The new privatized airmail scene quickly sprawled and offered far more routes than the post office had originally envisioned. In just under a year, the post office had fully divested itself from any firsthand operation of airmail. Now, in 1926, private companies could take on the burden of flying without being formally sworn in as postal employees-and they did. Enter the Contract Aerial PostmanДЄ few years after the first transcontinental flight, the post officeвЂ™s frustration with airplane maintenance and inability to scale its operation to cope with the rising demand-which it viewed as an oddity-led it to start contracting out airmail routes. Now, airmail had a route that was profitable, as the transcontinental ground mail route from coast to coast was quite long, and telegrams were too clunky to use for large documents. Though they attempted to play up the exclusivity and modernity of airmail to entice the public, the post officeвЂ™s vision of airmail was mostly as an advertising campaign.ДЄirmail languished in this way for another few years until the first transcontinental airmail route between New York City and San Francisco was established in 1920. The post office didnвЂ™t seem inclined to improve service, as their initial experiences with airmail seemed to suggest that it was a novelty mail product rather than a genuine avenue for mail delivery. The per-letter cost to the post office was through the roof, even with expensive stamps. Airmail routes could still only be run during the day, which meant that wintertime restricted the service even further. There were no long-range routes to cross the country, and many areas didnвЂ™t even have airport infrastructure to receive and refuel the planes. The post office still operated only a few routes and struggled to beat ground delivery much of the time due to maintenance and pilots getting lost. Letters in the WindДЄfter the initial failures, airmail routes were successfully established, though rarely utilized by the public due to the high expense of the stamps.

Eventually, the pilot landed for directions and simultaneously damaged the plane, resulting in failed delivery. Aerial navigation at the time was quite primitive, which resulted in the pilot flying in the wrong direction immediately after takeoff. The first flight was piloted by an army veteran and would use dead reckoning to fly from Washington DC to New York City with a stop for refueling inland in Philadelphia. The governmentвЂ™s airmail program was much publicized and drew crowds to view the takeoff of the first flight. Unfortunately, airmail still had a few kinks to work out before running smoothly. After the end of the war, the post office made use of the many returning aviators, hiring them as aerial postmen, though instructing them to land to make deliveries. World War 1 meant that domestic airframes were in short supply, as were the few qualified pilots of the era. In principle, mail could be moved by air without any major mishaps.ДЄirmail languished for six years after this first initial success, though. Legend has it that Ovington chucked the sack of mail over the side of his Bleriot Queen monoplane at an altitude of around 500 feet. The national post office commissioned an experiment and soon, with the skilled piloting of an amateur pilot named Earle Ovington, delivered a sack of letters a mere six miles, flying between one airfield in Long Island to another nearby. Soon after the invention of powered flight, in 1911, the Postal Department saw the potential for airmail to really take off. What made the jump from aspiration to airmail possible? Delayed by NeitherВ Wind Nor by Snow It goes without saying that airmail wasnвЂ™t all that successful before the era of self-propelled flight,В though the 1800s saw many balloon-based efforts. Starting from as early as 1785, 1 humanity dreamed of a reliable system of aerial mail and parcel transportation.

This convenience wouldnвЂ™t be possible without the hard-fought process and long history of airmail, however. In our era, weвЂ™re used to being able to order something across the world with a few quick clicks and have it show up on our doorstep promptly without much thought. The History of Airmail: Believe it or not you couldnвЂ™t always get one-day shipping

American airmail