![]() ![]() Instead of a flat rate per mile regardless of the weight of the load, contracts were awarded based on aircraft payload per route, regardless of the amount of mail the plane was carrying. They would become Boeing Air Transport, and later United Airlines.īased on the recommendations of Walter Folger Brown, the postmaster general under President Herbert Hoover, the Air Mail Act of 1930 changed the method in which air mail contracts were awarded. The United Aircraft and Transport Corporation even acquired several air carriers to fly its aircraft. ![]() This powerful monopoly allowed for complete control of the entire supply chain. This holding acquired a number of other companies related to aviation, such as Chance Vought Corporation, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. In 1929, Frederick Rentschler, the founder of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, convinced William Boeing of The Boeing Company to create the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation. A lucrative businessīy the end of the 1920s, North American routes had become increasingly monopolized by a handful of United States air carriers. In 1927, US Air Mail pilot Charles Lindbergh earned international recognition after successfully flying solo from New York to Paris on the Spirit of Saint Louis. In France, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry used his piloting experience flying for the Aéropostale as inspiration for writing several novels. With every flight being a risky adventure, air mail pilots gained the status of trailblazing adventurers all around the world. The USPS contracted as many as 45 commercial carriers to take over mail routes. While I am not the expert on Lindbergh, I have at least read a couple of his books.In 1925, the market was opened to private operators through the Contract Air Mail Act, also known as the Kelly Act. ![]() It is not "where am I", which is often quoted incorrectly. The pilot and crew were never heard from again.Īs long as I'm here, I'm going to refer to a post that I made some time ago about Lindbergh's first words when he landed in Paris. A French plane had tried to do it the other direction, Paris to New York, about a week earlier, but did not make it. Lindbergh actually beat Byrd to the punch by taking off before the weather cleared over the Atlantic, betting that it would clear before he got there. A side note is that he was in negotiations with Bellanca for a while, but they were too controlling, and wanted to pick the crew, including the pilot, so Lindbergh parted company with them. Both of the other two flights were going to be multi engine planes, but Lindbergh believed that having more than one engine would compound his chances of engine failure, and he knew that he could not complete the flight with an engine out regardless of how many he had. The Ortieg Prize did not state that the flight had to be solo, it just had to be non stop. Richard Byrd who was going to fly a tri-motor, and a crew representing Bellanca which was mired in court while they argued who was going to be included in the crew. There were two other planes poised to embark at the same time, one being Cdr. Lindbergh was after the $25000 Ortieg Prize, which required the airplane to fly from New York to Paris non stop, or from Paris to New York. ![]()
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