Question

1. What drove the need for airmail?

2. Who was the first to fly airmail routes?


3. Why was flying airmail so dangerous?


4. How has airmail become faster in modern times?

Answer 1

1.The Army wanted to operate the airmail service, to give its pilots more cross-country flying experience. The Postmaster General and the Secretary of War reached an agreement: the Army Signal Corps would lend its planes and pilots to the Department to start an airmail service.

2.The first airmail flight operated by the U.S. Post Office Department with a civilian flight crew took off from College Park, MD, on August 12, 1918, with pilots Max Miller, Edward Gardner, Robert Shank, and Maurice Newton taking turns at the controls of a new, purpose-built Curtiss R-4 airplane.

3.They had no radios, no navigation aids, and no instruments. The pilots flew by dead reckoning. It was dangerous work. Of the first 40 Post Office pilots, three died in crashes in 1919 and nine more were killed in 1920.

4.The main change in the last decade was the sheer volume of travellers: more and more people were flying than ever before, and the sky-high numbers had previously shown little sign of tailing off.

Step-by-step explanation: