The Airplane - Jay Spenser [116]
An attentive steward serves a gourmet meal in the Clipper’s main salon, which doubled as its dining room at mealtimes.
Boeing
Commercial aviation within the continental United States emerged later and was considerably less glamorous than in Europe. In 1926, landmark legislation by Congress directed the U.S. Post Office to stop flying the mails with its own pilots and airplanes, and instead contract with private companies to transport the nation’s airmail. The first flight in this phased transition to private operators took place on April 6, 1926, when a small Swallow biplane operated by Varney Airlines transported airmail some 425 miles (685 kilometers) from Elko, Nevada, to Pasco, Washington, via Boise, Idaho. This historic flight by Varney pilot Leon Cuddeback linked different rail systems to shave several days off the coast-to-coast delivery time of letters bearing airmail stamps.
How U.S. commercial aviation should evolve was a question of considerable import. Within living memory, American towns had lived or died depending on whether they were served or bypassed by the nation’s railroads. Now Lindbergh’s flight highlighted a new form of transportation, raising similar infrastructure and public policy concerns.
Fortunately, the nation’s emerging air transportation system found an able architect in Walter Folger Brown, the postmaster general during the Hoover administration (1929–1933). An aviation visionary, Brown exercised the powers of his office to usher into being a rational network of airports and airways, shape the evolution of U.S. air carriers, spur the adoption of safety-enhancing technologies, and create financial incentives for airlines to carry passengers in addition to mail.
Although pilloried for not awarding airmail contracts to the lowest bidder, Brown was correct in his assessment that fly-by-night operators with patched-up Jennys and Standards could not create the U.S. air transportation system. Well-financed corporate interests alone had the resources to lay the foundations of this emerging infrastructure.
Autocratic by nature, Brown had his way. Despite claims of favoritism and collusion, no evidence has emerged that he accepted a dime to sway his decisions. If his high-handed methods rankled others, his intentions were honorable and his actions have been of lasting benefit to the nation.
Before Lindbergh’s flight, one would have been hard-pressed to buy an airline ticket in the United States. Even when flights could be found, delivery of the nation’s airmail took priority, and passengers risked being evicted short of their destinations if too many mailbags waited at the next stop. As a result, at a time when European air travelers enjoyed enclosed cabins, the few Americans who flew in the mid-1920s traveled in drafty discomfort hemmed in by bags of mail.
Mail planes did not necessarily make good airliners. The Post Office had used war surplus de Havilland DH-4s. Slow, heavy, and expensive to operate with their outdated 400-hp Liberty engines, these mail planes also had just a single seat. Newer types arriving on the scene in the 1920s were not necessarily better. Some, such as Varney’s Swallow or the Ryan M-1 monoplane of 1926, were smaller and thus less expensive to operate. Provided there wasn’t too much mail, they could also carry a single passenger in the front cockpit, although that was clearly no basis for a successful airline.
As airplanes became larger and more powerful, dedicated mail planes remained single-seaters. The Douglas M-2 mated a big new airframe to the surplus Liberty engine. The Curtiss Carrier Pigeon II was even beefier, a cavernous brute of a biplane with a 600-hp Curtiss Conqueror. The operators of these costly single-seaters were entirely dependent on government subsidies and could not have carried passengers even if they had wanted to.
Commercial aviation in the United States