Fueling an airplane in the late 1920s at Old Lancaster Airport. Five gallon cas of gasoline from the fuel truck were poured through a chamois filter into the airplane's fuel tank.
R. L. Gerhart Company's Ryan monoplane advertised El Capitan Coffee. Pilot Jesse Jones stands at left. This is thought to be the first business aircraft purchased by a Lancaster County company. It was the sister ship of the Ryan "Spirit of St. Louis" flown by Charles Lindbergh from New York to Paris in May 1927.
The Curtiss Condor airplane visited the new Lancaster Municipal Airport to sell rides, day or night, to Lancaster countians. The pilot was the famed transatlantic flyer Clarence Chamberlin.
Committee to choose a site for the new Municipal Airport included members of Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, American Business Club and Lancaster Aero Club. Pictured left to right are Jesse P. Jones, Sumner L. Brown, George P. Luckey, A.D. Howry, John H. Carter, Charles B. Weise, F.K. Brinkman, W.S. Raub, H.M. Hersh, William D. Grant, S.R. Slaymaker and G.W. Birrell. Photo take December 7, 1929. William Grant, Christiana businessman and president of Lancaster Airways, Inc. was killed in an auto accident three days later.
Pilot Jesse Jones at the controls of Ryan Brougham B-5 airplane owned by Howard M. Hersh at leased to Lancaster Airways, Inc. under an agreement dated November 8, 1929. This was the first enclosed cabin airplane available for passenger service at the Manheim Pike airport which had been established by Jones in 1927.
