The Boyhood of an Inventor - Early Television Foundation

performance of the flying equipment, and still
others like Mr. C. Townsend Ludington, of Phila
delphia, with no immediate interest, perhaps, but
who may have been studying the feasibility of the
New York Philadelphia Washington passenger air
line which he later established (1930), and which was
so well thought out in advance that it broke all
passenger-carrying records from the take-off of the
very first ship. And there was Col. I.E. Dains, come
simply to see his friend succeed 100 per cent in what
many called a very doubtful experiment.
On a table in headquarters the night mail route
had been marked by a tape, to represent the course
from one terminal to the other. As the reports of
the passing of the ships were received from observa
tion stations color-headed pins would be moved from
point to point along the tape. Observing the advance
of these pins the excited watchers followed the move
ment of the eastbound and westbound mail through
the night. As each approached Omaha, the mid
point of flight, all would tumble into the automobile
and hasten to the field.
The party would be no more than outside the city
boundary before the night-piercing beam of the ro
tating beacon would be seen sweeping across the sky.
Arriving at the field, everyone began watching toward
the east and toward the west for the tiny wing lights
which each plane carried.
Presently from the beacon tower platform would
come a voice "Mail," followed by excited field
activity. The big beacon light was turned off; the
field flood-lights turned on; and the mail truck made
ready to run out to receive the Omaha mail when
the plane came in. Then presently out of the dark
into the field would glide this new thing, the nightflying
mail, with all the importance of a living soul.
Whether the west-bound or the east-bound mail
came in first could not always be determined, so
nearly exactly were the flying times. But many a
calculating glance at the wind-sock was made in an
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