20th Anniversary is a special one

On December 1, 1948, hundreds gathered at Miami International Airport to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Eastern Air Lines — which had begun operations as Pitcairn Aviation in 1928.

The celebration was especially festive, as it also marked the inauguration of nonstop Miami–New York service aboard one of EAL’s new Lockheed Constellations.

But the highlight of the day was a surprise presentation to EAL founder and president, Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, by a group of veteran Eastern pilots: a restored Pitcairn PA-5 Mailwing — the very type of aircraft first used by Pitcairn Aviation to carry Air Mail from Miami to Atlanta and onward to New York. Contract Air Mail Route 25 (CAM 25) had been inaugurated from Miami’s new Municipal Airport on December 1, 1928.

The open-cockpit biplane had recently been rediscovered — abandoned and deteriorating in an overgrown field near Belle Glade, about 80 miles north of Miami — where it had last seen service as a crop duster. Eastern’s longtime pilots underwrote the cost of restoring the aircraft and presented it to Rickenbacker during the anniversary ceremonies.

Deeply moved, Rickenbacker announced that the Mailwing would become the nucleus of an aviation museum he hoped to establish in Miami, preserving aircraft and artifacts from the early air mail era. Acting Miami Postmaster Samuel R. Valliere even announced he would contribute the original 1928 Ford mail truck as a companion exhibit.

Although the proposed Miami museum never materialized, the aircraft itself was preserved. In 1957, Rickenbacker donated it to the National Air and Space Museum, where it remains today.

At left: December 1, 1948: Rickenbacker thanks the EAL pilots who presented him with the first aircraft ever to be flown by the airline, a Pitcairn Mailwing PA-5. Earlier in the day, the most recent addition to EAL’s fleet, the Lockheed Constellation, had been christened with a bottle of Champagne to celebrate the start of nonstop service between Miami and New York. Photo courtesy americanairmailsociety.org, Issue 4, January 1949.