Lifelong Edgartown seasonal resident C. Langhorne Washburn, assistant secretary of commerce in the Nixon and Ford administrations and finance director of the GOP National Committee before that appointment, a former vice president of the A.C. Nielson TV ratings company, and vice president of Walt Disney Productions until his retirement in 1983, died Mar. 4 at his home in Middleburg, Va. He was 92.

Born in Livermore, Maine, July 14, 1918, he was a son of Stanley and Alice (Langhorne) Washburn. His father was a noted foreign correspondent for the Times of London. While their father traveled, Langhorne and his older brother, the late Stanley, and their mother spent idyllic childhood summers in Three Whale House, the family compound on Pease’s Point Way. In adulthood, both sons bought their own houses, with Langhorne’s on Pease’s Point Way and Stanley’s on South Water street.

Except for the years of World War II, Langhorne and Stanley made certain that part of each summer was spent in Edgartown. There, Langhorne happily sailed his sloop, Lot’s Wife, from the Edgartown Yacht Club, swam, fished at South Beach and played tennis as he had in childhood. In later years, the Washburn brothers would stroll together along North Water street after dinner at the Yacht Club, pausing for ice cream cones before they headed to their respective homes. And often they got together over waffles on Saturdays on Stanley’s South Water street porch to reminisce about their younger days. Whenever he was on the Island on the Fourth of July, Langhorne delighted in participating in the Edgartown parade in the 1931 gray Ford that Stanley had given to him,

Langhorne was a graduate of the University of Virginia and served as a Navy pilot in the Pacific in World War II. Flying remained a lifelong passion and often, on summer weekends, he would fly his Stagger Wing Beachcraft, Warp Wing, from New York to the Katama Airport. He became a test pilot with Hiller Helicopter and was renowned for a 1950s helicopter flight over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in which he and his companion left the body of the helicopter and held onto the struts while the helicopter flew all by itself. Their adventure was recorded on a Life Magazine cover in the 1950s. Fittingly, a Bell helicopter arrived at his Middleburg home, Holly Hill, to fly his remains to their burial place in Upperville, Va. three weeks ago.

Mr. Washburn was married three times, to Peggy Harrison, Paula Melhado and Judith Davies, who survives him, along with three children of his first marriage, Alice Taylor of San Mateo, Calif., Carey Washburn of Cuernavaca, Mexico and Tayloe Washburn of Seattle, Wash.; two children of his second marriage, Alexandra Washburn-Weidlein of Oxford, Miss., and Penny Brooks of Greenwich, Conn.; two from his third marriage, Serena Washburn of Barcelona, Spain and Natalie Washburn of Washington, D.C.; and 14 grandchildren.