Monday, October 19, 2009

Stamps of earlier posts



My collection is spread over a large number of albums, sheets, packets, display cards etc and I have been trying to get the material into some order and scan for uploading on future blogs.  I found that I have several stamps of previous posts.  So here are some of the scans.


Souvenir sheets issued  to commemorate 75th Anniversary of the first powered flight by the Wright Brothers.






Gabon


Ghana

 

Togo

 

se-tenant pair of stamps  issued by the US

 
Stamp showing Bleriot & his plane issued by Romania in the Aviation history set in 1978

 


Republic of Equatorial Guinea 
 

Otto Lilienthal Stamps

Czechoslovakia - part of a set issued in 1977 to promote PRAGA 78
 
Part of the Romania History of Aviation issue of 1978

 

Part of the Zaire issue to commemorate 75th anniversary of powered flight.
Stamp also shows Leonardo da Vinci and his sketches for flying vessels

 


 



Upper Volta


Zaire's issue to commemorate conquest of Air shows the Wright Flyer and 
Santos-Dumont's bis-14

 

Monday, October 5, 2009

Pioneers of Aviation 1900-10

During the years 1900 - 1910 a number of inventors made or claimed to have made short flights.

One of those who missed the record books was Jacob Christian Ellehammer, as Danish engineer and inventor, whose kite like bi-plane flew a distance of 137 feet at a height of about 20 ins off the ground at Lindholm Island in September, 1906.  The 'flight' was most probably a series of hopping glides, but had it been officially witnessed and recorded, Ellehammer may well have been the first to fly an aeroplane in Europe.  That distinction was won by Santos-Dumont a month later!

Stamp issued  by Denmark in 1956 to mark the 50th anniversary of J.C. Ellehammer's flight.


Ellehammer's later inventions included a successful triplane and helicopter. His helicopter was a coaxial machine. A famous photo shows it hovering in 1914, though there is no evidence that it was successful in achieving translational flight.


1914 photo of Ellehammer's coaxial helicopter hovering