Title
1970s Germany Lufthansa Airbus A300 Wide Body Jet Aviation Airline Postcard
Front Description
A colour air-to-air photograph of a Lufthansa Airbus A300 wide-body airliner in flight, seen from behind and slightly below on the port quarter, so that the underside of the fuselage, the rear of the aircraft and the sweep of both wings are presented to the camera. The aircraft is set against a pale blue high-altitude sky, with a broad layer of white and pale blue stratiform cloud filling the lower half of the frame and a thin banded haze across the upper part, giving the whole image a soft, cool blue cast.
The aircraft wears the classic Lufthansa livery of the period: a white upper fuselage and cabin roof over a light grey or natural metal lower fuselage, divided by a slim dark blue cheatline running the length of the aircraft through the window line. The airline name “Lufthansa” appears in dark blue lower-case script on the forward upper fuselage. The tall swept fin, seen almost square-on from behind, is finished in deep navy blue and carries the airline’s yellow disc bearing the stylised blue crane emblem, with a small German national flag at the top of the fin leading edge. The small type designation “Airbus A300” is applied in dark lettering on the rear fuselage.
Because of the rear three-quarter viewpoint, the horizontal tailplane is prominent, extending symmetrically to either side beneath the fin, and the tail cone and rear fuselage taper are clearly visible. The swept wings extend to left and right across the frame, the flap track fairings ranged along the trailing edges and the wingtips catching the light. One high-bypass turbofan engine in its underwing pylon-mounted nacelle is visible at the right of frame beneath the starboard wing, its dark exhaust opening facing the camera. The undercarriage is retracted and the aircraft is in a shallow climbing attitude, nose slightly raised and banking gently, the forward fuselage and cockpit area receding toward the upper right of the image.
The card shows light handling wear with minor edge and corner rubbing.
Back Description
The reverse is a printed divided-back airline-issue postcard, the text printed in a very pale grey or silver-grey ink on white stock, unused, with no message, address, stamp or postmark. All printed text reads as follows.
Upper left, in large bold type: “Lufthansa A 300”, with “Airbus” beneath it.
Below this, a bilingual technical specification table in two columns.
German column: “Länge 53,60 m / Spannweite 44,80 m / Höhe 16,50 m / Größte Kabinenbreite 5,40 m / Kraftstoffverbrauch 7 000 l/h / Reisegeschwindigkeit 870 km/h / Maximale Flughöhe 12 190 m / Maximale Reichweite 3 730 km / Landegeschwindigkeit 249 km/h / Hersteller Airbus Industrie”
English column: “Length 175 ft. 8 in. / Wing span 147 ft. / Height 54 ft. 1 in. / Max. cabin width 17 ft. 8 in. / Fuel consumption 1,850 U.S. gal./h / Cruising speed 541 m.p.h. / Max. cruising altitude 40,000 ft. / Max. range 2,012 n.m. / Landing speed 155 m.p.h. / Manufacturer Airbus Industrie”
Upper right, within a faintly ruled rectangular stamp panel: “Printed in Germany”
Right-hand side, five ruled address lines.
Lower left, the Lufthansa roundel logo enclosing the stylised crane emblem.
Estimated Era
Circa 1976–1985. Lufthansa was among the first operators of the Airbus A300, taking delivery from 1976 and deploying the type extensively on dense European and Mediterranean routes. This is an airline-issued promotional card of the kind distributed aboard aircraft and at ticket offices, its technical data panel presenting the A300 as a current fleet type.
The livery shown, with the light lower fuselage, thin blue cheatline, blue fin and yellow crane disc, is the scheme Lufthansa carried from the late 1960s through the 1980s. The “Printed in Germany” imprint without any Federal Republic designation, and the absence of a publisher reference number, are consistent with a West German airline issue of the late 1970s to mid-1980s.
Note for cataloguing: this card belongs to the same Lufthansa A300 series as the earlier example in this batch, sharing the identical reverse layout, typography and crane roundel. The two are distinguishable both by the photograph, this one being a rear-quarter view rather than a head-on underside view, and by the data panel itself, which differs in several figures. This card quotes a length of 53,60 m, a wing span of 44,80 m, fuel consumption of 7 000 l/h and a maximum range of 3 730 km, where the other quotes 53,62 m, 44,84 m, 7 700 l/h and 3 610 km. The differing specifications indicate separate print runs, most probably reflecting a revision of published performance data between issues. Unused, with no philatelic evidence to narrow the date further.
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