First Commercial Mail Transport Flight was 81 Years Ago Today (4/6)

I received the following in an e-mail at work. If it perhaps drifts a
bit off-topic at points, I hope I still have a few get-out-of-thread-
drift-jail-free cards left

At first I was thinking of trimming it down to just contain the
section on the flight; but then I thought some might find it
interesting

Regards,
Jon

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Communication and transportation have been and continue to be
interrelated in many ways. For centuries, communication across
geographic distances was dependent on transportation. For the past
232 years, the U.S. Postal Service has been a major entity in the
relationship of communication and transportation.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston in 1706. In 1753, he was
appointed joint deputy postmaster-general of North America. On July
26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress agreed that a postmaster
general be appointed for the United Colonies...and that a line of posts
be appointed under the direction of the Postmaster general, from
Falmouth in New England to Savannah in Georgia, with as many cross
posts as he shall think fit. Benjamin Franklin was the first
Postmaster General (1775-76).

The Post Office Department in Franklin's time was responsible for
facilitating communication (in those days predominantly between
Congress and the army) by moving mail by land and by sea. Its
dependence on transportation capabilities and constraints motivated it
to become a driving force behind improving roads and other
transportation infrastructure.

Jump ahead to the end of World War I when the United States had fleets
of former military airplanes as well as many ex-GI pilots looking for
work. In May 1918, the U.S. Post Office established the first
overnight airmail route between New York City and Washington, D.C.
using government-owned aircraft piloted by government employees.
Airmail service was expanded to Chicago in 1920, and the Post Office
was discussing transcontinental airmail service that would operate in
much the same way as the old Pony Express worked - a series of short
hops across the country. By the mid-1920s, the government decided to
transfer airmail service to the private sector with competitive bids.
There were five winners of the initial contracts.

Eighty-one years ago today, on April 6, 1926, the first official
commercial mail transport flight occurred, piloted by Franklin Rose of
Boise-based Varney Airlines. Rose took off from the campus of Boise
State College to great fanfare from a crowd of over a thousand
cheering people, including a U.S. Senator and the Governor of Idaho,
on his way to Elko, Nevada, some 200+ miles south.

Unfortunately, Rose's Swallow airplane crashed on that first flight
over the uncharted and barren high desert. (In fact, within the first
three years of airmail service, 19 of the Post Office's original 40
pilots had died in crashes. There were no radios and few beacons on
the ground to light the way, and almost all airmail flights were made
at night, thus increasing the risk associated with what was already a
dangerous job.)

As he traveled south on April 6, 1926, Franklin Rose noticed dark
clouds coming in from the west and tried to miss them but they closed
in too fast. Buffeting winds, sheets of blinding rain and flashes of
lightning forced Rose below the clouds but the engine sputtered and
cut out. The plane's wheels caught in the sagebrush and caused the
plane to nose over. He was miles from civilization.

Unhurt, except for a few bruises, Rose gathered up what he could carry
and headed out. Soon two cowboys rode up. They accused Rose of being
a Prohibition agent sent to spy on them, and they abandoned him. Rose
had to walk out of the desert on his own. Two days later, he found a
ranch house with a telephone and called Elko and told them that he was
fine.

(Walter Varney's Varney Airlines, based in Boise, Idaho, was the main
root of what became United Airlines. Varney Speed Lines, his other
company, based in El Paso, Texas, became Continental Airlines. It is
said that Varney's lucrative Post Office contract provided significant
financial strength for those developments. )

The United States Postal Service web site states that "America's
present Postal Service descends in an unbroken line from the system
Franklin planned and placed in operation. History rightfully accords
him major credit for establishing the basis of the system that has
well served the growing and changing needs of the American people."
Benjamin Franklin would undoubtedly be impressed with the progress
made by the U.S. Postal Service and the continuing relationships
between transportation and communication.

But that isn't the end of the ongoing story. The day came when
communication's dependence on transportation took an abrupt turn.

Forty-two years ago today, April 6, 1965, when Intelsat I (nicknamed
"Early Bird" for the proverb "The early bird catches the worm") the
first commercial communications satellite was launched into
synchronous orbit. Early Bird was the first satellite to provide
direct and nearly instantaneous contact between Europe and North
America, handling telephone, facsimile, and television transmissions.
It validated the concept that instantaneous world-wide communication
was possible, another step in the progression that continues to this
day.

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