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in 1917. Despite this, Congress appropriated $100,000 to establish the first regular Air Mail service. So on May 15, 1918, following a route between Washington D.C. and New York City, with an stop in Philadelphia, Air Mail was carried by pilots from the U.S. Army Signal Corps flying Curtiss JN-4H %u201cJenny%u201d training planes. There was one round-trip a day, six days a week. According to a Post Office press release, 10,800 pounds of mail was flown during the first 30 days of operation.In just under three months, the Army pilots completed 270 flights and carried 40,500 pounds of mail. Flying a total of 421%u00bd hours, they succeeded in their assignment without a serious injury. However, a number of flights were forced down due to bad weather or mechanical difficulties. Despite this, the service became firmly established, and on August 12 the Post Office took over all phases of Air Mail from the Army, and hired civilian pilots and mechanics to fly and maintain six specially built planes purchased from the Standard Aircraft Corporation. None of these early Air Mail planes had reliable instruments, radios, or other navigational aids, so each pilot had to follow known landmarks on the ground to find his way. To improve delivery time on long hauls, and to entice the public to use Air Mail more often, the Post Office decided to promote a new transcontinental air route from New York to San Francisco. The first leg was established in 1919, and by February 1921, mail was being flown both day and night over the entire distance between the coasts. Congress was duly impressed, and soon appropriated $1,250,000 to expand the service.Air Mail Comes of AgeThe Kelly Act of 1925 was passed by Congress %u201cto encourage commercial aviation and to authorize the Postmaster General, Harry S. New, to hire private contractors for its Air Mail service.%u201d Almost immediately, New invited bids from commercial aviation companies to carry the mail. By September 1927, all the Air Mail in the United States was being flown by commercial carriers. This privatization was known as Contract Air Mail (CAM). One of CAM%u2019s early pilots was a young man named Charles Lindbergh. He was assigned a de Havilland DH4 biplane that flew between St. Louis and Chicago for the Robertson Aircraft Service. Although airplanes were advancing quickly, there were still occasional mishaps. In fact, Lindbergh crashed four planes before he embarked on his transAtlantic flight%u2014once in Texas as a cadet in the Army Air Service, and then once in Missouri and twice in Illinois.When the CAM flights first began, there was almost no passenger air traffic. However, the government contracts provided the commercial aviation industry enough profit to purchase larger and safer airplanes. This, in turn, encourAviator Lincoln Beachey flew several Pioneer Air Mail flights.