- For instance, the first regularly scheduled airmail service in the United States was inaugurated on May 15, 1918. The route, which ran between Washington, D.C., and New York City, with an intermediate stop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was designed by aviation pioneer Augustus Post.
- Airmails (C) Airmail stamps pay the postage for the airmail service and were first issued in 1918.
- Airmail Arrows Across the USA. Friday, 30th May 2014 by Ian Brown. In the early days of the US Postal Service’s national airmail service, pilots had to navigate across the USA by sight alone – a task that bad weather could make extremely difficult.
US Sc# C23 1938 6¢ Air Mail Stamp National Air Mail Week First Day Cover FDC. US airmail block C25 MHR OG. Ending Apr 18 at 10:02PM PDT 1d 18h. 1956 US Sc #UC25 Air Mail Envelope, 6 cent, Entire, Unused, Size 13.
Although the American experience sometimes reflected European trends, it also demonstrated clear differences. Under the auspices of the U.S. Post Office, an airmail operation was launched in 1918 as a wartime effort to stimulate aircraft production and to generate a pool of trained pilots. Using Curtiss JN-4H (“Jenny”) trainers converted to mail planes, the early service floundered. After the war, shrewd airmail bureaucrats obtained larger American-built De Havilland DH-4 biplanes with liquid-cooled Liberty engines from surplus military stocks. Their top speed of 80 miles (130 km) per hour surpassed the 75 miles (120 km) per hour of the Jenny, allowing mail planes to beat railway delivery times over long distances. By 1924, coast-to-coast airmail service had developed, using light beacons to guide open-cockpit planes at night. Correspondence from New York now arrived on the west coast in two days instead of five days by railway. This savings in time had a distinct impact on expediting the clearance of checks, interest-bearing securities, and other business paper with a time-sensitive value in transfer between businesses and financial institutions.
Having established a workable airmail system and a considerable clientele, the Post Office yielded to congressional pressures and, with the Contract Air Mail Act of 1925, turned over the mail service to private contractors. The following year, the Air Commerce Act established a bureau to enforce procedures for the licensing of aircraft, engines, pilots, and other personnel. The former act stimulated design and production of advanced planes to compete with rival carriers; the latter reassured insurance companies, private investors, and banks that safety standards would be enforced. With these elements in hand, American aviation rapidly progressed. Ironically, at the same time that European countries organized subsidized national flag lines and followed practices that often discouraged innovation in the design of airliners, the United States turned over civil aviation to commercial operators, where aggressive competition accelerated significant developments in aviation technology and aircraft performance.
For one thing, manufacturers of airplane motors began a significant period of development in modern piston engines. Because liquid-cooled in-line engines offered less frontal surface, they were often favoured by military designers. With these engines, aircraft could be streamlined to improve speed but with a trade-off in complexity and weight because of the requisite coolant, coolant lines, radiator, and associated pumps. Air-cooled radial designs, in contrast, achieved relative simplicity, reliability, and comparatively light weight at the cost of more air resistance (creating drag) because of their blunt shape. In 1928, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) announced its famous cowling for radial engines. It not only smoothed airflow around the engine, substantially reducing drag, but also enhanced the cooling of the cylinders. With their dependability and ease of maintenance, radial engines became the type most favoured by designers of American air transports. The Curtiss-Wright Corporation (formed from the merger of Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company and Wright Aeronautical in 1929) produced a series of Whirlwind and Cyclone radial engines; Pratt & Whitney Aircraft launched its Wasp designs. Many of these American radial engines powered airplanes built overseas. By the end of the 1930s, innovations such as variable-pitch propellers, superchargers (to enhance high-altitude engine performance), and high-octane fuels had contributed to dramatically improved performance in both liquid-cooled and air-cooled radial engines.
Airmail Use
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the U.S. Post Office instituted payment formulas that favoured aircraft large enough to carry passengers as well as mail. A rising volume of research reports from the NACA facilitated many improved aircraft designs. The result was a swift increase in larger planes with improved radial engines and a shift from biplanes to trimotor monoplane transports marketed by a subsidiary of Ford and by the European builder, Anthony Fokker, who had set up shop in the United States.
Largely owing to airline rivalry, American technology had already taken a major step forward with the introduction of the Boeing CompanyModel 247 airliner, which cruised at about 180 miles (290 km) per hour and entered service with United Airlines, Inc., in 1933. With its all-metal stressed-skin construction (which used the metal skin covering itself to carry aerodynamic loads), retractable gear, two 550-horsepower Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engines, and cowlings inspired by NACA research, the 10-passenger Model 247 seemed to be head-and-shoulders above competitive aircraft.
Shortly before the 247 began flying, a Fokker trimotor of Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc. (TWA), crashed in a Kansas farm field. Everybody aboard died, including the University of Notre Dame’s revered football coach Knute Rockne. Subsequent investigation of the crash raised questions about structural weakness in the plane’s main wooden-wing spar. Controversy about “wooden airplanes” and criticism of the Fokker plane generally gave trimotor airliners a bad image. When TWA asked manufacturers to submit designs for a replacement, Douglas Aircraft Company (later McDonnell Douglas Corporation) responded with an all-metal twin-engine airliner. The DC-2, with an advanced NACA cowling, refined streamlining, and other improvements, mounted Wright Cyclone engines and carried 14 passengers, surpassing the Boeing 247 in every way. Significantly, leading European airlines such as KLM acquired the new Douglas transport, beginning a trend for European operators to buy American equipment. A subsequent model, the legendary DC-3, entering service in 1936, mounted 1,000-horsepower Cyclone or Wright Wasp radial engines, cruised at 185 miles (300 km) per hour, and carried 21 passengers—double the capacity of the Boeing 247. By 1939, with superior seat capacity, performance, and ancillary refinements, DC-3 transports already were carrying 90 percent of the world’s airline traffic.
While the Douglas transports dramatically improved air travel within the United States and along European routes, airline entrepreneurs kept looking for a vehicle for transoceanic travel. Many in the 1930s still believed that huge gas-filled airships would be the key. Germany built diesel-powered hydrogen-filled airships, or dirigibles, such as the Hindenburg, which flew North Atlantic schedules between Europe and the United States during the summer months. American Airlines, Inc., publicized special schedules that allowed DC-3 passengers to make transatlantic connections with the Hindenburg’s terminus in New Jersey. This short-lived arrangement ended with the Hindenburg’s tragic and fiery destruction upon its arrival from Europe to open the 1937 travel season. Plans for utilizing dirigibles as passenger liners quickly faded.
That left flying boats. Pan American World Airways, Inc. (Pan Am), purchased a number of designs from the Russian-born American engineer Igor Sikorsky. Pan Am operated them on overwater routes in the Caribbean region, often saving weeks of travel time when compared with steamship and railway connections. By the late 1930s, American manufacturers such as the Martin Company (now the Martin Marietta Corporation), Sikorsky, and Boeing were all producing very large four-engine flying boats intended for service over the Atlantic and Pacific. In 1935, using islands strung across the Pacific, Pan Am completed installation of stopover passenger facilities and its own radio communications and meteorological network. With Martin flying boats, most flights carried mail, along with occasional government or business passengers who could pay the high fares. Inaugural departures occasioned considerable fanfare. In 1939 Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, smashed a bottle of champagne over the bow of an imposing Yankee Clipper flying boat to launch scheduled airmail and luxury passenger service across the Atlantic to Europe. These promising, if expensive, travel innovations were soon curtailed by wartime conditions in Asia and Europe. In any case, progress in long-range land-based four-engine airliners represented advanced engineering that would have soon displaced flying boats.
Fortuitously, the widespread boundaries of the United States contained a growing number of urban complexes with intervening distances that made airline service a desirable option. American transport designs tended to favour more speed for time-conscious passengers. In comparison, airways within the closer boundaries of western Europe favoured short-haul service, often trading speed for luxury, even on longer colonial routes where state subsidies deflected technological competition.
Boeing’s Stratoliner, a pathbreaking transport that featured a pressurized cabin, entered service in 1940. Pressurization enabled airliners to fly above adverse weather, permitting transports to maintain dependable schedules and giving passengers a more comfortable trip. Moreover, at higher altitudes, airliners actually experienced less atmospheric friction, or drag, enhancing their performance and fuel efficiency. Only a few Stratoliners entered service before World War II led Boeing to focus on building bombers.
Meanwhile, Douglas had introduced the DC-4. Although it was unpressurized, it possessed a comparable performance to the Stratoliner and could carry more passengers. Also, the DC-4 had a tricycle landing gear (unlike the Stratoliner’s conventional tail wheel), which facilitated boarding of passengers, improved the pilots’ view of the runway and surrounding airportenvironment, and enhanced the plane’s takeoff characteristics. The DC-4 achieved production status (as the C-54) during the war as the U.S. Army Air Forces’ principal long-range transport. Late in the conflict, it was joined by the Lockheed L-049 Constellation (instantly identifiable by its triple vertical fins), originally designed in 1939 as a commercial airliner that blended a pressurized fuselage, tricycle landing gear, and other state-of-the-art features. Characteristics of these sophisticated civilian planes gave the United States a major advantage in postwar airliner competition.
Us Airmail Tracking
US Airmail Stamps
1918-1928
US airmail stamps were first issued in 1918, however aviation and airplanes were not new philatelic concepts at the time.
Balloons had been used for aerial reconnaissance in the 19th Century, Germany had been using airships for luxury passenger service and for mail service since the beginning of the 20th century, airships were used for reconnaissance and as bombers during World War I, and all the military powers in World War I utilized biplanes or triplanes as reconnaissance and fighter aircraft.
The first government-issued stamp of any country in the world to show an airplane was actually a US 20 Cent denomination Parcel Poststampissued in 1913. It is shown above (Sc. #Q8). The caption underneath the vignette reads: 'AEROPLANE CARRYING MAIL'.
Airmail Flight Leaving Washington, D.C. in May 1918
The first US Airmail stamps, or US definitive postage stamps issued for use on airmail letters, were issued in early 1918. They are shown above (Sc. #C1-3), arranged in the order of their issue dates.
Note that the stamps are inscribed'U.S. POSTAGE'. They were available for use on regular letter mail, as well as on airmail, which was still highly experimental.
The central designs feature a 'Curtiss Jenny' Biplane in Flight. The 'Jenny' was originally produced as an Army training aircraft during World War I. In the years after the war, the plane became the backbone of US civil aviation.
The carmine and blue24 Cent denomination stamp (Sc. #C3) was issued on May 13, 1918 for the Inauguration of Airmail Service between Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, on May 15, 1918. The postage rate was 24 Cents per ounce, which included immediate delivery to the addressee.
The green16 Cent denomination stamp (Sc. #C2) was issued on July 11, 1918, when the airmail postage rate to the tri-city area noted above was reduced to 16 Cents per ounce.
The orange6 Cent denomination stamp (Sc. #C1) was issued on December 10, 1918, when the airmail postage rate to the tri-city area noted above was again reduced to 6 Cents per ounce.
Usenetic.
Shown above is an example of the famous 'Inverted Jenny' error (Sc #C3a). A single pane of 100 stamps was sold to a collector at the Washington, D.C. Post Office on May 14, 1918. Postal inspectors tried to buy the sheet back from the collector, but he hid it from them. The collector later sold it to a Philadelphia stamp dealer for $15,000. The dealer later resold it to another collector for $20,000.
How many of these stamps that have survived, almost 100 years later, is unclear. It is believed that about six of the original stamps from the sheet have been destroyed over time. That would leave the population at about 94 stamps today, less a block of 8 stamps, two blocks of 4 stamps, and a plate block of 4 stamps that were originally removed from the sheet after it was resold.
The example shown above was sold in a November 2007 Robert A. Siegel auction for $977,500.00. Even if one could locate an example of this very rare stamp for sale, the cost today would probably be well over One Million US dollars. Donald Sundman, the president of Mystic Stamp Co., acquired the plate block through a trade with one of his clients. Here's a LINK to the public-domain image of the unique plate block.
The three US airmail stamps shown above (Sc. #C4-6) were issued during August 1923 for Night-Flying Airmail Service between New York and San Francisco, though they were also valid for regular letter mail. These stamps were placed on sale at the Philatelic Bureau in Washington, D.C. on the dates of issue, but they were not distributed to post offices until much later.
Three zones were established: New York - Chicago, Chicago - Cheyenne, and Cheyenne - San Francisco, with the airmail postage rate being 8 Cents for each zone. This new airmail service was inaugurated on July 1, 1924.
The three definitive US airmail stamps shown above (Sc. #C7-9) were issued during 1926 and 1927. These were the first stamps specifically inscribed for use on airmail letters.
The designs feature a map of the United States and two mail planes.
The rates for letters under one ounce, at this time, were 10 Cents for distances up to 1,000 miles, 15 Cents for distances between 1,000 miles and 1,500 miles, and 20 Cents for distances of more than 1,500 miles.
Charles Lindburgh and 'The Spirit of St. Louis'
from an old postcard
The US airmail stamp shown above (Sc. #C10) was issued on June 18, 1927 as a tribute to Charles A. Lindbergh, who made the First Non-Stop Flight from New York to Paris, between May 20 and May 21, 1927.
The design of these US airmail stamps features Lindbergh's plane, 'The Spirit of St. Louis' and a Map of the Flight Route.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh(1902-1974), a.k.a. 'Lucky Lindy' and 'The Lone Eagle', was an aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist. In 1925, he was hired by the Robertson Aircraft Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri, where he served as an airmail pilot until early 1927. Then, he skyrocketed to instantaneous world fame.
In 1919, Raymond Orteig, a New York hotel owner, had offered a prize of $25,000 to the first aviator to successfully complete a non-stop flight from New York to Paris. Several aviators had attempted the flight unsuccessfully, until 1927, when Charles Lindbergh took up the challenge.
The single-engine monoplane, 'The Spirit of St. Louis', was specially constructed for the flight attempt. The inside of the plane contained only essential navigation equipment, being pretty much a gigantic 'fuel tank'. The plane had no cockpit window, requiring that Lindbergh look out the side door window to visually see where he was going. The cramped cockpit of the plane was only 36 inches wide x 32 inches long, by 51 inches high, requiring the pilot to sit in a crouched position for the entire flight.
The plane departed Roosevelt Airfield, Garden City, Long Island, New York on May 20, 1927 for the 3,600 mile transatlantic flight. 33.5 hours later, on May 21, 1927, the 'Spirit of St. Louis' successfully landed at Aéroport Le Bourget in Paris, France, and Lucky Lindy instantly became the undisputed hero of world aviation.
The 5 Cent denomination US airmail stamp shown above (Sc. #C11) was issued July 25, 1928 to meet the new airmail letter postage rate. Effective August 1, 1928, the rate was again reduced to 5 Cents per ounce.
The vignette of this large format stamp features a Beacon on the Rocky Mountains, a necessity in mountainous areas, to warn pilots so they don't accidentally run into the mountains, during night-time flying or during times of limited visibility.
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