In the last half of 1923 and the first half of 1924, 289-flashing gas beacons were installed between Chicago and Cheyenne 34-emergency landing fields between the same points were rented, equipped with rotating electric beacons, boundary markers, and telephones.įive terminal landing fields were equipped with beacons, floodlights and boundary markers 17 planes were equipped with luminous instruments, navigation lights, landing lights and parachute flares.Īn 18-inch rotating beacon, mounted on top of a 50-foot windmill tower, was installed at each emergency field. This was certainly a huge undertaking, as up to this time very little night flying had been done and there were no lighted airways in existence. They wanted to see if transcontinental air mail service between New York and San Francisco could be regularly maintained. (Pope)ĭuring the spring and summer of 1923, work on a lighted airway between Cheyenne, WY, and Chicago, IL, was being pushed forward with a view to carrying out certain experiments to determine whether cross-country night flying on a regular schedule was possible. Enter the highway of light - a system of airmail beacons that spanned the country. Nearly 1-in-10 early airmail pilots died during the early days of the postal service’s airmail initiative, and emergency landings were common. The few pilots who did try to travel at night during this time were taking their lives in their hands. Using this process, a letter moving at its absolute fastest might take about 83 hours to get from New York to San Francisco. In 1922, letters sent by airmail would have to leapfrog the country, traveling by air during the day and by train at night. (Smithsonian)Įarly transcontinental airmail delivery was a hybrid system. Treacherous weather stopped others.īut the fourth flight got through, making it from San Francisco to New York in 33 hours and 20 minutes-a distance that took 4½ days by train and 3 days by air/rail (flown by day and shipped by train at night). On February 22, 1921, four air mail flights set out to prove the mail could be flown coast to coast in record time by flying day and night. It fell to the ground and was retrieved by the local postmaster. He banked his airplane and pushed the bag overboard. With a full mail bag squeezed between his legs, pilot Earle Ovington took off and flew to Mineola, a few miles away. To demonstrate the potential of transporting mail by air, the Post Office approved a special air mail flight as part of the festivities at an international air meet on September 23, 1911, on Long Island, New York. At 10:35 am, December 17, 1903, Orville was at the controls and kept the plane aloft until it hit the sand about 120 feet from the rail – the first controlled and sustained power flight. Then, on December 14, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright tossed a coin to decide who would fly first. Coast-to-coast rail mail took about 10-11 days to deliver. The driving of the ‘Last Spike’ at Promontory Summit, Utah, on brought the transcontinental railroad, into the scene. Then, on October 24, 1861, wires were joined on the first transcontinental telegraph the Pony Express mail delivery was discontinued by November 1861. Joseph, Missouri to San Francisco, California once or twice a week in 10-16 days. One way, the Pony Express, used 400 horses and employed 183 men only for a brief 20 month period starting on Apin order to carry mail and news across nearly 2,000-miles between about 165 stations from St. Discovery of gold in 1848 made California a destination for tens of thousands from the east communication back east had it challenges. In the mid-19th century the Wild West was largely unexplored.
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