On 08 Dec 2003 23:23:12 GMT, (OXMORON1) wrote:

The mail/supplies in the bucket trick goes back farther than that. IIRC the
"bucket trick" was the inspiration for the AC-47 development for holding the
fire on the target in a steep banked turn.

In addition to the Amazon, the technique was used by missionaries in Borneo,
both sometime in the late twenties or early thirties.


There's at least one on-line ref to a basket of eggs being delivered
this way in 1939, so it was probably done quite a few years before
that. I would think the technique grew out of all of the multiple
experimentations in the 1920s for dropping off air mail without
landing.

John Hairell )