“Those early days were when we got our thrills,” reminisced Winslow. “We were flying in cast-off army planes that the post office department had picked up. Our limit was under five hundred pounds of mail and we never had to worry about being overloaded at that. After the old army DeHaviland’s were put on the junk heap we got Douglas cruisers and there was a little more regularity to the way we maintained our schedules. When the post office department turned the air mail over to private contractors, we were given the best planes money could buy.”
“The air mail’s grown immensely popular in the last two years hasn’t it?” asked Tim.
“Immensely is hardly the word,” said Winslow. “Universally is better, and it’s all since Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and focused popular interest on aviation. Why this new plane I’m ferrying west is capable of carrying six passengers and 1,500 pounds of mail and maintaining an average speed of 130 miles an hour. In two years it will be obsolete and we’ll have bigger and faster planes in its place.”
“Didn’t you take a mail plane several years ago and brave a Lake Michigan storm in mid-winter to take food to fishermen marooned on an island?”
“I was lucky,” was Winslow’s simple reply. “By the way, I’ve read recently how you did a similar stunt only you dropped supplies to a village cut off by a flood.”
“That was luck, too,” smiled Tim. “Now I’d like to know if you’ve ever had any accidents.”
“One,” admitted Winslow after some deliberation. “It was pretty serious and I don’t know whether I ought to give it to you or not. But I guess it won’t do any harm,” he added and smiled.
“Someone,” he said, “parked a plane in the middle of the field at Blanton one night and when my landing lights didn’t work I ran into it head-on. Result, two damaged planes and one bad temper.”
“You mean that’s the only accident you’ve had in more than a million miles of flying?” asked the incredulous Tim.
“That’s all and that’s enough,” said Winslow. “Flying is safe if you take the proper precautions. The chaps who get cracked-up are stunting, have inferior equipment, or are just plain dumb.”