Rotary Wing Air Mail Programs of the U.S. Post Office, Part 1

From 1931 to 1940, the U.S. Post Office explored the use of autogiros to transport air mail over short distances in urban centers with the goal of minimizing surface delays between downtown sorting centers and airports. This effort culminated in a one-year experimental program from the roof of the central Philadelphia Post Office to the Camden, New Jersey airport that served Philadelphia. Upon completion of this service, the Post Office, Eastern Airlines and the Civil Aeronautics Board decided to discontinue further service. This experiment is nonetheless significant because it paved the way for helicopter airline services that were established by the Post Office in the immediate post-war years in three urban centers. The services in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago were successful for the duration of their subsidized service with the Post Office, though once these subsidies halted in the 1960s, these services declined rapidly with fatal results. Though helicopter airlines have not endured in the U.S., their establishment in the late 1940s and their growth in the 1950s was essential to the stability and sustainability of the domestic American helicopter industry