AERIAL TAXIS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 September 1939, Page 6

AERIAL TAXIS

POSSIBILITIES IN BIG CITIES.

NEW AUTOGIRO SERVICE. Air taxi service within the limits of big cities, carrying passengers and express, as well as mail between the central post office and the major airport, is forecast by aviation authorities upon the start hero of the world’s first autogiro mail route. Opening of the tiny six-mile hop between the roof of the Philadelphia post office and the Camden airport led Captain E. V. Rickenbacker, general manager of Eastern Air Lines, which has the contract, and W. Wallace Kellett, president of the Kellett Autogiro Corporation, which supplied the autogiro, to voice these predictions. The new autogiro service was also hailed as one of the biggest steps in letter carrying since the advent of the pony express by W. W. Howes, First Assistant Postmaster General, in charge of airmail, who likewise participated in the ceremonies inaugurating the latest type of mail transportation. Mr Howes reported that air-mail service between post office roofs in New York and Philadelphia was being discussed by his department. Likelihood of the duplication of the Philadelphia experiment in other large cities was predicted by Joseph F. Gallagher, Philadelphia postmaster. The autogiro in use here is equipped with a slow landing speed of 25 miles an hour, much slower than that of the standard aeroplane, and a top speed of about 125 miles. It. made its first roynd trip in 15 minutes, carrying 28,171 pieces of mail going and 22,841 returning, and cutting off about 35 minutes of the round-trip required by truck.