posted 06-24-2018 09:55 AM               

Space Cover #472: The First American Rocketplane

So, when you read the title of this Space Cover of the Week, some of you may have thought of Chuck Yeager's X-1. Or those of you who are just starting this hobby may have thought of the Space Shuttle. Well, the real first American rocketplane flight was considerably earlier than the X-1, named Gloria, and a lot less glamorous!

The cover above was one of 4323 carried onboard one of the two Glorias on February 23, 1936 at the frozen Greenwood Lake, NY. It was postmarked on the day of the flight at Hewitt, NJ, the closest post office to Greenwood Lake. It was franked with the 16 cent Airmail Special Delivery stamp. The printed cachet (upper left) shows a stylization of Gloria, and there is a non-postal stamp in the lower left with a purple rubber stamp for the flight. These covers could be reserved for 75 cents through stamp dealer FW Kessler. With the large number flown, these covers are still fairly easy to find today. These are listed as US#8C1 in Ellington-Zwisler and WL-01 in Walter Hopferweiser's "Pionierraketenpost und Kosmiche Post."

Additionally, 1826 postcards as shown above were carried. These were franked with a 1 cent stamp and had some color variations from the covers that were carried. These were available from Kessler for 50 cents, and are listed in Ellington-Zwisler as US#8C2.

The reverse of the postcard, shown above shows a picture of one of the Glorias in flight.

So, what was a Gloria? This was a product of Dr. Willy Ley and his autograph can be found on many of these covers and cards. Two Glorias were built – unmanned aluminum gliders about 12 feet long with straight wings about 14 feet in span, each with a small alcohol and liquid oxygen fueled rocket engine. The covers and cards were flown inside the nose sections of the Glorias. They had no landing gear and were expected to slide across the frozen lake on landing.

The first Gloria was launched from an angled catapult shown in the photo above. Not having enough weight in the nose, it began to climb too steeply and the wings buckled. It came back down onto the ice, with the rocket engine still running then went airborne again briefly before the engine ran out of fuel.

The second Gloria was allowed to do a takeoff slide across the ice and it flew for a brief while until its wings also buckled.

The photo above shows the mail being loaded into one of the Glorias. Thanks go to Joe Frasketi who gave me copies of these photos many years ago. There are more photos that I'd be glad to share with anyone interested, just drop me an email.