Christopher V. Pickup: PILOT IN 1919 HOUDINI MOVIE & U S AIR MAIL SERVICE PILOT

Description

Christopher V. Pickup: PILOT IN 1919 HOUDINI MOVIE & U S AIR MAIL SERVICE PILOT
A signed air mail envelope, approximately 4" X 6.75", bearing a clear cachet: "FIRST FLIGHT * KALAMZOO, MICH * JULY 17. 1926 * AIR MAIL CAM 27 * BAY CITY - CHICAGO"
and the appropriate KALAMAZOO cancellation. Backstamped BAY CITY, MICH and BOSTON, MASS, both on July 17, 1926. Perfect!
PICKUP, Christopher Vern. PILOT IN A 1919 HOUDINI MOVIE AND U. S. AIR MAIL SERVICE PILOT.
(1896- ). SGT, 4th Cavalry (1913-14); USAS flight instruction (1916); Langley Field VA (1917); 2nd LT and flight instructor (1918-19); Durant Aircraft Co.; pilot for Cecil B. DeMille films (1919-20); flew in the Harry Houdini movie The Grim Game, colliding with David E. Thompson while Robert E. Kennedy hung suspended on a rope below Pickup's aircraft. The props of both planes were shattered in a collision and both pilots were able to land their damaged planes, Kennedy, miraculously, suffering only bruises and abrasions being dragged along the ground during the landing (1919); U. S. Air Mail Service pilot (1920-21); appointed 8-25-1920 and assigned at Cheyenne WY (1920-21); he was apparently separated for not returning from leave (1921); Mercury Aviation, Los Angeles; Mexican Aerial Transport Corp. (1921-22); his request for reinstatement in the U. S. Air Mail Service was declined at the suggestion of the USAMS chief pilot (1924); FBO at Hoover Field Washington DC (1925-26); flew air mail for Clifford Ball, CAM 11 and Thompson Aeronautical Corp. on CAM 27 (1928); Transport Pilot rating no. 735 (1928); USMCR; air mail pilot for Boeing Air Transport (1927-40); his plane caught fire on an emergency landing at Elm Creek NE while flying CAM 18, Chicago-San Francisco (1929); member of the "Caterpillar Club" after abandoning an aircraft over Pittsburgh PA (1930); United Air Lines captain (1940- ).
U. S. AIR MAIL SERVICE pilot signatures are very difficult to find. There were not many of them during the 1918-1927 time of the Service and many of their careers were cut short by injuries and death.
DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN U. S. AIR MAIL SERVICE PILOTS AND CONTRACT AIR MAIL PILOTS?
The U. S. Air Mail Service was formed as a branch of the Post Office Department under the Second Assistant Postmaster General in 1918 and flew air mail until it was disbanded in 1927. There weren't very many of them and the lives of many of them were cut short! The movement of air mail was placed in the hands of contractors in the later twenties. They were two distinct groups of aviators and flew under distinctly different circumstances. What makes the pilots of the U.S. Air Mail Service so interesting to us even today, more than ninety years after the service was disbanded? The answer lies in the kind of men they were, in their acceptance of significant risk in every undertaking, and their single-minded focus on a career in aviation. These men were to the children of the twenties what astronauts were to us in the sixties, railroad engineers were to the children of the nineteenth century and explorers were to still earlier generations. Their lives simply reeked of adventure! When pilots signed up for the Air Mail Service they were required to agree to fly fixed routes in literally any kind of weather. And to do it in antiquated open-cockpit planes with only the most basic of instrumentation, which most knew from their Great War flying to be dangerous under the best of circumstances. In the DH, for instance, the placement of fuel tank, pilot and engine assured that the pilot would be incinerated in any significant crash or nose-over. The hot engine drove the fuel tank into the cockpit and fire exploded the escaping vaporized fuel. Yet applications far, far outnumbered the available jobs and the pilots, day after day, accepted their flight schedules and did everything in their power to deliver the mail to the next air mail field on a fixed schedule. By the time air mail flying was placed in the hands of contractors and Contract Air Mail pilots were licensed by the Post Office Department, things had changed dramatically for pilots. Aircraft were purpose-built for air mail, radio had been introduced, weather was much better understood, pilots were carefully selected and trained and the risks of flying were better understood by the executives managing the air mail routes.
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This is part of my personal collection of over 2500 aviation autographs dating from the very earliest days of aviation. The collection includes many, many air mail pilots, record holders, aviation personalities, military/naval aviators from 1914 through Vietnam, etc.  All are in excellent condition unless otherwise noted and all are authentic.
The items I'm selling on eBay are from my own collection that I've been selling since my retirement.
All autographs will be mailed by First Class Mail with Delivery Confirmation.
Larger items will be mailed by appropriate USPS mailing. Tracking numbers are available on all shipments.
I accept PayPal and adhere to their requirements that all PayPal orders be mailed with
online and only to confirmed addresses.
Autographs are weatherproofed and mailed in heavily reinforced padded envelopes with stiff corrugated board for rotection
!
I guarantee all the items in my collection to be authentic. I will pay the return postage on any item that is found not to be authentic.  All returns must of course be in the condition in which they were mailed
.
DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN U. S. AIR MAIL SERVICE PILOTS AND CONTRACT AIR MAIL PILOTS?
The U. S. Air Mail Service was formed as a branch of the Post Office Department under the Second Assistant Postmaster General in 1918 and flew air mail until it was disbanded in 1927. There weren't very many of them and the lives of many of them were cut short! The movement of air mail was placed in the hands of contractors in the later twenties. They were two distinct groups of aviators and flew under distinctly different circumstances. What makes the pilots of the U.S. Air Mail Service so interesting to us even today, almost ninety years after the service was disbanded? The answer lies in the kind of men they were, in their acceptance of significant risk in every undertaking, and their single-minded focus on a career in aviation. These men were to the children of the twenties what astronauts were to us in the sixties, railroad engineers were to the children of the nineteenth century and explorers were to still earlier generations. Their lives simply reeked of adventure! When pilots signed up for the Air Mail Service they were required to agree to fly fixed routes in literally any kind of weather. And to do it in antiquated open-cockpit planes with only the most basic of instrumentation, which most knew from their Great War flying to be dangerous under the best of circumstances. In the DH, for instance, the placement of fuel tank, pilot and engine assured that the pilot would be incinerated in any significant crash or nose-over. The hot engine drove the fuel tank into the pilot's lap and heat and fire exploded the escaping vaporized fuel. Yet applications far, far outnumbered the available jobs and the pilots, day after day, accepted their flight schedules and did everything in their power to deliver the mail to the next air mail field on a fixed schedule. By the time air mail flying was placed in the hands of contractors and Contract Air Mail pilots were licensed by the Post Office Department the things had changed dramatically for pilots. Aircraft were purpose-built for air mail, radio had been introduced, weather was much better understood, pilots were carefully selected and trained and the risks of flying were better understood by the executives managing the air mail routes.
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