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Office Department, and other federal bureaus. In just a few years, the vast majority of air mail in the United States would be carried by private contractors, but some of the Government Flights were continued into the 1960s. The only Government Flights in Indiana were the 1946 experimental helicopter flights in the Chicago area, After the various experimental air-mail flights, domestic air mail in the United States officially commenced on May 15, 1918, when Lt. G.L. Boyle took off from Polo Field in Washington DC with about 140 pounds of mail. The Post Office Department issued a new 24-cent stamp%u2014featuring a Curtiss Jenny biplane%u2014for the purpose. Cities soon to be A modified Curtiss Jenny JN-4D air-mail plane.served included New York, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. During this early period, all the air-mail flights utilized government-owned war-surplus wooden biplanes, that were mostly modified Curtiss Jennies. These early government flights were conducted by the Signal Corps of the Army, the U. S. Post which served four northwest Indiana cities. (These and other helicopter covers are grouped together, toward the end of this collection.) Beacons and ArrowsNone of the early air-mail planes had instruments, radios, or other navigational aids, so pilots flew by dead reckoning (the process of calculating one%u2019s position by using known or estimated speed, time, and course). To help them find their way, especially The 24%u00a2 Jenny air-mail stamp of 1918.