Stamps That Tell a Story
Wave soaring and the altitude records of Bill Ivans set in 1950 over Bishop, California.
The San Marino Post Office issued a set of three stamps in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of gliding and soaring in Italy showing a Caproni-Vizzola Calif A-21 sailplane superimposed on different stylised air currents. The postage stamp shown below could indicate the ‘laminar’ air flow of the atmospheric wave currents. This A-21/A-21J sailplane, according to the manufacturer, was to be the “dream ship that came true,” it is spacious and curvaceous, and was produced in both, unpowered and jet-powered versions.
Sweden Post issued a set of four coil stamps showing different cloud formations, seen over their country during the year. A typical wave cloud, as it is seen in many parts of the world, is shown on the 5.20 krona value we have featured.
Although much of the wave flying in Sweden is done by taking off from frozen lakes during the winter, glider pilots take advantage of this cloud formation from October through March and early April. The current Scandinavian altitude record was set by Per Fornander flying a standard Jantar on March 19, 1986, with a total altitude of 10,200m (33,466ft) and an altitude gained of 9,600m (31,497ft).
The souvenir sheet of poster stamps shows six different designs printed in four colours. It is not known how many sheets were printed and how many were sold, but they are not very common today. The British Gliding Association, full of ideas as usual, produced a set of gliding stamps with the aim of increasing public knowledge and enthusiasm for our movement. It was hoped that readers of their magazine (Sailplane & Gliding) would realise that if sufficient interest was created with people collecting the full set of postage stamps it would help the sport and promote gliding internationally. Accordingly it was suggested that everyone should buy a set and attach them to their Christmas letters. It was hoped that once the craze started there would be a snowball effect.
One of these vignettes, shown above at the top right, features the Schweizer SGS 1–23 in which William S. Ivans flew two world records on December 30, 1950. The altitude gained above release was 9,174m (30,100ft) and the absolute altitude was 12,831m (42,100ft).
This flight was above the Owens Valley, near Bishop, California, USA, in strong wave updrafts formed in the lee of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Bill and his all metal 1–23 is also shown on the cover of a 1953 Flying magazine (see below left).
The historical development of utilising the meteorological phenomena by glider pilots was discussed in detail by Wolf Hirth in his booklet Mit dem Segelflugzeug in die Stratosphäre. (Above right.) He writes that these still not understood air currents can only be explained by soaring pilots
Much of the early scientific wave exploration was in the early 1950s in the Sierra Wave in California. On June 15, the National Soaring Museum (Harris Hill, Elmira, New York) are dedicating its 12th National Landmark of Soaring at Bishop, California (see also Bertha M. Ryan’s The Gathering of Eagles.)
A bronze plaque [was] erected at the Bishop Airport to honour the contribution to the sport of soaring by participants of the Sierra Wave Project. Several of the original participants [were] at this historic event.
©2002 Simine Short
Resources
Note: we have provided Ms. Short’s original references, only one of which we were able to provide find a current link. But perhaps your search skills are better than ours and you can track these related works. — Ed.
- Bertha M. Ryan’s The Gathering of Eagles originally publishing in Gliding magazine.
- Algotson, Rolf and Yngve Norrvi (1984). Segelflyg i Lävågor Published by the Kungl. Svenska Aeroklubben, the Svenska Flysportförbundet and the Segelflygskolan Âlleberg.
- Edgar, Larry. High Flight in a Mountain Lee Wave A first person account of a still standing (set in 1952) world altitude record in a two-seater (a beefed up war-surplus Pratt-Read) is published in the June 2002 issue of Soaring. Larry was one of the members of the Sierra Wave Project.
- Hirth, Wolf (1951). Mit dem Segelflugzeug in die Stratosphäre (4.2MB PDF) Verlag der Weltluftfahrt, Coburg. My thanks to Klaus Heyn and Peter Selinger, Germany, for pointing out and then supplying this booklet to me.
Also by the Author
- Stamps That Tell a Story: The Series — Catch up on your missing instalments of this excellent and informative series of articles presented previously in the New RCSD.
This article first appeared in the July, 2002 issue of Gliding magazine. Simine Short is an aviation researcher and historian. She has written more than 150 articles on the history of motorless flight and is published in several countries around the world as well as the United States. She is also the editor of the Bungee Cord, the quarterly publication of the Vintage Sailplane Association.
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