About This Stamp
The Postal Service commemorated Classic American Aircraft with the issuance of a pane of 20 32-cent stamps on July 19, 1997, in Dayton, Ohio. The stamps went on sale nationwide July 21.
The pane was designed by Phil Jordan of Falls Church, Virginia, and illustrated by William Phillips, one of the world's leading aviation print artists. Twenty-two different classic American aircraft are featured on the pane, 20 on the stamps and two on the header. The civilian and wartime aircraft collection emphasizes the innovative and technological advances spanning the first 50 years of American aviation history.
This marked the fifth "Classic Collection" of stamps issued by the Postal Service. Stamp Venturers, Inc., printed the stamps in the gravure process.
Stamp Designer
Phil Jordan
Phil Jordan grew up in New Bern, North Carolina, and attended East Carolina University. After Army service in Alaska, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in visual communications. He worked in advertising and in design at a trade association before joining Beveridge and Associates, Inc., where he provided art direction for corporate, institutional, and government design projects. A partner in the firm, he left after 18 years to establish his own design firm where he managed projects for USAir, NASA, McGraw-Hill, IBM, and Smithsonian Books, among others. He was Design Director of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine for 15 years. His work appeared in numerous exhibitions and publications such as Graphis and Communications Arts. A past president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, he was an art director for the U.S. Postal Service from 1991 to 2014. A resident of Falls Church, Virginia, he is a retired glider pilot and a member of the Skyline Soaring Club.