[ARC5] Re: SCR-183 and the Air Mail

[Gordon White]

Error!!

    Memory faded. it WAS 1934 that FDR had the Air Corps fly the Air 
Mail. Sorry. Senior moment.

    While the year was wrong, I still think the basic idea that the Air 
Corps was only equipped to fly in daylight in good weather at that time, 
stands. I defer to those with access to equipment schedules for the Army 
in early 1934 as to what they used for radio & navigation, but I am 
firmly of the belief that what we know as the SCR-183 in at least its 
post-1934 version, and the Type K that became the SCR-274N grew out of 
the need so dramatically demonstrated by the Air Mail Fiasco and  made 
clear by the investigatory commission headed by former SecWar Newton B. 
Baker.

    - Gordon White

The federal Air Mail Service flew the air mail 1919-1927, until the 
commercial air lines were granted contracts to fly it. The feds were 
better-equipped in 1927 (when Lindbergh was one of their pilots) than  
the Air Corps in 1934.