TOCANTINS ROUTE

The Route

The Military Air Post was created in 1031 and 10 years later changed it´s name to National Air Post (Correio Aéreo nacional - CAN), being known and reminded in the whole country until nowadays. All the flights started in Rio de Janeiro, and many routes were done by it´s pilots - the Tocantins Route being the most important. To reconstitute this route and tell the story of these pilots, very important to the central region of the country, the book "Roteiro do Tocantins" wroten by liutenant Lysias Rodrigues in 1931 was used. His book describes the challenge of the new route creation and the first flight at november 14, 1935, from Rio de Janeiro to Pará, passing through Luziânia, Formosa, cavalcante, Peixe, Patanã, Porto Nacional, Tocantínia, Pedro Afonso, Carolina, Tocantinópolis, Imperatriz, Marabá, Tucuruí, Baião, Cametá and Belém.

Cities Rio de Janeiro São Paulo Pirassununga Ribeirão Preto Uberaba Araguari Ipameri Luziania Brasília Formosa Alto Paraiso de Goiás Cavalcante Paranã Porto Nacional Tocantinia Pedro Afonso Carolina Tocantinópolis Imperatriz Marabá Tucuruí Baião Cametá Belém

The original project, which resulted in the book "Nas Asas do Correio Aéreo" have been splited in 3 stages. In the first, Tania Carvalho and the pilot Tadeu Gobbi landed at every citty of the route, serching for CAN´s memories in books, intervews and people stories. Most of them brought back names, dates and facts, like if CAN´s pilots were landing there until today. They proved that the history was still alive and deserved to be telled. The photographer Lalo de Almeida started then his first pictures session: one month on board of the Maule (a monomotor aircraft), showing the view that those CAN´s pilots had at that time - from the air and from the small cities they passed, sleeped and keeped relationship with the local population. From this session we have fantastic pictures like Chapada dos Veadeiros. And Lalo de Almeida and Tadeu Gobbi prepared themselves to the third and most important phase of their adventure: to reconstitute with the Steraman and a second airplane, the Maule, the Tocantins Route.

Iso Bacaleinick, a pilot and the main project idealizer, took off from Campo dos Afonsos in Rio de Janeiro, the Aviation School at 30´s, and made many flights around the city. This was the travel introduction, in april. The flight through the country started in June, in a "war operation" which nedded some support from FAB (Brazilian Air Force) many times. Traveling for long distances through the center of Brazil needed a complex strategig plan, since the autonomy of the small red plane allows a 2,5 hours flight only and spare parts can´t be found nowadays. They had some despair moments, with small acidents and magic solutions.

During the mission, Lysias Rodrigues was accompanied by sargent Soriano Bastos. The tavel took 4 days, both facing storms and forced lands, watching runways being cleared with large knifes just in time to land. The airplane was a Waco CSO, one engine, two wings and two cockpits. The cargo rak was small just enough to accomodate their luggage, since they could flight with jacks but needed to bring nice uniforms and boots used by militar people at that time when landed. Nevertheless, since it was a National Air Post mission, the first in a region without any kind of comunication, they brought a lot of newspapers, letters and magazines. And a good toolbox with all the spare parts to repair the engine or even the aitrcraft (canvas, tissue, scissors and needles) was also important.

Eduardo Gomes, the CAN creator, have been candidate to President for two elections. Today, Manaus International Airport has his name.