Page 15 - Demo

My Grandma Mendy (Lucille Mendenhall) was the person who first got me interested in stamps. When I was ten years old, she addressed a cacheted cover to me, which was affixed with Lafayette%u2019s 1959 Jupiter air-mail stamp, cancelled on the firstday-of-issue, and delivered to me by our local mailman. It was one of the first things I collected as a young philatelist. Over the next several years, my collection grew to include a variety of stamp-related items, all from the United States: individual stamps, plate-numbered blocks of four, First Day Covers, other unusual covers, and a few First Flight Covers. My collecting stopped around 1965, when my interests became more mechanical, and I built a series of mini-bikes and a hot rod. In my 50s, I sold off most of my collection. But I did keep some covers I thought were interesting. One was for a flight from Fowler to Indianapolis that celebrated National Air Mail Week in 1938. It was signed by both the pilot and Fowler%u2019s Postmaster.In 2018, not long after my 69th birthday, Lynn and I created an album for the covers I%u2019d saved from when I was a boy, and I included a narrative about how much I enjoyed collecting when I was young. Over the next few months, I found myself occasionally thinking about those few First Flight Covers I%u2019d saved, even searched eBay to see what was currently available. Soon, my childhood interest in philately was revived, and I began a serious collection of Indiana%u2019s First Flight Covers.Once I got started, I grew more and more interested in the variety of covers that were available. I was intrigued by the different cachets. My curiosity was piqued by the types of cancellations. I liked the fact that many covers were cancelled on the back, at the destination of the flight. I was pleased that senders chose not to use the same stamps, and I developed a preference for the use of multiple stamps. I appreciated seeing stickers and labels, whether for return addresses or some other purpose. I was fascinated with notes written on the envelopes. I was curious about the people they were addressed to, the pilots and Postmasters who signed some of them, and the varying styles of handwriting. There are a variety of ways to collect First Flight Covers. Some people concentrate on a single airline, or a specific route, or flights to and from one particular airport, or covers affixed with a specific stamp, or only covers signed by the pilot. Others collect from a single state, which is what I decided to do. The following collection is primarily limited to regular Indiana air-mail flights that departed from Indiana airports, although a few examples of inbound flights are included. It covers the period from 1927, the beginning of Commercial Air Mail (CAM) in Indiana %u2014 including AM, helicopter, and jet flights %u2014 through the FFUS flights that followed airline deregulation on December 1, 1978. There are also covers that honor anniversary flights or other notable CAM-related occasions. And there are two Zeppelin covers that departed from Indianapolis, flew to Lakehurst, NJ, then were flown on eastbound first flights to Friedrichshafen Germany. Plus there are two covers carried on the international first flights of the supersonic Concorde that departed from Indianapolis%u2014one to London, one to Paris. For most routes, I%u2019ve included one or more pieces of ephemera which include post cards, trading cards, matchbook covers, and luggage labels. For the majority of the covers in this album, I%u2019ve included an image of the back to show cancellations, cachets, or other information. Where available, in the captions, I%u2019ve given the flight number, date of the first flight, number of pieces carried on the flight, departure city, destination, airline, and name of the pilot. When there is a cancellation on the back, I%u2019ve used that as the destination. Otherwise, I%u2019ve used the mailing address or the flight%u2019s next stop. Some cover variations have an %u201cf%u201d suffix, meaning they were cancelled at the Air Mail Field, rather than the main post office. The Summary Listing in the back contains a record of all the Indiana flight covers in this album, the majority of which are listed in the American Air Mail Society Catalog.