United states airmail8/1/2023 ![]() ![]() “There was a rather general feeling that aviation was not yet sufficiently advanced to maintain mail schedules by airplanes,” said Otto Praeger, the Second Assistant Postmaster General, in a 1938 interview. Two days later, after blowing a second chance to fly the mail north and making an emergency landing in Cape Charles, Virginia, Boyle’s time with the Post Office came to an inglorious end.īoyle may not have been the Army’s best pilot, but his misadventures highlight just how bold of a decision it was to begin airmail service at a time when flight was still in its infancy. Officials from the United States Post Office Department, the predecessor to the United States Postal Service, drove the load of mail back to D.C., and unceremoniously put it on a train to New York. Realizing his mistake, he landed in a soft field in Waldorf, Maryland, damaging his propeller. With only a map laid across his lap to guide him on his northbound journey, Boyle turned southeast shortly after takeoff. The flight, however, never made it to the City of Brotherly Love. The president dropped a letter in Boyle’s sack, and the pilot took off for his journey from Washington to New York, with plans to stop in Philadelphia for delivery and refueling. The two men chatted for a few minutes, Wilson in a three-piece suit and bowler hat, Boyle in his leather flying cap, a cigarette in his mouth. As the crowd in Potomac Park buzzed with excitement, President Woodrow Wilson stood with the pilot, Second Lieutenant George Leroy Boyle. On a gloomy Wednesday morning, thousands of spectators gathered in Washington, D.C., to witness what would be the world’s first regularly scheduled airmail service. While their peers carried bombs across the Atlantic, these men carried the mail. Though they worked in the skies above East Coast cities, far from the carnage of World War I, their task was life-threatening, and it was as crucial to the nation’s psyche as any conflict fought on foreign soil. Twice more Lindbergh was forced to jump from his plane, each time being saved by his parachute.ĭespite the challenges, Lindbergh and his team completed more than 98 percent of their scheduled flights, at a time when one out of every six airmail pilots was killed on the job.On May 15, 1918, as hundreds of thousands of American troops fought from the trenches of Western Europe, a small number of U.S. Louis-Chicago route, took pilots through quick changing weather. ![]() The danger of delivering airmail was high. Louis banks, which considered airmail an investment in the future of aviation. Robertson Aircraft survived for months with subsidies provided by St. But the public was slow to adopt this new service, in part because airplane travel was still very dangerous and in part because of the additional cost for airmail. On April 15, 1926, Robertson Aircraft inaugurated its airmail route with a formal ceremony before 200 citizens and a crowd of cameras. Knowing that these planes had earned the nickname "flaming coffins," Lindbergh insisted that each pilot be equipped with a new seat-type silk parachute, with no penalty if used. Lindbergh spent the winter preparing his flight path, while the company readied their five mail planes, Army-salvage De Havilland DH-4 observation planes with 400 h.p. In October 1925, Robertson Aircraft Corporation was awarded the St. As a result, he became the first man saved twice by a parachute.ĭuring his waiting period, he also joined The Mil-Hi Airways and Flying Circus in Denver, Colorado, and earned the reputation of being one of the best stunt fliers in the country and the nickname “Flying Fool.” He tested a new commercial four-passenger plane, an OXX-6 Plywood Special when the controls malfunctioned and he was forced once again to jump to safety with his parachute. While waiting for that contract, Lindbergh flew at Lambert Field. Shortly after arriving, he accepted a job with the Robertson Aircraft Corporation as chief pilot for the soon-to-be awarded St. Louis, Missouri, to find a job in aviation. Following graduation, Lindbergh went to Lambert Field in St. ![]()
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