Aerial Mail at Sea - 1920 - How Mail is Dropped on Liners by Airplanes

The above illustration graphically portrays and describes the remarkable feat of an airplane dropping a mail sack on an ocean liner at sea, while both craft are in motion, as performed by Pilot C. J. Zimmerman and a mechanic in a U. S. mail aeromarine boat, when a pouch was delivered to the White Star liner Adriatic. The flying boat left New York an hour and a half after the liner had departed, and, in spite of bad weather, overtook the speeding leviathan in an hour and forty-five minutes. The mail pouches used for this purpose are watertight and unsinkable

1. 1st Position: Plane encircling ship as preliminary warning.
2. 2nd Position: Steel Cable is running out (Let out from the plane)
3. 3rd Position:
   1. Cable 200 feet long dragging across liners Forestay
   2. Tail of 7 strands each weighted by bag containing 16 lbs lead shot
   3. Swinging weights entangle rail around fore-stay
4. 4th Position:
   1. Pull of Cable withdrawing mailbag from case
      1. Cable contains 1 large and 2 small rubber shock absorbers.
      2. Continuous cable in case rubbers break
   2. Mailbag falling into sea. It weighs 100 pounds, is waterproof and specially strengthened to withstand the strain
5. Mailbag is hauled on board by the cable.

Source: Illustrated World, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2, April 1920, Page 294. Published in Chicago, IL