AAA Members Will Fly Air Mail At The 2008 Fly-In!

The Antique Airplane Association and the Board of Directors of the Air Power Museum are excited to announce that the 2008 AAA-APM Fly-In will commemorate the 90th anniversary of air mail service in the United States. The 2008 Fly-In theme will be Air Mail Days, to honor the pilots and airplanes of the early air mail service. The dates for the fly-in are August 27 to Sept. 1, 2008, at Antique Airfield near Blakesburg, Iowa.

At the end of World War I, the U.S. government found itself with a surplus of airplanes and pilots leftover from the war. It was decided to put some of them to use by flying mail by air on a regularly scheduled basis. Air mail flying experiments with aircraft had been tried as early as 1911 - even earlier than that by balloon. But those were special events, often held at one-time air meets, carnivals, and fairs. With the war ended, the post office was determined to make air mail a permanent part of its everyday postal service. The inaugural flight took off on May 15, 1918 ... almost 90 years ago!

To make the 2008 AAA-APM Air Mail Days really come to life, we will be sending out special invitations to all AAA members who currently own and fly airplanes that actually carried the air mail during their working years. At this point we have tentatively identified over 30 antique airplanes belonging to AAA members that fit the description. The list of air mail airplanes in the membership include some really rare aircraft ... like the world's only flying DH-4, Boeing 40 and Ryan M-1 ... plus a Curtiss Jenny, numerous Travel Air and WACO biplanes, Laird biplanes, Pitcairn Mailwings, multiple square-tail Stearman 4Ds and C3Bs, Ford Trimotor, Stinson A Trimotor, Stinson SM6000 Trimotor, Stinson Jr., and Stinson SM-8. If you can think of others, please let us know. Most of these airplanes carry authentic air mail colors and markings. While not all of these airplanes will be able to attend, we do expect that a significant number will make the journey to Antique Airfield next Labor Day weekend to help us commemorate this colorful era of aviation history. It should be a great sight to see!

Arrangements are also being made to allow these historic air mail aircraft to actually "fly the mail" once again. Special souvenir air mail covers will be printed up and then flown from Antique Airfield to the nearby Ottumwa airport by the air mail airplanes in attendance. Plans also include the option for the pilots to fly on to Iowa City airport, one of the historic stops on the original transcontinental airmail route.

In an effort to be historically accurate with all aspects of "Air Mail Days", our commemorative postal covers will mimic those as originally carried by the early air mail airplanes (see sample picture below). The envelopes are being custom printed to replicate the size 6 envelopes that were commonly used for airmail letters during the 20's & 30's. In cooperation with the U.S. Post Office, the outgoing cancellation stamp will be an accurate replica of ones typically used on the original CAM routes. These cancellation stamps will be hand stamped, as was the practice back then, right at Antique Airfield. The "cachet" (see lower left corner of the envelope) also reflects the style of those that were used on many original airmail inaugural flight covers. We will have a different airplane featured in the cachet for each of the four days of airmail flights during the fly-in (Wed Aug 27th through Sat Aug 30th). So in total there will be four different covers, one for each day, with a different airplane cachet and a different date in the cancellation stamp on each day.

The postage stamp itself will be a custom printed, updated replica of the original 1918 Scott C3 airmail "Jenny" stamp - the first airmail stamp ever issued in the United States (we decided against doing the famous "inverted Jenny" version because they were never actually used on any envelopes, they went to collectors). By the way, note the 11:30 A.M. time of the cancellation stamp. This will be our scheduled airmail takeoff time each day of the fly-in ... and guess what ... it is historically accurate also ... the first U.S. airmail airplane took off at 11:30 A.M. on May 15, 1918!

The covers will be available for purchase in the APM Museum gift shop before each daily flight, where they can be addressed and dropped in the on-field mailbox. For those who can't be there, or miss out on buying a cover before the flight, extra covers (addressed to AAA Headquarters) will also be flown and will be for sale after the flights. The covers will be limited edition - only 500 of each of the four different covers are being printed! Due to their limited nature we will be taking advance orders for the covers as soon as they are printed. Keep watching this web site for details.

What a great historical event this will be. It will be a rare privilege to once again see these beautiful antique airplanes carry the United States mail.

So far these airmail airplanes have committed to be at the 2008 event:

	Boeing 40C N5339 Pacific Air Transport Addison Pemberton Spokane, WA
	Stearman 4E NC663K, NAMW 1938, 75th Anniversary Air Mail 1993 Ben Scott Reno, NV
	Stearman C3B NC6438 Varney Air Lines Greg Herrick Minneapolis, MN
	Waco ASO NC1826 Northwest Airways Dan Neuman Jr. Minneapolis, MN
	Stearman C3B NC3440 Mamer Air Transport Larry Tobin Spokane, WA
	Alexander Eaglerock A-2 NC1121P Carl Williams and Eric Baldwin Englewood, CO
	Stearman 4DM NC485W American Airways Jay and Elin Pemberton Spokane, WA
	Fairchild KR21 NC207V Participant in National Air Mail Week Celebrations in 1938 Pat McNerney Cincinnati, OH
	Waco ASO NC608N Tow plane for Texaco "Eaglet" Franklin Utility Glider during transcontinental flight March 30th to April 6th 1930 Click to see a cover from this historic flight Rich Hornbeck Bowdoinham, ME
	Luscombe 8F N1594B Re-traced East-West mail route in 1984 Bill Tinkler Tullahoma, TN

Watch for this list of participating air mail airplanes to grow in the coming months.

As you can tell we are very excited about this unique opportunity to commemorate the airplanes and pilots of the early air mail period. We hope you will be able to join us at next year's AAA-APM Fly-In for this once-in-a-lifetime air mail celebration.

Mike Gretz
APM President

Never been to Blakesburg before? Read the First Timer's Guide to attending the fly-in.