Three vintage Stearman Speedmail biplanes will deliver some history to Vancouver today as part of the centennial celebration of America’s airmail service.
Pearson Field is among a dozen stops on the re-enactment. The flight was scheduled to start Sunday in San Diego and finish Friday at Paine Field in Everett.
According to the schedule, the 1930s biplanes will land at Pearson Field at 6:05 p.m. today after a one-hour flight from Eugene, Ore. After overnighting in Pearson Air Museum’s historic hanger, the airmail planes will resume the journey at 12:05 p.m. Friday, taking off on a 50-minute flight to Olympia.
The 1,200-mile flight is a re-enactment of Contract Air Mail Route 8, the pioneering service along the West Coast. Pacific Air Transport, an ancestor of today’s United Airlines, inaugurated its Seattle-to Los Angeles service on Sept. 26, 1926.
Did You Know?
• While the U.S. Postal Service is marking the centennial of official airmail service, Vancouver was part of a special event in 1912. Walter Edwards took off from Portland’s Waverley Country Club on Aug. 10, 1912, and flew 1,500 pieces of mail to Vancouver. He delivered more than 3,000 pieces of mail the next day. A Columbian story on Aug. 12, 1912, described the trips: “as perfect flights as were ever made in the Northwest or elsewhere.”
The centennial airmail project is led by Addison Pemberton, a Spokane aircraft restorer. Pemberton is no stranger to Pearson Field. He visited in 2011, piloting a restored Boeing C40 biplane that had flown airmail routes along the West Coast before crashing in 1928.
Pemberton said the airmail service was the first step toward American commercial airline service. It was considered crucial enough to start even while the nation was fighting World War I, Pemberton said in a news release.
“The potential and importance of aviation was recognized even in those early days,” Pemberton said.
The re-enactment includes a U.S. Postal Service event at each stop. Commemorative envelopes will be postmarked by a special hand-cancellation stamp, created specifically for the centennial flight. The postmarking event in Vancouver is scheduled for 9 to 11:30 a.m. Friday.
The flight will use three Stearman Speedmail biplanes, which carried airmail for several airlines in the 1930s. Powered by 450 horsepower engines, the wood-winged and fabric-covered, open-cockpit aircraft were noted for their dependability and ability to carry heavy loads, according to a U.S. Postal Service news release.
The flight is expected to take about 12 hours of flying spread over six days.
Airmail service was introduced on May 15, 1918, when Army pilots flew a route that linked Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City. The post office took over America’s airmail service in August 1918, using newly hired civilian pilots and mechanics.
Each plane could hold 180 pounds of mail and a 160-pound pilot.
The Post Office Department, as it was then called, had wanted to contract out airmail flights from the beginning. But there were no takers, according to www.cam8in2018.com, a website that is celebrating the airmail centennial. (It takes its name from Contract Air Mail Route 8.)
By the mid-1920s, the rapidly developing aviation industry was up to the challenge, and all airmail was carried under contract by Sept. 1, 1927.
