September 5, 1918, the Post-Office Department started the first pathfinding mail service between New York, Cleveland, Chicago. Mr. Max Miller was scheduled to leave Belmont Park, Long Island, at 6 A. M., but owing to a storm and the breaking of a tail-skid he did not leave until 7.08 A. M. After flying through a fog he landed at Danville, N. Y., 155 miles from New York City, and after getting his bearings Lieutenant Miller next landed at Lock Haven, Pa., because his engine was missing. At 11.45 A. M. he left for Cleveland. But the fog continued, and he finally was forced to land in Cambridge, Pa., owing to a leaking radiator. After some delay he flew to Cleveland, but owing to the darkness he had to remain there overnight. At 1.35 P. M. Lieutenant Miller left for Bryon, which he reached and left at 4.35 P. M., and he arrived at Grant Park at 6.55 P. M. The distance was 727 miles in a direct line. On his return trip he left Chicago on September 10 at 6.26 A. M. with 3,000 pieces of mail, and he landed at Cleveland, and leaving there at 4.30 P. M., reached Lock Haven, Pa., that night. He left there on September 10 at 7.20, and reached Belmont Park at 11.22 A. M. Mr. Edward V. Gardner left Belmont Park at 8.50 A. M., Thursday, September 5, 1918, two hours after Max Miller had started in a Curtiss R. plane, with a Liberty motor, taking Mr. Radel as mechanic, and carrying three pouches of mail, containing about 3,000 letters. Gardner landed at Bloomburg, Pa., near Lock Haven. He reached Cleveland before dark, and after spending the night there, on September 6 Mr. Gardner left Cleveland and landed at Bryon at 5.15 P. M., leaving there for Chicago at 5.50 P. M., but was compelled to land at Westville, Ind. He left there the next morning and reached Grant Park, Chicago, at 7.30 A. M. On his return trip Mr. Gardner flew from Chicago to New York in one day, September 10. Leaving at 6.25 A. M., he landed at Cleveland, Lock Haven, and landed at Hicksville, Long Island, in the dark. The record non-stop for the 727 miles between the two, Chicago and New York, was made by the army pilot Captain E. F. White in six hours and fifty minutes, on April 19, 1919, flying a D. H. 4 army plane. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Aerial Age Weekly._ The pathfinding aerial mail flight, New York-Cleveland-Chicago. Max Miller starting in a Standard Aircraft plane equipped with a 150 h.-p. Hispano-Suiza motor.] On May 15, 1919, the postal authorities intended to inaugurate aero mail service between New York and Chicago, but owing to the fact that some of the machines which were being renovated from war-machines to mail-machines were not ready, that branch of the service had to be postponed for a few days.