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Clarence Chamberlin: The man who would be Lindbergh by Ken Brooks |
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Charles Lindbergh
earned everlasting
fame for being first to
fly non-stop across the
Atlantic, on May 20, 1927.
The second pilot to accomplish
that feat--Clarence Chamberlin,who
has a Panama City
connection--has been largely
forgotten. But for an untimely
legal dispute, in fact,
Chamberlin would have
beaten Lindbergh across the
Atlantic and into the history
books. Chamberlin, born in Ohio in 1893, learned to fly as an employee of an advertising tow-sign company. In 1927 a $25,000 prize was offered to the first pilot to cross the ocean. Chamberlin, ready to fly, was delayed by a dispute over ownership of his plane. By the |
time the matter was
settled, Lucky Lindy had left
for Paris. Fifteen days later, on June 4, Chamberlin (and businessman Charles Levin) flew non-stop from New York to Germany. Chamberlin thus became the first man to fly a passenger to Europe. His trip of 3,911 miles had shattered Lindy's distance record as well. Later Chamberlin became America's first aerial reporter, snapping photos of fires and floods for the New York Times. In May 1937 Chamberlin flew state legislator Carl Gray from Tallahassee to Panama City. "It was evening," recalls local aviator Johnny Reaver, 84, "and there were no lights |
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