Cyril Chappellet, 85; Lockheed Co-Founder

Cyril Chappellet, a former Army pilot who helped found Lockheed Corp., has died at his Pebble Beach home, the company said Thursday.

Chappellet, 85, died Wednesday, the company said. He was a 26-year-old former Army and airline pilot when he and several other aviation buffs paid $40,000 for the assets of a bankrupt company in 1932--the height of the Depression.

In its first full year, the company made about $25,000 on sales of about $355,000. Last year Lockheed, one of the biggest U.S. aerospace companies, had profits of $335 million on sales of nearly $10 billion.

Chappellet began as secretary of the corporation and retired as a senior vice president in 1963. He continued as a member of the board and adviser until 1978.

He was part of a group of relatively young men who ran America’s aircraft industry during World War II. He was named vice president of the firm in 1942 at age 36. At the same time he was also secretary of the Vega Airplane Co., a director of both Lockheed and Vega and president of Lockheed Air Terminal, a wholly-owned Lockheed subsidiary.

Chappellet was born in Oakland and graduated from Stanford University. He learned to fly in 1929 as an Army Air Corps cadet at Kelly Field in Texas, and was later commissioned in the California National Guard.

As a co-pilot for Western Air Express in 1930, he flew early routes between Southern California and New Mexico. Later that year he established an airline ticket agency in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

He is survived by his wife, Sybil, two daughters, a son, 10 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.