MAIL DELIVERIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 10, 26 March 1947, Page 2

MAIL DELIVERIES

TESTS IN NEW, YORK SUBURBS

* , With the aid of nine helicopters and parachutes, the New York Post Office Department has been experimenting with its suburban air mail deliveries in the New York City region.

As a forerunner of what, it expects to make a permanent service this summer, the Department engaged in a four-day test of helicopter mail service from La Guardia airport on Long Island and Newark airport in New Jersey, to communities in New Jersey, Connecticut, and near-by counties in New York.

First-day helicopter deliveries to suburbs cut six to 12 hours of the usual truck-route time normally required for shuttling air mail from airports to suburban post offices. Five helicopter routes were established. Emergency postal stations were set up on playgrounds, schoolgrounds, or airports along these lines. As the helicopters hovered approximately 100 feet above the ground the mail was parachuted to waiting postal trucks below. In Some communities, school children and citizens witnessed the delivery in festive mood. In addition to the suburban delivery, shuttle helicopter service was carried on in the metropolitan area proper. Helicopters from La Guarclia airport dropped mail in Brooklyn and Long 'lsland City for the principal post offices. First pouches of helicopter mail for Manhattan were delivered by a craft at the Midtown Skyport. delivery from La Guardia airport to a ship at sea.

First-flight mail flooded the Post Office for the tests, as thousands of cover collectors took advantage of the Post Office Department’s offer to handle such philatelic mail. Included in the test, when weather permitted, was helicopter mail