Page 12 - Demo

While the delivery of mail by airplane was initially handled by the federal government, it was transferred into the hands of private contractors when Congress passed the Kelly Act in 1925, %u201cto encourage commercial aviation and to authorize the Postmaster General to contract for airmail service.%u201d As a result, by September 1, 1927, all air mail in the United States was being flown under contract by commercial carriers. This privatization was called Contract Air Mail (CAM). At a time when there was almost no passenger air traffic, these contracts guaranteed the nation%u2019s fledgling commercial aviation industry enough money to purchase larger and safer airplanes%u2014which encouraged passenger traffic. And that was actually one of the purposes behind the legislation%u2014to help the airline industry grow. Eventually, there were 34 CAM routes throughout the United States, many containing several different segments.The very first CAM routes were CAM-7 and CAM8, which were awarded to Ford Transport Lines, a division of the Ford Motor Company, on February 15, 1926. The company used Ford-Stout 2-AT Pullman %u201cflying washboards%u201d for daily service between Detroit and Cleveland, and Detroit and Chicago. The 2-AT was the forerunner for the future Ford Tri-Motor plane. Henry and Edsel Ford loaded the first bag of mail onto a plane for the very first flight.Flying air mail was a very dangerous task, carried out by daring men, of whom 35 were killed between 1918 and 1926. One flier said the group was %u201cconsidered pretty much a suicide club,%u201d because the early pilots flew without parachutes, and had Ford-Stout 2 A-T, the first airplane to operate on a CAM route in the U.S.