1928 Experimental Airplane - Motorcycle Courier Service

USPOD officials recognized that airmail moved rapidly from airport to airport, but that delays in getting the mail to and from the planes wasted much of the time saved. In 1928 a special "courier service" was tried in New England. In order to gain time and permit later closing of air mail, the president of Colonial Air Transport, General G. F. O'Ryan, proposed an experimental "feeder line" by truck**. This truck would call at neighboring towns, pick up the air mail, and deliver it to Brainerd Field, Hartford, Conn., in time to connect with Colonial's Contract Air Mail route #1 planes to New York. O'Ryan contended that this would ensure a speedier dispatch and would increase the use of air mail.

Investigation showed that the operation of a motor truck was too expensive for the poundage of mail that could be expected in the immediate future. Mr. W. S. Bouton, manager of Municipal Sales for the Indian Motorcycle Company of Springfield, MA recognized the opportunity. He suggested to O'Ryan that a motorcycle with side van could handle up to 400 pounds of mail, at a cost of less than 3c per mile — substantially lower than a truck. Bouton offered his company's facilities for an experimental period. Thus began the short-lived 1928 Experimental Airplane-Motorcycle Courier Service.





** See this thread for information on the Chicago Truck which also supported USPOD airmail service.
https://goscf.com/t/83876

Don

Thanks for this collateral addition to airmail. Will new history be forever discovered? I hope so.

These are very nicely written up. They are listed in the American Air Mail Catalogue in the US Souvenir Historical Flights section as variations of flight 581A. The more challenging and expensive ones to find and collect are the ones listed as USSHF 581Aa which are dated March 16,1928 and were dispatched from Springfield, Westfield, Northampton and Holyoke. The reason this second set is more difficul, and much more expensive, to obtain is that the total amount of covers flown/carried by motorcycle on the 15th was 188 pounds of mail while the total amount flown/carried by
motorcycle of the 16th was just 4 and a half pounds. Another interesting fact is that the cachets were not created and supplied by the Post Office who normally did this for first flights but rather by the Indian Motorcycle company who were the promoters of this unusual combination service.

Also harder to find, and easy to overlook, is the next day's inbound run. The cachet looks the same, but says Mar 16 and has the towns listed in opposite order, Hartford-Springfield-Westfield-Northampton-Holyoke. I have three inbound to Holyoke and one inbound to Springfield, but haven't found inbound to Westfield or Northampton yet.

More pages ...





Don

I so enjoyed Don's post on this curious 1928 experiment when he put it out there for us, in large part cause I had begun collecting these some months before his post when I moved to Northampton Mass, one of the towns involved. I would have liked to chat with him about his findings, so every time I add to this little collection of mine I think of his contributions to the forum generally and a few to me directly. He is missed.

Anyway, here is a business sized cover postmarked Hartford March 15th, 1928 (the first day outbound route) which I offer here for two reasons. First, because it bears autographs of the motorcycle driver, Carl White, and the pilot, R.W. Mackie, who got the job done on day 1.

Secondly, the cover contained a card (not too stiff nor heavy) extolling the advantages of air mail and air express for everything under the sun, from booking theater tickets to payroll checks, or just announcing new lines of merchandise. Clearly, Colonial Air Transport, the contractor for CAM1, was trying to drum up a little more airmail business.

Here is a cover originating in Holyoke Massachusetts on the first day of service which shows an interesting green cachet depicting a motorcycle and promoting "The Connecting Link between Outlying Cities and Airports." The cachet is neatly executed and appears printed to me and not from a rubber stamp. We haven't seen one of these green motorcycle cachets in prior postings on the experimental service. This is the first I've seen

In addition to the regular rubber-stamped "first experimental..." cachet cover, Don had also posted a round trip cover from Holyoke.

This one is also a round trip cover, using the Rock Springs, Wyoming, Air Mail Field of all places as the turnaround location. So it did not get the rubber stamp cachet for the incoming run on March 16 since this one was still out in Wyoming on the 17th when it was whacked with Rock Springs Air Mail and Special Delivery stamps on the verso.





The Smithsonian has a photo of the Rock Springs Air Field at https://postalmuseum.si.edu/object/npm_A.2009-34 It is apparently long abandoned and the runway now forms the rough boundary of a golf course.

edited to fix link to Smithsonian photo

Thought I might bump this thread to add that there was an amply detailed and very well-illustrated article by Thomas DeSha on this very topic in the February 2025 issue of the American Philatelist. "Airplanes, Motorcycles, and High Hopes," is the title.

Thanks to Don's original posts, we already knew a lot about this curious incident, but DeSha's article fills in more details and is definitely worth reading for anyone who has seen these covers.

Thanks for the bump -- I hadn't seen this topic until now. I wonder if the system might have been profitable if the motorcycle had not used a sidecar. A motorcyclist could easily carry 20 lbs. of mail in a backpack and save on gas expenses.