COVER N.99 - FRANCE

Postmark: 58 - Corbion - Nièvre  14.04.22 
Posted on the 14th April; received on the 19th April 2022
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This was the second cover from France I got on the same day and just like the other one, I do have a lot to thank its sender for. Thank you so much Jean-Pierre for this lovely cover full of interesting stamps.

As it so many times happens in aviation, Maurice Noguès can claim an entry into both wings of the pantheon of French aviation, i.e. the military and the civil.

Born in 1889, like many of the pioneers  he would teach himself to fly. A lad of 25 when the War to End All Wars (talk about wishfull thinking..) broke up, he joined the Service Aéronautique and he would get his military Brevet in February 1915. He would eventually rise to the post of Flight Commander, commanding SPA-73, although only for a one month period, for he was downed in action. 

After the war in 1922 he started his very impressive career in civil aviation, joining the Compagnie Franco-Roumaine de Navigation Aérienne. Later we would be associated with Air Orient and in time we would become vice-president of Air France. Always interested in expanding the reach of air transport, especially to the eastern French colonies, in 1933, he planned a proof of concept  Paris/Saigon flight using a Dewoitine D.332 prototype. On the last leg of the return flight he crashed during to severe weather, all people onboard being killed.

La Post honoured Nogues with a beautiful in taglio printed 12 Franc stamp  issued on 13OCT1951, that can be seen in the  marvellous block of 4 stamps on my cover. Nogues' Portrait appears on the foreground while on the background a globe with a path line between Paris and Saigon invokes his last aviation dream.  

Say Marcel Dassault (1892-1986)  and Mirage will immediately come to mind. But the companies founded or directed by Marcel Bloch, for such was his true given name, changing fist into Bloch-Dassault and, finally in 1949, to Dassault were at the fulcrum  of successful designs in French aviation history, from the first heroic days of wood and canvas trough the dawning of the jet age to the present. Rafale, anyone?

A life as rich as Dassault's is pointless to pot in a few words, so I'll leave it to what should be a quite authorised biography on Dassault Aviation website.

La Poste celebrated the man behind the name with the beautiful in taglio printed 3,60 Franc stamp on my cover issued on 23JAN1988.

One of the first books I remember being offered me by my father was "O Princepezinho", the Portuguese translation of Antoine Saint-Exupèry immensely famous "Le petit Prince". Obrigado, Pai!

To celebrate the 75th aniversary of the publication of this great monument to humanity and friendship, La post has issued a 1,08€  stamp on 12APR2021with one of Saint-Exupèry's illustrations of the little prince, themselves also a work of absolute wonder.

It should also be noted that On 21JUN2021 La Poste issued a carnet of "Lettre Verte" stamps on the same subject equally with the original illustrations by the famous pilot writer.

Two postmarks were used on the cover to cancel the stamps, and I really wish the postal services could have the cover go without the machine applied postmark for the stamps were already nicely cancelled.