[Aviation] Signed Air Mail Covers Commemorating Aviation History. Collection of Twenty Air Mail Covers Signed by Pioneers of Aviation. An exciting collection of twenty signed air mail covers commemorating historic flights, signed by the aviators, inventors, and explorers whose achievements constitute the history of aviation. The collection, much of which was actually flown during the pioneering flights that the covers commemorate, is contained in a looseleaf album, which includes the following items: an air mail cover, postmarked Washington DC, June 21, 1932, signed by and honoring Amelia Earhart ; an air mail cover, postmarked Reading, Pennsylvania, March 21, 1931, signed by the polar explorer Admiral Richard E. Byrd ("R. E. Byrd"), commemorating Byrd's visit to Pennsylvania, co-signed by Alex Dietrich, supply officer on Byrd's Antarctic expedition, and H. Adams; an air mail cover, postmarked New York, October 25, 1930, commemorating the first air mail flight, "First Flight - New York - Los Angeles," signed by Franklin Roosevelt ("Franklin D. Roosevelt, Governor of New York"), as well as nine other 1930 Governors, including Morgan Larson (New Jersey), C.C. Young (California), Myers Cooper (Ohio), John Fisher (Pennsylvania), Dan Moody (Texas), R. G. Dillon (New Mexico), John Shelly (Arizona), Harry Woodring (Kansas), and Harry Leslie (Indiana); an air mail cover postmarked Kitty Hawk, N.C., December 17, 1949, commemorating "The Return of the Wright Brothers Airplane From England to the USA," signed by Captain Eddie Rickenbacker; an air mail cover commemorating the "70th Anniversary - Man's First Flight, The Wright Brothers At Kitty Hawk," postmarked New York, November 16, 1973, signed by Jacqueline Cochran, the first women to fly faster than sound; an air mail cover marking the first flight of the Air Mail by Helicopter, postmarked San Gabriel, California, April 1, 1948, signed by the inventor of the helicopter, Igor Sikorsky; an air mail cover postmarked Portland, September 26, 1930, signed by Maurice Bellonte, who made the first direct Transatlantic flight from Paris to New York in 1930, with the imprint of the Portland Aero Club honoring their good will tour of the United States of the same year; a postcard of the dirigible "Norge," and an air mail cover postmarked Trenton, N.J., October 19, 1930, commemorating the "All Eastern States Air Races," both signed by Bernt Balchen, chief pilot to Byrd's first Antarctic expedition; an air mail cover postmarked Los Angeles, July 4, 1933, commemorating "National Air Races," signed by polar explorer Jimmie Wedell ("J.R. Wedell"); an air mail cover postmarked Brooklyn, New York, Coney Island, September 17, 1934, signed by Roscoe Turner, and accompanied by a TLS, one page, octavo, December 29, 1934, affirming that the accompanying cover was "flown" during Turner's record-setting Transatlantic crossing of that same year; an ornate WWII cover, "Manila Liberated," postmarked US Army Postal Service, February 14, 1945, signed by Mitsuo Fuchida, the Japanese Air Force Captain who led the attack on Pear Harbor, in both English and Japanese, and co-signed by Captain Frank Teixeira; a "U.S. Air Mail" first day cover, postmarked Washington DC, March 26, 1947, signed by Alex de Seversky; a Wright Brothers Silver Anniversary air mail cover, postmarked Peoria, ILL, December 17, 1928, signed by Vernon Burge, pioneer Air Force officer who assisted at the first flight of the Wright Brothers in the army tests at Fort Myer in 1908, and helped launched the world's first military aircraft; an air mail cover postmarked Los Angeles, August 27, 1931, signed by and commemorating the Homecoming Reception for Harold Gatty, aviator and inventor of the first "automatic pilot"; a cover commemorating "50 Years of Transatlantic Aviation," postmarked Exhibition Station, Rockford, ILL, March 26, 1977, signed by Pappy Boyington; an early air mail cover, postmarked San Francisco, May 1, 1929, commemorating the "First Flight - Transcontinental Night Schedule," signed by Clarence Chamberlin; a "flown" cover commemorating a pioneering transpolar flight over both the North and South poles, postmarked twice, Anchorage, Alaska, September 3, 1957, and, Little America, Antarctic, November 13, by the US Navy, with a partially printed cachet accomplished in manuscript detailing the times each region was crossed, signed by Sir George Hubert Wilkins, the polar explorer and pioneer aviator who made an early expedition to the Arctic (1919), and numerous pioneering flights; and a cover commemorating "Howard Hughes on the 30th Anniversary of the Flight of the Hercules," postmarked Long Beach, CA, November 2, 1977, signed by Dave Grant, co-pilot of Hughes' Spruce Goose.
Very Fine. Most of the covers have fine early air mail stamps and commemorative cancellations.
Estimated Value $1,000-UP.
