New stamps from Hawaii

Aloha,
Greetings from Hawai'i Post in the Hawaiian Islands. Hawai'i Post is
an express mail delivery company on the island of O'ahu that requires
stamps to prepay postage on all urgent letters and packages.

New stamps released December 17 2003.

Three stamps and a mini-sheet were issued on December 17th 2003 to
celebrate the centenary of the first powered flight.

Much has been written about the Wright Brothers first powered flight
on December 17 1903 at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk in North
Carolina, U.S.A.. Their four successful flights on December 17 1903
dramatically changed the world especially as far as tourism and the
military is concerned. Although these stamps issued by Hawai'i Post
celebrate the centenary of powered flight, they are more about how
airplane flight has affected the Hawaiian Islands.

The first stamp pays for extra charges, such as additional weight. It
shows the Curtiss biplane Model D, very similar to the Curtiss P18
piloted by J.C. Bud Mars for the first powered flight in Hawai'i. The
Curtiss biplane was sent to Hawai'i from California in pieces as
freight via a ship and then re-assembled in Honolulu. Bud Mars took
off from the Moanalua Polo Field (just west of Honolulu) at 2:30pm on
Saturday December 31st 1910. He made a series of four flights which
consisted of loops, taking off and landing each time at the Moanalua
Polo Field. After the first loop the biplane was officially christened
the "Honolulu Skylark" with a bottle of champaign. An estimated 3,000
Hawaiians watched the spectacle (many paying $1 for the privilege)
which made headline news in the "Honolulu Advertiser" the next day.

The second stamp prepays the Overnight rate. It shows a
McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 operated by Air Hawaii in 1985. Although the
airline did not last long, it is typical of the kind of tourist jet
that services Hawaii every day by many different airlines from all
over the world.

The third stamp prepays the Same Day rate. It shows the supersonic
Concorde jet just after taking off and before retracting its landing
gear and raising its nosecone for a supersonic flight. Before it
ceased flying in 2003, the Concorde made several trips to and from
Hawai'i, but not as a regularly scheduled flight. The stamp celebrates
the supersonic jet's arrival at Kailua-Kona Airport on the Big Island
in 1996 on it's way around the world. Affluent passengers paid about
$60,000 for each round-the-world ticket. It was the Big Island's first
visit by a supersonic jet.

The mini-sheet prepays the Same Day rate. It shows a colorful art-deco
poster originally drawn by artist P.G. Lawler for Pan American Airways
in the late 1930's. It promoted their clipper flying boats to Hawai'i
and the Pacific. It shows a wahine watching the landing of a Boeing
B-314 flying boat on a lagoon somewhere in the Pacific. The mountain
peaks are more like those on Moorea in French Polynesia than Hawai'i,
although Pan-Am never flew there. In 1939, the round-trip airfare by
Pan-Am clipper from San Francisco to Hawai'i was about $500 - a lot of
money back then which only the very rich could afford. The last
clipper flight was on April 8 1946 from Honolulu to San Francisco.
After the clippers, Pan-Am used more economical land-based aircraft.
Until it's demise, Pan-Am was one of the airlines that helped the
dramatic development of Hawai'i as a tourist destination.

For more information about this issue, please go to:
http://www.hawaii-post.com/17DEC03.html

For more information about other issues from Hawai'i Post, please go
to:
http://www.hawaii-post.com/stamps.html

Mahalo (Thank you),

Hawai'i Post
P O Box 8735
Honolulu Hawai'i 96830
U.S.A.

http://www.hawaii-post.com