CANADIAN MAIL ROCKET MAKES FINAL DELIVERY ACROSS WWII AIRFIELD
(left) The Astrobee D IV (D) high powered rocket roars off the launch pad during a short test flight on May 14th. (right) What makes this picture of the Astrobee D IV (D) Main Booster plummeting from the sky so unique. It was taken not by a person but by the second stage of the mail rocket as the two half's descended to the ground. Now that's a selfie.
A 2 ½ stage high powered solid fueled rocket designated the Astrobee D IV (D) made its final delivery of twelve mail covers on May 14th across a World War II era relief airfield in eastern Ontario, Canada. The covers carried commemorative letters as well as 1936 ‘First Canadian Rocket-Flight’ postage stamps originally produced by a German man named Gerhard Zucker.
The seventy-five year old air postage were the first official rocket mail stamps designed to fly in Canada. Zucker however, was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo shortly before his mail flights were to take place. The rocket engineer/businessman was jailed indefinitely and for three quarters of a century the unflown Canadian stamps disappeared into obscurity. In 2011, Canadian rocketeer Wilfred Ashley McIsaac tracked down the stamps and finally delivered them as originally intended, by rocket propulsion.
The Astrobee D IV (D) May 14th flight was an overwhelming success in testing a variety of on board systems for future launches. Although the rocket reached only a minimal altitude of between 400 and 500 feet while landing 1000 feet down range, the 2 ½ stage vehicle successfully followed a precalculated parabolic flight path over the airfield. A flammable liquid plasticizer named pyrogen together with a five and a half pound thrust black powder motor powered the mail carrying upper stage. Emergency back-up systems saved the low flying rocket from crashing.
McIsaac has made five rocket mail flights since the programs inception on October 31st, 2011. In total forty-three covers have been flown on board his rockets including forty-nine ‘Rocket-Flight’ stamps from the 1936 Zucker collection. Following the launches the covers were either mailed or cancelled from the nearest post office in the small town of Gananoque, Ontario.
Several of the mail covers on board last weeks test flight will be sent down to Tulsa, Oklahoma where they will be launched inside an American rocket scheduled to blast off in August.
(left) A photo taken outside the Gananoque Post Office in eastern Ontario where Wilfred Ashley McIsaac cancelled the May 14th rocket mail. (right) Canadian rocket mail cover 2014.
