Conventional wisdom credits only entrepreneurs with the vision to create America's commercial airline industry and contends that it was not until Roosevelt's Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 that federal airline regulation began. In Airlines and Air Mail, F. Robert van der Linden persuasively argues that Progressive republican policies of Herbert Hoover actually fostered the growth of American commercial aviation. Air mail contracts provided a critical indirect subsidy and a solid financial foundation for this nascent industry. Postmaster General Walter F. Brown used these contracts as a carrot and a stick to ensure that the industry developed in the public interest while guaranteeing the survival of the pioneering companies. Bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, and politicians of all stripes are thoughtfully portrayed in this thorough chronicle of one of America's most resounding successes, the commercial aviation industry.

Conventional wisdom credits only entrepreneurs with the vision to create America's commercial airline industry and contends that it was not until Roosevelt's Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 that federal airline regulation began. In Airlines and Air Mail, F. Robert van der Linden persuasively argues that Progressive republican policies of Herbert Hoover actually fostered the growth of American commercial aviation. Air mail contracts provided a critical indirect subsidy and a solid financial foundation for this nascent industry. Postmaster General Walter F. Brown used these contracts as a carrot and a stick to ensure that the industry developed in the public interest while guaranteeing the survival of the pioneering companies. Bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, and politicians of all stripes are thoughtfully portrayed in this thorough chronicle of one of America's most resounding successes, the commercial aviation industry.

It was first published in French by the Institut du Transport Aerien in 1998 and received very favourable reviews. Through the publication of the English language edition, this remarkable work is now accessible to many more readers around the world. In addition, the author has expanded the book with new sections and he has extensively updated it to bring the story of air cargo into the twenty first century, concluding with a look into the future. The author, Camille Allaz, served as Senior Vice President Cargo at Air France for 10 years which gave him an insider's close-up view of his subject, a privilege not enjoyed by many historians. There is no aspect of mail or cargo transport by air that has not been thoroughly researched and documented by Allaz, from the first brief transport of animals by balloon in France in 1783 to the vast global networks of the integrated express carriers in the 21st century. As a true scholar, he fits his narrative into the larger framework of political, military, economic and aviation history. This book should stand for years as the definitive work on the history of air cargo and airmail, and will be of immense value to the academic community, to the air cargo industry, the postal services, and to the general public.

Recounts the adventures of such early aviation pioneers as Charles Lindbergh and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who risked their lives to deliver the mail

It was the pilots of the U.S. Air Mail service who made it possible for flight to evolve from an impractical and deadly fad to today's worldwide network of airlines. Nicknamed "The Suicide Club," this small but daring cadre of pilots took a fleet of flimsy World War I "Jenny" Biplanes and blazed a trail of sky routes across the country. In the midst of the Jazz Age, they were dashing, group–proud, brazen, and resentful of authority. They were also loyal, determined to prove the skeptics wrong. MAVERICKS OF THE SKY, by Barry Rosenburg and Catherine Macaulay, is a narrative non–fiction account of the crucial, first three years of the air mail service – beginning with the inaugural New York–to–Washington D.C. flight in 1918, through 1921 when aviator Jack Knight was the first to fly across the country at night and furthermore, through a blizzard. In those early years, one out of every four men lost their lives. With the constant threat of weather and mechanical failure and with little instrumentation available, aviators relied on their wits and instincts to keep them out of trouble. MAVERICKS OF THE SKY brings these sagas to life, and tells the story of the extraordinary lives and rivalries of those who single–handedly pulled off the great experiment.

With air travel a regular part of daily life in North America, we tend to take the infrastructure that makes it possible for granted. However, the systems, regulations, and technologies of civil aviation are in fact the product of decades of experimentation and political negotiation, much of it connected to the development of the airmail as the first commercially sustainable use of airplanes. From the lighted airways of the 1920s through the radio navigation system in place by the time of World War II, this book explores the conceptualization and ultimate construction of the initial US airways systems.The daring exploits of the earliest airmail pilots are well documented, but the underlying story of just how brick-and-mortar construction, radio research and improvement, chart and map preparation, and other less glamorous aspects of aviation contributed to the system we have today has been understudied. Flying the Beam traces the development of aeronautical navigation of the US airmail airways from 1917 to 1941. Chronologically organized, the book draws on period documents, pilot memoirs, and firsthand investigation of surviving material remains in the landscape to trace the development of the system. The author shows how visual cross-country navigation, only possible in good weather, was developed into all-weather "blind flying." The daytime techniques of "following railroads and rivers" were supplemented by a series of lighted beacons (later replaced by radio towers) crisscrossing the country to allow nighttime transit of long-distance routes, such as the one between New York and San Francisco. Although today's airway system extends far beyond the continental US and is based on digital technologies, the way pilots navigate from place to place basically uses the same infrastructure and procedures that were pioneered almost a century earlier. While navigational electronics have changed greatly over the years, actually "flying the beam" has changed very little.

With air travel a regular part of daily life in North America, we tend to take the infrastructure that makes it possible for granted. However, the systems, regulations, and technologies of civil aviation are in fact the product of decades of experimentation and political negotiation, much of it connected to the development of the airmail as the first commercially sustainable use of airplanes. From the lighted airways of the 1920s through the radio navigation system in place by the time of World War II, this book explores the conceptualization and ultimate construction of the initial US airways systems.The daring exploits of the earliest airmail pilots are well documented, but the underlying story of just how brick-and-mortar construction, radio research and improvement, chart and map preparation, and other less glamorous aspects of aviation contributed to the system we have today has been understudied. Flying the Beam traces the development of aeronautical navigation of the US airmail airways from 1917 to 1941. Chronologically organized, the book draws on period documents, pilot memoirs, and firsthand investigation of surviving material remains in the landscape to trace the development of the system. The author shows how visual cross-country navigation, only possible in good weather, was developed into all-weather "blind flying." The daytime techniques of "following railroads and rivers" were supplemented by a series of lighted beacons (later replaced by radio towers) crisscrossing the country to allow nighttime transit of long-distance routes, such as the one between New York and San Francisco. Although today's airway system extends far beyond the continental US and is based on digital technologies, the way pilots navigate from place to place basically uses the same infrastructure and procedures that were pioneered almost a century earlier. While navigational electronics have changed greatly over the years, actually "flying the beam" has changed very little.