postofficedepartment

From Edith Dodd Culver's THE DAY THE AIRMAIL BEGAN: "To quote from Reuben Fleet's 1966 speech before the Air Mail Pioneers: "I left Lieutenant Webb in charge at Belmont Park and the Curtiss plant, with Lieutenant Miller and Bonsal helping, and in reserve, and instructed Webb to get the other four aerial mail airplanes ready, and fly one from Belmont Park with the aerial mail at eleven the next morning to Bustleton Field, which the Philadelphia Postmaster had selected for Philadelphia. Edgerton at Bustleton Field would relieve Lieutenant Webb there and fly on to Washington, while Lieutenant Culver would relay the aerial mail at Busttleton Park in New York."

Jean Dieuzaide – Concorde Essai de Freinge - 1968

Hi,
I'am the admin of the new group Art'flighing Machines dedicated to an artistic approach of flighing things

It would be an honour to have your picture into this group

Aviation was not very safe in 1918. I can't imagine some pilot risking his or her life to deliver a small package of mail from the NYC area to the Philly area, flying in an open cockpit with a small fuel tank. It made more sense to put it on a train in Manhattan and deliver it to Philadelphia city center in about 3 hours with a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the chance of disaster. Pilots often got lost in bad weather and ran out of fuel.

Only six of the JR-1 planes were sold to the US Mail Service in 1918 -- as model JR-1B. They were equipped with the 150hp Wright-Hisso A.

I have additional photos of Max Miller with this plane # 1. It is pictured in Lock Haven Pa with my great Uncle Paul Brosious who was the post master at the time. My pictures do not have the mailbag appearing but it is plane # 1.

I take it back... I just looked at the pictures that I have and the mail bag is on the plane. I never noticed it before as it is not as noticeable with the angles of my pictures. I have a series of 9 pictures from the day including one of the plane in flight.

A very famous stamp was issued in 1918 to commemorate this event:

"1918 “Jenny” Airmail Stamp" by National Postal Museum