Commenced operations | 1928 |
---|---|
Ceased operations | 1932 |
Operating bases | North Battleford from 1930 |
Fleet size | 2 |
Destinations | Various mines and rural destinations in Saskatchewan |
Cherry Red Airline, also known as the Cherry Air Service, was the first airline in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. [1]
It was founded by Norman Cherry and H. Holroyde in 1928. [2] [3] Cherry noticed an unmet demand for transportation services by mines in Saskatchewan, especially Consolidated Mining and Smelting, and decided to create an airline to meet that need. He hired pilot Alva Malone and partnered with H. Holroyde. The airline had a fleet consisting of two airplanes: a two-seat Pheasant biplane and a six-seat Buhl CA-6 Airsedan (CF-AAY). [3] To earn extra revenue, Cherry decided to issue stamps starting at $0.10 for carrying airmail, making the airline the first airmail provider in Prince Albert. [4] Existing stamps issued by the company are sought after by collectors. [5] [6] The Great Depression brought about the end of the airline as mine traffic dried up. [3] by 1932, the company had failed. [1] The Buhl Airsedan had previously been lost in an accident with no fatalities. The Pheasant biplane was sold and, in 1932, it crash landed, rendering it inoperable. The plane languished in storage until the Moose Jaw branch of the Western Development Museum acquired it in 1950. Volunteers worked from 1960 to 1964 to restore it, and it has been in the museum's permanent collection ever since. It is the oldest surviving airplane in Saskatchewan. [7]
The Curtiss JN "Jenny" is a series of biplanes built by the Glenn Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, New York, later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. Although the Curtiss JN series was originally produced as a training aircraft for the US Army, the "Jenny" continued after World War I as a civilian aircraft, becoming the "backbone of American postwar [civil] aviation".
Airmail is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be the only option for sending mail to some destinations, such as overseas, if the mail cannot wait the time it would take to arrive by ship, sometimes weeks. The Universal Postal Union adopted comprehensive rules for airmail at its 1929 Postal Union Congress in London. Since the official language of the Universal Postal Union is French, airmail items worldwide are often marked Par avion, literally: "by airplane".
An airmail stamp is a postage stamp intended to pay either an airmail fee that is charged in addition to the surface rate, or the full airmail rate, for an item of mail to be transported by air.
Varney Air Lines was an American airline company that started service on April 6, 1926, as an airmail carrier. Formed by Walter Varney, the airline was based in Boise, Idaho, United States. The airline is one of the predecessors of United Airlines.
Norcanair was the name of a Canadian airline that existed from 1947 to 1987, and again briefly in the early 1990s and from 2001 to 2005.
College Park Airport is a public airport located in the City of College Park, in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. It is the world's oldest continuously operated airport. The airport is located south of Paint Branch and Lake Artemesia, east of U.S. Route 1 and the College Park Metro/MARC station and west of Kenilworth Avenue.
Pronto Airways LP was an airline formed in 2006 that was based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. It operated scheduled and charter passenger services as well as cargo service until the airline ceased operations in 2015. Its main bases were Prince Albert and Saskatoon, with destinations throughout northern Saskatchewan and Nunavut.
The Boeing 80 is an American airliner of the 1920s. A three-engined biplane, the Model 80 was built by the Boeing Airplane Company for Boeing's own airline, Boeing Air Transport, successfully carrying both airmail and passengers on scheduled services.
A transcontinental flight is a non-stop passenger flight from one side of a continent to the other. The term usually refers to flights across the United States, between the East and West Coasts.
The Buhl Aircraft Company was a US aircraft manufacturer founded in Detroit in 1925 which remained in operation until 1933. Buhl designed and manufactured the Buhl-Verville CA-3 Airster, the first aircraft to receive a US civil aviation type Certificate in March 1927. Several utility and sport aircraft models were developed from 1925 to 1931, both fixed wings and rotary wing aircraft. Their greatest successes were with the Airsedan and Bull Pup, with approximately 185 aircraft of all types built from 1925 to 1932.
The Buhl AirSedan was a family of American civil cabin sesquiplane aircraft developed and manufactured by the Buhl Aircraft Company in the late 1920s. One example completed the first transcontinental non-stop roundtrip flight, made in 1929 by the CA-6 Spokane Sun-God, and the first Pope to have flown did so in a Buhl Airsedan.
The Buhl CA-1 Airster was a sports airplane developed in the United States in 1930. It was a conventional low-wing cantilever monoplane with fixed tailwheel undercarriage and an open cockpit for the pilot.
The Buhl LA-1 Bull Pup was a light sports airplane developed in the United States in 1930. It was a mid-wing wire-braced monoplane with fixed tailskid undercarriage and an open cockpit for the pilot. Buhl developed the Bull Pup as a cheap aircraft through which the company hoped to remain in business as the onset of the Great Depression was felt. However, as the economic situation worsened, it became evident that there was no demand for even such a basic aircraft; when production ceased in 1932, all aircraft still in stock were sold off at half price as the company folded.
United States airmail was a service class of the United States Post Office Department (USPOD) and its successor United States Postal Service (USPS) delivering air mail by aircraft flown within the United States and its possessions and territories. Letters and parcels intended for air mail service were marked as "Via Air Mail", appropriately franked, and assigned to any then existing class or sub-class of the Air Mail service.
Alfred Victor Verville was an American aviation pioneer and aircraft designer who contributed to civilian and military aviation. During his forty-seven years in the aviation industry, he was responsible for the design and development of nearly twenty commercial and military airplanes. Verville is known for designing flying boats, military racing airplanes, and a series of commercial cabin airplanes. His planes were awarded with the Pulitzer Speed Classic Trophy in 1920 and 1924.
Stout Metal Airplane Division of the Ford Motor Company was an American aircraft manufacturer founded by William Bushnell Stout as the Stout Metal Airplane Co. in 1922. The company was purchased by Ford Motor Company in 1924 and later produced the Ford Trimotor. At the height of the Great Depression, Ford closed the aircraft design and production division in 1936, temporarily re-entering the aviation market with the production of the B-24, at the Willow Run aircraft factory during World War II.
The Pheasant Aircraft Company was an American aircraft manufacturer.
The Curtiss Model 41 Lark was a commercial biplane manufactured by Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company that was used by pioneering airmail, airline and bush pilots in the 1920s.
Étienne Dormoy was an aeronautical engineer and a designer of aircraft.
In aerophilately, a branch of philately, a first flight cover, also known by the acronym FFC, is mail that has been carried on an inaugural flight of an airline, route, or aircraft, normally postmarked with the date of the flight often of the arrival destination proving it was actually carried on the aircraft and may have a special flight cachet and/or an arrival postmark. Because many first flight covers are essentially made as collectables they can be considered philatelic mail though others consider them to be postal history.