4 First airmail flight from New York, May 15, 1918. Army Lieutenant Torrey Webb takes off from the infield of Belmont Park's racetrack. Belmont Park hosted both airmail flights and horse races until December 1919, when New York's airmail field moved to Newark, New Jersey. Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration. Airmail is ranked 3rd while Spark is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose Airmail is: Airmail has a very clean and modern interface. On the left side of the screen are the folders (inbox, starred, draft, sent, snooze, trash) and on the right side the email threads for the folder currently being viewed.
From 1918-1926, the Post Office Department operated the nation's first airmail service. For airplanes, postal officials turned to the military which turned over more than just aircraft. Army pilots flew the first airmail trips, including the inaugural routes between Washington, D.C. and New York City which began on May 18, 1918. For these first flights, pilots used Curtiss JH-4 (Jennies) aircraft. In June the Post Office Department, using its own pilots, took over the service. In 1918 the Post Office Department requested 100 de Havilland airplanes, model DH-4, from the army. Created by Geoffrey de Havilland, these planes had been built both in England and the United States during the last years of the war. Like most of the 2,500 fighter planes built in the United States by 1918, few DH-4 aircraft even saw battle.
Although the airplanes range (350 miles) and load capacity (500 pounds) were good, de Havillands were not suited for the rigors and demands of airmail service, having been built for high-altitude military observation use. The most precarious design flaw was the placement of cockpit. Pilots were too easily trapped between the engine and the mail compartment. Minor crashes turned deadly, as entangled pilots were burned alive. The planes quickly gained a macabre nickname—flaming coffins. Among those killed in the early de Havilland airmail flights was Carl Smith, who stalled out over Elizabeth, New Jersey, while testing a DH-4 on December 16, 1918.
In January 1919, the DH-4s were removed from service for extensive renovation work. The cockpit was moved to the rear and was rimmed with padded leather for cushion in rough landings. The exhaust stacks were extended beyond the cockpit, so pilots would no longer be blinded by their own exhaust fumes. To make the planes more durable, the linen fabric fuselage was replaced with plywood sheets over wood struts. The landing gear was repositioned and larger wheels were installed. The DH-4 instrument panel also had problems. The airplanes compass was notoriously unreliable. When flying east, the compass could oscillate from east to 90-degrees north. Air pressure through a metal pipe activated the airplane's air speed indicators. Unfortunately, the pipes, placed on the bottom wing's leading edge, were regularly filled with mud. More seriously, the altimeter registered 1,000 feet for each 1' around the scale, making it useless below 1,000 feet.
When the retrofitted de Havillands (now known as DH-4B) were returned to service, the improvements proved enormously successful. In their first year of service, de Havilland airmail planes carried more than 775 million letters. The plane quickly became known as the workhorse of the airmail service. In 1921, as an additional safety measure, pilots were assigned individual planes and allowed to modify them to meet their individual demands. The DH-4Bs began to retire from airmail service in 1926 when the Post Office Department began to contract the service from private carriers. When the Post Office Department relinquished control of the airmail service to private industry, entrepreneurs used the money they made from carrying the mail to maintain and expand their routes and upgrade their services.
Airmail Downloads
Updated April 28 2013 (ver 3.4.062)
This is the download page for the ham version of the Airmail radio-email client program. This page is devoted to the ham-radio client applications. Airmail is compatible with Windows 95 thru Vista. Development is continuing, please report any problems and stop back often for updates. See the included 'release notes' in the Airmail inbox for details.
Installation instructions (please read carefully):
Airmail version 3.4 is a single installation file that includes everything needed: Airmail and its weather companions, the 'Icepac' propagation software, and USB drivers for the SCS modems. The current Airmail version 3.4.062 is well-tested, and works fine with all versions of Windows from XP onward, both x86 (32-bit) and 64-bit versions.
Updating: Your current Airmail installation can be updated in the same way as a new installation-- download and install the latest version. Your settings and messages will not be disturbed. To update a Winlink version to also support Sailmail, download and install the same Airmail version from this page and install into the same folder. Click Here for additional notes on using Airmail with both Sailmail and Winlink.
Airmail ver 3.4.062: Swiftcapture 1 0 2 download free. Click Here to download Airmail ver 3.4.062, about 11MB. (Note: Frequency list and catalog are current as of 4/28/2013, be sure to update).
This is a complete install package for Airmail for hams, including wefax, propagation, and a new Viewfax grib/fax viewer with 'get it now' (File menu) and updated USB drivers for SCS modems. This version (and the installer) is Win7/Win8 compatible and installs application-data folder by default to avoid Windows security warnings. It will also transfer messages and settings that were stored elsewhere by earlier Airmail versions (see note below).
Note: This updated version of the 3.4.062 download includes updated Icepac propagation files, and updated USB drivers for the SCS PTC-IIusb, PTC-IIIusb, DR-7400 and DR-7800 modems (select 'PTC-IIusb' in Airmail's modem options).
Installation: Download and save this install-file to a 'downloads' folder on your computer, or to a CD or memory-stick, then open it (i.e. run it) to start the Airmail installer. For Win-7 you may see a confirmation for 'amhc34062b, Sirius Cybernetics LLC', click 'Continue'. For the Airmail installer the default settings should work fine in every application. When you are finished you may see a 'This program may not have installed correctly' message, click 'Ignore' or just close that box-- Windows is confused, Airmail did install correctly.
Important Note when updating a Vista/Win7/Win8 installation to Airmail 3.4 from ver 3.3:Under Vista/Win7/Win8, messages and data files must be stored under the 'Program Data' folder in order to avoid security issues. The Airmail ver 3.4 installer will transfer messages and settings that were stored elsewhere by earlier Airmail versions, including files which have been hidden (i.e. 'virtualized') by Vista's security. If you have a lot of stored messages this can take a long time, DO NOT terminate the installation or things will left in a scrambled state with only part of the messages transferred.
Beta Versions: Watch this space for Airmail ver 3.5 with support for the new Pactor-4 modems.
Sailmail members: See the Airmail for SailMail page for info on using Airmail with both ham and SailMail systems.
Other Downloads:
Airmail Beta version: Watch this space for Airmail ver 3.5 with support for the new Pactor-4 modems.
Propagation: Airmail also includes a propagation window. which uses the 'ICEPAC' propagation program as a prediction engine. Airmail 3.4 includes the Icepac software, but it must be installed separately for Airmail 3.3, or if the complete Icepac user-interface is desired. ICEPAC can be downloaded from Greg Hand's ITS support website, select the most-recent version.
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Gribs, Weather fax: Airmail's weather fax companion has been updated, including an updated viewer which can display grib weather-data files as well as most image formats for wefax. Available from the 'weather fax' page (click here).
Spelling Dictionaries: Additional language dictionaries for the spell-checker are available here. These are 'zip' files, after downloading then open the file with Winzip and extract the '.adm' file to Airmail's Dictionaries folder. Restart Airmail, then use Airmail's Tools/Options/Spelling window to enable the new dictionary. (If you don't have an unzip program then go to www.winzip.com and download the free demo version of Winzip).
Firmware: Current firmware is included with the Airmail download, use Airmail's Update-Firmware window (Tools menu) to install. If you only need updated firmware then see the SCS downloads page at http://www.scs-ptc.com/software.html. Download the 'zip' file for your modem and extract the firmware-file to the Airmail folder under 'Program Files' (or under 'ProgramData' for Vista or later). Then use Airmail's 'update firmware' window (under the 'Tools' menu) to update teh modem.
PTC-IIusb USB Drivers:Drivers for the PTC-IIusb are included on a CD included with the modem, available for download from the SCS website, and included with the Airmail ver 3.4 downloads. If you install Airmail before plugging in the modem, and leave the 'Install PTC-IIusb drivers' option selected in the Arimail installer, then the drivers will be pre-installed and the modem will install automatically. Alternately, put the SCS CD in the computer and plug in the modem, when the 'New Hardware' wizard appears skip internet searching and select 'install automatically'-- or select a location and point windows to your downloaded drivers.
If you want to download and install the drivers separately from Airmail, here are the driver-installer programs that are included with Airmail:
32-bit: SCS Ver 2.08.24 drivers for 32-bit versions of Windows
64-bit: SCS Ver 2.08.24 drivers for 64-bit versions of Windows
A 'zip' file with both: SCS ver 2.08.24 drivers (zip file)
Older Airmail Versions: Airmail ver 3.0.81 can be downloaded here. The catalog and frequency-list files are very out-of-date, so be sure to update those first.
Questions/comments regarding Airmail software can be sent to: ke6rk@airmail2000.com
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For help with the Winlink network see the support information at www.winlink.org
