Читать книгу Vertical Horizons - Douglas M. Grant - Страница 8
ОглавлениеChapter One
The Early Years: 1945–50
In June 1945 Carl Agar, recently demobbed from the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), walked into the Rienterer-Bent car dealership in Penticton, BC, where he met Barney Bent. Like Carl, Barney was wearing his old air force officer’s jacket, and the two men began talking about ways to make flying a career. That chance meeting would ultimately lead to the founding of one of the world’s largest helicopter companies.
▲ Alf Stringer (left), the first employee of Okanagan Air Services, and Carl Agar (right), OAS co-founder, just back from the bush in 1948. Photo courtesy of Evelyn and Pamela Stringer
Carlyle Clare (Carl) Agar was born on November 28, 1901, in Lion’s Head, Bruce County, Ontario, but the family moved to Edmonton four years later. Carl was the second child, six years younger than his brother Egan, who became his hero in 1917 when Egan and his friend Wilfrid Reid “Wop” May enlisted in the Edmonton battalion. On arrival in England both young men transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, and teenaged Carl was thrilled when his brother sent pictures of himself standing beside a fighter plane that was capable of travelling over 70 mph (112 km/h). But early in 1918 Egan was shot down and killed during a low level attack over German lines. He had survived a full 50 hours of combat, which suggests that he had been very good at his job as ground-attack pilots normally did not last that long. His friend Wop May survived the war and returned to Edmonton where he became one of the most legendary of the bush pilots who opened Canada’s North.
Even with his brother’s death, Carl’s enthusiasm for flying did not subside, although his parents, having lost one son to aviation, did not support his career choice. When the family moved to a farm southwest of Edmonton, Carl left school to work with his parents. In 1928 he married Ann Short and the following year their first child, Dorothy, was born; a year later a second child, Egan, arrived. With a family to support, Carl took on extra work with other farmers in the area in order to accumulate the $250 he needed to enrol in the Edmonton Flying Club. His first instructor there was Maurice “Moss” Burbridge, who was also teaching another young man named Grant McConachie. The two would meet again years later when McConachie was president of Canadian Pacific (CP) Air and Carl was vice-president of Okanagan Helicopters.
By 1929 Carl had obtained his licence, and Wop May promised him a job if he acquired a commercial licence. Unfortunately, the crippling effects of the Great Depression were beginning to hit Canada’s Prairie provinces, and Carl’s parents were getting older and needed more help on the farm; he could not turn his back on them. Knowing that farming could not support his flying, he reluctantly put away his logbook and licence. For a brief period between 1932 and 1934 he worked for the Department of Indian Affairs in agriculture then returned to farming full-time until World War II broke out in September 1939.
He tried to enlist with the RCAF, but at age 39 he was considered too old for active service and was only offered general duties. Devastated, he picked up his logbook and walked out. However, a chance meeting with his old flying instructor, Moss Burbridge, rekindled his hopes. Burbridge told him about the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP), which trained pilots, navigators, air gunners and wireless operators at various sites across Canada. They used the de Havilland Tiger Moth and Fairchild Cornell for elementary training and the Harvard and Anson for advanced training. Initially, instructors needed 250 hours in the air, but Burbridge was certain that this was about to change as more instructors were needed, and not long afterward he showed Carl a telegram stating that civilians with 30 hours total air time would be considered for positions as training instructors. Carl returned to the recruiting office in Edmonton, this time with a slightly amended logbook showing 39 hours and 25 minutes of air time.
He was sworn in as an aircraftman second class and sent to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, for basic training. The course was very demanding with a high number of washouts at the start, and while all the candidates were under considerable physical and mental pressure, at 39 Carl realized he would have to keep up with them as he would never get another chance. Twice he was grounded and twice he survived the washout check; after his second grounding, he had to wait three weeks for his check ride, spending his time pushing aircraft in and out of hangars and mopping up. When the day of the check ride finally came, his confidence was at its lowest, but somehow he managed to pass even though he had not touched the controls for over three weeks.
After earning his wings, Carl went on to Trenton, Ontario, where he obtained his instructor’s rating before returning to Edmonton. He still hoped to be posted to an operational squadron overseas, but his age prevented that. Instead, he was sent to No. 5 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) at High River, Alberta, followed by a posting to No. 3 EFTS Calgary, Alberta, and to No. 24 EFTS, Abbotsford, BC. He soon became known as an excellent instructor as he had empathy for his trainees and brought out the best in them. He also developed new methods of flight-testing that were eventually adopted by all the flying training schools across Canada. For his wartime services, in 1944 he was awarded the Air Force Cross, which was given for an act or acts of valour, courage and devotion to duty while flying, though not in active operations against the enemy.1 (It was finally presented to him in 1954 at a special ceremony in Victoria, BC.) After his honourable discharge in 1945, he tried farming in Abbotsford but after six months moved his family to Penticton.
Arnold H. (Barney) Bent was born on November 9, 1914, in Revelstoke, BC, and moved with his family to Penticton in 1919. His father, Percy, had been a coppersmith during World War I and later started a welding business in Vancouver with his brother. However, since Percy suffered from severe asthma, his doctor advised him to move to the Okanagan, and there he opened another welding shop and developed a low-pressure irrigation system for use in the local orchards. Eventually he branched out into heating and sheet metal jobs. Barney learned to weld in his father’s shop and worked in the family business from an early age, but when orchard business declined in the 1930s, he went to Vancouver to work with his uncle. An industrial accident at a local refinery damaged his leg, but he underwent therapy and eventually made a full recovery. On returning to Penticton he married Aurelia (Rilla) and they had three children.
In 1943 Barney, now aged 29, was inducted into the RCAF as a trainee pilot and within three months had gained his wings. After basic training, he was sent to No. 6 EFTS, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, where he was selected as a candidate for flying instructor. He taught at many of the BCATP elementary flying schools in western Canada, but after the war he returned to Penticton and the family business. Carl Agar’s chance visit to the Penticton garage reignited his love of flying.
With their air force experience behind them, both men wanted to find a way to make flying a career, so they decided to start a flying club, a relatively simple process in those days. By associating with the Royal Canadian Flying Club, they were able to purchase two Tiger Moths, including spares, for the sum of $200; both aircraft were in excellent condition and had low airframe time.
With two aircraft to maintain, they needed to hire a licensed air-maintenance engineer. The lack of suitable candidates in the Okanagan sent Carl to Vancouver, but he found that none of the engineers at the Vancouver Airport were willing to give up secure airline jobs to work for a small flying school in the Interior. However, he did hear of a man with an aircraft engineer’s licence who had recently been discharged from the RCAF and who was working in a garage in downtown Vancouver.
That man was Alfred (Alf) Stringer, who was born in Lancer, Saskatchewan, on July 26, 1921. His father, a Yorkshireman, had come to Canada in 1912 but returned to England with the Canadian Army to fight in World War I. While convalescing from wounds in England, he met his wife who was a nurse at the hospital. The couple settled in Lancer, a very small town started by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and that is where their three children were born. Alf, the second child, began helping with the tractors and farm equipment at an early age.
Alf’s mother, however, did not like small-town Prairie life, and following one particularly violent hail storm, she moved with the children to Vancouver to stay with her sister; Alf’s father joined them after he sold the farm. Alf attended Vancouver Technical School, in those days an all-boys trade school, where he learned the automotive trade. In 1943 with his apprenticeship complete, he joined the RCAF as an air-maintenance mechanic. During his service he was stationed at a number of air-training stations in western Canada and eventually was commissioned as an engineering officer. On discharge he had returned to Vancouver looking for aircraft-maintenance work, but finding no vacancies with the airlines had returned to automotive work in a garage in downtown Vancouver. In an interview from the 1990s he recalled that he had been down in the grease pit when Carl tracked him down in 1946:
Carl Agar came down to Vancouver; he spent some time talking to me and decided, I guess, when he went back to the people who were going to form this club, that I would be a likely subject to tighten the nuts and bolts for them, so they hired me and I headed up to the Okanagan Valley. In fact, this deal in Penticton didn’t sound too awe-inspiring, but there wasn’t much going on in aviation at the time anyway, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.2
Carl must have been very persuasive because he was only offering a small salary; in fact, for the first few months until the business got going, Alf got no money at all. Carl did, however, provide food and lodging and gave him a chance to work in aviation. Alf fit in; he was a good engineer with a very cheerful disposition regardless of the circumstances. He had a great knack for keeping everyone on the ground in good spirits while Carl was flying.
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From the start, the South Okanagan Flying Club was in trouble because the expected deluge of potential customers did not materialize, and their association with the Royal Canadian Flying Club, which had made it so easy to get started, became a burden by virtue of its charter, which only allowed them to offer training. Then just as they were managing to break even, another operator set up at the airport with more modern equipment, and it became obvious that they were not going to survive. Reluctantly they sold their assets. However, the failure of the South Okanagan Flying Club did not discourage them as they were convinced that a commercial flying venture in the Okanagan was feasible.
When Andy Duncan, another ex-RCAF pilot, joined them and contributed $1,500 in war bonds, they formed a new partnership called Okanagan Air Services (OAS). The Department of Transport granted them a charter for not only Penticton but also Kelowna, which unfortunately did not have an airport. However, the residents of nearby Rutland, then a small village to the northeast of the city, changed that by turning out in force with graders and rollers to produce a landing strip that was perfectly adequate for small aircraft.
▲ Penticton mayor Robert Lyon hands parcels to Carl Agar, who sits in the South Okanagan Flying Club’s de Havilland Tiger Moth. In 1946, Agar started an air parcel service between Penticton and Kelowna. Photo courtesy of the Okanagan Archives Trust Society
OAS’s new charter gave them the right to continue training and to carry out contract work. Barney travelled to Wichita, Kansas, to pick up their first new aircraft, a Cessna 140, registration CF-EHE. The business started off so well that they soon acquired a second Cessna 140 and became the Cessna agents for the Okanagan. When instructing took a downturn during the winter months, they decided to concentrate on charter work to provide a more reliable source of income.
Since the economy of the Okanagan at that time was almost entirely dependent on orcharding, they came up with the idea of establishing a spraying operation and contacted Dr. James Marshall, the entomologist in charge of the nearby Summerland Research Station. Okanagan orchards were experiencing serious pest control problems, and Marshall agreed that using aircraft could improve spraying efficiency as it would use only five to six gallons (23–27 litres) to the acre (0.4 hectare) rather than the 500–1,000 gallons (1,890–3,790 litres) required in ground applications. Carl and Barney decided to investigate a similar operation in Yakima, Washington, about 280 miles (450 kilometres) south of Penticton. That was when they learned about the high mortality rate for spray pilots and concluded that the risk of becoming a “cropper chopper” was far too great to spray using fixed-wing aircraft. It was shortly after making that decision that Carl read a story in an aviation magazine about helicopter spraying. Alf Stringer recalled that:
A company called Central Aircraft out of Yakima in Washington . . . who had been in the aerial spraying business for years, were going to go into helicopters because they looked like the answer for spraying.3
The magazine article described a new machine, the Bell 47 helicopter, which was capable of flying forward at around 90 mph (150 km/h) as well as backwards and sideways and hovering. Its advantages included slow speed and remarkable manoeuvrability, and when spraying crops, the downwash from the rotor blades tended to drive the insecticide down into the foliage of the plants below. This machine was easy on gas and did not require a large landing area, but the thing that really raised their interest was that it was fitted with an agricultural spray boom.
▲ Arthur Young (far left) and friends demonstrating the power and handling of the Bell Model 30. Young, an American helicopter pioneer, designed the Model 30 while working for Bell Aircraft of Buffalo, New York. This was the precursor of the famous Bell 47, which would appear on the television series M*A*S*H. Bell, with its Model 47, was the first company to get type certification for a commercial helicopter. Photo courtesy of Bell Textron
The two-seat Bell 47, which had been designed by the talented inventor Arthur Middleton Young, had been the first commercial helicopter in the world to receive a certificate of airworthiness. The Bell Helicopter Corporation, founded in July 1935 by Lawrence Dale Bell in Buffalo, New York, had initially built fixed-wing aircraft for the military and only began experimenting with helicopters in 1941. By 1947 they had Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) certification for the NC-1H Model 47. At first their market was mainly with the military, but they had also opened an agricultural division, which sold the Bell 47B-3; a 1946 advertisement offered a Bell “Roadster” Model 47B-3 for $35,000. Capable of carrying a 400-pound (180-kilogram) disposable load, this machine had an open cockpit with a rear-view mirror, a belt-driven blower and dust agitator as well as a spray-valve indicator mounted in the cockpit, and it came with accessories for crop-dusting and spraying.
In Canada the first commercial helicopter, a Bell 47D with registration CF-FJA, was bought by Photographic Survey Corporation of Toronto and registered in March 1947. Later that same year Skyways Services of Winnipeg bought CF-FQR and CF-FQS, but both Skyways machines crashed, one in June and the other in July; to replace the two that had crashed, Skyways purchased another machine, CF-FZN.
Carl and Alf went to Yakima to meet with Herman Poulin of Central Aircraft, the agent for Bell Helicopters. He took them for a ride, flying low and slow, sideways and backwards as well as hovering, ascending and descending. Given his fixed-wing experience, Carl was immediately sold on the machine and could see potential far beyond the manufacturer’s vision. Returning to Penticton full of enthusiasm, the two men realized that it was the answer to the problems of aerial spraying. All they needed was the $35,000 for the machine and another $1,500 for insurance, spares and training.
It happened that a consortium, formed by Douglas Dewar, CBE, a retired financier who had been deputy chairman of the Foreign Exchange Control Board during World War II and now spent his summers in Penticton, and Ernie Buckerfield, a Vancouver businessman, had applied to the Department of Transport in early 1947 to start an airline service between Vancouver and a number of towns in the BC Interior. Carl and Alf knew Dewar through his association with the flying club, and when his consortium’s application for an airline service was rejected in favour of Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPA), Carl, Barney and Alf approached them about financing their OAS proposal. However, after they had demonstrated the feasibility of their operation, Dewar suggested they approach the local fruit growers for financing, as they were the ones who would benefit from a spraying program, and he offered to arrange an introduction to Pat Aitken, the president of a local investment company. Dewar explained that if OAS could come up with a convincing argument to support their proposal, Aitken would assist in working out the details.
It fell to Carl to sell the plan, and he arranged for a group of fruit growers to go to Yakima for a demonstration. Also included on this trip were Pat Aitken and a Vancouver Province newspaper reporter named W. Beaver-Jones, whose story about that trip, “Helicopter to Spray Okanagan Orchards,” appeared in the Province in March 1947. Carl followed this trip with numerous meetings to convince the growers that helicopter spraying would be effective on their orchards. Not long afterwards, Okanagan Investments Ltd., the newly formed company that had taken over the assets of the OAS partnership, including the two Cessna 140s, all the parts and equipment plus the operating certificate, put a public issue of 50,000 one-dollar common shares on sale. The four partners—Carl, Barney, Alf and Andy—received a number of shares to pay for helicopter training for Carl and Alf.
At the end of May, Carl and Alf returned to Yakima to start training, but Carl was only partway through the course when he received an urgent phone call from Penticton. The sale of shares was going badly and he was needed back at base to head a promotion campaign. It seems that the fruit growers, being generally very conservative, were not completely convinced that a helicopter was the answer to their spraying problems. Now the directors began promoting the shares by tapping everyone they knew: friends, relatives and business acquaintances—no one was spared. In spite of the hard work, sales remained slow, and when the target date arrived, they were still short. After a meeting of the directors, Dewar picked up 10,000 shares, and a Penticton bank manager agreed to loan Carl, Barney and Alf funds for shares, making it possible to reach their goal.
Okanagan Air Services was incorporated on April 18, 1947, with the following registered directors:
Carl Agar, Penticton
O.St.P. (Pat) Aitken, Kelowna
Arnold Bent, Penticton
Ernest Buckerfield, Vancouver
Gordon Butler, Kelowna
Douglas Dewar, Penticton
James Kidston, Vernon
P.D. O’Brien, Penticton (secretary)
The new company continued operating the two Cessnas out of the Rutland field, which was overseen by Andy Duncan, and built its first hangar in Penticton for the sum of $275.
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▲ Logbook entry of Carl Agar and Alf Stringer’s landing in Penticton on August 9, 1947. Photo courtesy of Evelyn Stringer
Although he was already 45 years old, Carl Agar quickly adapted to helicopter flying. After just 7 hours and 50 minutes he made his first solo flight; his instructor, Carl Brady, aged 26, had a total time of 35 hours in his logbook. Alf was trained by Joe Beebe, the chief mechanic for Central Aircraft; Beebe had been one of the first men to assemble a helicopter in North America. On August 9, 1947, Carl Brady and Joe Beebe watched Carl and Alf take off in their new Bell B-3, CF-FZX, en route to Penticton, Carl with his 27 hours of helicopter time and Alf with his maintenance certificate. Carl Brady’s parting words to them were: “Keep it low and keep it slow,” but the flight was uneventful as they followed the valley north. However, flying in an open cockpit was not pleasant, even on a sunny August day, and by the time they reached their destination, they were so cold that they downed several cups of coffee before they realized that they had forgotten to fill out the import forms—as a result the first helicopter to enter British Columbia did so illegally.
They put CF-FZX right to work with the Summerland Research Station where they participated in a series of experimental spraying projects on orchard plots chosen by Dr. Marshall. He thought that dusting the orchards would probably not work but decided to try it anyway. The day of the first test was sunny and bright. Carl took to the air and as he released the dust over the orchard, it billowed out to form a huge cloud behind the helicopter. To the observers on the ground it was a spectacular sight, but when they examined the plot they found that very little of the insecticide had adhered to the foliage. Most had fallen to the ground or just drifted away. The test confirmed that, as a means of controlling insects and disease, dusting from a helicopter was not effective.
▲ Carl Agar (left) and Alf Stringer land in Penticton on August 9, 1947. Photo courtesy of the Okanagan Archives Trust Society
The next experiment, involving a liquid spray, was not without problems either. Dr. Marshall and his staff had calculated that the optimal application was five gallons per acre (20 litres per half hectare) at a speed of 35 mph (55 km/h). While more successful than dusting, this method left the mobile ground crew struggling to keep up with the helicopter as it sprayed about one acre (a half hectare) per minute. Another problem was that some areas within the patchwork of plots contained a variety of trees, each requiring different applications. As well, there were mechanical problems because the liquid spray, which was in a concentrated form in tanks on either side of the machine, plugged the spray apertures and caused load imbalance, leading to the instability of the machine. As a result, on a few occasions disaster was only narrowly avoided. In addition, the spray was corrosive and the helicopter had to be meticulously cleaned after each operation. Carl, sitting in the open cockpit, was thoroughly soaked by the end of each flight; the hazards of pesticide exposure were unknown at the time so there was no understanding what it was doing to his health on a long-term basis.
▲ Carl Agar at the controls of Okanagan Air Services’ first helicopter Bell 47 CF-FZX flying over Okanagan Lake in 1947. Okanagan Helicopters photo
▲ Carl Agar crashed Bell 47 CF-FZX into power lines during a spraying demonstration on September 1, 1947. Photo courtesy of the Okanagan Archives Trust Society
On September 1, 1947, OAS very nearly ceased operations at a demonstration at the 2.5-acre (one-hectare) apple orchard owned by Andy Duncan’s father. The orchard was triangular in shape with fir trees, some as high as 70 feet (21 metres), on one side and a road and power and telephone lines running along another. On the evening before the demonstration, Carl had looked over the orchard and come to the conclusion that, given the prevailing winds, he would have to drop over the telephone and power lines, spray the designated rows of apple trees, and then make a sharp turn to avoid colliding with the fir trees. The next day he circled around the plot a few times before dropping over the power lines. At a speed of 30 mph (50 km/h), he sprayed the first row, cleared the fir trees, and circled around for his second run, again nicely clearing the trees, before coming in for the third run. This time he found that the fir trees formed a barrier between him and the row he was about to spray. Concentrating on his approach, which took him very close to the trees, he lost sight of the telephone and power lines that were in his path and eased off on the pitch of the main blades, allowing the helicopter to sink. Suddenly in front of him were four power lines. He made a desperate effort to recover by pulling back on the cyclic while pushing up on the collective. The helicopter climbed very steeply, missing the high voltage power lines by a few feet, but it was too much and too fast for the machine, over-pitching the main rotor, causing loss of lift and dropping the ground speed to zero. Seconds later the helicopter was straddling the top two power lines. Then it fell through the lines with a sharp crack like a pistol shot, followed by blue flashes and flames. As it crashed through the power lines, the main blades chewed through the fir trees, and the helicopter fell with a resounding thud onto the road, spilling the contents of the spray tanks in all directions and leaving tangled power cables all over the ground.
As the bystanders watched open-mouthed, Carl stepped out of the helicopter and began surveying the chaos around him. As luck would have it, he had been sitting on a thick rubber cushion and wearing heavy rubber boots, and the handles of the controls were either rubber or Bakelite, an early plastic. The electrical cables had shorted out through the helicopter airframe. He walked away with minor injuries to his shoulder and a few bruises, but the same could not be said about CF-FZX.
The directors of OAS had a meeting, but in the end they agreed to let Carl make the decision on how to proceed. Although he was anxious to get right back to work, OAS did not have a helicopter and it would take all winter to rebuild CF-FZX. Fortunately, the Winnipeg company Skyways had brought CF-FZN to BC but had not found sufficient work for it, and when Carl approached them about a possible lease, they were more than happy to oblige. Using the leased machine, he soon completed OAS’s spraying contracts and returned it to Skyways.
▲ Alf Stringer dismantles Bell 47 CF-FZX for shipment to Yakima, Washington. Photo courtesy of the Kelowna Public Archives
▲ Bell 47 CF-FZX on a truck on Penticton’s Main Street. Photo courtesy of the Okanagan Archives Trust Society
In the meantime Alf had loaded a truck with all the bits and pieces of CF-FZX and headed down to Yakima where he spent the winter rebuilding the machine. During that period Carl and Andy Duncan continued to train pilots on the two Cessnas at the Rutland airstrip, but winter brought the operation to a close and with it went their remaining source of revenue. Due to the accident, their first year of operation, from July 15 to December 31, had resulted in a loss of $13,650. To obtain financing to cover the deficit and the next year’s operation, they approached the Royal Bank of Canada for a loan, backing it with the personal guarantees of all the directors.
▲ In the spring of 1948, the Fraser River flooded, leaving large parts of the valley under water. This photo shows the area of Chadley and Sumas roads, Chilliwack. The water level peaked on June 10, leaving 16,000 people evacuated and 200 homes destroyed. Okanagan Air Services was hired by the provincial government to spray for mosquitoes. It was their first big break. Chilliwack Museum Archives
1948
In the spring of 1948 Alf returned to Penticton with the rebuilt CF-FZX, and it was put straight to work on new spray tests for the Summerland Research Station. However, in a very discouraging start to the season, problems again arose with corrosion and clogging, resulting in frequent changes of the hose nozzles. April, May and half of June passed while they struggled to complete all the sprays that had to be applied before and during blossom time. At one point they decided to abandon sprays and try dusting again, but when the winds increased to 10 mph (15 km/h), the operation had to stop due to excessive drift. The dust got into their eyes and mouths and covered their clothes. Thorough cleaning of the helicopter at the end of each day was difficult because the dust stuck to the machine and the process left their hands raw. The growers were not impressed, and Carl and Alf had to admit that, with the equipment that was available and the nature of the area, neither spraying nor dusting could be done effectively with a helicopter. The company directors, remembering the crash scene, were also uneasy about spraying, and so the hunt for other work began.
It was the disastrous flood of May 1948 in the Fraser Valley that gave OAS a fresh opportunity. On the weekend of May 24 the mighty Fraser River broke its banks, flooding the area around Chilliwack and Mission to a depth of about 25 feet (7.5 metres), leaving over 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares) of farmland under water and providing ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes. That was when the BC government contacted Pat Aitken in Kelowna to see if the helicopter could be sent to Chilliwack to be used in a mosquito control program.
On June 17 Carl and Alf left Penticton for Chilliwack, a distance of 177 miles (285 kilometres) through rugged mountain terrain. Keeping to the river valleys and following the route that would become Highway 3 from Princeton to Hope, they heeded Carl Brady’s words and flew low and slow. Their arrival in Chilliwack attracted a lot of attention. This spraying was a much simpler operation than in the Okanagan orchards because the terrain was wide and flat, leaving the helicopter plenty of room to manoeuvre, and the spray, which was a mixture of a small amount of DDT and light diesel, was less corrosive, easier to clean up, and did not plug up the spray nozzles.
▲ Okanagan Air Services’ Bell 47 CF-FZX being refuelled while on a contract to spray for a false hemlock looper infestation near Windermere in the Kootenays. Photo courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives, Fonds PR-1842
▲ Carl Agar learns the techniques of mountain flying in the Windermere area, where he would attain altitudes of between 2,500 feet (760 metres) to 4,500 feet (1,370 metres). Photo courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives, Fonds PR-1842
The free publicity gained with this job drew the attention of provincial Department of Lands and Forests officials who offered OAS a contract to spray an infestation of the false hemlock looper insect that was damaging a crop of commercially grown Christmas trees near the BC-Alberta border. Carl and Alf left Chilliwack heading east for the Windermere area on a long flight path that took them across almost every mountain range in southern BC and gave Carl more experience in the art of mountain flying. It also made them realize how vast and remote the BC Interior was. When they arrived at Invermere in the Windermere Valley, Carl met with the Forestry people while Alf serviced the helicopter. The area to be sprayed was 11,000 acres (4,450 hectares) at altitudes varying from 2,500–4,000 feet (760–1,220 metres) and required the application of one gallon per acre (four litres per half hectare) to be sprayed in 60-foot-wide (18-metre-wide) strips. Carl devised a marker system using helium balloons attached to fishing line. The ground crew placed one of these markers at the end of a strip and, once that row had been sprayed, moved the marker to the next strip. When Carl stopped for refuelling, the markers showed him where he had left off. Spraying started on July 1 and was completed by July 24 with a total of 466 flights. The operation achieved a 100 percent kill rate of the insect and more good publicity for OAS.
Carl had now flown at higher altitudes and had learned the idiosyncrasies of handling the helicopter in a wide range of terrains, and with two very successful operations to their credit the company had the confidence to tackle fresh challenges. Before they could take on any more work, however, the helicopter had to return to Penticton for routine maintenance. The early Bell 47 was underpowered with a Franklin 178-horsepower engine mounted horizontally rather than vertically as in fixed-wing aircraft. Since grease boots had not yet been invented, it was necessary to take the helicopter apart after every 25 hours flying time for lubrication. In addition, the transmission bearings had to be replaced every 25 hours, and the high-tension cables on the engine ignition were prone to failure. This left Alf with responsibility for a great deal of maintenance plus assembling and cleaning the spraying equipment as well as organizing the refuelling, but because of his training under Joe Beebe at Central Aircraft and rebuilding CF-FZX, he had already become an experienced field engineer.
In Chilliwack on August 2, 1948, Carl met with provincial surveyors Norman Stewart and Gerry Emerson who explained that only 2 percent of the province had been adequately surveyed and that better topographical information was required. These two surveyors could see the efficiency of flying in men and equipment compared to long, exhausting treks on horseback and/or foot, and they quizzed Carl on the possibility of delivering them and their equipment safely to high altitudes and remote valleys via helicopter. Carl and Alf were confident that the machine was more than capable as long as they did not overstep its limitations. As a test project, the topographical survey department offered OAS a contract to transport men and equipment from a base in Chilliwack at $85 per hour plus living expenses for the pilot, an engineer and a helper. On the first day Carl took Stewart and Emerson on a familiarization flight into the rugged and forbidding Mount Cheam area of the Skagit Range. The actual spot had been selected by aerial photography and maps and was at the 5,300-foot (1,615-metre) level. Both surveyors were very impressed with the helicopter and became enthusiastic about its possible uses, but as Carl was rather quiet during the flight, deep in concentration, neither of them fully appreciated the machine’s limitations at such a high altitude. They looked over the area carefully from the air, paying special attention to the proposed landing site, but Carl explained that for safety reasons he would have to make the first landing by himself. They returned to Chilliwack and signed a handwritten agreement on BC government letterhead:
I, Carl Agar representing Okanagan Air Services Ltd of Kelowna, BC, agree to provide a helicopter for transporting men on a topographical survey under G.C. Emerson, BCLS, from an air base at Chilliwack to their work on mountains south and east of Chilliwack insofar as it is practicable, at an hourly rate of eight-five dollars ($85) plus living expenses for pilot, engineer and helper and 8 cents per mile for jeep transportation for the ground crew.4
That night Carl did some serious thinking about the next day’s work. Under the best conditions, the Bell 47 B-3 had a normal operating ceiling of 3,000 feet (915 metres); the clearing he was to land on was a full 2,300 feet (700 metres) higher than that. He knew that above 3,000 feet he would encounter problems with air density, winds and downdrafts, as well as temperature changes, especially since it was August and the temperature was above normal, but he still hoped that he could develop a technique that would enable him to get the men into the places they wanted to go. When he left on his own the next morning, he had no clear picture of what he intended to do, but to monitor the temperature, he stuck an ordinary household thermometer in the cockpit; the rest would be based on his judgement and skill.
Barney Bent, writing many years later, recalled how that day had gone for Carl:
This type of helicopter flying had never been tackled before, and the slight distortion of Carl’s facial muscles was the only sign of stress. To his dismay he discovered that, when he flew at slow speed alongside the cliff face, he was gripped with acrophobia, a fear of heights, which he had never experienced when flying fixed-wing in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). When he touched down on a tiny ledge at high elevation, he felt his palms sweating and had to prevent himself from closing his eyes and freezing at the moment that required all his attention and co-ordination. He managed to conquer his fear and went on to complete even more difficult landings in places no one had ever reached on foot. He explored the helicopter’s potential and discovered its characteristics in the unpredictable air currents and extremes in temperature and humidity.5
Later Carl told Barney that the tiny clearing on Mount Cheam had been his “mountain-flying schoolroom.”6
The following day Norman Stewart became Carl’s first passenger, and he deposited him at the landing spot he had selected about a half-mile below the mountain’s summit then returned to pick up Emerson and Ernie McMinn of the Surveyor General’s office. The landing site was not ideal as it was at the foot of a glacial cirque—a ridge of gravel in front of a little lake with a wall of ice behind it—and cold air poured off the ice like a waterfall. The three surveyors hiked to the top of the mountain and on the way discovered the remains of an air force Lockheed Lodestar that had crashed and burned there in 1942. Carl returned for them just as fog was rolling in.
For Ernie McMinn this was the first of many helicopter survey operations with Carl Agar, and he would later remember the thrill of “sailing over the ground at 60 mph (95 km/h).” He also remembered that:
The helicopter had four little wheels . . . and if you landed on a slope, the machine would start to roll. There were no brakes. I remember once they tried to take off from the top of a snow slide and couldn’t quite make it so they had to land again on the slope and rolled all the way down the snowbank—about three or four hundred yards [274–366 metres]. Eventually they reached a flat space and stopped. After a good deal of soul searching, they took off again.
But still, apart from the wheels, the biggest problem was getting off with a load when you were high up about five or six thousand feet [1,500 or 1,800 metres]. You had to carry a theodolite and tripod, which weighed about 35 pounds [16 kilograms], and a camera, which in those days weighed about 30 pounds [15 kilograms]. So Carl came up with the idea of landing on the edge of a drop-off. He’d take some extra revs. I can remember some of those takeoffs: the rpms were dropping back from 3,600 to about 2,800, and the thing was falling, but it was falling clear and gradually we’d pick up the revs again.7
To address the challenge of landing on a slope without brakes—and while they waited for Bell to develop hydraulic brakes—Alf came up with a temporary fix using strips cut from old car tires and wedges between the axles and the tires. He also told Bell that they needed a fixed skid-type undercarriage—which duly arrived a year later.
Once, when asked to land on the top of another mountain, Carl went off by himself to look at the location. On his return he informed the survey boss that he had found the spot but had to chase a black bear off the clearing before he could land. On completion of the three-week trial survey, the surveyors assured Carl and Alf that their helicopter would be fully utilized the following season.
Landing survey crews at high altitude was a turning point for OAS in the exploration of the rugged areas of British Columbia. Surveys that would have taken weeks or even months on foot or horseback could now be completed in a matter of hours. To the surveyors, prospectors and explorers that he carried, the helicopter was even more valuable than a float plane because of its ability to hover when it could not land. During later topographic work, Carl was able to make safe landings up to 8,200 feet (2,500 metres), and he could see that once Bell Helicopters developed a more powerful engine, the ceiling would be even higher. With his background as an instructor, he also realized that he would need to train other pilots, and once he was confident with mountain flying, he began to make notes about what he had learned. His edited notes formed the basis of a flight manual that would eventually be used by Canadian, US and other armed forces military pilots.
*
Carl Agar was not the only pilot on a survey project in 1948. Al Soutar of Kenting Aviation flew CF-FJA, a Bell 47D, in the Watson Lake–Teslin area of the Yukon for the Dominion Geodetic Survey that summer.8 He reported 210 flying hours hampered by bad weather, and F.P. Seers of the Federal Geodetic Survey reported that the operation was not a success due to unfavourable weather and limited payloads of the helicopter above 4,000 feet (1,220 metres).9
Later that year OAS was offered a contract with a logging company to conduct a survey to estimate the amount of timber contained in an inaccessible area in Knight Inlet, about 155 miles (250 kilometres) north of Vancouver. Carl was advised that a successful operation would result in additional contracts, giving them a fresh source of revenue, so he and Alf flew the helicopter up the coast and landed at a small floating base camp near the site. The logging engineer provided aerial photographs to help identify the area and a detailed list of the company’s expectations. The helicopter proved to be perfect for this type of work, able to cover a vast area in a few weeks. From the aerial survey, the logging company was able to read growth patterns and species, assess the general condition of the timber and plan logging roads and service areas sites. This was the start of an operation that years later would lead to Okanagan’s dedicated heli-logging division.
In early September 1948 Carl and Alf were back in Vancouver but, not finding any work opportunities, returned CF-FZX to Penticton where they reluctantly took on another spraying job. Fortunately, the spray, which was to prevent apples falling off the trees prior to harvest, was in diluted form and did not clog the equipment. This time, the fruit growers were happy with the results.
By the end of 1948 the working relationship between Carl and Alf had strengthened and become indispensable to the business. Initially Barney Bent had intended to take a more active part in the operations, but as long as it had been only a fixed-wing operation, there had been insufficient work and revenue to support an additional full-time flying position, and he had only flown on weekends. Once the fixed-wing operation was placed in the hands of Andy Duncan, Barney had been gradually drawn back into his family’s business, and eventually he stopped flying even on weekends. He stayed on as a director of the company and was associated with the company’s activities into the 1980s. He remained one of Carl’s staunchest allies.
During their flights around the province over that summer, Carl and Alf realized the enormous potential for helicopter work in forestry and mining surveys and wildlife and forest control. They discussed moving the operation to Vancouver in order to be closer to potential resource industry customers, but in the end they decided to remain in the Okanagan. Coincidentally, about this time the city of Kelowna decided to build a new airport with a 3,000-foot (915-metre) runway, just north of the existing Rutland field, hoping to get full licensing for hangars and shop facilities as well. When they agreed to rent space to OAS, the OAS board of directors decided to move the fixed-wing operation to the new airport. About this time Andy Duncan stepped down as chief pilot for OAS to return to the more lucrative business of fruit growing. Under his direction the flight school and charter operations business had considerable success during the summer months but had declined over the winter. His replacement was Doug Anderson, another ex-RCAF flying instructor, who was highly regarded as a pilot, and he led the transition to the new airport. The company took on A.L. Johnson, a retired RCAF air commodore, as vice-president.
Although 1948 had been a better year, the improvement in finances was not enough to pull the company out of the red. Prospects looked bright overall, however, especially if OAS could capitalize on Carl’s hard-won expertise. Based on the year’s activities and the potential he identified in transportation, agriculture and construction, he argued for the purchase of a second helicopter, although the company had not yet made money with their first machine. Knowing the publicity they had received would bring in competition, Douglas Dewar began negotiating to buy Skyways Ltd., which had continued to operate its sole helicopter out of Vancouver, but he discovered that Skyways’ financial situation was weak and they had no work for their machine, CF-FZN, which OAS had leased the previous year. Dewar also discovered that the company had a number of outstanding insurance claims and that, apart from CF-FZN, their assets consisted of the helicopter parts from the two machines wrecked in the summer of 1947, which had been salvaged but not re-certified. At that point, negotiations were dropped. However, when Skyways went into receivership, Okanagan re-opened negotiations, this time with the insurance company that held the assets. It agreed to sell CF-FZN plus spares for $20,000 with a down payment of $1,000, subject to an engineer’s airworthiness report.
1949
Unfortunately, the winter of 1948–49 featured severe weather with heavy snow in the mountains, delaying the start of mining, forestry and survey work in the spring. For a young company bursting with ideas and know-how and desperately short of cash to cover overheads, the wait seemed endless and frustrating.
Finally in April 1949 OAS received a letter from an Idaho mining engineer inquiring about the use of a helicopter to move a diamond drill rig to a height of 3,500 feet (1,065 metres) from an operating base at Moyeha Bay in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. On a reconnaissance flight later that month, Carl took one of the prospectors up to the site, and while the helicopter hovered above the snow pack, the prospector jumped out and promptly sank up to his waist. Fortunately, with Carl in a low hover he was able to climb back on board, but it was a clear indication that this operation would require careful planning. The following day when the snow was frozen, they flew back to the site and placed two by eight–foot (.6 by 2.4–metre) plywood sheets down to act as a landing platform for the helicopter’s front and rear wheels. Then, since the blast from the rotor blades tended to move this makeshift landing pad, they covered the plywood sheets with a heavy duty tarpaulin weighed down with pieces of mining equipment. Base camp for the operation was an offshore log float covered with cedar shakes to form a landing pad and service area.
The helicopter was fitted with litter carriers on each side for transporting the diamond drill, the crew, their personal effects, tents, cookhouse, supplies and tools. Each load had to be broken down so that no item weighed more than 250 pounds (115 kilograms) then tied down in the carriers to ensure that the weight remained evenly distributed. Usually one of the crew flew in the passenger’s seat to balance the load. It took 80 trips to move over 28,000 pounds (12,700 kilograms) to the drilling site including 16 passenger trips. Each lift covered eight and a half miles (13.5 kilometres) and took about 17 minutes.
As spring advanced and the snow melted, there was insufficient space on the mountain landing site for the helicopter, so they used the plywood to build a six-by-ten-foot (two-by-three-metre) landing platform higher on the side of the mountain. A toboggan was brought in to move the cargo from the new landing site down the incline to the drill site. The weather that summer was unpredictable with low cloud, considerable rain and headwinds, and as a result, the helicopter had to be tied down on the log float every night so that Alf could carry out servicing and checks on it. It was a crude arrangement but provided convincing proof that the helicopter could take real punishment.
The mining crews occupied the site from June until October. Mining company officials who visited the project were impressed with the operation, especially when they factored in their savings in time and money compared to putting trails into that heavily wooded and rocky terrain.
With all this fresh interest in OAS’s services, the arrival of ex-Skyways CF-FZN that summer was a cause for celebration as they now had backup for the contracts that they had signed, and Carl and Alf began looking for another pilot and more maintenance staff. When CF-FZX returned to Vancouver from Clayoquot Sound, it was immediately contracted for another timber surveying job by the same company that had hired OAS for the Knight Inlet job. This time the operation was on the Elaho River, north of Squamish, BC. Using the helicopter, they were able to complete the job in two weeks.
Their next contract involved taking two mining engineers, W.J. (Bill) MacKenzie and George Warren from Kelowna, to prospect in the Gott Peak area near Lytton, BC, about 160 miles (260 kilometres) northeast of Vancouver. The morning after Alf completed the maintenance, Carl set off, following the Fraser River north through the narrow canyon to Lytton at the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson rivers. During the flight he encountered severe turbulence, including violent downdrafts and updrafts that threw the helicopter about. He recorded these problems and his observations for future reference.
Lytton is set among deep gorges and high mountains, and in summer the terrain, coupled with high temperatures, creates intense thermal activity so that the helicopter’s descent to the valley floor was impossible. Even though Carl tried to dive it down in short steps, he could not lose altitude and, concerned that the machine would sustain damage, he was forced to climb out of the area and land elsewhere. He realized he still had much to learn about mountain flying. He picked up Warren and MacKenzie and in two trips had them and all their gear on the 9,700-foot (2,955-metre) summit of Gott Peak where there were plenty of landing sites, including snow patches, alpine meadows and the ridges between peaks.
These two engineers would use OAS again. In the April 1950 issue of Western Miner they wrote about their experiences with high-elevation landings and pointed out that the helicopter would greatly accelerate mineral exploration, assist in the development of mines and facilitate topographical and geological surveys. The helicopter, they said, had replaced fixed-wing aircraft and jeeps as the main means of transportation into remote sites. This article certainly reinforced what Carl had been saying about the value of helicopters to primary industries.
Bill MacKenzie was appointed to the OAS board of directors the following year. With 25 years of experience in mining in Canada and Africa, his knowledge was invaluable to the company.
*
On completion of the Gott Mountain contract, Carl returned CF-FZX to Vancouver where he found a message that Professor Wilfred Heslop of the Civil Engineering faculty at the University of British Columbia had requested a meeting to discuss using a helicopter to conduct a survey for power-line routes in the northern part of the province. In the course of the meeting Carl sensed that this survey job was the beginning of a very big project and decided to give the professor a demonstration of what CF-FZX could do. He flew him over Vancouver’s North Shore, up the mountain slopes, along the ridges and peaks, landing in alpine meadows and deep canyons. The demonstration also included flying slowly over the treetops to the inaccessible site of the Palisade dam project on the Capilano River. Afterwards Heslop made a commitment to meet Carl in Terrace, BC on August 31 to begin a two- to three-week preliminary survey in that remote area for the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan).
For some years Alcan had searched for the ideal site for a large aluminum smelter with access to an abundant supply of low-cost electrical power. By 1949 the company had selected the Kitimat Mission area, a First Nations village on the Kitimat Arm of deep-sea Douglas Channel. Extensive studies of maps, topographical surveys and aerial photography indicated that a huge network of rivers and lakes in the Coast Mountains could be diverted to a powerhouse at Kemano. The purpose of Heslop’s survey was to determine the best route for the 70 miles (112 kilometres) of power transmission lines from Kemano over Kildala Pass to Kitimat, and the OAS contract involved checking 16 possible routes. Most of the year the area was plagued by heavy precipitation and dense fog, while in winter the deep snow brought a high risk of avalanches; thus, the choice of route was one of the most critical aspects of the project because any disruption of power would be disastrous for the smelter.
When Carl met him in Terrace on August 31, Heslop directed him to fly to the village of Kitimat, where he had secured temporary accommodation for him as well as access to supplies at the local store. The helicopter had to be refuelled on the beach, so a fuel cache was brought in by boat to the Kitimat dock and, with Heslop’s assistance, the drums were rolled down the main street to the beach where Heslop had designed an ingenious landing platform. The slope of the shoreline and presence of debris at the high-water mark dictated that, while the helicopter hovered, Heslop had to dig two holes in the sand for the front wheels so that when the helicopter was lowered its axle was level. To raise the rear wheels, he built a frame of logs covered with cedar shakes held down with large rocks to prevent movement by the tide or rotor blast. This novel landing pad worked throughout the operation but had to be repaired after each high tide, which filled the holes with sand. Each day Heslop had to guide Carl into a hover while he re-excavated the holes.
With refuelling completed, they flew to Kemano where they refuelled again and then flew a different route on the return to base, eliminating the need for a second base at Kemano. Fortunately, during the survey period, they had CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited), enabling close scrutiny of the terrain. Heslop could note contours, heights, rock formations, water speed, soil composition, high-water marks and timber stands. He was also able to identify areas at risk for rock slides and flooding and determine possible locations for roads.
Once all of the 16 routes had been examined, Heslop eliminated some as impossible, others as inadvisable, and two or three as possibilities. At the end of 20 hours flying time with an additional eight hours for ferrying from Terrace, Heslop had his data and was able to make his final decision. A ground party would have needed three to five seasons to complete the same work. Heslop was impressed with the helicopter and assured OAS that if the contract did go ahead the company would be involved. Carl had already realized the magnitude of the project and was convinced they should start planning immediately to expand the OAS fleet. In fact, Alcan’s Kitimat-Kemano project would become the turning point for OAS as well as the entire civilian helicopter industry.
*
In the spring of 1949 A.L. Johnson, OAS’s new vice-president, began final negotiations with the BC Electric Company and the Vancouver Water Board on the Palisade dam and reservoir project. The dam, built to increase Vancouver’s water storage capacity, was located at the 3,000-foot (915-metre) level at the headwaters of the Capilano River. Base camp, which was on a jeep trail that started at Britannia Beach, was about five miles (eight kilometres) from the dam. The contract provided for a monthly patrol of the power lines as well as lifting 500,000 pounds (225,800 kilograms) of equipment—everything from a two-storey bunkhouse, 13 men and their gear, construction materials and a concrete mixer pump to rock drills and boats.
Within days of the contract signing, Okanagan hired pilot Paul Ostrander, who had flown CF-FZN for Skyways, and Carl checked him out on airlift work. The Palisades job involved as many as 40 trips in a day, each of them 12 to 15 minutes in duration. Most of the materials went into the lightweight carriers installed on the helicopter’s outer airframe, with no component exceeding 200 pounds (90 kilograms). The mixer barrel, which weighed over 400 pounds (180 kilograms), was transported by a hook attached to the four wheels and positioned to maintain the machine’s centre of gravity. As work on the dam progressed, Ostrander also picked up company directors from downtown Vancouver and flew them to the site for the occasional inspection.
In July Douglas Dewar announced that the company had concluded a contract for a topographical survey in the Hazelton, BC, area. With Carl on that survey with CF-FZX and Paul on the Palisade project with CF-FZN, Alf had to commute between Hazelton and Vancouver to do the maintenance. When he was in Hazelton, he usually worked through the night to have the machine ready for next day. Fortunately, CF-FZX was equipped with a 300-hour transmission bearing that required very little attention other than 25-hour checks. Cracking in the engine’s high-tension cables did not cause any serious downtime, and the blades, which were made of wood, were easily repaired with household glue. The Palisade machine, CF-FZN, had two incidents of tail-rotor damage from rocks and experienced fairing on the leading edge of the rotor blade due to water freezing. While looking after CF-FZN in Vancouver, Alf also analyzed the progress on the Palisade dam and acted as the company’s expeditor.
Carl’s report on the dam project, which was based on Alf and Paul’s detailed notes, became part of the OAS flight-operations manual.
*
The fall and winter of 1949 were quiet. Snow had brought an end to the Palisade dam project for the season and the departure of Paul Ostrander from the company. Meanwhile, a well-known mining entrepreneur approached OAS about a helicopter operation and, confident they would get the contract, OAS provided comprehensive details. A few weeks later, however, management discovered that the individual who had approached them was actually setting up a rival company.
By the end of the decade OAS had successfully made the transition from a local flying school to a crop-spraying operation and then to a province-wide service. Most importantly, in their move from fixed-wing to helicopters, they had gained experience in high-altitude flying on topographic surveys and airlifting construction material.
