STAMP ISSUES RELATED TO THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY

 

Slovakia - 75th Anniversary of ICAO

 

Issue date: 04/04/2019

 

 

Italian bomber Caproni Ca.3 (1916) as civil aircraft (without the forward and tail guns).

Text in Slovak on 3 lines: 75. VÝROČIE / MEDZINÁRODNEJ ORGANIZÁCIE / CIVILNÉHO LETECTVA (ICAO), literally translated into 75TH ANNIVERSARY / INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION / CIVIL AVIATION (ICAO). See below note on the name of the Organization.

Circulation quantity: 1,500,000 pcs.

 

 

Cancelled To Order (CTO) at Bratislava.

 

Original artwork by akad. mal. Marián Komáček.

Photo Credit: https://www.postoveznamky.sk/

 

Official First Day Cover and its insert in Slovak (recto) and in English (verso). Circulation: 3,100 copies printed.

The cachet shows the Caproni Ca.3 on the background of a Boeing 737 aircraft and the arrival hall of the M.R. Štefánik International Airport at Bratislava; the postmark shows the turbine of an aircraft.

Note that the initials M.K. of the designer (i.e., Marián Komáček) are written on the Boeing 737.

 

 

In the following insert, one error is noted: According to ICAO’s records, Slovakia became a Member of ICAO on 15 March 1993 and not on 1 January 1993.

 

 

 

Background: The stamp commemorates the links between the Slovak Republic and aviation from its early stages to the present day and also highlights the fact that the Slovak Republic was, albeit in its previous form, one of the founding members of the ICAO, an organization which is the largest global force in civil aviation and which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2019.

Designer of the stamp and the cachet on the first day cover, Marián Komáček, is a Czech artist, born in 1959. The date of this stamp issue corresponds exactly to the 72nd anniversary of the entry into force of the Chicago Convention, i.e., on 4 April 1947 (and not the 100th anniversary of Štefánik’s death which was on 4 May 2019).

Czechoslovakia was a signatory of the Convention Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation (also known as the Paris Convention which established the International Commission for Air Navigation, ICAN or Commission internationale de Navigation Aérienne, CINA) in 1919.

Czechoslovakia, despite the situation during the Second World War, was a signatory of the Chicago Convention from the beginning and a founding member of ICAO. After the break-up of Czechoslovakia on 1 January 1993, the Slovakia (officially the Slovak Republic), as an independent state, became a member of ICAO on 15 March 1993.

 

Note on General Milan Rastislav Štefánik:

Joint issue France-Slovakia

3 May 2003 - General Štefánik

General Milan Rastislav Štefánik (21 July 1880 – 4 May 1919) was a Slovak politician, diplomat, aviator and astronomer. During World War I, he served at the same time as a General in the French Army and as Minister of War for Czechoslovakia. As one of the leading members of the Czechoslovak National Council (the resistance government), he contributed decisively to the cause of Czechoslovakian sovereignty, since the status of Czech- and Slovak-populated territories was one of those in question until shortly before the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1918. He died in a plane crash shortly before landing near Bratislava on 4 May 1919 (not long after Czechoslovakia achieved its independence), when he wanted to return home, as the Minister of War of the Czechoslovak Republic, flying from the airport of Campoformido, Italy to Bratislava to see his family in using (as passenger) an Italian military plane, a Caproni Ca.3 registered 11495; Štefánik and all crew members died on the impact of the aircraft. After the tragedy, hypotheses or theories emerged that it was not an accident, but the plane was shot down either by accident (confusion with a Hungarian machine) or intentionally.

The nation of Czechoslovakia was born 28 October 1918. As the old Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in ruins; the newly independent country was proclaimed in Prague, the new capital of Czechoslovakia. The independent Czechoslovakia gained from the vanquished empire could not have been possible without the bravery of the many Czechs and Slovaks who comprised the celebrated Czechoslovak Legion. Three leaders rose to the moment: Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, a Czech doctor of philosophy, professor and scholar, Edvard Beneš, a Czech professor of sociology and economics, and Milan Rastislav Štefánik; they organized the legion, seeking to achieve independence for their homelands by coordinating efforts to defeat the Central Powers of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Masaryk later became the first president of Czechoslovakia.

The main international airport of Slovakia in Bratislava (also called Bratislava-Ivanka) was named after General Milan Rastislav Štefánik in 1993.

 

Note on the Caproni Ca.3 aircraft:

Known by Caproni manufacturer in Italy as the Ca 450 due to its three Isotta Fraschini 150 HP engines, the biplane Caproni Ca.3 (or Ca.33, see pictures hereafter) was a massive aircraft for its day, with a 36-foot fuselage and 74-foot wing span, and could carry an 800 kg bomb load several hundred miles. This type of aircraft evolved from the Ca.1 of 1914 and Ca.2 of 1915, but differed mainly in having more powerful engines. Introduced in 1916, the Ca.3 was a successful design, with roughly 300 built in Italy, and approximately 80 under license in France, a substantial number for an aircraft of its size back then.

The Ca.3 was of wooden construction, with a fabric-covered frame. The crew of four was placed in an open central nacelle (front gunner, two pilots and rear gunner mechanic). The aircraft was equipped with two to four ring-mounted machine guns that were operated by the forward and tail gunners. Two engines drove tractor propellers by means of extension gearing and the third a pusher propeller at the rear of the nacelle.

The fixed conventional undercarriage had double mainwheels under each engine and a tail skid under the extreme tail of each boom. The Ca.3 proved to be the most successful Allied bomber of World War I taking part in many outstanding raids and particularly in supporting the special operations that took place on the Italian front in the bombing assaults against Austria-Hungary, since Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May 1915.

During World War I, the Italian Corpo Aeronautico Militare operated a mix of French fighters and locally built bombers, notably the Caproni aircraft. The Ca.3 bombers were used mostly in bombing assaults above Austro-Hungary, hitting naval bases, railway junctions and troop concentrations. On 8 April 1916, a general reorganization in the air departments of the Italian aviation was implemented in which all the squadrons were renumbered, reserving the numbers from 1 to 24 for offence squadrons. Unlike the others, which had adopted geometric marks such as bars, checkers, rhombuses, circles to stand out in flight, the 8th Squadron with Captain Luigi Govi adopted the symbols of playing cards, hence the red diamonds painted on the aircraft seen on the stamp. This practice was favourably seen by the other crews, so that other squadrons also changed their markings.

 

Caproni Ca.3 in its civil version.

 

Caproni Ca.33 in its military version flown by 8a Squadriglia, IV° Gruppo, Corpo Aereo Italiano (1916).

 

Note on the name of the Organization:

According to Article 43 of the Chicago Convention, the official name of the Organization shall be written in Russian: Международная организация гражданской авиации, which corresponds to International Organization Civil Aviation when literally translated into English. Thus, the name of the Organization written in Slovak on the stamp and the philatelic notice (Medzinárodnej organizácie civilného letectva) is correctly spelled, as Slovak is a Slavic language, like Russian, Polish and many other East European languages.

 

Note on the Central European Rotation Group:

The Slovak Republic is a member of the Central European Rotation Group (CERG) within ICAO. This Group (membership of 10 States in 2019; see plate hereafter) was established on 3 November 1992. It is one of the 4 rotation groups created within the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC). The members of each rotation group start in the elections to the ICAO Council, according to an order established within each group. In the elections, the candidates have support of the remaining members of a given group.

 

 

Confusion: Prior to the issuance, some confusion existed in the dates of release of the first day cover (03.05.2019 vs. 04.04.2019 after rectification) as shown hereafter. In fact, the numismatic cover commemorating the 100th anniversary of Štefánik’s death was issued on 3 May 2019.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before issuance

 

 

 

 

 

After rectification

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Numismatic cover postally released on 3 May 2019, with one additional cancel dated 4 May 2019 and the other one dated 3 May 2019.

 

Coin commemorating General Milan Rastislav Štefánik.

Along with the above-mentioned stamp commemorating General Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Slovakia issued a 2-Euro bimetal coin on 3 May 2019. Characteristics: Diameter: 25.75 mm; Weight: 8.5 gr; Copper-nickel/nickel brass. It was also inserted in a numismatic cover (see above) and a coin card (4,000pcs).