This is a picture of the first stamp to feature a cat. It is a stamp issued in Spain in 1930 to commemorate the first, non-stop, transatlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974). Lindbergh’s cat companion, Patsy, accompanied him on some (many?) of his flights. Ironically, Patsy did not accompany him on the flight that was commemorated in the stamp which is why Patsy is portrayed gazing wistfully at the departing plane!
Here is Patsy and Lindberg:
He did not take Patsy on the transatlantic flight because he considered it to be too dangerous and it would risk her life. The flight took 33.5 hours. The aircraft was a Ryan monoplane which he named the Spirit of St Louis. The flight was from New York to Paris.
He took off at 7:52 AM from a muddy, rain-soaked runway with his aircraft carrying a heavy load of gasoline. It slowly gained speed, barely clearing telephone lines at the far end of the runway (field). In some stages we are told that he skimmed over ocean wave tops at an altitude of only 3 metres. He flew blind through fog for several hours and had to avoid icing up. He navigated by the stars when they were visible and by dead reckoning. He landed at the Le Bourget Airport in Paris at 10:22 PM on Saturday, May 21, 1927.
I categorise these sorts of posts under ‘cat products’. See some more articles of a similar kind below:
