Development of French Indochina’s Air Services Through First Flight Covers pdf baixar

Indochina is a rich area of study in colonial aviation history, as the region’s aviation efforts reflected what the French hoped to accomplish with airmail, the era’s most modern mail transport. In the 1920s, packet boats took 26 days to travel from Indochina to France. The promise of fast communication via airmail prompted heroic efforts to overcome primitive conditions.

This stamp exhibit traces the evolution of Indochina’s mail system from attempts to set long-distance speed records to rapid, scheduled postal links. Through Ron’s presentation of First Flight Covers, we see the history and the postal history of Indochina's airmail system as it carried mail on the first airplane flights on new routes, featuring commemorative markings to celebrate the event.

This exhibit is organized chronologically by flight date from 1923 to 1955. The earliest flights were exploratory, aimed at understanding how the airplane could be used in a post-World War I environment. In the 1920s and early 1930s, the pursuit of new speed records played a prominent role in Indochina’s aviation history. The challenge of flying from France to its far-flung Asian colony drew teams of aviators eager to prove they could do it faster than anyone had. The military played a different role. In addition to missions such as aerial photography and surveillance, French military aviators also helped move mail. During natural disasters (such as monsoons that washed out rail lines), the military stepped in to move mail to ports of departure for steamers bound for France.

By the early 1930s, as the future of air transport became clearer, various airlines were trying to establish a foothold in Indochina. During this period, trial and survey flights dominated aviation activity as companies vied for advantage. Organizing first-flight covers by airline is fraught with frustration, as corporations have merged and merged again. Air Orient, the dominant player in the formative years of Indochinese aviation, was created in 1929 from the merger of Air Asie & Air Union Lignes d’Orient, and later joined four other airlines to form Air France in 1933. The lineage to Air Orient remains today. The exhibit concludes with flights aimed at reestablishing links disrupted by World War II.

This volume of Indochina’s First Flights is one of the most comprehensive treatments of this subject ever published. It is not only a tour de force in its treatment of the development of Indochina’s airmail but also a history of air services from 1923 to 1955, a period during which air and airmail services evolved from infancy to well-developed modern operations.

This is one of Ron’s many outstanding exhibits of Indochinese philately. Another outstanding exhibit from Exhibitors Press.