Evening star., 1941-08-21
Pickup Airmai| Ends
lis First Year With
62Per Cent Increase
100 RuruI and Small
Towns Served by New
Postal System
By JACK STINNETT.

The "airmail for Punkin Center"
AZ Representative Jennings RAN
dolph of West Virginia, the legis-
lative daddy of it. calls the airmail
pickup system, is celebrating its
first birthday anniversary.
1t is just a year ago that I wrote
IN these columns about how the
Post once Department was going
to take the airmail to the whistle
stops, with -the-wing pickup and
delivery to 100 hamlets in New York,
PENNSYLVANIA, West Virginia, Ohio,
Kentucky and Delaware.
It was, said post office officials,
purely an experiment. but the re-
suits of that experiment are not
rrop-wash. According to Repre-
sentative Randolph, in that one
wears time. the new airmail service
has reached the point where it can
be considered self-sustaining insofar
as its direct cost to the Government
Is concerned.
90 Per Cent of Schedule.
The service, at present in the
hands of All-American Aviation,
Inc, of Wilmington, Del, few $685.
727 miles-making $4,000 pickups
and deliveries, without losing
single piece of mail or express and
without any serious flying accident.
The flying schedules were main
tanned at 90 per cent of schedule.
But that's just the service record
and wouldn't mean thing If the
folks all along the line didn't care
two whoops for patronizing direct
airmail service. So let's get down
to cases.
A year ago, Glenville, w. Va,
population 588, the smallest town on
the circuit, was sending about 200
pieces of airmail a month. Today,
according to the latest check, Glen
vile is dispatching an average of
791 pieces a month. Belington, w.
Va, another of the smaller towns,
jumped from an average of only Is
pieces a month to ,306. Jamestown,
n. Y, with a population Of 42.502,
increased from 4,080 pieces monthly
to 10,32S.
Mail Volume Increased.
All in all, the 100 cities increased
their use of airmail So per cent.
going from $4,000 pieces monthly
to 254 900. 1t looks like the folks
back home think the idea Is all
right.
Pickup flying is another of those
stories Of the mail must go
through" that have been popping
up ever since the days when the
pony express boys took their
scalps In their hands and pounded
pell-mell through the Indian coun-
try.
Pickup pilots have to fly low;
pickups and delivery drops are
made from so to IS feet off the
ground. They have to be able to
see where they are going-fying as
near dead-center as possible be-
tween two poles, so feet apart.
Given good weather, it's no trick
at all; but gliding out of a murky
200 foot ceiling, with sighting your
objective and heading for it mat
ter of seconds, is something else
again. Undoubtedly, some Of the
pony express boys, were they still
around, would rather have Indians.
Night Flying Next.
The next big step in the pickup
business is going to be night flying
which will permit 24-hour sched-
ules. Night pickups have been i'm
possible so far, but equipment al
ready has been developed to make
1t as simple as the daylight run.
Just what Congress is going to do
about all this isn't certain yet. The
report has just been made public
and the pressure Of national de-
tense affairs has been too great to