United States airmail service
During the first aerial flight in North America by balloon on January 9, 1793, from Philadelphia to Deptford Township, New Jersey, Jean-Pierre Blanchard carried a personal letter from George Washington to be delivered to the owner of whatever property Blanchard happened to land on, making the flight the first delivery of air mail in the United States.
[3][4] John Wise piloted an unofficial balloon post flight that took place on July 17, 1859, from St. Louis, Missouri, to Henderson, New York, a distance of 1,290 km[5] on which he carried a mailbag entrusted to him by the American Express Company.
[9] The first official experiment at flying air mail to be made under the aegis of the United States Post Office Department took place on September 23, 1911, on the first day of an International Air Meet sponsored by The Nassau Aviation Corporation of Long Island, when pilot Earle L. Ovington flew 640 letters and 1,280 postcards from the Aero Club of New York's airfield located on Nassau Boulevard near Stratford School in Garden City (Long Island), New York, to the nearby Mineola Post Office in Mineola, located less than six miles away.
Unfortunately the bag broke when it hit the ground, but all of the mail was eventually recovered and forwarded by regular channels with the cancellation reading "AEROPLANE STATION No.1 – GARDEN CITY ESTATES, N.Y."[10][11] Emphasizing the concept, in 1912 the United States printed a 20-cent stamp in the Parcel Post series showing a flying machine and titled, "AEROPLANE CARRYING MAIL".
[13] Hubbard later flew the first international contract mail route, from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia, which began on October 15, 1920.
This 218-mile route was designed by Augustus Post, the Secretary of the Aero Club of America, who had served as an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell's Aerial Experiment Association in 1908 and was newly returned from special military service training aviators in Britain and France.
Routes like College Park, Maryland to New York were only slightly faster than the railroad, but were a good laboratory for developing safe and reliable airmail operations.
Throughout the airmail's planning, the US was preparing to fight World War I and this exposed deep flaws in American airpower including obsolete aircraft and too few pilots, both in quality and quantity.
[18][19] The first scheduled U.S. Air Mail service began on May 15, 1918, using six converted United States Army Air Service Curtiss JN-4HM "Jenny" biplanes flown by Army pilots under the command of Major Reuben H. Fleet and operating on a route between Washington, D.C. (Washington Polo Grounds) and New York City (Belmont Park) with an intermediate stop in Philadelphia (Bustleton Field).
Among those who were on hand for the departure of the first flight from Washington, D.C., were President Woodrow Wilson, U.S. Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Realizing that he was lost, Boyle attempted to find out where he was by making an unscheduled landing just 18 minutes later at 12:05 PM in Waldorf, Maryland, about 25 miles south of the city.
[20] The site of the first continuously scheduled air mail service is marked by a plaque in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C..
[22] While the role of the DC-NY route was to create an organization and develop reliable operations, the long-term success in aviation both economically and velocity required it to expand across the continent.
Angered by the insistence of Second Assistant United States Postmaster General Otto Praeger that they fly their routes on time even in zero visibility conditions in order to maintain fixed schedules or be fired – a policy that had resulted in 15 crashes and two fatalities in the previous two weeks alone – U.S. Airmail Service pilots began a spontaneous strike on July 22, 1919.
In addition to New York and San Francisco, the route included thirteen intermediate stops where mails were exchanged and aircrew relieved.
[29] During this time, a series of navigational beacons were constructed across the country to help guide pilots delivering air mail.
On February 2, 1925, however, the Congress mandated that this would change with the passage of HR 7064 entitled "An Act to encourage commercial aviation and to authorize the Postmaster General to contract for Air Mail Service" (45 Stat.
Contracts based on competitive bids for the first five routes were awarded in October 1925, with operators originally to be compensated "at a rate not to exceed four-fifths of the revenue derived from the air mail."
Lawrence G. Fritz, later the Vice President for Operations for TWA, was the pilot of the first flight to take off with mail from Ford Airport at Dearborn, on the CAM-6 eastbound leg to Cleveland.
Operated by Varney Air Lines (which later became part of United Airlines), the first Eastbound flight over CAM-5 was made successfully using a Laird Swallow biplane piloted by Leon D. Cuddeback.
The Westbound flown mail finally arrived at the Post Office in Pasco late in the morning of April 9, three days after leaving Elko.
Operating from Robertson's home base at the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field in Anglum, Missouri, Lindbergh and three other RAC pilots he selected (Philip R. Love, Thomas P. Nelson and Harlan A.
