The Air Mail Fiasco

摘要

Us air mail operations began with the Army Air Service, which flew a regular route between New York and Washington as a demonstration for three months in 1918. Post Office pilots and airplanes then took over, built the air mail into a nationwide network, and serviced it for the next nine years. The first mail airplanes were mostly war surplus de Havilland DH-4s. They had no radios, no navigation aids, and no instruments. The pilots flew by dead reckoning. It was dangerous work. Of the first 40 Post Office pilots, three died in crashes in 1919 and nine more were killed in 1920.