Southern Cross, 1927-1929, 1936, 1980-1985

 
Component identifier:
Series 5
Content Summary:

In 1928 Charles Ulm accompanied Charles Kingsford Smith and two American crewmen aboard the Southern Cross to fly for the first time across the Pacific Ocean. The historic trans-Pacific flight flew from Oakland in California on 31 May 1928 and arrived in Brisbane on 9 June.

Ulm and Kingsford Smith flew the Southern Cross on a number of other historic journeys including the first trans-Tasman flight in 1928, flying from Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1929 the pair flew to England and were lost for 13 days after the Southern Cross had to land in the north-west coast of Australia. A massive search was undertaken and the pair were found.

The series contains contracts, newspaper cuttings and articles, correspondence, photographs, a map and certificate. File 3 is an article written by Ralph Heintz who built the Southern Cross radio sets.

Series 4, Australian National Airways, also contains information relating to the Southern Cross.

Immediate source of acquisition:
The collection has dual provenance. It consists of papers collected by Charles Ulm, and also items collected about Ulm by his son, John, which have been kept together because of the interrelated nature of their creation. The original instalment was donated to the Library by John Ulm in June 2003 in conjunction with an exhibition held at the National Library of Australia to mark the 75th Anniversary of his father's 1928 Trans-Pacific flight.

Contents

Access and use

Parent Restrictions:
Available for reference.
Parent Terms of Access:
Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact: