Huff-Daland D-49 (restoration)       Huff, Daland Dusters

                                 
      
                                     The father of once mighty Delta Airlines (still mighty, but teetering on the edge of bankruptcy) was
                                     Collett E. Woolman.  Woolman had graduated with a degree in agriculture and joined Huff-Daland
                                     Dusters, the world's first commercial crop dusting organization as operations manager.  The company
                                     was so named since it operated special crop dusting aircraft built by the Huff-Daland Mfg Co of
                                     Ogdensburg N.Y.  The aircraft featured above was a restoration produced after WW II for Delta
                                     Airlines. Woolman, as COO, moved the base of operations from Louisiana to Macon, Georgia in 1925
                                     and was engaged in primarily spraying for boll weevil, the scourge of the cotton fields.   Whilst dusting
                                     in Peru during the northern hemisphere's winter months,  Woolman first visualized the future of passenger
                                     service by air.   In fact, he inaugurated the first services between Peru and Ecuador in 1927.  (This line
                                     was later sold to Panagra).   Upon returning to the U.S. he quit Huff-Daland to form his own airline
                                     company, Delta Air Service.   Incidentally, Delta was still in the crop dusting business as late as 1966.