By the way, do you know about the series of articles my grandfather wrote on the first airmail pilots? He was a rare earths miner who won and lost fortunes from Alaska to Central America but, when he wasn’t prospecting, he was a newspaperman writing about early pilots and about the desert where he traveled with his burros.
http://www.iment.com/maida/family/father/jackbell/pioneerpilots.htm
Thanks - I’ll give it a read. I’ve read stories about those early airmail pilots.