Читать книгу Alaska's First Bush Pilots, 1923-30 - Jim Rearden - Страница 12

1

Ben Eielson Arrives at Fairbanks

Born at Hatton, North Dakota, in 1897, Carl Ben Eielson arrived in Fairbanks in 1922 to teach English and science in the high school and to coach the basketball team.

As a boy he was fascinated with airplanes, and decided he wanted to be a pilot. His father, Ole, a Hatton businessman, was opposed to the idea. “Too dangerous,” he said.

Ben graduated from the Hatton high school and entered the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks, where he sang in the glee club, played cornet in the band, and joined the debating club. He transferred to the University of Wisconsin briefly, and in January, 1917, despite concerns of his father, he enlisted in the U.S. Signal Corps, Aviation Section, at Fort Omaha, Nebraska. In June, 1918, he transferred to the School of Military Aeronautics, University of California, Berkeley for eight weeks of ground school prior to flight training. He was then sent to Mather Field, near Sacramento, where he learned to fly. He was commissioned second lieutenant in the Aviation Section of the U.S. Signal Corps, and had orders to sail for France. The war ended, and his orders to France were cancelled.

Second Lieutenant Carl Ben Eielson when assigned to the Aviation Section of the U.S. Signal Corps. He was honorably discharged in 1919, and remained in the Signal Officers Reserve Corps.

He remained at Mather Field, and in March, 1919, he was honorably discharged as a Second Lieutenant, Signal Officers Reserve Corps. He chose to remain in the reserve corps.

THE HATTON AERO CLUB

Back home in Hatton, Ben worked in his father’s store, joined the American Legion, and talked aviation to anyone who would listen. His enthusiasm resulted in formation of the Hatton Aero Club during the winter 1919–20, which purchased a military surplus Model J1 Jenny for $2,485.

With this airplane Ben barnstormed in North Dakota that summer and flew to small town fairs for exhibition flights, which included acrobatics (aerobatics today). Eielson was reputedly an adroit stunt pilot.

That fall at Climax, Minnesota, while taking off from a muddy field, he wrapped one of the wings of the Jenny around a telephone pole. The plane dropped to the ground, one wing and the landing gear destroyed. Eielson was unhurt. The wrecked plane was hauled back to Hatton and the Hatton Aero Club was dissolved.

Ben rebuilt the damaged wing and landing gear, installed a new engine, and brought the Jenny back to flying status. He flew it to Grand Forks and re-entered the University of North Dakota. On weekends he barnstormed with the Jenny.

He graduated from the University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in June, 1921. That summer, two other WWI-trained pilots, Charles W. “Speed” Holman (who became a famed racing pilot later in life; Holman Field, St. Paul, Minnesota, honors his name), and Frank Talcott, joined Ben in barnstorming and aerial stunting exhibitions with the Jenny.

AT FAIRBANKS

Ben sold the Jenny at the end of summer, 1921, and signed up for postgraduate law courses at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C. To help pay his way, he worked on the Capitol Police Force as a guard in the U.S. House Office Building. There he met Dan Sutherland, Alaska’s voteless delegate to Congress. He spent many hours visiting with Sutherland, mostly talking aviation with him. From Sutherland, Ben learned of a job opening for a high school teacher at Fairbanks in the fall of 1922. He applied for the job and was hired.

The Fairbanks he arrived at had a population of 1,155, and was the center of a gold mining district. When cold weather arrived in late October and November, miners from surrounding areas moved to town for the winter. The town was also the center for gathering raw furs, a secondary but important industry across Alaska. Homes were mostly log cabins, although frame buildings dominated the business district. There were seven hotels, eight restaurants, four dance halls. Electricity provided lighting for the town. Water was delivered by horse-drawn wagon in summer, and sled in winter.

Outhouses were common. Streets were unpaved, and there were more dog teams than cars. Winter sled trails to villages, mines, and trapping areas spiderwebbed from Fairbanks. In summer, a few cars traveled between coastal Valdez and Fairbanks on the Richardson Highway, an upgraded wagon trail that penetrated the great Alaska Range. There were 206 autos in private ownership in Fairbanks. The speed limit on the “highways” was twenty-five miles an hour. In winter, horse-drawn double-ender sleds traveled between Fairbanks and coastal Valdez. Roadhouses, roughly thirty miles apart, provided food and overnight accommodations. However, the Alaska Railroad, the northernmost railroad in North America, with 470 miles of rail from coastal Seward to Fairbanks, was completed in 1923, all but ending traffic to and from Valdez.

Living costs at Fairbanks ran somewhat higher than those in the states. Alex Simson’s Department Store, opposite the Nordale Hotel on Second Street, advertised in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner blue chambray work shirts for seventy-five cents, heavy pure wool socks for twenty-five cents. A suit of Medlicott wool underwear cost six dollars fifty cents. The Cut Price Store (which advertised, “Highest prices paid for raw furs”), sold heavy wool pants for five dollars; fine dress pants were seven dollars fifty cents. Stag wool shirts were six dollars fifty cents. Fairbanks merchants didn’t accept coins smaller than twenty-five cents.

Eielson’s Norwegian heritage proclaimed itself with his blue eyes and blond hair, already thinning at 25 when he arrived at Fairbanks. He stood a sturdy 5 feet 10 inches, and weighed 165 pounds. He was one of three teachers in the Fairbanks two-story, red, frame-built school, which, that fall had forty-eight students. Eielson was friendly, easy-to-meet, pleasant. He quickly made many friends in this tiny frontier town.

His students quickly learned if they could get him talking about airplanes, or aviation in general, he might take up a full hour period on the subject. Aviation, and the future of it, dominated his thoughts. Though he was new to the Territory, he already dreamed of a future when airplanes would provide passenger and freight service throughout Alaska. He even envisioned mail and passenger flights across Alaska to Siberia, and beyond to Europe.

His ideas were far ahead of the abilities of aircraft of the time; there were no airports as such needed for their support.

FAIRBANKS’ FIRST AIRPLANES

The first airplane ever at Fairbanks was a Gage-Martin biplane powered by an eight-cylinder Hall-Scott motor. It was owned and flown by its designer, James Martin, who was accompanied to Fairbanks by his aviatrix wife, Lily.

To transport their airplane to Fairbanks its wings were removed and crated. The Martins and their airplane traveled by ship from Seattle to Skagway. From there they rode the White Pass Railroad to Whitehorse. Next, the Martins and their plane went by river steamer down the Yukon to Tanana, and up the Tanana River to Chena, and up Chena Slough to Fairbanks.

The little airplane flew at about 45 mph, and between July 3 and 5, 1913, Martin made five flights with it from Fairbanks’ edge-oftown Exposition Park. The longest flight lasted fourteen minutes.

Next, on August 19, 1920, the four De Havilland DH-4B biplanes of the U.S. Army’s Black Wolf Squadron arrived in Fairbanks on their highly-publicized month-long New York to Nome flight. They were greeted by an enthusiastic crowd.

The squadron left for Nome the next day. After reaching Nome, they turned back, and again stopped briefly in Fairbanks on their return flight to the states.

A TRIAL AIRMAIL FLIGHT

Eielson often visited with sourdoughs in the lobby of the Alaska Hotel, where he roomed. Some told outrageous stories, hoping the young cheechako (newcomer) would bite. Among Fairbanksans who became his friends was debonair W. F. “Wrongfont” Thompson, editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, with whom Ben frequently visited. They talked mostly about aviation.

During winters, most mail in interior Alaska was hauled by dog team, and had been since the 1800s. It was slow and expensive. Eielson thought Alaska’s mail could easily be flown, although no one had flown a plane through the deep cold of an interior winter. Somehow he managed to receive permission from the Post Office Department to make a trial airmail flight from Fairbanks to fifty-eight-mile-distant (by rail) Nenana.

With a borrowed airplane, on February 21, 1923, with the temperature at +5 F., with no wind, he flew 500 pounds of mail and express packages from Fairbanks to Nenana. The flight was recorded in the Congressional Record. References don’t reveal which airplane he flew, or from whom he borrowed it.

THE FARTHEST-NORTH AIRPLANE COMPANY

Ben, with News-Miner editor W. F. Thompson and banker Dick Wood, formed the Farthest-North Airplane Company. They put together enough money to buy a military surplus OX-5-powered Jenny. Wood contributed most of the $750 price of the plane.

Eielson planned to fly the plane commercially—a first in interior Alaska.

The two crates that held the Jenny arrived at Fairbanks July 1, 1923. Eielson and Ira Farnsworth, “the best mechanic in town,” worked at assembling it, with help from Earl Borland, a talented Alaska Road Commission mechanic. They carefully followed the thirty-five pages of directions that arrived with the plane.¹

Eielson in the front cockpit of the Ox-5 Jenny NC47358, at Fairbanks. This airplane was purchased for $750 by the Farthest-North Airplane Company, which was formed by Eielson, W. F. Thompson, and Dick Wood. Passenger in the rear cockpit is Mrs. Ladessa Nordale, wearing Ben’s flying helmet and goggles. Circa 1923.

THE JENNY FLIES

Finally, all parts were assembled and adjusted, with oil in the engine, and gas in the tank. On July 4, always a day of celebration in Fairbanks, Ben was billed as “The Greatest Living Flier, the Aerial Daredevil.” The plane was rolled to a spot at the Exposition Park/ball park/race track² that gave Ben the needed room to take off. He climbed into the rear cockpit, put on his leather helmet, and pulled his goggles into position.

Farnsworth called, “Switch off” (the OX-5 had but one magneto) and Ben repeated. Farnsworth pulled the wooden prop through a few times, turning the engine over and priming the carburetor.

“Switch on,” he called, and Ben turned the magneto switch to on.

The next time Farnsworth pulled the prop through, the OX-5 engine sputtered a few times and stopped. He again pulled the prop through with the switch off. Next time, with the switch on, the engine started and the prop spun while the engine continued to run.

A huge crowd (for Fairbanks) had gathered. Ben allowed the engine to warm. Finally he advanced to full throttle. The OX-5 roared, and the Jenny bounced as it gained speed across the uneven ground and climbed into the Fairbanks sky.

For the next half hour he flew loops, spins, aileron rolls, flew upside down briefly, climbed, stalled, swooped near the ground and climbed noisily, above excited Fairbanksans.

When he landed, the day was still early. He took off and flew toward the fifty-mile-distant riverbank village of Nenana, where he had promised to give a flying demonstration. He followed the railroad tracks that ran between the two towns. His passenger was banker Dick Wood, who, despite prohibition, reportedly settled his nerves with a few shots of white mule before climbing aboard. Flying, after all, was a scary business.

Ben cut across bends in the railroad tracks, lost sight of the tracks, and circled, trying to find them again. Becoming lost was one of his weaknesses as a pilot; it happened with discouraging frequency. He circled for more than an hour, searching, and finally found the tiny riverbank village of Nenana. For $500 from the local citizenry, he performed loops, tailspins, aileron rolls, power dives, and other acrobatics.

He was called “The Flying Professor,” and “Lieutenant Eielson,” and various superlatives in the News-Miner’s report on his day of flying.

President Warren Harding arrived at Fairbanks after driving a golden spike on July 16, 1923, just north of the new Tanana River bridge, symbolizing completion of the Alaska Railroad. Later, on a day at Fairbanks when the temperature reached 94 degrees, Eielson flew his Jenny in a spectacular series of stunts for the President and his party.

COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS FROM FAIRBANKS

That summer of 1923, with the Jenny, Ben Eielson flew passengers for brief flights, and to and from various mines and nearby villages. He flew machine parts to mines. He flew sick people from villages to the Fairbanks hospital. He flew game meat, gold, furs, groceries, and other items. Fairbanksans and regional miners found that air service was quicker, often by days, and often much cheaper, than ground or water transportation in the roadless wilderness-like land surrounding Fairbanks.

Advertising in the News-Miner, he offered, “Flying lessons from the Farthest-North Airplane Company. Your choice of the long course, or the short course! Take a dip in the clouds! Prices to fit all pocketbooks.”

He flew commercial flights to Circle, Brooks (Livengood), Tolovana, Tofty, Stewart Creek, all within a short distance of Fairbanks. He was limited to light loads that would fit into the front cockpit, and by the 150-mile distance he could fly from Fairbanks with the Jenny.

Ben flew the Jenny for 145 hours that summer. Most flights were reported in the News-Miner. By summer’s end various villages and mines surrounding Fairbanks had prepared runways where an airplane could land. Residents were beginning to understand the advantages of air travel.

AIRMAIL FOR ALASKA?

When cold weather came, the Jenny was stored for winter. While flying from Fairbanks that summer, Eielson had written to the Post Office Department in Washington proposing a contract for flying mail from Fairbanks to 300-mile-distant McGrath. In winter, mail between the two places was hauled by dog team, taking up to thirty days. Eielson pointed out that it was a simple flight, easily accomplished in a few hours. The Post Office Department responded with lukewarm bureaucratic double talk.

After all, in winter, mail had been carried by dog teams in Alaska since before the turn of the century. The routes were established, and a considerable business surrounded dog team mail carriers, including mail carrier contracts, sled builders, the sale of tons of dried salmon for dog food. Dog team trails ran all directions in Interior Alaska, with roadhouses spaced roughly every thirty miles where travelers, most of whom used dog teams, could find food, overnight lodging, and facilities for dog care. In addition, there were government-maintained relief cabins on long hauls between roadhouses. Mail team drivers were popular, for with teams of eighteen, twenty, or more dogs, they broke trail in new snow. Other users of the trails often waited for a mail team to go by so they could follow on the broken trail.

Mail dog team drivers annually bid on mail routes. Those awarded contracts for the coming winter were listed in the June 2, 1926, News Miner. A sampling (value of contract not listed):

Bethel to McGrath—Wallace Langley

Bethel to Quinhagak—Charles E. Jacobson

Bettles to Wiseman—Sam Dubin

Candle to Keewalik—Herbert Greenberg

Chatanika to Circle—Henry Robson

Chicken to St. Timothy—R. C. Mitchell

Circle via Fort Yukon to Beaver—Northern Commercial Company

Circle to Miller House—John Palm

A dog team of about twenty animals used by a mail team driver. Winter mail was hauled by dog teams in mainland Alaska from the 1800s until airplanes took over mostly by the late 1930s. This photo was probably taken at Nenana. Commonly, such a team pulled two heavily loaded sleds hooked together. Once airplanes became established, winter mail could be flown more economically than hauled by dog teams.

Within a few years the airplane forced many of the enterprises involved with dog teams out of business, but not without a struggle. As airplanes challenged, a notice posted outside one roadhouse read, “Drunks, Indians, and Airplane Pilots not Welcome Here.” The airplane changed life in Alaska in many ways, and much of the change took place within ten or fifteen years. Those whose livelihoods were displaced generally didn’t like pilots.

That fall of 1923 Eielson traveled to Washington D. C. attempting to obtain a contract to fly mail from Fairbanks to McGrath. He visited Post Office officials and pitched his proposal. He reminded authorities of his February airmail flight to Nenana. He was a handsome young man, full of enthusiasm, and persuasive, and he had flown as an Army pilot, which was all a plus. Alaska was a complete unknown to the bureaucrats he approached. They probably regarded Eielson as a strange bird.

McGrath lies at the confluence of the Takotna and Kuskokwim Rivers, and is a center for gold mining, trapping, and freighting. It is a transfer point for freight bound for the upper Kuskokwim River; here larger river boats and tugs with barges transfer freight to smaller vessels better adapted to the upper reaches of the winding river.

Flying the mail was relatively new in the United States, although it was common in Europe.³

AN AIRMAIL CONTRACT

Dan Sutherland, Alaska’s Delegate to Congress, had been promoting air mail service for the Territory for three years. Eielson’s pitch and Sutherland’s pressure worked, for in December, 1923, the Postal Service announced a contract would be let to the Farthest-North Airplane Company (Eielson, W.F. Thompson, and Dick Wood) for an experimental aeroplane service for the 230 miles between Nenana, on the Alaska Railroad, and McGrath, on the Kuskokwim River.

The route crossed the Kantishna gold mining and fur trapping country, with stops at Ophir, Takotna, Iditarod, and Flat City. Winter dog team mail service was to continue during the airmail flights. Ben Eielson was to pilot a DeHavilland DH-4BM biplane loaner⁴ from the Postal Service, with a 440-hp Liberty engine. It included special equipment for cold weather operation.

Skis and a spare motor were included with the crated DH-4 shipped to Fairbanks. It arrived via the Alaska Railroad on January 23, 1924. The three huge crates were hauled from the rail depot by a horse-drawn sled to the Northern Commercial Company machine shop for assembly by Eielson and mechanic Frank McCafferty.

Assembled except for wings and empennage (tail feathers), on skis, with a dog sled under the tail, the fuselage was pulled by a horse from the machine shop to an unfinished hangar at Rickert’s field. Here the wings, tail ski, and empennage were attached.

Eielson was to make ten round-trip trial flights between Nenana and McGrath. Payment was to be two dollars a mile for the first five round trips, and a dollar fifty for the remaining five trips. That was less than half what the dog team musher with the mail contract received.

Instead of starting his flights at Nenana, Eielson based himself at Fairbanks with its better machine shop and other facilities. This added fifty miles to the one-way distance to McGrath.

FIRST MAIL FLIGHT TO McGRATH

It was -5 F. on February 21, 1924, at Week’s Field when, at 8:45 a.m, Eielson, with 164 pounds of mail in the enclosed front cockpit, gave full throttle to the Liberty engine of the DeHavilland, and roared down the 900-feet-long runway to climb into the sky on his first mail flight to McGrath. The big wood prop created such a blizzard of snow that the airplane wasn’t visible to onlookers until it climbed free of the ground.

Ben Eielson in the cockpit of the DeHavilland D4 in which he flew the first mail flight from Fairbanks to McGrath on February 21, 1924. Eielson was the first to fly scheduled mail runs in Alaska in a trial effort by the Post Office Department.

The compass of Ben’s DeHavilland was forty degrees off. The airspeed indicator was inoperative, and the tachometer worked intermittently. He ignored these problems and flew on.

He was heavily bundled in layers of wool and fur, and carried emergency gear of snowshoes, a mountain sheepskin sleeping bag, ten days provisions, axe, gun, and tools for working on the plane.

Ben followed the Tanana River to Nenana and from there followed the dog team trail southwest. He peered down trying to spot the roadhouses and their smoke every thirty miles or so. Reaching the winding Kuskokwim River, he followed it to McGrath and landed on the Takotna River where it poured into the Kuskokwim. The flight lasted two hours and fifty minutes.

A dog team hauled the mail to the McGrath post office. Sixty pounds of mail was returned to the plane in the dog sled for the return trip. The plane was refueled and oil added to the engine.

Eielson had planned a quick turn-around, expecting to land at Fairbanks by dusk at around 5 p.m., but McGrath locals insisted on a celebratory banquet, which delayed his departure until 2:35 p.m.

As dark fell he was about half way to Fairbanks and above nine-mile-long Lake Minchumina. He continued with the same heading. When he thought he should be in the vicinity of Nenana he could see no lights. He circled, peering for lights. He homed on a light at a cabin, and when it was beneath him he realized it was in a remote area.

For an hour he was lost in the dark. Dense clouds concealed the stars; it was black dark. Only the snow-covered land gave Ben some idea of the lay of the land below. He grimly flew on, carefully searching for lights. A glimmer anywhere would do at this stage. He was going to have to land soon. Gas was running low.

He came to a large river, followed it, saw a flare in the distance, flew to it, and discovered with great relief it was a bonfire for his benefit in front of the Rickert’s Field hangar.

He was unable to see the edge of the landing field, for it was 6:45 p. m. and full dark as he glided for a landing. Missing the edge of the field, he struck a tree and one of the plane’s skis broke off. The plane nosed over when it hit the ground, and as the waiting crowd watched, the propeller broke.

Fairbanksans proudly presented Eielson with a gold watch, inscribed, “C.B. Eielson—Pioneer Alaska Trail Blazer—Fairbanks to McGrath—February 21, 1924.” Fastened to the watch was a gold chain that included a gold nugget; a diamond-studded knife was attached to one end of the chain.

He was made an honorary member of the Fairbanks Igloo of Pioneers. He gave a talk about aviation and his airmail contract to the faculty and students at the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines (today the University of Alaska Fairbanks).

MORE MAIL FLIGHTS TO McGRATH

The compass in the DeHavilland was repaired, and the airspeed indicator fixed for the second mail flight on March 1, on which he carried 252 pounds of McGrath-bound mail. It went off without a hitch.

The third flight, on March 12, also went well. He hauled little mail, but he took thirty-five pounds of wire for the government radio station at Takotna, twenty miles from McGrath, and landed there to deliver it.

In powdery snow the narrow tail ski sent with the DeHavilland created drag in the snow on takeoff. It was replaced by a six-inchwide, shorter ski which worked better.

Eielson flew his fourth mail flight on March 26, and had a minor problem on landing on the Takotna river when he ran into an overflow which had been covered by snow. The ice six inches beneath was solid, and the only damage was a cracked ski, which was temporarily repaired for the return flight.

The fifth trip, on April 9, with 300 pounds of mail, on a blue sky day, went without a hitch.

On his sixth trip, April 23, he landed at Nenana to take on 365 pounds of mail that had arrived there by train the previous day. The last dog team over the route had left for McGrath April 5, and surface travel had ended because of breakup. The first upriver boat on the Kuskokwim River to McGrath wasn’t expected until about June 20. Eielson pointed out that breakup didn’t stop his airplane from flying.

At McGrath, William “Hosie” Hummel, the “High-powered Swede,”⁵ extremely ill, had been hauled by dog team from Takotna. There was no doctor within hundreds of miles. Ben loaded him into the DeHavilland with the mail and flew him to Fairbanks for medical care. He charged nothing.

After landing at Fairbanks, Ben attempted a fast turn on the ground and broke the pedestal on one ski as well as the airplane’s wood propeller. In addition, the radiator was damaged when the nose of the plane hit the ground. Repairs were made.

As Ben helped Hosie out of the cockeyed plane, the ill man reportedly said, “Yeezus, Ben! You always land like dat?”

Snow was gone and the skis were replaced by wheels for the seventh flight on May 7, which went well.

Flight number eight, on May 28, ended after Ben landed the DeHavilland on return to Fairbanks. He taxied the DeHavilland into a boggy spot (later spoken of as “Eielson’s soft spot”) near the center of the airfield, where the wheels sank deeply in mud. The plane flipped onto its back. Propeller, rudder and two wing struts broke.

In the mail cockpit, passenger Charles Nystrom, of McGrath, who was making a hurried trip to the Mayo Brothers Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for an unknown health problem, hung by his safety belt. Ben released it and his passenger promptly landed on his head. Except for a goose egg, Nystrom was all right.

Ben broke the DeHavilland three times on eight flights. In fairness, it must be said that the big, awkward airplane was not well suited to the extreme winter conditions, or to the available landing places.

All the spare parts needed for repairs that had been sent with the DeHavilland had been used. Local mechanics couldn’t repair it this time without sending Outside for parts.

The Post Office Department was notified of the accident, and refused to send or finance replacement wing struts. The Assistant Postmaster General wrote, “Your experiment has been successful to a marked degree...(but) there are many things which must be done before we can continue on a permanent basis our use of airplanes in mail-carrying in Alaska.”

So ended the first real attempt to haul mail by airplane in Alaska.

After his last mail flight, for a time that spring and early summer of 1924, Eielson flew the Jenny briefly at Fairbanks for Jimmy Rodebaugh, an Alaska Railroad conductor who was gearing up to get into the airplane business. On September 19, 1924, for a $200 charter, his passenger was miner Jack Tobin, whose destination was near Copper Mountain in Mount McKinley National Park. Copper Mountain was later renamed Mount Eielson in honor of Ben, who was the first to land an airplane near it.

In his first two years (1922–24) at Fairbanks, Ben Eielson became Alaska’s first airmail pilot, as well as the first pilot ever to be based at Fairbanks with a commercial flying operation.

That June, Eielson traveled to the states. On the way, while in Anchorage, he was attracted to a newly arrived Standard biplane being flown by Noel Wien from a new airstrip. The two pilots met and talked, and Eielson encouraged Wien, new to Alaska, to pursue flying in Alaska. There was a strong mutual attraction. They were both products of the rural Midwest. Both were aviation enthusiasts. Both would become famous for their flying exploits. Eventually they became fast friends.

Ben again made the rounds of officials in Washington D.C. in attempting to persuade the government to establish air mail in Alaska. It was like catching water in a sieve; most officials had unchangeable views on Alaska. To these bureaucrats, the old Eskimo and snow igloo fable and impossibly cold winters were established facts despite Eielson’s assuring them otherwise, and his proven flying experience in the Territory.

He returned home to Hatton, briefly returned to Georgetown University law school, then dropped out to join the Army Air Service to participate in a cold weather flying study which was finished by the end of 1924, along with his contract with the Army.

Back at Hatton, Ben became a bond salesman, which bored him. In early 1926, a telegram from explorer George Hubert Wilkins rescued him. Wilkins was looking for a pilot to fly for him on an arctic expedition. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, famous as an arctic explorer, who had followed newspaper accounts of Ben’s airmail flights, had told Wilkins that Ben was the American pilot with the most experience in arctic flying.

Ben met Wilkins in New York. They were both adventure-minded and both were pilots and aviation enthusiasts. They enjoyed each other’s company, and quickly came to agreement. For a nominal salary, Ben agreed to accompany Wilkins as a pilot on the proposed arctic expedition.

Ben Eielson’s life was about to change; as an Alaskan pilot who first flew airmail in the Territory he had gained moderate fame; as a pilot for Hubert Wilkins, he was to become internationally famous.

_______________

1. The book Modern Aircraft, by Major Victor W. Page, Air Corps Reserve, U.S.A.,1930, by The Norman W. Henley Publishing Company, New York, in my library, printed thirty-five pages of directions for uncrating, setting up, and aligning a Curtiss JN-4 biplane. —JR.

2. Exposition Park, at the edge of town, was used as a race track for cars, and for baseball. Eventually it became a landing runway for planes and named Weeks Field in honor of Secretary of War, John Weeks.

Adjacent land, owned by Paul Rickerts, was called Rickerts Field and used for a time as an airplane landing field. It was 1,500 feet long, as compared to the early Weeks Field of 900 feet. The first hangar built at Fairbanks was on Rickerts Field, in 1924, and was used by the DH-4 mail plane flown by Eielson.

3. In 1918, a trial airmail run was made between New York and Washington D.C., using Army pilots. The Post Office Department followed up using Standard biplanes, and later, with modified War Surplus DeHavilland DH-4 biplanes. By 1920, daylight mail flights extended from New York to San Francisco; railroads took the mail over at night. Next came night flights on which mail plane pilots followed revolving beacons. By mid-1924 revolving beacons flashed into the night sky from New York to San Francisco, with lighted emergency landing runways every thirty miles or so. Night and day airmail flights, weather permitting, were well established.

4. About 300 DH-4 light bomber and observation planes were sent overseas during World War I, but none were used in combat. At war’s end there were many surplus DH-4s,and the Postal Service started using them in the States for hauling mail. Before such use each plane had an engine, propeller and instrument overhaul, had the cockpits realigned, with the front cockpit with a hinged cover. The airmail pilot’s name was printed on the fuselage.

Army pilots referred to the DH-4s as “flaming coffins.” The fuel tank was placed low between engine and cockpit. Air pressure in the tank was used to force fuel to the carburetor. A punctured fuel tank or fuel line sprayed fuel. When that happened, a fire often resulted.

Ignition for the 440-hp Liberty engine was provided by a hot battery. A dead battery meant a stopped engine, and that meant the airplane had to immediately land.

5. Many of the colorful characters of the time had equally colorful nicknames, a custom that, sadly, has mostly disappeared in Alaska.