Читать книгу Alaska's First Bush Pilots, 1923-30 - Jim Rearden - Страница 13

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Noel Wien Arrives at Fairbanks

Noel Wien, born June 8, 1899, was one of five children born to immigrant parents—his father was from Norway, his mother from Sweden. He grew up in a log cabin on the family homestead at Cook, in northeastern Minnesota where the Wiens lived largely from the land.

Fascinated by mechanical things, cars were his first love. He was 10 when he first had a brief turn at steering a car—a four-cylinder Elcar. His father bought a used Model T Ford when he was 17, but, for a time, Noel was considered too young to be allowed to drive it.

He was a teenager during World War I, when he read about Mannock, Rickenbacker, Fonck, Guynemer, Nungesser, and other famous military fighter plane pilots on the Western Front. He soon became knowledgeable about the Curtiss JN4 “Jenny,” the main training plane for Americans at the time, as well as WWI fighter planes, the Spad XIII, the British S.E.5, the Sopwith Pup, the Nieuport 17 and others. He learned about airplane motors, (now called “engines”) used in various planes - the Hispano-Suiza (Hisso), Gnome, LeRhone, Liberty, and OX-5. In later years he wryly commented that it would probably have been better had he paid as much attention to his schooling as he had to cars and airplanes. His school attendance ended when he was 18, after he had completed eighth grade for the second time.

While still a teenager, he decided he wanted to spend his life flying, although he had never been near an airplane.

The summer he was 17, while continuing to live at home, he raked rocks on county roads at fifteen cents an hour; $1.50 for a ten-hour day. Next, for $2.50 a day he drove a two-ton GMC dump truck, hauling, instead of raking, rocks.

On his 21st birthday Noel bought a 1920 Overland touring car with the nearly $800 he had saved from his two jobs. He lost his truck-driving job and went to Duluth and worked at a harness factory riveting buckles on and oiling harness for $1.50 a day. Horses were still an important means of transportation and farming power. He lived at the YMCA, and ate one meal a day.

He sold the Overland and went to Minneapolis and Saint Paul and used the money to sign up at the William Hood Dunwoodie Institute, hoping to learn about airplanes. There was no airplane course, so he signed up for the auto mechanics course.

FINDING AN AIRPORT

He soon discovered the nearby Curtiss Northwest Airplane Company’s flying school which had a landing area that resembled a forty-acre hayfield. After that his life centered on airplanes and landing fields; he never returned to the Dunwoodie Institute.

In May, 1921, at the flying school, he finally laid his hands on an airplane and met Major Ray S. Miller, a well-known Minnesota pilot.

“I can teach you to fly in eight hours of flying time. It will cost you $40 an hour,” Miller told Noel. “A demonstration hop will cost you $10.”

The ten minute demonstration flight on May 6, 1921, in a Curtiss JN4, Jenny, extended into twenty minutes. Miller tested his prospective student by flying loops, spins, stalls, and wingovers. If he survived with a grin, the instructor believed, he might make a pilot.

Noel loved it. He had dreamed of flying for years, and now that he was in the air he could hardly believe it. He peered at the world below, seeing miniature buildings and farm fields and fences as through the wrong end of a telescope. He watched insect-size cars crawl along dusty roads. The dizzying aerial maneuvers Miller flew didn’t make him airsick; they thrilled him.

When they landed, he advanced $40 to Miller for the first four fifteen-minute instructional hops.

FLYING A JENNY

Miller taught him to fly in an OX-5-powered Jenny, a biplane (two wings) which had no airspeed indicator; he had to judge its speed by the pitch of the air passing across the many wires that held the airplane and its two wings together. There was no turn and bank indicator. A coordinated turn depended on the sensitivity in a pilot’s rear; flying was largely a seat-of-the-pants experience; wind on one side of an open-cockpit-occupied pilot’s face could hint at an un-coordinated turn or skid.

The water-cooled ninety-horsepower OX-5 engine of the Jenny required ten minutes to pull the airplane to 2,000 feet. Its payload was 490 pounds, which included the pilot, a passenger, gasoline, and oil. It was far from the docile airplanes of the mid-20th century; it could fall into a stall and spin with little warning. There was little glide to it; it dropped like a rock without power. He learned how, from altitude, to identify a corn field, other grain fields, or a potato field for emergency landings, which he could expect at any time. The OX-5 was not as dependable as later engines.

During his third hour of dual instruction, he landed the Jenny without the instructor touching the controls. By his fifth hour, he repeatedly took off and landed without the instructor’s help.

An occasional individual is born to be a pilot. It requires perfect coordination, an understanding of the controls and their use, and an appreciation that the airplane moves in three dimensions. Noel Wien was such a person. He was ready to fly solo after eight hours of instruction. At the time, a newly soloing pilot had to guarantee to replace a broken airplane before being allowed to take it up. Noel couldn’t afford to pay for an airplane, or the necessary bond that would allow him to solo. After eight hours of instructions, he left the Curtiss Northwest Company without soloing.

Flying was everything Noel had dreamed it could be. He was hooked. The sense of freedom that comes from soaring high, seeing the earth as the birds do, the ability to dive, turn, to skim near clouds, is almost indescribable. There is an intense delight in flying in an open-cockpit plane like the Jenny, the type that dominated the early years of aviation. He could look straight up into the boundless sky, or straight down to the earth; his vision was wide open. The airplane seemed to be almost a part of his body. He was not enclosed and bound, as in a cabin plane; there was a simple and wonderful sense of freedom.

When those who flew in cockpit type planes for years converted to cabin planes, most complained, “I can’t see like I could from a cockpit.”

They got used to it. Being warm was their reward.

FIRST FLYING JOB

Shortly after completing his dual instructions, Noel looked for a job of any kind that involved airplanes. His instructor introduced him to E. W. Morrill, a former Navy pilot who owned a World War I surplus Standard biplane which he planned to use for barnstorming. Noel agreed to work as his helper. He would build time as a pilot by helping to fly the airplane cross-country between barnstorming gigs. He would also help maintain the airplane, collect passenger’s money, or whatever came along. In exchange he was to receive food and lodging; no dollars.

Early during their barnstorming tour they arrived at a small Minnesota town over which Morrill performed the usual noisy barnstormer’s gyrations with the plane to attract the attention of potential passengers. He then headed for a small field from which he planned to operate. To Noel, in the front cockpit, the field looked too small. Since Morrill was an experienced pilot, at first he wasn’t concerned. But when Morrill tried to land downwind and with a slight crosswind, he took notice.

Twice Morrill tried to land, having to pull up at the last moment each time when it became obvious the plane wouldn’t stop before running into a stand of corn. As Morrill tried the same approach for the third time, it was apparent to Noel that a landing could result in disaster. He seized the control stick, pushed the throttle wide open, and lifted the plane clear. Once at a safe altitude, he glanced back at Morrill, who, to Noel’s surprise, raised both hands, indicating he had relinquished the controls. Noel was now in charge.

He circled, flew an upwind approach over tall trees at the edge of the field, and dropped the plane into the tiny field with a perfect three-point landing. The Jenny stopped a few feet from the corn. Noel cut the engine and looked back at Morrill. He had transgressed by seizing control from an experienced pilot, and the owner of the airplane at that. He expected a strong rebuke, perhaps he would be fired.

Instead, Morrill said, “Good work. I couldn’t tell which way the wind was blowing.” Wien had sensed the wind direction, which told him the proper direction from which approach to the field. In essence, that was Noel’s solo flight; he had command of an airplane at a critical time.

Morrill further acknowledged Noel’s skill by telling him to fly the plane out of the little field. “We won’t barnstorm from here—the field is too small,” he said.

Noel barnstormed with Morrill into August, 1921, by which time he had logged about seventy hours as a pilot.

BARNSTORMING AND A FLYING CIRCUS

For the next three years he barnstormed with various partners. He also worked for a flying circus that operated from Minnesota to California, and on to Texas. He became skilled in flying a loop with a wing-walker standing on the top wing; he flew parachute jumpers, and did acrobatics during circus performances.

In later years as a pioneering Alaska bush pilot, Noel Wien’s reputation was that of a safety-conscious, conservative pilot who commonly flew around rugged country and big timber to provide an extra margin of safety in event of a forced landing. Except in an emergency, he refused to challenge bad weather.

Alaskans who knew and admired the safe and careful Noel Wien would likely have been surprised to learn about the dust-’em-up and turn-’em-over kind of flying he had done in his early years as a pilot.

ALASKA BOUND

Wien’s early barnstorming and other flying jobs never lasted more than a few months. He was at home at Cook, Minnesota in May, 1924, when he was hired by James S. “Jimmy” Rodebaugh, Senior Conductor on the Alaska Railroad who had accumulated a stake trading furs along the rail belt. Rodebaugh thought airplanes could be useful in Alaska. He had bought two crated J-1 Standard biplanes from airplane dealer Marvin Northrup at Robbinsdale, Minnesota (not related to the airplane builder Northrop).

Northrup improved each of the Standards by removing the bucket seat from the front cockpit and replacing it with a bench that allowed room for two passengers; he replaced the landing gear with the more rugged De Havilland DH-4 gear; the Hall-Scott original motor was removed and the motor mounts rebuilt to accommodate the more powerful Hispano-Suiza 150 hp motor. He removed the vertical radiator, replacing it with a nose radiator, giving the pilot better visibility. The airplanes were assembled, flight tested, and, still in their olive-brown military paint, except for their red, white, and blue tails, and the Army Air Service roundels on the wings, disassembled and crated, ready for shipment.

Mid-summer, 1924, at Fairbanks and the two Hisso Standard J 1s owned and shipped to Alaska by Jimmy Rodebaught (on left). During the summer of 1924 and 1925 these were the only two airplanes being flown in Alaska. Pilot Noel Wien is on the right wearing laced leather knee boots and breeches common to pilots of the time. Eddie Hudson, miner, in center.

Rodebaugh asked Northrup to hire two pilots and a mechanic to accompany the planes to Flairbanks.

The two pilots Northrup sent were Noel Wien and Art Sampson.¹ The mechanic was Bill Yunker, who was also a pilot, and with whom Noel had once briefly barnstormed.

The steamer Northwestern docked at Seward, Alaska, in early June, 1924, with 25-year-old Noel, now with more than 500 hours as a pilot, and a crated Standard aboard. Yunker, who had already been to Fairbanks with the other Standard, was there to meet him and the plane.

AT ANCHORAGE

The crated plane rode an Alaska Railroad flatcar to Anchorage, then a railroad town of 2,000, where Noel and Yunker assembled it and had “ANCHORAGE” in huge letters painted on its fuselage.

That June, in Anchorage, Noel flew more than 170 passengers on sixty-five flights with the Standard from a 2,000–foot runway volunteers had prepared just south of the town. He charged ten dollars for a fifteen-minute ride, and took in $1,700—a tidy sum in 1924.

Today, the runway he used is the Park Strip that parallels Ninth Street in down-town Anchorage.

The Standard, with Noel piloting, was the first airplane ever to fly passengers from Anchorage. On July 4th he flew loops, spins, and stalls for a large and appreciative Anchorage crowd.

Yunker installed a streamlined auxiliary fuel tank on the underside of the upper wing. It was built to his specifications by local resident Oscar S. Gill. This gave the plane sixty-five gallons of gasoline, with a range of about 400 miles, enough, Noel hoped, to allow him to safely reach Fairbanks.

While in Anchorage, Noel met Carl Ben Eielson, who was on his way out of Alaska. Within a few years Eielson was to make a name for himself as a pilot in Alaska and elsewhere. In time, he and Noel became friends.

“You’ll like it up here, and you’ll do well,” Eielson predicted.

FLIGHT TO FAIRBANKS

On July 6, 1924, at 2:30 a.m., Wien, with Bill Yunker in the front cockpit, lifted the Standard from the Anchorage runway and flew to Fairbanks. It was the first flight ever between the two cities, and one of the dozens of first-flight records in the Territory made by Noel Wien during his early years of Alaska flying.

Noel was not one to seek fame. He wrote the following brief account describing the historic flight in the August, 1956, Wien Alaska Arctic Liner monthly publication, which was aimed mostly at company employees.

June, 1925. Noel Wien landed on the first airport built in interior Alaska by Frank Leach, owner of Circle Hot Springs. “I went up on the nose and the prop stuck straight down into the ground, but did not break. We used the horses to pull the plane to harder ground, and take off was made without trouble. Frank Leach with a prying pole on left left, helped by Joe Mehern on right

Recounting the Early Days of Wien Airlines

By Noel Wien

The change has been great both in aviation and the city of Fairbanks since that memorable day, July 6, 1924, when, in a water-cooled Hisso-powered Standard J-1 open-cockpit biplane, Bill Yunker and I landed here after flying non-stop from Anchorage.

We flew up at night, thus taking advantage of the smoother air. The smoke was very thick for the last eighty miles and kept us guessing all the time. It was even difficult to follow the railroad tracks from Nenana on in.

[AUTHOR] The flight wasn’t as simple as Noel made it sound in the above recounting. Following the railroad was easy, as long as it was visible; pilots still follow railroads as a navigation aid, and Noel had often followed them in the states. However, on this flight there were no airports for a safe forced landing. Much of the land was rough and steep, impossible to consider for a landing. The Alaska Railroad map he used showed towns and stations, but the “towns” often consisted of a few small scattered buildings. Stations were commonly one small building. The railroad had been completed the previous year, and there was little development along it; Noel flew over mostly unsettled wilderness.

After passing Mount McKinley (Alaskans call it Denali), North America’s tallest peak, he left the foothills of the Alaska Range with relief when he reached relatively flat, green country. It wasn’t farming country with pastures and cultivated fields he was accustomed to; instead, it was miles and miles of uninhabited tussocky tundra, interspersed with patches of spruce and birch trees. There were no obvious places to land safely.

Ahead of his airplane, the railroad tracks disappeared in forest fire smoke that extended to 10,000 feet. To keep the tracks in sight, he had to fly at 200 feet. Visibility grew worse, and smoke burned his eyes. He was soon forced to fly at 100 feet. He kept his eyes on the railroad, afraid to look elsewhere, fearing he might lose the tracks at a turn.

Noel Wien, on right, bound for the Kantishna area with mining engineer Ingram (left) and his secretary, Billie Hart, in September, 1924. Bad weather forced Wien to land on a 300-foot long bar on Bearpaw Creek twenty miles short of their destination. His passengers had to walk the rest of the way.

Three hours and forty minutes from Anchorage, Yunker pointed down to the University of Alaska’s experimental farm. Four miles farther, Fairbanks itself was covered solid with smoke, and Noel was startled by the sight of the two 200-foot-high midtown Northern Commercial Company’s smoke stacks. He quickly banked away from them. Shortly, he saw and landed on the race track at the edge of town. Race tracks (for cars) were commonly used by barnstormers in the states, and experienced barnstormer Noel had found a home.

That race track eventually became Weeks Field, for many years Fairbanks’ only airport. The town grew around it and it was clearly too small and inadequate for the use it was getting, as well as being in an awkward location, when it was finally closed in October, 1951.

PLUCKY AIRMEN BRING “ANCHORAGE” TO INTERIOR WITHOUT STOP; FAST TIME MADE OVER UNKNOWN COURSE, read the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner headline for the day, with the following somewhat misleading report:

Arriving over Fairbanks at 7:16 o’clock this morning, the airplane ANCHORAGE, ship No. 2 of the Alaska Aerial Transportation Company, successfully completed the first non-stop flight between Anchorage and Fairbanks. The flight was made in the fast time of 3 hours and 45 minutes, and was accomplished without incident. Pilot Noel Wien was at the stick, with Mechanician William B. Yunker² as passenger.

Wien and Yunker, after making a pretty landing on Weeks Field, stated that, although they followed the general course of the Alaska Railroad, at no time was the roadbed visible to them. They were able to discern the Carlson roadhouse at Cantwell, where a landing field was said to be ready for them, but they were unable to distinguish the field.

Mount McKinley, rising to majestic height, was not visible until they were within a short distance of it. The lofty dome presented an inspiring pictured veiled in the low early morning mists surrounding it.

Noel Wien (left), in 1925, with one of the Hisso-Standard biplanes which he flew commercially from Fairbanks in 1924, 1925, and 1926. His passenger here was gold miner Carl C. Dunlap who Noel flew from Fairbanks to Beaver on May 3, 1925.

Seventy-five years later, on July 6, 1999, with special permission from the Federal Aviation Administration, another biplane, a World War II Stearman with two open cockpits, took off from the identical location used by Noel, now a park in mid-Anchorage. It flew to Fairbanks to repeat and commemorate Noel’s historic flight. At the controls were professional pilots Noel Merrill Wien and Richard A. Wien, the two sons of Noel and Ada Wien.

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1. Art Sampson arrived at Fairbanks by ship and train with the first Standard, and flew from there briefly. He then waited arrival of Noel Wien so he could leave. “This is no place for an airplane. There’s no place to land,” he told Wien. He returned to Minnesota and for 25 years he was Head of the Aviation Department of the State School of Science at Wahpeton, North Dakota. He also organized the North Dakota Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. After retirement he operated a welding and repair shop until his death on June 3, 1962.

2. Bill Yunker, a mechanic, and also a pilot, remained at Fairbanks as Chief Mechanic for Alaska Aerial Transportation Company until September 9, 1924, when he left for his home in Rochester, Minnesota. He managed the Rochester airport, worked as a mechanic for American Airlines in Chicago, and later worked for North Central Airlines in Minnesota as a mechanic, where he became Engine Overhaul Superintendent. He died October 29, 1960.