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The entire flight lasted just 13 minutes and he set down without mishap, delivering the bag of mail with some fanfare. In all, it was a distance of just 10 kilometers. Photo Credit: Auktionshaus Christoph Gärtner GmbH & Co. One of the rare original air mail letters from the first flight out of Allahabad, India. Thus, on February 18, 1911, he took a flight that carried 6,500 letters from Allahabad across a river to the town of Naini. Down in Allahabad, local sponsors thought it a good idea to fly a special air mail as a matter of promotion. The aircraft he was flying at the time was a Sommer “Humbert” with a 50 hp engine.

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Over the three years that followed, he grew to be an excellent pilot and had slowly advanced in his skills in parallel with the developments in French aviation at the time.įinally, in early 1911, he traveled to British administered India for a series of exhibition flights. He was soon licensed in France and traveling on behalf of the Voisin Company undertaking flying exhibitions. Henri Péquet was an Argentinian-born Frenchman who learned to fly with the Voisin Company in Mourmelon during 1908. Henri Péquet in the Sommer biplane prepares to depart on the first air mail flight. Who was first? It is a matter of judgment, but in any case, the long tradition of flying the mail has been in nearly continuous practice ever since. The event was unlikely not because it was particularly difficult, but rather because unknown to one another, there were two simultaneous air mail flights in two different parts of the world. On this date in aviation history, on February 18, 1911, a very unlikely event took place - the first air mail flown by a fixed-wing, heavy than air aircraft was flown.

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