The brief ceremony culminated in the stowing of four sacks of mail in the little plane. Then Lieutenant George L. Boyle climbed aboard and the propeller swung around but the engine failed to catch. Again and again the prop was rotated but nothing happened. The onlookers' patience was nearly exhausted when a mechanic who was peering into the gas tanks discovered that someone had forgotten to fill them. There was a scurry to find fuel. At last it was poured into the plane and then, with a brave wave to the crowd, the pilot started the engine and took off.
As the spectators returned to their waiting cars, Lieutenant Boyle climbed out of sight, but soon lost his way and crash-landed on a farm in southeastern Maryland, twenty-five miles from Washington, DC. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Torrey H. Webb piloted mail from New York to Philadelphia, where Lieutenant James C. Edgerton picked up the relay. The gray canvas bags reached the capital without delay three hours and twenty minutes after leaving Long Island's old Belmont racetrack, which then served as New York City's airport. Thus the nation's first regularly scheduled airmail took to the skies.
FROM NOVELTY TO BENEFITS
When these historic flights were made, airplanes were still a novelty to the public. Some five years before, in 1913, the first scheduled passenger service began between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida; but it lasted fewer than five months. Again in 1919 two new companies started operating, one between New York City and Atlantic City and the other from Florida to Havana, Cuba, and the Bahamas. During the succeeding years a few other companies were organized, and all had one thing in common: they used flying boats, not planes as they are known to us today, because at that time there were few adequate or safe airports. In 1923 the only regularly scheduled U.S. passenger airline closed down, but overseas in Europe thousands of people were flying a network of airline routes every day.
World War I had taught the Europeans what the airplane could do and how it might save travelers time and money. Americans, on the other hand, looked upon the tiny planes as a novelty, something to read about in fictional stories or in the newspapers if there was a crash. The railroad was still considered the only way to travel.
In 1925 all this changed. Congress passed the Kelly Act, which authorized the Post Office Department to award twelve Civil Air Mail routes to carry the mail coast to coast as well as between principal cities. Almost immediately more than five thousand inquiries flooded the Post Office Department, as would-be airline operators eagerly sought information about how they might bid for the dozen routes. Their enthusiasm was further bolstered when President Coolidge signed the Air Commerce Act on May 20, 1926, creating the Aeronautics Branch in the Department of Commerce. Now the Secretary of Commerce could license pilots, issue airworthiness certificates for airplanes, establish a system of federal airways, and install and operate navigation aids. Aviation had finally become an established form of transportation in the United States.
Most of the small companies that hauled the airmail had neither interest nor capacity for carrying passengers. Occasionally a courageous individual might appear at an airport, request passage, and buy a ticket only to be cramped into the forward part of the plane and forced to sit on mail sacks. One honeymooning couple insisted on riding a mail flight and was charged a thousand dollars for a five-hundred mile trip! An exception was Colonial Air Transport (a predecessor of American Air-lines), which carried more than four thousand passengers between New York and Boston during the first few months it started handling airmail. The company inaugurated its first night flights in 1927, about the same time Robertson Aircraft Corporation started service between Chicago and St. Louis.
NONSTOP TO PARIS
One of the pilots was a young man nicknamed "Slim" because of his slight build. Charles A. (Slim) Lindbergh frequently found flying conditions on Robertson's CAM-2 flight anything but pleasant or safe. On one occasion he was flying through light snow at night, unable to find a suitable landing place. His main tank went dry and nineteen minutes later the reserve needle showed empty while the plane was still at 14,000 feet. As the plane rolled over, Slim left it head first. He pulled the rip cord on his parachute, floated down slowly, and landed on a barbed-wire fence. The next morning he found the wrecked craft nearby. The mailbags were still intact, and he delivered them to their destination in another plane.
In spite of the hazards, the job seemed too tame for this young man. In 1927 Lindbergh realized a long-time dream when he became the first person to fly the Atlantic nonstop from New York to Paris.
Lindbergh's flight turned the thoughts of millions of Americans toward the skies and toward New York's then booming stock market, as well. Aviation stocks played an important role in the Wall Street frenzy that sent most stock prices zooming upward between 1926 and 1929. Bankers put together large aviation holding companies consisting of airlines, airplane manufacturing companies, airports, and other aviation-related activities. They then sold stock to the gullible public and with their friends made millions of dollars. Between March 1928 and the end of 1929, sales of new aviation securities totaled $300 million and increased in value to more than $1 billion. The public was so eager to invest in aviation stocks that many people bought stock in a company called Seaboard Airline. When they received their stock certificates and saw the engraving of a steam engine, they discovered they owned shares of an East Coast railroad, not an airline!
THE 1930s AND THE CIVIL AERONAUTICS ACT
Although the stock market crash of October 1929 squeezed most of the value out of airline securities as it did most other stocks, it did not ground the airplanes. The following year Postmaster Walter Brown circumvented a new law Congress had passed to help the struggling air transport companies. At a so-called "Spoils Conference," he saw to it that the large financial interests that were tied into the holding companies received the best new routes and profitable subsidies. Three new transcontinental routes were formed and others authorized, laying the foundation for much of the nation's present airline network. Despite the Depression (which started about the time Postmaster Brown and the so-called Spoilers divided up the airline map), the airlines continued to grow. In fact some of their competitive practices created problems for the public and themselves, making it evident that they had to be regulated by the federal government just as the Interstate Commerce Commission watched over the railroads. By the time the Civil Aeronautics Act became law in 1938, it was accepted gracefully by the industry.
A holding company retains ownership of other corporations and may provide overall direction and management to the subsidiary companies whose stock it owns.
THE EFFECTS OF WORLD WAR II
Aviation gained further impetus during World War II as the airplane played a leading role in winning the war and making the nation more conscious of what it could do. As a result, in the year following the return of peace, twelve million Americans jammed in front of airline ticket counters eager to travel. Flying was the only way they wanted to go. Each year thereafter saw the number of passengers increase as the old twenty-one-passenger DC-3s were replaced by fifty-passenger DC-4s, and they, in turn, by larger DC-6s, DC-7s, and Lockheed Constellations. Then in 1958, the first Boeing 707 jet rose from the runway with a full load of passengers and freight, signaling the start of the jet age.
Jets not only made it possible to span the continent in some five hours, but for the first time hundreds of people could fly together in huge wide-body planes. Movies and gourmet meals brought new luxuries to those who could afford to sit up front in first class. At the same time, by dropping these frills and crowding more seats into the rear section of the cabin, "coach" travel, with its lower fares, enabled more Americans, who previously could never have purchased a ticket, to fly.
THE AIRLINE DEREGULATION ACT OF 1978
The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 relaxed many provisions of the 1938 Civil Aeronautics Act and even provided for the dismantling of the Civil Aeronautics Board by January 1, 1985. This law made it possible for new and existing airlines to operate wherever they chose to fly. Com-petition was once again encouraged and rates started to drop at a time when costs were rising due to inflation and the cost of fuel. Nevertheless, more and more Americans were crowding the airports, thousands of them first-time flyers.
BY 1996 MORE THAN 500,000 EMPLOYEES AND 470 MILLION PASSENGERS A YEAR
By any measure the size of the aviation business is stupendous! Just consider the following sample data: By 1996 air transportation had become one of the nations' most essential and largest industries; well over a million women and men were working in aviation-related businesses, half of whom were with the scheduled airlines. At Chicago's O'Hare Airport alone, airline employees handled an average of 181,000 arriving and departing passengers each day or more than 66 million a year, while all U.S. scheduled airlines were carrying more than 470 million passengers and 13 billion ton-miles of freight and mail annually! Finally, at the 700 airports scattered throughout the country, each day more than 200,000 airplanes zoom down a runway and take off into the clouds.
These are staggering figures and should convince anyone seeking a career in this business that there could be a place for her or him. As you read ahead keep in mind that this is still a comparatively young industry, for it was barely fifty-odd years ago when employees were taking vacations to watch tiny DC-3 aircraft touch down and lift off at Dallas.
Since no airline would be in business without planes and flight crews to fly them, let's start our look at aviation careers by first visiting a cockpit as Captain Rawlins and his crew prepare to take off for their trans-continental flight from San Francisco to New York City.
