Charles Daniel Pratt was born in Gnaio, New Zealand in 1891. In World War I he saw action in Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine, where he served in signals as a mounted motorcycle despatch rider. In 1917 he volunteered for the Royal Flying Corp, quickly proving his ability. After the war he made his career as a pilot and instructor in Australia, establishing, with his brothers, Geelong Air Service Pratt Bros. They also ran a Sunbeam Motorcycle business in Geelong from 1932. Charles Pratt did his own film processing and enlarging and was in demand for aerial photography from the early 1920s. During World War II, despite his record as an instructor, he was overlooked as an instructor but served as a pilot with A.N.A. flying DC2 and DC3s until 1947. Many of the Airspy aerial photographs of Melbourne and it outer suburbs are the work of Charles Pratt. He died in 1968.