AIR NAVIGATION MAP FULL
Night mail flights started on July 1st, 1924 and cut the coast to coast delivery time by two full days. The complete airway, stretching from New York to San Francisco was operational by mid-1925, and by 1927 a 4,000 mile network of lighted routes was in place. This airway was built up quickly, starting with a stretch between Chicago, IL and Cheyenne, WO on the basis that pilots could leave either coast in the morning and reach their lighted track by nightfall. visual) flying during the day, coupled with a chain of light towers that pilots could follow at night.
AIR NAVIGATION MAP SERIES
(Dppowell | wikpiedia CC BY-SA 4.0)Īnd so, in 1923, Congress funded a transcontinental series of navigation aids – including large concrete arrows for “contact” (i.e.
AIR NAVIGATION MAP GENERATOR
THE concrete arrow (pointing to the next beacon, about 10 miles on) would also support a light tower and generator shed. The remains of Air Mail Beacon 37A, on a bluff above St. The Post Office Department’s unofficial creed that “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” should prevent the “swift completion of their appointed rounds” meant that night-flying also needed to be made more reliable. Meanwhile, our maps were being developed by the Army Corps of Engineers, under direction from the Army Air Corps, to provide aviators – and the mail pilots in particular – with the added safety of clearly defined routes to follow.īut flying on a clear, sunny day is one thing. “…nor gloom of night…” Diagram of a standard en route beacon with the concrete arrow foundation, beacon tower, and clearly marked generator shed. The map of Lindbergh’s training ground – the mail route between St.Louis, MO and a rather diminutive (to modern eyes, anyway) Chicago, IL. In October 1925, he was hired by the Robertson Aircraft Corporation to pioneer and fly the 278-mile CAM-2 between St.Louis and Chicago.Įighteen months later his solo Atlantic flight would lift aviation to the pinnacles of public enthusiasm. One notable pilot who also benefited from the commercialisation of air mail was a young flying instructor from St. The network of Contract Air Mail routes that grew across the United States from 1924, with the original transcontinental route as a dotted line. Among the most memorable of these were Bill Boeing’s United Air Services, which gave us United Air Lines and Boeing along with General Motors’ General Aviation Division which would give the world North American Aviation. This set an early precedent for the nepotistic aviation holding companies that would grow into giant airplane, engine, airline and air mail monopolies before they were forcibly broken up by the Air Mail Act of 1934. The first Contract Air Mail (CAM) carrier was Ford Air Services, operating Ford-built Stout 2-ATs (a single Liberty-engined predecessor of the Ford Trimotor, and the original “Tin Goose”) on routes between Detroit and Chicago, and between Detroit and Cleveland. This was possibly the most pivotal act (and Act) in the history of American commercial aviation.Īt a stroke, it made flying a viable business opportunity. (Oakland Public Library)įive years later, when the maps were first being produced, the 1925 Kelly Act gave the US aviation industry a huge boost by legislating that the air mail be carried by private contractors. Davie (Mayor of Oakland), Eddie Rickenbacker, John M.
The second and third aircraft were piloted by Mons Emil and renowned aviator Bert Acosta. The initial route options were surveyed by a small fleet of three Junkers-Larsen JL-6s, American versions of the fantastically modern Junkers F.13 – an all metal, cantilever monoplane which had first flown in Germany in June 1919. These maps date from the formative days of regular air services across the United States, following the first survey of a transcontinental mail route in early August of 1920 – when 100 letters were flown from Hazelhurst Field on Long Island to Durant Field in Oakland, CA by Harold “Slim” Lewis. A good looking airplane, even by today’s standards, it was far ahead of its competitors when it debuted in 1919. (Smithsonian Inst., A.2009-26) A huge boost A general view of a Junkers-Larsen JL-6. Lent, helps load one of three JL-6 aircraft on Jat New York, before its pathfinding mail flight to San Francisco. General Superintendent of the Airmail Service, L.B. Note: To preserve some of the detail, the map images I’ve included with this article are LARGE – at least 1MB each – so click with intent. The collection covers about 70 maps from the Connecticut State Library at Hartford, and is an incomplete set of ‘United States Air Navigation Maps (Experimental)’ from 1923–24 with revisions up until about 1935. (I might have mentioned this once or twice before…) So finding a collection of old air navigation maps on the internet is a serious delight – one I’m not about to keep for myself. The standard Map Key (this one from Map No.35, Reno, NV to San Francisco, CA).
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