Centre: “Octave Chanute, 1832–1910, half-length portrait, seated, facing right.” (credit: Chanute Papers, Library of Congress). Periphery: Notes about the postage stamps in this montage can be found below.

Stamps That Tell a Story

Philatelic tributes to aviation pioneer Octave Chanute.

The United States Postal Service issued a set of two international airmail stamps (above, right) to honour Octave Chanute, French born, American civil engineer, inventor, aviation pioneer and aeronautical historian.

This is the second issue in the Pioneer Aviation Series honouring American aviation pioneers and significant aviation developments. The series began in 1978 when two stamps were issued in tribute to the Wright brothers, seventy-five years after their 1903 flight.

This stamp series shows a new and different approach to the normal printing of these small pieces of paper. The evolution in the invention of the aeroplane is colourful and broad, so this subject was ideal for the offset/intaglio process which combines engraved lines with offset colours.

Ken Dallison, a designer and artist from Long Beach Island, New York, USA and Ontario, Canada, is well-known for his mastery of the ‘line-and-wash’ technique, but he also skilfully combines faces and machinery.

He is very interested in the ingenuity of man. In his biography Dallison writes, “I always attempt to fill my drawings with characters in the same way a director would cast a movie, fulfilling the need to create a good design and tell a story.”

This skill was needed for the Pioneer Aviation series. Looking at the two Chanute stamps, Dallison succeeded to capture all the important aspects of the two months’ of glider flying experiments along the southern shore of Lake Michigan, near what is now Gary, Indiana.

Dallison used figures from Chanute’s talk with lantern slides Gliding Experiments, which was given to the Western Society of Engineers in Chicago in October 1897.

Octave Chanute and his team arrived at Miller Beach in June 1896 to start a series of gliding flight experiments. More than 700 successful flights provided him with significant aerodynamic data.

Afterward he willingly shared this data enabling the Wright brothers and other pioneers to develop more advanced flying machines. In fact Wilbur and Orville acknowledged Chanute’s key role as a mentor, saying that his research and continual inspiration paved the way for their success.

Chanute corresponded with them for many years and even visited their camp at Kitty Hawk during their flight experiments.

Chanute’s biplane glider design of 1896 proved to be a key step on the road to the invention of the aeroplane.

For a few years it was the most successful heavier-than-air flying machine in the world, making long gliding flights and then sustained flight became a reality.

At that time Chanute’s pilots, William Avery and Augustus Moore Herring, had the distinction of being the only pilots in the world to have flown ‘heavier-than-air’ machines to these heights and to have achieved the longest distances.

The National Soaring Museum dedicated its eighth Landmark of Soaring plaque in 1996, celebrating the 100th anniversary of these experimental flights at Miller Beach in Gary, Indiana.

Chanute was 64 years-old in 1896 when the most important experiments were done. He posed with each of the aircraft for picture taking, but did not attempt to fly. Unfortunately most of the photos were taken the following year. While we know the bulk of the test flights were by Avery and Herring, Charles Chanute, Octave’s oldest son, and several amateurs including newspaper reporters, were also allowed to fly. The pilot in the photographs below was probably Mr Herring, as Octave always called him.

Left: Struck by a side gust. Both these photographs formed part of the illustrations from the talk given around that time by Octave and were used for the first stamp.| Centre: Tobogganing on the air in 1897. Note the many visitors who came to help and try the new sport as well. | Right: The 1897 biplane glider, just sailing (possibly ‘ridge soaring’) along. (credit: Chanute Papers, Library of Congress)

The longest flight with the 1896 design was recorded as 359ft and lasting 14 seconds.

A cleaned-up and sharpened image of the “sixth form multiple-wing machine,” the multiplane Katydid is used in the second stamp.

The Katydid multiplane. (credit: Chanute Papers, Library of Congress)

The wing arrangement of this soaring machine was re-rigged six times. Each new experiment was preceded by releasing bits of feather-down in front of the machine and watching the path of air currents sweeping past the wings.

Each wing was marked and each change of rigging recorded. The most successful wing variation used five sets of wings in the front and one as a tail. In a northerly wind, the longest glides in this 37lb machine were 78ft (Avery) and 83ft (Herring). Flight durations weren’t recorded.

Much philatelic background information for this article came from a long-time friend, Donald M. McDowell who, at the time these stamps were proposed, designed and issued, was Manager of the Stamp Development Branch, United States Postal Service. Don is a glider pilot and was a co-owner of a Fauvel flying wing.

I also thought it would be of interest to show the other postage stamps issued world-wide to honour Chanute and to acknowledge his contributions in the evolution of the invention of the aeroplane (see key image above the title):

• Republique Gabonaise The history of aviation was shown by the Gabon Post Office on six stamps in 1973. The 3 franc issue shows a variation of the Chanute-type biplane. The photo was taken about 1907 and the pilot was a member of the Long Island (New York) Aero Club.
• Republic of Maldives The Post Office of the Republic of Maldives shows the 1896 biplane in a very colourful way. It was part of a set issued in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of powered flight in 1976.
• Federated States of Micronesia issued several souvenir sheets in 1994 to honour the development in aviation. The 29 cent stamp shows Chanute and a stylised 1897 biplane glider.
• Uganda William R. Hanson designed the Chanute stamp for Uganda Post. He combined two images, the sand dunes from a picture of the 1896 experiments with the 1897 biplane, both from Chanute’s publications. This made a nice looking postage stamp.

A 2023 Postscript

My article back in 2002 must have struck a chord with me: all these years later I am just wrapping up a full-length book on the subject — Flight Not Improbable: Octave Chanute and the Worldwide Race Toward Flight. You can find the link immediately below. It was invaluable to have the luxury of a complete volume on this vitally important — and yet lesser known — figure in aviation history. I have promised the New RCSD an advance copy, and a review of the book will appear in these pages later this year.

©2002, 2023 Simine Short

Resources

• Flight Not Improbable: Octave Chanute and the Worldwide Race Toward Flight by Simine Short to be published by Springer in April of 2023. — “This book is a must-read for all those interested in the evolution of airplanes. Its protagonist, Octave Chanute, is best known for his scientific and collaborative approach to the engineering problems…” This link also will also enable you to pre-order the book.
• Gliding Experiments: An Address by Octave Chanute — Chanute’s talk with lantern slides was delivered to the Western Society of Engineers in Chicago in October 1897. This talk was published in their journal and later reprinted in other publications. With the permission of the WSE it was transcribed for the web and can be found on Steve Spicer’s website with this link.
• Flights before the Wrights — It is beyond the scope of this article series to give detailed background information on Chanute, the versatile civil engineer. However, if you’re looking for additional insight on this subject take a look at the on-line exhibit sponsored by the John Crerar Science Library, University of Chicago.
• To Fly is Everything — If the invention of the aeroplane and other aviation pioneers is of interest to you, Gary Bradshaw’s website is worth a visit.
• A Dream of Wings, Americans and the Aeroplane by Tom D. Crouch and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1981. — We are providing a link to just one source of this book (AbeBooks) as an example. Also, check out your local used book store — they may have one as well.
• 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 and of which this article is the most recent part.

This basic article first appeared in the September, 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.

Read the next article in this issue, return to the previous article in this issue or go to the table of contents. A PDF version of this article, or the entire issue, is available upon request.