Airmail anniversary flight
Spokane pilots help re-enact postal history
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – A trio of pilots – two from Spokane and one from Reno, Nev. – took off Wednesday in vintage airplanes from Long Island’s Republic Airport on a six-day, 15-stop flight to San Francisco to mark the 90th anniversary of the U.S. Postal Service’s involvement in airmail delivery.
The pilots are replicating the sometimes harrowing cross-country journeys of the earliest airmail carriers.
Spokane’s Larry Tobin is flying his restored 1927 Stearman C3B biplane. Addison Pemberton, the owner of a Spokane-based manufacturing company, took off Wednesday aboard a 1928 Boeing 40C he recently restored, carrying 300 envelopes with special cancellations to San Francisco.
“This airmail anniversary flight of historic biplanes is a compelling display of pilot skills that too often seem forgotten in an era of autopilots, GPS and daily flights high above the weather,” said Josh Stoff, curator of the Cradle of Aviation museum, which along with the American Airpower Museum chronicles Long Island’s rich aviation history.
Historians are quick to point out that the post office’s launch of airmail helped jump-start commercial aviation in America, showing that airplanes could fly safely across the country on a regular basis.
The first experimental airmail flight took place on Long Island in 1911; it was a three-mile journey between Garden City Estates and Mineola. The first regularly scheduled intercity U.S. airmail began May 15, 1918, after Congress appropriated $100,000 to establish airmail routes.
The first transcontinental airmail flight took off on Feb. 22, 1921, from Mineola to San Francisco.
Among the initial airmail pilots was a young Charles Lindbergh, who flew for the post office in the early 1920s as part of a squadron that often had to fly exclusively in the daylight, following railroad tracks and dirt roads to locate destinations. Lindbergh took off from Long Island on his historic 1927 trans-Atlantic flight to Paris.
Stops on the journey this week are expected to include Bellefonte, Pa.; Cleveland; Chicago; Iowa City; Omaha, Neb.; Cheyenne, Wyo.; Reno, Nev.; and Hayward, Calif. Arrrival in San Francisco is set for Monday.