page_title: Dean Smith (pilot)
section_title: Mid life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Dean Smith (pilot) / Mid life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: D C Smith in plane
context_page_description: Dean Cullen Smith was a pioneer American mail pilot, test pilot, flying instructor, Antarctic pilot, and airline pilot. At 17 years of age, he became the youngest flight instructor in U.S. Army history. He was a lead pilot for the U.S. Postal Service's airmail service, and was the first pilot to initiate night air mail flights. He was an executive for many airlines and aircraft companies.
  Smith was a pilot for the Byrd Antarctic Expedition of 1928–1930 involved in aerial overflights to discover new land that could be claimed for the benefit of the United States. The land was later viewed by Byrd and named after his wife. Smith was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Congressional Gold Medal. An Antarctic peak bears his name. He was inducted into the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame in 1986.
context_section_description: Smith enlisted in the aviation Section of the United States Signal Corps in July 1917, several months before his eighteenth birthday. Soon after he enlisted, he was promoted to master signal electrician, the highest non-commissioned rank of the US Army Signal Corps.   During this time, he was the youngest enlist to serve in the capacity. In this position he was able to promote himself to be a cadet in Ground 
  At 17, Smith became the youngest ever flight instructor in U.S. Army history after receiving just under 57 hours of flying instruction. Though he volunteered to serve overseas to the front lines with the American Expeditionary Forces, he was posted as a flying instructor at Fort Scott. He was promoted to second lieutenant and stayed in the United States for the duration of his service duties.
  From August 1918 to January 1919, Smith was assigned to Gosport Instructor's School in San Antonio, Texas, as an Army flight instructor. Later he was then transferred to Rockwell Field in San Diego to teach at the Pursuit School of Instruction, where he remained until he was discharged in March 1919. Subsequently, Smith flew as a barnstormer for about a year at carnivals. He also gave five-minute rides, for five dollars each, at county fairs in various states during this time. Eventually he destroyed his plane and discontinued these ventures.
  Smith was instrumental in the inauguration of the air mail service by the United States Postal Service (USPS) in the summer of 1919. He had logged 900 hours of flying time in the Army before he joined the U.S. Mail Service at age nineteen. His first assignment was to fly mail from Omaha, Nebraska, to California, essentially following the same route as the Oregon Trail. His mother had taken this trail by covered wagon from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Cove, Oregon, in 1871. His mother and grandparents had taken two years to complete their trip, whereas Smith flew his route to California within a week with several stops along the way.
  He became an official air mail pilot on May 21, 1920. He helped to develop a transcontinental route that included the technology of flying using electronic instruments. The next segment he added later was from Cleveland to Chicago and that leg was later extended  to Omaha.
  Flying planes carrying air mail, day or night, was hazardous and accidents happened often, more so even than in barnstorming. Smith worked as an air mail pilot until August 31, 1927. In his association with USPS for more than 7 years, he logged 3764.57 hours and flew 365,719 miles (588,568 km). Smith was permanently stationed at Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, as an air mail pilot starting in May 1920. He often flew from there in and out of Cleveland and used the De Havilland Airco DH-4B aircraft for the delivery of airmail. 
  Smith reported in his autobiography, during one run from Omaha to Cheyenne, that he had had to ditch into a pasture, landing on a cow. He sent a laconic telegram to his division supervisor at headquarters in College Park, Maryland, reporting the mishap. Crashes were part of the job. Engines were unreliable, and pilots were using road maps. Unpredictable, bad weather was a constant risk. In the first five years of US Post Office air mail service the average forced landing was every 800 miles and a pilot was killed about every 80,000 miles. Thirty-five pilots died during the Postal Service's operation of air mail flights; most deaths were between 1920 and 1925.
  Smith was involved in another incident that scared him to death. One day when he was flying his normal air mail route from Hadley Field to Cleveland, he caught something out of the corner of his eye that looked like a skyscraper. He pulled back on the control stick to  quickly gain altitude and just missed hitting the U.S. Navy airship USS Los Angeles that was in his direct path. It was a close call of just over a hundred feet.
caption: Dean Smith, airmail pilot in 1922
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