led to government regulations governing the operation of an airline. The plane wreck was only discovered in 1958 in the Toolong Range near Kiandra in New South Wales .

In March 1929, Kingsford Smith and Ulm were missing on a flight to London for 14 days. They were forced to make an emergency landing on the west coast of Australia near what is now the Derby with the Southern Cross , which they now owned. The crew, believed to be lost, was found on the first rescue expedition for aircraft and pilots in Australia. However, a rescue aircraft, the Westland Widgeon , called the Kookaburra, crashed and two pilots died. When the rescue company found the flight crew and the Southern Cross aircraft , in anticipation of their rescuers they drank so-called Royal Coffee , sweetened mocha with cognac , which is heated in a ladle and lit and then poured into preheated glasses. The Australian public resented Kingsford Smith and Ulm for this, and they were unable to restore their reputations in full until his death.

Ulm took over the ANA alone. However, due to the prevailing economic recession and aircraft losses, the company became insolvent. Ulm bought one of the planes from the bankruptcy estate, which he named Faith in Australia . With this aircraft he planned to circumnavigate the world and flew from Australia to Great Britain in 1933. This project failed because there was a crash landing in Ireland . On his return flight to Australia he set a new record with 16 days, 17 hours and 56 minutes on this route.

In April 1934, Ulm flew to New Zealand for the first time on behalf of the Australian Post and to New Guinea in August 1934 . He founded Great Pacific Airways Ltd in the hope of receiving further transport orders from the Post for flights from Australia to Canada and the United States . He intended to set up a flight route from San Francisco to Sydney. He bought an airplane that, with additional tanks, allowed a range of 6115 kilometers. On December 3, 1934, he tested this twin-engine airplane, which he called the Stella Australis , an Airspeed Envoy , on a flight from Oakland to Hawaii . The crew also issued an SOS signal. It did not arrive at its destination and, despite a month-long search, remained lost forever without any trace.

Honors

In 1978 his likeness was featured on an Australian postage stamp. In November 2008, Qantas announced that it would name one of its aircraft, the Airbus A380 , after him. This aircraft went into service on November 3, 2010.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b John McCarthy: Ulm, Charles Thomas Philippe (1898–1934) (English), on Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed December 17, 2014
  2. ^ The Charles Ulm Story , accessed December 17, 2014
  3. ↑ a b Remember Kingsmith and Ulm (English), Ellen Rogers collection at the National Museum Australia, accessed on December 17, 2015
  4. ↑ Maisie McKenzie: The Road to Mowanjum (English), Angus & Robertson 1969
  5. ↑ Terra Gwynn-Jones: On a Wing and a Prayer (English). University of Queensland Press 1989. ISBN 0-7022-2193-7
  6. ↑ ANA Avro 618 Ten VH-UMI Southern Moon (English), at airwaysmuseum.com, accessed December 17, 2014
  7. ↑ australianstamp.com , (English), accessed December 17, 2014
  8. ↑ on airliners.net (English), announcement by Qantas, accessed on December 17, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Ulm, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ulm, Charles Thomas Philippe (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian aviation pioneer and founder of Australia's early airlines
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Middle Park , Melbourne
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1934
Place of death on a flight from Oakland to Hawaii