air cargo and airmail

From 1925 onwards,major American capital interests began to look at commercial aviation,which seemed to be developing into a profitable activity. Considerable investments were made in the aviation industry and air transport.

Two men, different as chalk and cheese, played a decisive role in the metamorphosis of civil aviation in the United States. One of them became a worldwide celebrity and legendary hero, and the other, a lawyer and politician, became the omnipotent Postmaster General. The former was Charles A. Lindbergh, and the latter Walter F. Brown. They had one thing in common:their faith in aviation.

Today, it is difficult to imagine the demonstrations of enthusiasm which swept through American and European public opinion when Lindbergh crossed the North Atlantic from Long Island to Le Bourget on the 20th to 21st May 1927 at the controls of his little single-engined Ryan, christened “Spirit of St. Louis”. In the United States, his exploit dramatically fired the growth of air passenger transport.

Walter Brown, who was appointed Postmaster General in March 1929,enjoyed the support of President Herbert Hoover. A lawyer from Toledo, and a member of the Republican Party, he was an authoritarian force for centralisation,who pursued a single objective for the whole duration of his mandate: to use the absolute weapon of the postal contracts to provide America with a dependable, coherent and profitable air network.

In fulfilment of the Kelly Law, the Post proceeded to put out the first calls for tender. With some wisdom, it decided to hand over the operation of the airmail network in stages. The feeder lines were be allocated in an initial period, followed by the allocation of the transcontinental line itself in the second stage.

The first five postal contracts were issued on 7th October 1925. In American terminology, they were referred to as Contract Airmail or CAM, followed by an order number. Let us look at the main characteristics of these contracts: route – start date – contracting company.

CAM1 -	NewYork/Boston – 18th June 1926 – awarded to Colonial Air Transport – CAT. This company was a product of high finance in the north east (William A Rockefeller, Governor John H. Trumbull etc) Its first Managing Director was Juan Trippe, who left to found Pan American Airways. In contrast to many other companies, CAT operated a complete range of air services from the start: passengers, post and parcel service.
CAM2 -	Chicago/Saint Louis – 15th April 1926 – awarded to Robertson Aircraft Corporation. In striking contrast to Colonial Air Transport, everything here depended on one man, Major William Robertson, who in 1921 with the help of some friends and family, had founded a company, which specialised in buying up and modifying military aircraft. The Robertson Aircraft Corporation has a double claim to fame: it included Charles Lindbergh among its pilots – which explains the name of the plane in which he crossed the Atlantic – and was among the distant ancestors of American Airlines, along with Colonial Air Transport.
CAM3 -	Chicago/Dallas – 12th May 1926 – awarded to National Air Transport (NAT), which emerged from New York and Chicago financial circles, and with an old friend as its Managing Director: Paul Henderson! NAT, the ancestor of United Airlines, got its hands on a much sought after route, that linked the oilfields of Texas, which were expanding apace, with the capital of the Midwest.
CAM4 -	Los Angeles/Salt Lake City – 17th April 1926 – signed with Western Air Express, a Los Angeles company, run by a very colourful character, the former racing car driver, Harris M. “Pop” Hanshue, and supported by big money from South California. To some extent, it signified a reaction against San Francisco which had been chosen as the terminus for the Transcontinental line.
CAM5 -	Pasco/Boise/Elko – 6th April 1926 – north-south line joining two states of the North West, Washington and Idaho, with the Elko-Nevada station of the Transcontinental route. The service was awarded to Varney Airlines, which was less a company than a man:Walter T. Varney was an aviation enthusiast and a veteran of the Great War who, as he had foreseen,was the only one to make a bid for this route.

After these first five contracts, the Post Office made further calls for tender before relinquishing the Transcontinental service.

CAM6 -	Detroit/Chicago
CAM7 -	Detroit/Cleveland

Without waiting for the Kelly Law to come into force, Henry Ford had on 3rd April 1925 set himself up to operate a “daily private express service” restricted to transporting his own freight between Detroit and Chicago. He extended this link out to Cleveland in July the same year. Hence he was well placed to win both the contracts concerned and to become the first to start up operating airmail services on 15th February 1926.

CAM8 -	Seattle/San Francisco/Los Angeles – 15th September 1926 – fell to Pacific Air Transport founded by Vern C. Gorst who owned a bus company in Oregon. This was a difficult, very mountainous route in the north, feared for its storms and fogs.
CAM9 -	Minneapolis/Chicago – 7th June 1926 – awarded to Charles Dickinson,this contract was taken up three months later on 1st October 1926 by North West Airways,whose shareholders were Detroit and Minneapolis businessmen. It gave birth to North West Airlines in April 1934.

It still remained to hand over the Transcontinental Airmail Route. This was divided into two sections on either side of Chicago. It had been tacitly understood that they would be awarded to companies which were already operating feeder lines and would have acquired sufficient experience to take on this route.

The Chicago/San Francisco section (CAM18) seemed almost certain to go to “Pop” Hanshue who was already operating the Los Angeles/Salt Lake City route with Douglas M2 postal aeroplanes, adapted to transport two passengers. To general surprise, it was actually awarded to Boeing Air Transport (BAT) which had been established a short time before with capital from William Boeing, although at the instigation of his friend Eddie Hubbard, who continued to operate FAM2 (Foreign Airmail Contract) between Seattle and Victoria. Confident in the performance and the profitability of the Boeing 40A, BAT had submitted an offer considerably below that of its competitor. It started operations on 1st July 1927.The Chicago/New York section (CAM17) ended up with National Air Transport – to no one’s surprise. In order to ensure service from 1st September 1927 NAT purchased from the Post Office a group of 18 Douglas M4 aircraft, machines which had been basically designed for transporting mail, and the first of which, “Douglas Airmail 1” or DAM1 had flown in July 1925. The M4 version, fitted for instrument flying, could take a load of over 500kg.

Map of United States airmail network in 1926. Union Postale, 1926