Late License

Shy, smiling Juan Terry Trippe, president of Pan American Airways, whose planes fly 12,000,000 mi. yearly over 22,000 mi. of routes, presented himself last week to a Department of Commerce inspector at Roosevelt Field, L. I. He wanted a private pilot's license. If the inspector examined Mr. Trippe's log he saw a record of score 600 hours at the controls. Also Mr. Trippe might have told him how he learned to fly in Miami in 1917; served as a Navy pilot 1917-18, qualified as a night bomber pilot; bought a battered "Jenny" after the War and flew it about Long Island; logged some 400 hours private & commercial flying between 1922 and 1924. In 1927 he was licensed as an honorary mail pilot for one commemorative flight between Newark and Teterboro, N. J. (6 mi.). Since the Air Commerce Act was passed in 1926, requiring civilian licenses, office work had kept him out of the air a lot. His hired pilots flew him on trips or commuting from Easthampton to town. Now he had bought a Loening amphibian, wanted the fun of flying again. He handily made three-takeoffs and landings with his new ship, did three gentle & three steep figure eights, a spiral from 2,000 ft. to land within 500 ft. of a mark. When the inspector was satisfied that President Trippe was of good moral character and free of ailments which might interfere with safe flying, he issued him a license. Because it was only a private license, Pilot Trippe was not required to prove that he can read, write, speak and understand English.

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