Clipper, Vol. 13, No. 10, October 1956

              VOL 13, No. 10
MIAMI, FLORIDA, OCTOBER 1956
560927
METAL SHOP PICTURES
. . . Pages 4 and 5
LATIN AMERICAN DIVISION
CENTURY AND A HALF of life fails to dampen Javier Pereira's zest for living. The ancient Indian, said to be 167 years old, enjoys an ice cream cone on arrival at Pan American's Miami terminal.
Oldest Man Flies to Miami
Patriarch Likes Wine, Women;
Thinks	Rock’n Roll the Bunk
Wine and women are much the same today as they were 150 years ago when Javier Pereira was a young buck, but song certainly has changed.
The oldest man in the world, who is said to be crowd-
ing 167 years, thinks song is the€> only one of the three that is different. When exposed to rock’n roll, he scowled, accentuating wrinkles in a leathery face that looked like a well-creased old boot, shook his toothless head dubiously and muttered in a mysterious mixture of Spanish and Indian dialect, “No good . . . not even good war dance!”
The ancient Pereira, discovered during a Clipper trip to Colombia last year by Douglas Storer, president of Believe It or Not, Inc., was flown from Barranquilla, Colombia, to Miami by Pan American en route to New York. There the patriarch will be examined by a corps of eminent physicians in New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center to determine, if possible, how old he really is and how he managed to survive so long.
Born the same year George Washington was inaugurated president of the U. S., if the maximum estimates of his age are correct, Pereira already has undergone extensive medical examinations in South America. Indications are that he is at least 120 years old, possibly 167. An 86-year-old woman from his native village of Monteria remembers that he already was an old man when she was a child.
Pereira relates events of the early 1800’s in a manner strongly suggesting he was more than 21 at the time. The fact he neither reads nor writes makes it improbable that some of the things about which he talks intelligently could have been known to him other than by personal experience.
The four - foot - four - inch, 73-pound human vintage of antiquity has flown before, so the Clipper flight to Miami was no new thrill. But he was fascinated by the wonders of Miami International Air-Continued on Page 8
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Club to Sponsor Conference Course
A course in conference leadership will be sponsored by the Pan American Management Club. The sessions, four of three-and-one-half hours each, will be conducted in the sales and service conference room at COB. Each participant completing the course will receive a certificate of graduation.
Subject matter will include techniques of conference leadership, the job of a conference leader, tips on how to secure participation and the critique method of learning conference leadership.
Construction In San Juan Is Completed
$310,000 Program Provides Expanded Aircraft Service
Improved and expanded maintenance for its Clippers serving Puerto Rico is provided by Pan American World Airways’ $310,-000 construction program just completed at Isla Verde Airport at San Juan.
The project includes a $154,000 nose hangar for engine maintenance and a $156,000 paved maintenance area for general servicing of aircraft. The expansion was planned to take care of increased traffic resulting from the new lower-cost thrift fares between San Juan and New York.
An additional boost to Clipper traffic is expected after October 1 when the U.S. 10 per cent travel tax is wiped off the books.
A roundtrip ticket between Miami and San Juan, for example, will cost $8.60 less.
The new nose hanger is capable of handling the largest Clippers, even the new jet transports to be delivered to Pan American late in 1958. The hangar is 150 feet wide with a 40-foot cantilever overhang for housing heavy engine overhaul equipment.
The new maintenance area has six turn-around basins for plane service. Each basin has a dish-type drain center and is equipped with service outlets for electric power, lights and water. The area is 450 feet by 400.
Since the opening of Isla Varde a year ago, Pan American has, by necessity, operated its maintenance on a more or less “camping out” basis in front of the airline cargo building.
Rain often interfered with operations but Oscar Savelle, San Juan aircraft service superintendent, has turned out virtually one heavy service a day—
a job that requires 12 hours-
plus 10 engine changes a month and 200 turn-around services which range from three hours to overnight.
Approximately 100 men are em-( ployed in the hangar and line maintenance area; this number will be increased with the expected traffic gains.
Also housed in the hanger building are lockers for employes, a foreman’s office, radio and electric shop, spare aircraft engine storage area, stock dispensing room and an air-conditioned room for storage of precision spare parts.
On the hangar second floor are the aircraft superintendent’s office, an instruction class room, file room, and a large storage room.
The new maintenance area and nose hangar are to the east of the terminal. Nearby is PAA’s former airline maintenance building, moved intact from Isla Grande airport, and converted into a warehouse.
PAA Flies Cocoa Seeds to Haiti
In an attempt to help revive the once thriving Haitian cocoa industry, Pan American carried a shipment of 740 pounds of cocoa seeds by Clipper cargo from Port of Spain, Trinidad, to Port-au-Prince.
Because cocoa seeds are highly perishable, a special Haitian air force plane was standing by when the Clipper arrived to speed the seeds on to Jeremie, center of an area devastated by the hurricane of 1954. There workers immediately started planting the seeds.
The Haitian government is being assisted in the project by Bernard de Verteuil, Trinidad cocoa expert.
PRESIDES—President Trippe holding gavel at meeting of IATA.
Radio Service Is Improved
New additions to Pan American World Airways’ communications system are providing improved service for passengers traveling to and from Mexico.
Mexico City now is linked by automatic teletype circuit with the principal cities on Pan American’s global routes.
The direct circuit between Mexico City and Miami cuts 30 minutes off the time formerly required to confirm passenger reservations for travel in Central America, the Caribbean, South America, Europe and Africa.
The new high speed service places all the major cities in Latin America, except those in Colombia, in direct radioteletype or automatic teletype contact with PAA’s world-wide reservations centers.
Trippe Lauds IATA Role in World Peace
New Low Fare Agreement Held Significant Act
A major hope for world peace and prosperity is seen in the continuing prestige and dignity of the International Air Transport Association by the retiring president, Juan T. Trippe.
Trippe, president of Pan American World Airways, lauded the work of IATA to its members at the 12th annual general meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, before turning over the gavel to his successor, Lord William Sholto Douglas, chairman of British European Airways Corporation.
“Like the industry from which it sprang, IATA over the years has had to explore much uncharted territory,” Mr. Trippe said. “The major responsibility placed upon it, however, came with the bilateral air transport agreements between governments after World War II. In most of those bilateral agreements, IATA was prescribed as the vehicle by means of which the airlines would make expert recommendations to all governments concerned relating to fares and dates to be charged on the international air routes of the world.”
Trippe reminded his associates that the governments wisely recognized this was a complex job to be undertaken, in the first instance, by airline experts dedicated to improving their service to the public while at the same time maintaining the financial stability of their companies. “While the governments reserve the right to reject the IATA recommendations, it is to the credit of our association that the resolutions adopted by the traffic conferences have very largely been accepted,” he asserted.
“Like all important responsibilities, this one has brought major problems to IATA and its members. We would be less than candid
Continued on Page 8
Dog Gone!--By PAA Clipper
LASSIE, A CANAL ZONE POOCH owned by Mrs. Charles Senkier, of the U.S. Naval Station at Rodman, was flown to Los Angeles by Pan American Clipper to join her mistress on Ralph Edward's TV show, ''This is Your Life.'' Edwards arranged for the dog's flight. With Lassie are, left, Earl Waring, station traffic manager and Art Sumner, station cargo manager, at Pan American's Tocumen Airport.