Tales of the Air Mail Pilots
By Burt M. McConnell
Nowhere else in the world has such a determined and successful effort been made to carry the mails by airplane as in the United States. Not since the Armistice have aviators in any part of the globe experienced such thrilling and terrifying adventures as Uncle Sam’s aerial postmen.
Two years ago I flew as a passenger from New York to Chicago, over the Alleghanies, with “Slim” Lewis and Wesley Smith, two of the Air Mail’s best pilots, at the controls. But nothing happened, except that, after some eight hours of rather monotonous flying, we arrived at Chicago after dark, could not locate the Air Mail flying field, and were compelled to land on the prairie west of the city. This was nothing more than an incident; only the pilot who flies day after day, week after week, in all sorts of weather, is fortunate—or unfortunate—enough to experience real adventures.
A few weeks ago I journeyed over the entire Air Mail route, from New York to San Francisco. I traveled by train this time, and stopped at every flying field of consequence in search of stories of adventure. And I marveled that these quiet, smooth-faced, unassuming, well-dressed young men, most of whom are married and drive their own cars, could have passed safely through the experiences which I shall relate. Yet there they stood before me.
In order to understand how these mishaps came about, it is necessary to familiarize oneself with the duties of the pilots and the purpose of the Air Mail Service. Every day, whatever the weather, two sturdy airplanes, loaded with mail, climb into the air above their respective flying fields near New York and San Francisco, and start across the continent. At the next landing field—there are thirteen of them between the two oceans—pilots and machines are changed, just as the crew and locomotive of the Limited are changed at each division point.
The highest beacon light in the world guides air mail pilots as they fly at night across Sherman Hill in the Rockies.
When night comes, these pilots pick up their beacons as sailors do, for no longer do lighthouses belong only on capes and reefs. They are strung along the plains from Cleveland to Cheyenne, making a Great White Way a thousand miles from the sea.