The Origin of the Air Mail
At Blackpool Holt Thomas and Graham White agreed to make a practical experiment in carrying mails by aeroplane.The idea,as it was first worked out,was for the aeroplane to fly from Blackpool airport across to Southport airport,and for the mails to be taken over by the Post Office there.But the programme had to be changed owing to a series of high winds.What happened in the end was that Graham White took a mail bag in his plane ,and made a flight with it across country for a distance of about seven miles,returning to the airport.This experiment gave Graham White the honour of being the first airman in England to carry a bag of mail across country in an aeroplane.Letters and postcards which were carried in this test,and which had a special stamp recording the fact,soon became much sought after by collectors.
The second and more important experiment in British air mail transport took place in September 1911,and was the first of its kind in this country to obtain the official permission of the Postmaster general.It was indeed one of the historical events in our airmail development.In this case as many as 130,000 letter and postcards were carried by aeroplane between London and Windsor.One of the airmen engaged in this pioneer service was the famous Gustav Hamel,flying a monoplane.I remember going out one afternoon to see him start off with one of the bags of mail.It was an extremely bad day for flying ,and just before the time due for the start,the wind was blowing at nearly 50 miles an hour.None of the other pilots would have thought of going up,but Hamel—one of the finest of all pilots of the British monoplane—was not to be stopped.He jumped into his machine and fairly shot off the ground .The monoplane,so long as it was near the earth,was thrown about like a small boat on an angry sea.But Hamel gave a splendid exhibition of airmanship;as soon as he reached a great height,conditions became much steadier ,and her finished his journey without accident.
This was an early demonstration that an airplane was more than a fine weather machine,and that it could fight its way successfully through violent winds.This fact impressed the postal authorities a good deal,and helped those who believed that the airplane had a great commercial future.