Saturday, 24 September 2022

Fourth Saturday, September - World Rabbit Day

4th Saturday of September - World Rabbit Day

International Rabbit Day is celebrated on the fourth Saturday of September every year.  It was founded in 1998 by The Rabbit Charity in the U.K., and it became a significant day to celebrate and spread awareness about rabbit protection and conservation.

In their natural habitats, rabbits serve the two main functions of keeping plant life in check and providing food for carnivorous predators.  Because they can eat a wide variety of plants. Populations of rabbits play an important role in keeping fast-growing weeds and plants from overgrowing. In recent years its population has declined due to several factors including habitat transformation and viral diseases. 

Do you know, Rabbits perform an athletic leap, known as a 'binky' when they're happy-performing twists and kicks in midair.



Tuesday, 13 September 2022

Evolution of Flight - Amritpex

 

Evolution of Flight 

South India Philatelists' Association conducted a National level stamp exhibition from August 13th, 2022 to August 15th, 2022.  I participated in that exhibition and won a bronze medal.  Thanks a lot to all the friends who have helped me with material and knowledge.  Long way ahead, hope to do better in future exhibitions.

Saturday, 10 September 2022

World's first flight across South Atlantic

 World's first flight across South Atlantic

Pilot, Naval Lieutenant aviator Artur de Sacadura Freire Cabral (1881-1924) and navigator rear admiral Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho (1869-1959) successfully completed the World's first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic on June 1922, from Lisbon, Portugal to Recife, Brazil.  They covered 8383 kilometers in 62 hours and 6 minutes.  They departed on the 30th of March and reached on the 5th of June.  As they realized that the journey would require landing on the sea, they flew in British-made floatplanes - the Fairey III biplane


In May 1919, Albert Cushing Read(1887-1967) commanded a crew of five on the Curtiss NC-4 flying boat, the first aircraft ever to make a transatlantic flight with 6 stops on the way.  


A.C.Read reached this milestone a couple of weeks before Alcock and Brown's non-stop flight, and eight years before Charles Lindbergh's first solo non-stop flight. Albert Read flew from New York, the USA to Plymouth, England.  On the way he stopped at Lisbon, Cabral was part of the group that greeted him.  This incident was the inspiration for Cabral.



Wednesday, 7 September 2022

Helicopters

 Helicopters
Although most people believe that the Russian inventor, Igor Sikorsky invented the helicopter, it was actually a French engineer by the name of Paul Cornu who designed and flew the first successful rotary-winged aircraft in Normandy, France in 1907.

I am looking for a 2008 S.Tome E Principe miniature sheet

Near Lisieux in northern France in 1907, Monsieur Cornu became the first person to (ever so briefly) pilot an airborne rotary-wing, vertical-lift aircraft. The rotorcraft (using an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift) from Cornu’s own design was a twin-rotor job,  the blades rotating in opposite directions which neutralized the torque. M. Cornu’s craft levitated about 1.5 meters off the ground, hovering for some 20 seconds.  The Cornu ”Ur-copter” wasn’t maneuverable at all (requiring manpower to hold it in position from the ground) and therefore wasn’t practical,  but it is considered to be a forerunner of the modern helicopter.

Etienne Oehmichen, whose early prototypes included vertically-mounted rotors and a tail rotor, allowing it to fly a distance of one kilometre in 1924!  Oehmichen was also the first to carry passengers in his Oehmichen No. 2 helicopter

1957 French Inventors "Etienne Oehmichen" stamp I am looking for

By the early 1920s Spanish aviator and engineer  Juan De la Cierva built the autogyro (sometimes called a “windmill plane” or ‘gyroplane’)… his success advanced the understanding of rotor dynamics.

In 1936 Focke and Gerd Achgelis‘ Focke-Wulf Fw-61 smashed existing helicopter records for range and altitude and demonstrated autorotation descent to landing.  This plus a control system much more reliable and robust than earlier rotorcrafts leads many aviation geeks to consider the Fw-61 to be “The world’s first truly functional helicopter”.


Sikorsky is commonly thought of as “The father of helicopters” because he invented the first successful helicopter upon which further designs were based. The VS-300 (commercial name R 4) became the model for all modern single-rotor helicopters.

Sikorsky was credited with developing the first “mass-produced” helicopter. 


The VS-300, the world’s first successful helicopter, is a predecessor of all modern choppers. Igor Sikorsky developed the first practical helicopter and was his own original flight test pilot. The first prototype of course had only one seat, in the center.  He flew on Sept. 14, 1939.

Nikolay Ilyich Kamov was a Soviet aerospace engineer, a pioneer in the design of helicopters, and the founder of the Kamov helicopter design bureau.


Ka-10 1950 Single-seat observation helicopter. NATO reporting name Hat.

Ka-22 Vintokryl 1959 Experimental rotor-winged transport aircraft. NATO reporting name Hoop.

Ka-26 1965 Light utility helicopter. NATO reporting name Hoodlum.

Ka-27 1974 Anti-submarine helicopter. NATO reporting name Helix.

Ka-50 "Black Shark" 1982 Single-seat attack helicopter. NATO reporting name Hokum.