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CHAMBERLIN, Clarence D. - Record Flights, together with Clarence D. Chamberlin TLS

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Historical Memorabilia Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:200.00 - 300.00 USD
CHAMBERLIN, Clarence D. - Record Flights, together with Clarence D. Chamberlin TLS
Items are as is. Please call us at (323) 250-3980 or email us at blacksparrow@haxbee.com for condition reports or any general inquiry.
Dorrance and Company Publishers, Philadelphia, (1928). First Edition. Octavo (8 ¼ X 5 5/8 in., 208 X 143 mm). 286 pages. Red cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Near Fine. A bright, fresh copy with slight bumping at spine ends. Hinges are sound. Priced clipped dust jacket is rubbed with paper loss at upper spine panel, and paper tape reinforcement of the folds on the verso. Accompanied by a typed letter signed (TLS) on Chamberlin Aircraft Engineering Co. letterhead, dated Aug. 25, 1955, (in full):

“Dear Mr. Ronnie: I have autographed your book and am mailing it under separate cover. I had lunch yesterday with C B Allen down at the Glen Martin Plant in Baltimore where he now is assistant to the president. The last I heard of Charlie Levine he was living in a very fine place outside of Mexico City some 30 to 40 miles. I doubt if he could die without more than a few lines in the papers. I rather think he is still alive. After making a second Atlantic Crossing with Erol Boyd the Columbia was stored in a barn down on Bellanca airport in Newcastle Del where it burned along with the Roma and other famous Bellanca planes. The railroad set fire to the grass probably from a freight engine and the grass set fire to the barn. It was a great old ship. It carried about 400 lbs more than twice the weight of the ship empty and took off from a grass field with a fixed pitch wood prop. The lord only knows how much it would have taken off with on a modern long concrete runway and a controllable pitch prop on the old 200 HP Wright J-5. Maybe it was 220 HP anyway I think it could have carried three times its own weight empty nearly 30 years ago. The air force was just recently bragging about some new model that could carry a load equal to its own weight empty. They still have a long way to catch up with G.M. Clarence Chamberlin.”

Wonderful content from this pioneer aviator, referencing his trans-Atlantic flight.