Atlantis, Planes and A Few Others

Today's update has a lot of aircraft cards and a few others. I always welcome aviation related cards as I collected postcards with airline names and aircraft long before I collected as I do now. Hope that makes some sense.


 My  first card today is a 3D card showing the Space Shuttle Atlantis thundering skyward.. Liftoff of Mission STS-45 occurred from launch Pad 39A  at 8:13:40 A.M. EST, March 24,1992. On board the 46th Shuttle flight were a crew of seven astronauts and the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science-1 ( ATLAS-1 ) .

Lydia, a 13 year old Postcrosser from Germany sent this card along. She used the 2011 Regensburg stamp , which we all have seen before.








Now begins a bunch of airplane cards. Let's start with this Singapore Airlines Concorde. Leisa from Marshall, Texas was lucky enough to find this older card at a postcard show in Dallas. In 1977 Singapore Airlines and British Airways shared a Concorde for flights between London and Singapore. The aircraft was painted in Singapore Airlines livery on the port side and British Airways livery on the starboard side. The service was discontinued after just three return flights because of noice complaints. The service was resumed in 1979 but ended for good in 1980.

Leisa used a 2012 Northern Goshawk stamp from the set of 5 Birds of Prey. 









Here's a Dragonair B747 at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport. Dragonair, founded in 1985, is an international airline headquartered in Hong Kong. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific. The aircraft on this card, the B747 is used by Dragonair as a freighter.


I got this card from Wesley, a Dutch Postcrosser. He's a plane spotter, he took the photo on the card and had it made into a postcard. Did a good job,
too. He writes that he just recently started collecting postcard from every country, so I know all too well what's ahead of him. Good luck to him, though. Wesley has a blog about his postcards called  "Collecting postcards from all around the world ". Check it out.  Wesley used 3 stamps- the one on the left was issued in 1999 , honoring the Euro. The top  right stamp is 1 of 2 issued in 2000 for Nature Conservation. The bottom right stamp is a semi-postal stamp issue in 1983 honoring Johan van Oldenbarneveldt. 


Now we have a card from Anna who loves in Montgomery, MD, U.S.A. showing an Aeroflot airliner. Pardon the pun, but I'll go out on a wing here and say it's an Ilyushin IL-96-300. If not correct, I'm sure I'll hear from someone.



Anna used the 2012 Lancaster , Pennsylvania stamp .














The last Aviation card for this time comes from Russia. An old single engine bi-plane. Type unknown to me. Anyone want to take a guess, be my guest.




Natasha used 3 related stamps on her card. The one on the left was issued in 2005 and is 1 of 5 in a set of Military stamps. The middle stamp is 1 of 2 Helicopters stamps issued in 2008. The final stamp was issued in 2009 and honors Yuri Gagarin, the first human to journey into outer space. He completed an orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. 

So ends my aviation lecture for today, but class is not quite over. I still have a couple of fine cards from Netherlands, Spanish Andorra and Finland to have a look at. The Netherlands card is my first pin-up card in over 6 years of collecting. My online translator says the words on the card mean "previously everything was hotter ". As is ofter said, "it's all in the translation ".

The stamp is one ,quite often seen , so I leave it at that.












Andorra is featured on this next card. There is a map of the principality, along with 4 views of Pas de la Casa in winter. It's a ski resort town lying on the border with France.



Fabienne who hails from Spain sent this card on her recent visit to Andorra. She used 2 stamps from the Spanish Post in Andorra. The one on the left is the 2011 Christmas stamp and the one on the right is the 2010 Europa stamp
highlighting Children's books.

Now , the final card for today. It comes from Lapland., Finland or more correctly Rovaniemi, Finland. Finnish Lapland is the Arctic far north of Finland, starting near the Arctic Circle. Temperatures in the area can plunge as low as -50C in the winter and the sun is not seen for days on end. Rovaniemi , with a population of about 61,000 is a city in Finland's northernmost province of Lapland. It is 5 km south of the Arctic Circle. Tanya's card gives us a look at two of the frozen local residents.  From Lapland with Love.

Tanya used a 2012 Clouds self-adhesive, 1 of 3 in a set.









That's another update in the books. Thanks to Tanya, Fabienne, Natasha, Anna, Wesley, Leisa, and Lydia for these cards.