Helicopter Flights

15 April 1958
Paris, France
Bonn, Germany
Rotterdam, Netherlands

Commercial helicopter flights were in during the 50s. Belgium was also starting with this, mainly for postal reasons, but soon aslo as people mover. Expo 58 was also a very "busy" period for helicopter flights, and SABENA has made a lot of publicity for these.

This led to first flights towards the neighbour countries, France, Germany and Netherlands.

The helicopters were of the type Sikorsky S-58 which were initially built for the US Navy in 1954. The commercial type was built as a 12-seat airline version, certificated by the FAA in August 1956. It was built for Chicago Helicopter Airways (eight), New York Airways (three) and Sabena (eight). Production of the S-58 ended in December 1965 after one thousand seven hundred and sixty-six had been built by Sikorsky.

Besides the numerous simple covers, you can also find easily covers with foreign stamps from the countries france, Germany and Netherlands. I have limited myself to covers with cachet and Belgian Stamps.

For each first Helicopter Flight, I have put a an official Expo 58 Campo Rodan cover (numbered) as well as an official cover with official cachet of the flight. I also found another "official" cover, edited by Grumiaux (tbc).

Below these, I have added some covers with a unknown cachet which are rare to be found as well as covers with hand-operated stamps or with printed title. These are not often available.