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By PAUL ALTAIRE Courier-Times Staff Writer On May 2, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh left Minerva Field, Long Island, on the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris. Two weeks later on June 4, 1927, Charles A. Le vine became the first airplane passenger to cross the Atlantic when flew across the ocean with Clar ence A. Chamberlain at the controls. Exactly 35 years, five months and 25 days later on Nov. 29, 1962, Pilot Chris Ritter flew the last plane out of Bueh Field in Bensalem ‘Township carrying with him the last passenger to leave the field before the bulldozers move in to make way for some 350 homes. The Flying JP Pilot Ritter, better known as “The Flying JP is from Cornwells Heights, was the last passenger. Lindbergh's flight took 33 hours, 29 minutes and 30 seconds. Chamberlain and Levine's flight took 42 hours and 31 minutes. We beat their time by miles. Eight minutes from Buehl's ‘Flying Dutchman” field in Ben salem to the 3-M Airport in Bristol. Four minutes to go up to the 1,500-foot level — four minutes to get down. Thousands upon thousands of persons greeted Lindbergh as they did Chamberlain and Levine when they landed in Paris and in Eisleben, Ger many, respectively, at the completion of their flights. Since no advance publicity was given our flight, thousands of persons were not at the 3-M airport when we landed. But we did have a police escort. Officer John Smith of the Bensalem Police Department, off duty at the time, met us at the 3-M airport to drive us back to Buehl Field where I had left my car to make the epochal flight. And so ends the history of Buehl Field which after 15 years closed its runways to make way for the ever increasing tide of city dwellers moving to the suburbs. Where the drone of airplane motors once echoed across the field, soon there will be the sounds, multiplied a thousandfold, of children. Not On The Records History books will not record the last flight out of Buehi field as they do the flights of Lindbergh, Chamberlain and Levine, Admiral Byrd, Wrong- Way Corrigan, or Astronauts Glenn, Carpenter, Grissom, Shepard and Schirra. But it did end an era in Bensalem. Pilot Chris Ritter, “the flying JP,” (left) stands on the wing of his four-cylinder Ercoupe plane as Courier-Times Staff Writer Paul Astaire steps into the cockpit to join him for the last flight out of Buehl Field. (Courier-Times Photo)
Newspaper Details
Bristol Daily Courier
Bristol, Pennsylvania, US
Sat, Dec 01, 1962
Page 20
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