AIR MAIL PIONEER

Taranaki Daily News, 6 August 1934, Page 3

AIR MAIL PIONEER

ULM’S GREAT RECORD.

WINNING RECOGNITION.

Sydney, July 30.

Flight-Lieutenant C. T. P. Ulm has never been given by Australians that recognition that is due .to him as the great airman he has proved himself to be. This is probably ■ due to the fact that he was for so long closely associated with Air Commodore Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who is Australia’s national air hero. For years FlightLieutenant Ulm was looked upon as Kingsford Smith’s assistant, and _ that is what he was, a very able assistant at that. In all. the great achievements of the pair, Ulm was the business organiser, and it is claiiried that much of the success that came their way was due to him. Ulm was out of the public limelight for a long time, but now he has forced his way to the forefront of Australian civil aviation. In the past twelve months he has accomplished more hazardous flights than most men would like to tackle in a lifetime, and they have all been trouble free. This week he set off from. Sydney with the first air mail from Australia to New Guinea. ■ <

Ulm first came into prominence in 1927' when he and Kingsford Smith- established a record for the round-Australia flight, covering 7539 miles in 10 days hours. The famous trans-Pacific flight, which stirred the whole world, was undertaken in June, 1928. Ulm, as co-commander, organiser, and relief pilot, had an equal share in the honours, and he was awarded the Air Force Cross. In August of the same year Ulm again joined Kingsford Smith in a non-stop transcontinental flight from Melbourne to Perth, and the following month they took the Southern Cross over the Tasman Sea in 14hrs 12 min. The fateful attempt on the Australia to England record was undertaken in 1929. The party was lost for 12 days near Derby, in Western Australia, and two aviators lost their lives in the search for the aeroplane. After the machine had been located, the journey to England was completed in 13 days. When Ulm returned to Australia he organised Australian National Airways, and -t was not until June, 1933, that,he undertook another long flight. A. round-the-world flight was contemplated, and the party, in the Faith in Australia, had to abandon the idea when the machine came to grief on the Irish coast before the Atlantic crossing. The England to Australia record was tackled instead, and all previous records were smashed when the Faith in Australia landed in Derby in 6 days 17hr 43min. Early this year Ulm inaugurated the Australia-New Zealand air-mail service, and then he has made further flights across the Tasman. In all he has crossed the Tasman by aeroplane seven times. It was fitting that so keen and clever a pilot should have been given, the. opportunity of pioneering the New Guinea air-mail service.