Western Air Express

Air Classics, Mar 2000 by Reed, Boardman C

ONE OF AMERICA'S PIONEERING AIRLINES, THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES THE MANY TYPES OF AIRCRAFT OPERATED -SOME VERY BRIEFLY - BY WESTERN AIR EXPRESS UP THROUGH 1941

Western Air Express was incorporated on 13 July 1925, by a group of Los Angeles businessmen to bid for the new Air Mail route being offered by the US Post Office Department. The route was between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. This was granted in November of 1925 as CAMA (Contract Air Mail route #4). Harris M. Hanshue was the founder and first president of Western Air Express, with the help of Harry Chandler of the Los Angeles Times, William Garland, a prominent realtor; and James Talbot, head of Richfield Oil.

Major Corliss C. Moseley also assisted. He raised money and recruited several aviators from his 115th Observation Squadron, California National Guard, at Griffith Park, Los Angeles (recently moved in January 1925 from Clover Field, Santa Monica, where it had been activated on 16 June 1924). Fred W. Kelly become WAE's first pilot on 1 December 1925 and was Western's Chief Pilot for many years. Completing the original "Four Horsemen" were Charles N. "Jimmy" James, Al DeGarmo, and Maurice 'Maury" Graham - all from the 115th,

Survey flights soon began, using three old de Havilland DH-4Bs purchased from the US Air Mail Service, learning landmarks, becoming friendly with ranchers, and checking out emergency landing sites and refueling facilities over their long route across the deserts and mountains via Las Vegas,

As an aside, the 11 5th Observation Squadron had a Douglas 0-2C USAAC s/n 26-8 (a near duplicate of the M-2 mail planes), two Consolidated PT-1s, and six rebuilt and "standardized" Curtiss JN Jennys at that time.. and the squadron's Regular Army Instructor also had DH-413- 1 s/n 68208 assigned to him at the small Griffith Park Airport. The possibility exists that Major Corliss C. Moseley, the squadron commander (who also happened to be the Vice President of Western Air Express) might have authorized "training cross-country" flights that paralleled the routes Western was surveying. It would have been to everyone's advantage, with no harm done, all the way around. There is, of course, no known basis for such a supposition.

The Los Angeles 'Terminal" was on the Vail Ranch where OLD San Gabriel Boulevard and the Rio Hondo Arroyo (or "deep dry riverbed") went through the Whittier Narrows between Montebello and the La Puente Hills, about ten miles east of downtown Los Angeles. It was called Vail Field (not to be confused with the later Vail Field of 1945, less than a mile northeast, from which I once flew a Ryan B-5, and other old airplanes). Old Vail Field was merely hard dirt, a lightly oiled runway, and unfenced, so I could ride down on my bicycle, and wander around the planes and hangars of "The Los Angeles Terminal" at my leisure! Those halcyon days are gone forever. WAE inaugural services began on 17 April 1926 with the rugged Douglas M-2s,

On Tuesday, 20 Sepfember 1927, when 14 years old, I saw Lindbergh at Vail Field in his Ryan Spirit of St. Louis on his 48-state Tour. Dad got me out of the old San Marino Grammar School and drove me down in our dark blue 1926 Jordan "8" sedan. I remember seeing the Ryan's silver wing beyond thousands of old automobiles and lots of dust that warm day.

In 1929, Western Air Express moved its terminal up to the new Alhambra Airport, on the south side of Valley Boulevard, where I had a 20-minute flight for five dollars in a new Western Air Express Fokker F- 10, NC5358 c/n 1002 WAE fleet #103, on Sunday, 28 July 1929 ... my 16th birthday present. Our captain was H. "Bart' Cox. Many such flights were often flown on sunny Sundays to gain public acceptance.

A decade later, long after WAE had disposed of all Fokker airplanes and moved to Burbank.. I had a tenminute flight in a one-time Western Fokker Super Universal NC99K c/n 861 ex-WAE fleet #214, on Sunday 7 May 1939, also at the old Alhambra Airport. I flew it most of the flight.

Later in 1939,1 learned that an exWAE Douglas M-4 biplane was still flying at Speer Field, San Diego. On 2 December, I had a 20-minute flight in an ex-Post Office Department "large-- wing" Douglas M-4 mail-plane, with three tandem open-cockpits. The craft was NC 1475 c/n 338 with the nameplate date 10-26-1926. The biplane was ex-WAE fleet #8. In 1940, Western thoughtfully bought it back, later painted the registration " C 150" of its first M-2 and now it is in Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum at Washington, D.C., in original Western Air Express markings.

Other Western Air Express ships in which I have flown include ex-WAE fleet #204, an open-cockpit Stearman C-313 biplane registered NC8820, c/n 235, for a flight total of 45 minutes on 4 July 1936, and also on 15 January 1938 when I flew it solo from the old Foothill Field, Monrovia, southern California, through scattered rain clouds up to 7500 feet attitude, over and around Mt. Wilson and the observatories (57 10-foot elevation) above Pasadena. Wouldn't that make a beautiful picture!