An unguided missile, launched from the ground and flying along a ballistic trajectory, can carry any payload. First of all, missiles with various warheads designed to defeat the enemy have become widespread. There were also many projects of this kind of transport systems. In particular, it was proposed to use the missiles for the transportation of postal items. Austrian engineers made a significant contribution to the development of this unusual idea. Inventors from this country have proposed and implemented several original projects in the past.
It should be noted that Austria does not belong to the primacy in the creation of the so-called. rocket mail. This option for the use of missiles was first proposed by the British. The garrisons and government agencies of Great Britain, operating on the Polynesian islands, at the end of the 19th century, adapted the Congreve combat missile to transport mail. However, the flight performance of such a mail delivery vehicle left much to be desired. Lack of accuracy could lead to a miss past the island and loss of correspondence. If the rocket fell to the ground, there was a risk of the most serious damage to the cargo. As a consequence, Congreve's mail rockets were not used for too long, and then returned to more conventional transport.
Friedrich Schmidl and his mail rocket. Photo Wirtschaft.graz.at
At the level of theory
Apparently, the Austrian experts knew about the original ideas of the British, but until a certain time did not show much interest in them. The situation began to change only in the late twenties, when the Austrian scientist Franz Heft, who was involved in the development of rocket technology, began to consider new options for its use.
In 1927-28, F. Heft gave several lectures, in which he proposed and theoretically substantiated the possibility of using unguided rockets in the transportation of small-sized mail items - letters, parcels and small parcels. Moreover, a preliminary version of the rocket project with the working name PH-IV was proposed for theoretical justification. Unfortunately, very little is known about this project. History has retained only the general features of the proposed rocket.
According to the available data, F. Heft proposed building a rocket with several stages, the number of which, however, is unknown. Several stages should have been given for the placement of engines operating sequentially and responsible for the output to the calculated trajectory. The upper stage was the cargo compartment and the payload in the form of mail should be placed in it. The cargo stage was supposed to have a means of safe return to the ground in the form of braking parachutes.
As far as we know, Franz Heft did not develop his project and turn theoretical calculations into a real structure. On the other hand, a substantiation of the possibility of using rocket technology in one of the most important industries appeared, which could not fail to attract the attention of specialists in several areas at once. However, this interest was limited. Despite the curiosity and many positive reviews, F. Heft's proposal did not interest the officials.
Friedrich Schmidl is the inventor of the first Austrian rocket mail system brought into service. Photo Wirtschaft.graz.at
From experimentation to exploitation
Project PH-IV by F. Heft did not go unnoticed. Among other specialists, the young engineer Friedrich Schmidl became interested in him. Even in his youth, before entering a technical university, he began to study rocket technology and even built his own small-sized products. An original proposal for the use of missiles in the postal field caught his attention. Soon F. Schmidl carried out the first real experiments in a new field.
Already in 1928, the designer built and tested the first version of his mail rocket. According to some sources, the first test launches using a weighing correspondence simulator were not always successful. However, in parallel, the design was being fine-tuned, and as a result, F. Schmidl was able to obtain the optimal version of the rocket that meets the requirements for it. Such work took several years. It should be noted that such terms of development and refinement of the project were associated not only with its complexity. In parallel with the rocket mail, F. Schmidl developed rockets for meteorological research, aerial photography, etc.
By the beginning of 1931, F. Schmidl's rocket mail was ready for the first launch with a real payload. The launches were planned to be carried out from a rocket position on the slope of Mount Schökl. It had launchers and structures for working with missiles. From the existing position, it was possible to send missiles to several nearby cities. It was assumed that the fallen missile would be found by local postmen, who then had to process and deliver the mail to the addressees.
The Schmidl mail rocket had a fairly simple design. She received a cylindrical body with a conical head fairing with a total length of about 1 m. In the tail section of the body there were three flat stabilizers that protruded beyond the bottom with a nozzle. Most of the rocket was occupied by a solid propellant engine. The head compartment had room for several kilograms of cargo. There was also a parachute for a soft landing and a simple radio control system that was responsible for its release.
Mail rocket in flight. Photo Wirtschaft.graz.at
On February 2, 1931, F. Schmidl sent a rocket with mail on board for the first time. More than a hundred letters were sent from Mount Schöckl to the town of Sankt Radegund bei Graz. The letters were sent in regular envelopes with Austrian stamps. However, on the latter, the inventor wrote by hand “Raketen Flugpost. Schmiedl”(“Rocket mail, Schmidl”) and put down the launch date. Now such envelopes and stamps are of particular interest to philatelists.
On command from the control panel, the engine was ignited, and the rocket headed towards the landing area. At the right time, a command was sent over the radio channel to deploy the parachute. The missile landed with almost no damage, and correspondence was extracted from it, which then went to the addresses. The flight range was only a few kilometers, but this launch clearly showed the fundamental possibility of using missiles for the rapid transportation of mail. The further development of rocketry as a whole made it possible to obtain long flight ranges, at which a mail rocket could have advantages over other transport.
In the same 1931, several new missile launches with mail were carried out along the same route. Rocket mail was liked by local residents, and in addition, it attracted the interest of people from other cities, regions and even countries. Letters were specially handed over to F. Schmidl, so that they flew on a rocket and turned into an interesting souvenir. It should be noted that this interest contributed to the further development of the project. Sending letters by rocket mail, of course, was not free, and the fees from clients were enough to fund the work. From a certain time, the project began to be supported by philatelic organizations interested in the emergence of new collection materials.
To the delight of philatelists, the inventor eventually stopped hand-inscribing existing stamps and issued his own payment signs. They were in the shape of a triangle, in which an eagle (the symbol of Austria) and a flying rocket were depicted. There was also the inscription Raketenflugpost in Oesterreich and the face value of the stamp. Stamps of different value differed from each other in the color of the paper and in different shades of blue paint.
Promising developments
Since 1931, F. Schmidl's rocket mail transported only letters and only along the route "Schöckl - St. Radegund". It was obvious that such operating features did not allow the full potential of the original idea to be realized. In this regard, the inventor, continuing to operate the existing missile "communication line", began to develop new ones.
Uncut sheet of Austrian Rocket Mail stamps. Photo Stampauctionnetwork.com
According to some reports, shortly after the first successful tests, F. Schmidl began working on the appearance of a promising mail rocket with increased characteristics. Such a product was supposed to fly farther, take on board more cargo and get into a given area with greater accuracy. Such a rocket might need new control systems, autonomous or remote. The improved rocket could find practical application and become a profitable alternative to other transport. With a reasonable ratio of range and carrying capacity, it was able to compete, for example, with cars.
Also, the issue of creating a new postal system on a national scale was being worked out. Throughout Austria, it was proposed to build rocket mail offices with launchers and other necessary equipment. Moreover, F. Schmidl planned to open the world's first international rocket mail line. It was supposed to connect Ljubljana (Slovenia), Graz (Austria) and Basel (Switzerland).
It should be recalled that by that time Austria and neighboring countries already had highly developed postal systems. The massive introduction and use of mail missiles could seriously affect their condition and capabilities. However, one should expect some specific problems directly related to the imperfection of the rocketry of that time.
Anti-missile laws
F. Schmidl's rocket mail continued until 1934-35. During this period, the enthusiastic designer faced new legal problems, and therefore was forced to stop working. The missile mail was hit in succession with two serious blows, which prevented it from continuing its activities as it was.
An envelope that has been on board the Schmidl rocket. Photo Luna-spacestamps.de
First, the Austrian state post filed claims against Schmidl's company. The inventor's private firm issued its own marks, and this was considered a violation of the law. While the inventor was trying to deal with such a problem, legislators created a new one. Civilians and commercial organizations were banned from working with explosives, including solid rocket fuel. To avoid a very harsh punishment, F. Schmidl and his colleagues had to destroy all fuel supplies, as a result of which the assembly of new missiles was impossible.
In this situation, the activities of the "Raketenflugpost in Oesterreich" could only continue in the structure of the state post office and with the participation of any defense enterprise authorized to work with rocket fuel. However, the post was not interested in the development of F. Schmidl and continued to use the existing vehicles.
This is where the history of the Austrian rocket mail actually ended. Friedrich Schmidl continued to work in the field of missiles, but now he was forced to limit himself to theoretical research. Also, from a certain time he was engaged in engineering and technology in other areas, including road transport, shipbuilding, aviation, etc.
End of story
After 1935, there was no hope of reopening. And soon the final and fatal blow was dealt to the original designs. In March 1938, Nazi Germany occupied Austria. Fearing that his developments would fall into the hands of the invaders and find application in the military sphere, F. Schmidl was forced to destroy all the documentation he had on rocketry projects. Along with other papers, calculations and drawings of mail missiles were destroyed, as well as the remaining equipment for their operation.
A few years later, F. Schmidl was sent to the front as a military engineer. After World War II, he returned home and continued his work in the design field. It is curious that his pre-war developments were not forgotten. So, in the late forties, the inventor was invited to the United States for further work on the topic of rocket mail. However, he did not accept the invitation and remained at home. Moreover, he almost completely abandoned any research and projects in the field of missiles.
Paraguay stamp 1984, dedicated to the Austrian inventor F. Schmidl. Photo Wikimedia Commons
Friedrich Schmidl passed away on September 11, 1994. After his death, the public organization Friedrich Schmiedl Foundation was founded in Graz, the purpose of which was to promote the development of communications in the region. With the direct support of this fund, several important infrastructure projects of various kinds have been carried out. However, they had nothing to do with the rocket mail developed by F. Schmidl.
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Austrian missile mail projects, proposed in the twenties and thirties of the last century, could not interest official structures and were developed exclusively by the forces of enthusiasts. One might get the impression that the reason for this was the inertness and retrogradeness of the responsible persons, who did not want to master the new technique and held on to the available transport with all their might. Nevertheless, the rejection of the massive use of mail missiles had quite real reasons.
In fact, the only advantage of a mail rocket over traditional vehicles, regardless of its flight performance, is the speed of cargo delivery. Due to high-speed flight along a ballistic trajectory, it is able to get to the right place in the shortest possible time. However, this is also associated with a number of characteristic shortcomings, many of which at the time of F. Schmidl were fundamentally unavoidable.
First of all, mail delivery by rocket turns out to be quite expensive. If you simplify and reduce the cost of such transport, then its characteristics may suffer. The second significant problem of missiles of that time was the lack of full-fledged control systems and, as a result, low firing accuracy and unreliability of the main devices. As a result, the rocket could not only descend by parachute into the field, but also simply fall on the roof to the venerable burgher. As a result, the lack of reliability was combined with a danger to the population.
In the early thirties, F. Schmidl and his colleagues simply could not rid their invention of such shortcomings. Because of this, their missile system had no real chance of becoming a full-fledged competitor to traditional ground mail. Later, after several decades, the necessary technologies and devices were created, but by this time the idea of rocket mail had actually been forgotten. Now the inventions of Franz Heft, Friedrich Schmidl and their colleagues are reminded only of individual written sources, as well as surviving envelopes and special stamps, for which philatelists hunt with great interest.
