Less than a generation after the Wright Brothers flight, aviation played an important role in World War I and was ready to soar faster and farther in more peaceful skies. Entrepreneur Walter T. Varney launched his air mail operation April 6, 1926, marking the true beginning of commercial aviation in the United States. Because Varney was a predecessor of United, it also marked the birth of the airline.

The Early Years of Commercial Aviation...

Pilot Leon Cuddeback's historic flight for Walter T. Varney's airline on April 6, 1926, was only the start of a chain of developments in aviation that electrified the United States from the mid-1920s through the mid-1930s.

It was during this decade - - on May 20, 1927 - - that young Charles Lindbergh aroused the world's imagination with his courageous solo flight across the Atlantic in his tiny Ryan M-1 monoplane. During this decade, too, several U.S. aviation giants rose to prominence.

Among them were William Boeing, with his aircraft manufacturing and airline operations in the West, and Clement Keys and his National Air Transport associates in the East. There also was Vern Gorst, the venturesome entrepreneur whose Pacific Air Transport traversed the skies between Los Angeles and Seattle; and Walter Varney founder of the United predecessor company that launched the first U.S. commercial air transport company to survive and evolve as today's global airline - United.

But they were not alone. Also among aviation's pioneers were the adventurous travelers who dared to use the new mode of transportation. Sitting with mail sacks in cramped cabins, with neither heat in winter nor air conditioning in the summer, these hardy souls endured the discomforts of air travel until bigger and more comfortable air transports came on the scene.

With the advent of larger aircraft, such as the Boeing and Ford trimotors, came stewardess service. Boeing Air Transport traffic manager, Steve Stimpson, took the suggestion of nurse Ellen Church. He proposed that nurses serve coffee and sandwiches and minister to the comfort of apprehensive flyers.

On May 15,1930, Boeing Air Transport - - one of United's predecessor subsidiaries - - introduced the world's first stewardess service. The idea was such a success that stewardesses quickly became a fixture of commercial air travel. Church was the world's first stewardess.