Pan American clipper, Vol. 8, No. 7, July 1950

              Volume 8	July, 1950	Number 7
Beirut Is Newest
Clipper Terminal
Charlie Tilton and Chile Vaughn Span Two PAA Decades: 1930-50
Direct Clipper service between New York and Beirut, Lebanon, was inaugurated by Pan American on June 29. Flight 122, leaving New York on Sundays and Thursdays and routed by way of Boston, Gander, Shannon, London, Brussels and Istanbul, now terminates in Beirut instead of Damascus, Syria.
In Beirut, the Clippers are landing at the new Khaldi Airport, a modern air terminal still under development by the Lebanese Government. The airport lies nine miles south of the City of Beirut in a picturesque setting. Only the highway to Haifa separates it from the Mediterranean Sea on the west. To the east are large plantations and olive groves, while the snow-capped Lebanon Mountains rise in the far distance.
Noel Larsen, station manager in Damascus, is also serving in the same capacity in Beirut, and Frank Kalous has been assigned to Beirut as senior maintenance supervisor.
From Beirut, Clipper passengers may make convenient onward connections, via Middle East Airlines, to points throughout the Middle East. Damascus is still being served by round-the-world Clippers which take off from LGA each Tuesday and Friday.
Harvey P. “Charlie” Tilton, shift coordinator in maintenance, and Captain Charles S. “Chile” Vaughn, assistant chief pilot—two of the Atlantic Divisions most colorful personalities — are celebrating their twentieth anniversaries with Pan American this month.
RIO, BA PAX FLY
"EL PRESIDENTE
“El Présidente,” de luxe sleeper service by Stratocruiser Clipper between New York and Buenos Aires, is being inaugurated July 5. The new luxury service is patterned after the Atlantic Division’s very successful President service between New York and London.
The route of “El Présidente” lies from New York to Trinidad, Port of Spain, non-stop. The next stop is Rio de Janeiro, only 19% hours out of New York, and the final destination, 6 hours, 40 minutes beyond, is Buenos Aires.
All passengers flying the extra fare “El Présidente” will enjoy the comfort of sleeperette seats and the luxury of a seven-course continental dinner served with vintage wines.
Idle wild From the Air
Chile Vaughn	Charlie Tilton
Mr. Tilton was born in Philadelphia, then moved to New York and was graduated from the Long Island City High School, but he took the long way ’round to reach Pan American and the Atlantic Division. In 1927 he enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the Army Technical School at Rantoul, 111., where he studied aviation and engine mechanics.
With the Army, Mr. Tilton went to Panama and it was there, on July 1, 1930, that he joined Pan American’s Western Division as a mechanic. He had advanced to an inspector’s rating by 1937, when he transferred to the Atlantic Division at Port Washington, L. 1. With this Division he has held a number of supervisory posts in maintenance, including the job of assistant to the chief inspector, and he has worked on every type of sea and land plane flown over Atlantic routes.
Mr. Tilton is married to the former Viola Gatzman and they live in Jamaica. Asked to mention his hobbies, he says proudly: “You can say my hobbies are my kids.” The “kids” are five in number—Mary Ellen, 16; Leah, 12; Harvey, Jr., 10; Oleta, 6, and Parker, 4.
Airborne Anniversary
Here’s how Idlewild Airport looks on its second birthday, as recorded by Photographer Michael Stanley and his aerial camera from a DC-3 Clipper. In the foreground you see some of the 4,300 acres that have been planted with Cape Cod beach grass to reduce flying sand. Next comes the parking lot, then the temporary terminal buildings. At the left center you can see the foundations for the $1,500,000 permanent operations building, while the straight strip running the width of the picture is Runway “A”. At the rear, left, are two of the three new hangars — the largest steel arch hangars in the world, built at a cost of $9,000,000. In the center background is Runway “F”, the closed-off runway on which much Clipper maintenance is done. Surrounded with scaffolding is the new pump house which will double the water pressure at Idlewild and provide a million-gallon reservoir. In the right background are the two city-built hangars which have been used since the airport opened July 1, 1948.
Captain Vaughn was scheduled to begin his twenty-first year with Pan American in the cockpit of a Stratocruiser Clipper, as skipper of a President flight from Idlewild to London. His job as assistant chief pilot in charge of administration for the Atlantic Division doesn’t keep him from regular flights out on the line.
Born in Kansas City, Mo., Captain Vaughn attended high school and college in Nashville, Tenn. Following graduation from Vanderbilt University there, he entered the Army Air Forces and won his wings at Kelly Field, Texas, in June, 1928.
After a two-year tour of duty with the Second Bombardment Group at Langley Field, Va., Captain Vaughn on July 2, 1930, joined the China National Aviation Corporation, (Continued on page 81