SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Every so often, usually in the vast deserts of the American Southwest, a hiker or a backpacker will run across something puzzling: a ginormous concrete arrow, as much as seventy feet in length, just sitting in the middle of scrub-covered nowhere. What are these giant arrows? Some kind of surveying mark? Landing beacons for flying saucers? Earth's turn signals? No, it's...
the Transcontinental Air Mail Route.On August 20, 1920, the United States opened its first coast-to-coast airmail delivery route, just 60 years after the Pony Express closed up shop. There were no good aviation charts in those days, so pilots had to eyeball their way across the country using landmarks. This meant that flying in bad weather was difficult, and night flying was just about impossible.
The Postal Service solved the problem with the world's first ground-based civilian navigation system: a series of lit beacons that would extend from New York to San Francisco. Every ten miles, pilots would pass a bright yellow concrete arrow. Each arrow would be surmounted by a 51-foot steel tower and lit by a million-candlepower rotating beacon. (A generator shed at the tail of each arrow powered the beacon.) Now mail could get from the Atlantic to the Pacific not in a matter of weeks, but in just 30 hours or so.
Yesteryear's low tech solution for a new high tech era.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday October 15 2016, @03:02PM
Those concrete arrows are a cool little bit of history I'd never heard of. I suspect the proponents knew or at least guessed that, like the Pony Express before it, it wouldn't last long before better tech supplanted it. It can't have been too terribly useful, and must have been very expensive to operate. The Pony Express operated for only 2 years or so until the transcontinental railroad and telegraph lines were finished. It's like the tech on the Titanic-- lookouts in a crow's nest because they didn't have radar.
What could Air Mail over land have been for? A simple message could be delivered far faster and more cheaply by telegraph, while bulky items were still best transported by rail. 30 hours isn't a whole lot faster than rail anyway, which, if necessary, could take a delivery coast to coast in 4 maybe 3 days (just figuring 3000 miles at 30 mph or faster), but usually took many days longer. So, small valuable or personal or extremely time sensitive items seems about it, things like photos, jewelry, long letters, medicine.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by gmrath on Saturday October 15 2016, @04:03PM
No matter the era's current technology there is always someone willing to pay for the new and glittery whatever the perceived or actual needs. Those in the industry back then no doubt knew that the arrows were a short-term solution. Radio was rapidly maturing as a technology and the arrows went the way of the pony express as soon as radio localizer beacons and associated technology on the ground and in the air were rolled out across the nation. This was also at the beginning of the civil air industry and although the initial air mail was an Army operation, commercial airlines soon took it over. I'll bet the marketing went something like this: "We can get the mail safely across the continent and we can get you there safely too. And much quicker that trains." The rest is history, so to speak.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 15 2016, @05:55PM
A simple message could be delivered far faster and more cheaply by telegraph
Could... but extensive regulation and the near monopoly western union had resulted in telegrams costing about 60 cents on average right after WWI but airmail could be delivered, insane as it sounds, for around 20 cents.
Kind of like in the waning years of long distance telephone service almost all the revenue went to the cost of elaborate billing schemes and advertising and financial merger costs.
Yeah yeah in theory the technology and engineering of a telegram could have been like 5 cents but the corrupt economics were a huge drain.
Its also much like the cost of internet ISP access... people are willing to pay $50/mo? Guess we gonna charge $50/mo no matter if it costs 49.99 to provide ot $4.99 to provide.
https://eh.net/encyclopedia/history-of-the-u-s-telegraph-industry/ [eh.net]
Airmail prices are simple, just google image search and read the price right off. Zepplin-mail in the 30s cost almost 70 cents. There's a rather famous upside down airmail stamp for 24 cents from that era.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday October 15 2016, @09:06PM
I collected stamps as a kid, and had an airmail stamp from the WWII era, and it was six cents, so your numbers are VERY suspect inless they've been translated to 2016 dollars, in which case they're meaningless as you're comparing apples to oranges; since 1970 the cost of a 25 inch TV has dropped from $600 to under a hundred, while the cost of gasoline has gone from 30¢ to two bucks (four fifty a few years ago).
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday October 16 2016, @11:39AM
Yeah we're both correct if you image google search for 1920 airmail stamp vs 1940 airmail stamp. I was aiming for immediate post WWI for no apparent reason.
Also I bet they had different stamps for post cards vs envelopes.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday October 16 2016, @03:47PM
Yes, post cards were always cheaper. I don't know if they still are.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday October 15 2016, @06:29PM
If you think about it, how often does it "absolutely, positively have to be there overnight" vs. how often businesses send paper documents FedEx? Now consider that at that time, they didn't have fax or email. A Telegraph cannot transmit a signature.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday October 15 2016, @09:10PM
Or a check. Banks have always wanted to reduce "float time".
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday October 16 2016, @03:05AM
The Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli. He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865 [...]
The 1888 invention of the telautograph by Elisha Grey marked a further development in fax technology, allowing users to send signatures over long distances, thus allowing the verification of identification or ownership over long distances.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax#History [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday October 16 2016, @06:02AM
Yes, I did know the device existed but that doesn't mean you could just go down to the Western Union and actually use one.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday October 16 2016, @06:30AM
You had written "at that time, they didn't have fax [...] A [t]elegraph cannot transmit a signature" so it appeared that you didn't know. Fax machines weren't in every home and office like they are today, but they were in commercial use. Western Union, in particular, developed at least one--although not until 1948, which was after the beacons and arrows were completed.
http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/technical/western-union-tech-review/03-1/p017.htm [mit.edu]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday October 17 2016, @02:13AM
I can see the confusion, but I was talking about the practical use. "They" referred to people deciding to use the airmail service. The choice was telegraph or airmail. Only the latter could carry a signature. Fax later became a practical option, but I have little doubt there was legal uncertainty to the validity of a signature on a facsimile page for years after.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday October 15 2016, @08:59PM
"What could Air Mail over land have been for?"
Signed contracts and other legal papers needed ASAP. Remember, there were no phones or fax machines.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @01:59PM