Old postcards USSR Air Fleet Day
USSR Air Fleet Day was established in 1933 with 18 August as its original date; the date shifted more than once, and from 1972 the holiday fell on the third Sunday of August. It was a shared holiday for the whole of Soviet aviation: military pilots, Aeroflot crews, polar flyers, agricultural aviation and aircraft builders. That is why the same cards are searched for today as “Soviet Aviation Day” and as “Air Force Day” postcards; Russia’s present-day Air Force Day, 12 August, was only established in 1997.
The 1981 card in this section shows that double identity well. In the foreground two flags fly side by side: a sky-blue one with yellow rays, a red star and a winged propeller, the flag of the Soviet Air Force, and a red one with a gold star, a blue wedge and the winged hammer and sickle of Aeroflot. Above them fly a Tu-154 airliner and three military jets; lower down a helicopter carries a sling load towards oil derricks, and an An-2 biplane passes over the fields. In one composition the artist gathered everything Soviet aviation was proud of: passenger routes, defence, oilfield work and farming.
Air Fleet Day was a professional holiday, and cards for it turn up noticeably less often than those for Defender of the Fatherland Day (23 February) or Victory Day. Every image in this section is a scan of an original Soviet postcard, not a modern “retro-style” design. The section grows as the collection is digitised.
More holidays on Soviet postcards
November 7 postcards · Victory Day postcards · May Day postcards · Cosmonautics Day postcards
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