2016 Royal Aeronautical Society 50th Anniversary (Isle of Man)
The Royal Aeronautical Society, founded in January 1866 under the name of the
Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, celebrated its 150th anniversary in
January 2016, and the Isle of Man Post Office marked the occasion with a set of
eight stamps. Two of them depicted astronautical subjects: Yuri Gagarin in his
spacesuit on the 77p stamp, and the International Space Station on the 124p
stamp. At the time of the issue, the British astronaut Tim Peake was in orbit
aboard the ISS.
The complete set of eight and their face values were: the first hydrogen balloon
flight in Britain, by Vincenzo Lunardi in 1784 (First Class); Sir George Cayley
(First Class); a French-built Wright aircraft flying at Reims in 1909 (77p);
Gagarin; the Hawker P.1127 V/STOL jet, a forerunner of the Harrier jump jet
(93p); a British Airways Concorde (93p); the Rolls Royce Trent 900 turbofan
engine as used in the Airbus A380 (124p); the ISS.
Stanley Gibbons nos. (to come)