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THE POSTMASTER GENERAL
Washington, DC 20260

February 8, 1980

Dear Mrs. Junkin:

I am writing in response to your letter of January 23 concerning the biplane depicted on our Commercial Aviation commemorative stamp.

Your letter prompted a careful review of the research materials assembled when our stamp was being designed and I am happy to tell you that the biplane on the stamp is a Laird Swallow. The interesting thing about it is the fact that it doesn't look like a Swallow as that airplane is remembered. The story is an interesting one and, as an aviation pioneer, you will appreciate it.

The Swallow Airplane Company introduced the airplane with an OX-5 powerplant that was cooled by a radiator slung between the landing gear struts. This is the way the Swallow was delivered to Varney Air Lines in 1926 as it prepared to fly the mail.

Varney made its first airmail flight on April 6, 1926. The route was Tasco, Washington, to Boise, Idaho. Newspaper photographs made at Tasco just before takeoff show clearly that the aircraft was configured as shown on our stamp. (Look closely at the stamp and you can see the radiator properly positioned.)

The first mail flight proved the OX-5 too weak for a Swallow flown in mountainous terrain and Varney grounded its aircraft until more powerful engines could be installed. Other users of Swallows soon followed suit with the result that the aircraft is remembered with a radial engine and, of course, without a radiator.

The Swallow as pictured on our stamp certainly resembles a WACO-9, but there are important differences. In addition to the absence of the WACO 9's between-the-wings radiator, the empennage is quite different. The leading edge of the vertical fin of the Swallow was straight as opposed to the curved leading edge of the same component on the WACO 9. (This is very apparent on the enclosed copy of a photograph published by the New York Times in 1976