![]() ![]() Will tells his sister he rediscovered the envelope in their mother’s old desk, and then recounts the story of how he visited Belmont Park in New York on the day the postmaster general was set to fly one of the first bags of air mail to Mineola. Why, where on earth did you get this envelope Bill? Aeroplane, Station Number One, Garden City Estates, New York. No, first stamps cancelled for air mail transportation. He made some of those models of air mail planes that you saw in the aircraft building. Why, Paul Garber is assistant curator of engineering in charge of Aeronautics at the Smithsonian. Hmm, and if you keep up this good work, my friend Paul Garber will have to look to his laurels one of these days. Listen to Will share about his personal interest in air mail with Donnie. His mother, the only unnamed character in the episode, remarks that Donnie has been making them ever since the family returned from a visit to the Smithsonian in Washington. ![]() The main characters of the episode then enter the scene when a boy, Donnie, cautions his uncle, Will, not to step on any of the model planes he’s building. After a number of “pathfinder” flights made in September, November, and early December, the first flight providing scheduled east-west service between New York and Chicago occurred on December 17, 1918.The episode begins with a rapid series of vignettes of people frantic about getting letters and documents to places across the country quickly, and then realizing they could send it by air mail. The route was extended to Boston three weeks later on June 4.Īfter four months of the mail being flown by the Army, all flight operations were taken over by the USPOD’s Aerial Mail Service on August 12, 1918, using a fleet of six purpose built JR-1B mail biplanes designed and constructed by the Standard Aero Corporation of Elizabeth, New Jersey, and flown by civilian pilots hired by the Post Office Department. The site of the first continuously scheduled air mail service is marked by a plaque in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. Edgerton completed the scheduled southbound relay with 144 pounds of mail, and Edgerton then flew Boyle’s mail to Philadelphia the following day. Unfortunately, however, he broke the prop on his airplane when he made a hard landing, so the 140 pounds of mail he was carrying had to be trucked back to Washington. Realizing that he was lost, Boyle attempted to find out where he was by making an unscheduled landing just 18 minutes later at 12:05PM in Waldorf, Maryland, about 25 miles south of the city. Boyle was selected to pilot aircraft #38262 on the first northbound flight which, unfortunately, turned out to be a somewhat less than successful initial venture.Īlmost immediately after taking off at 11:47AM, Boyle became disoriented and started flying South when he followed the wrong set of railroad tracks out of the city. Burleson, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Among those who were on hand for the departure of the first flight from Washington, D.C., were President Woodrow Wilson, U.S. ![]() (Washington Polo Grounds) and New York City (Belmont Park) with an intermediate stop in Philadelphia (Bustleton Field). ![]() Fleet and operating on a route between Washington, D.C. 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. ![]()
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