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(moved) My first flight in a Beaver

AlaskaAV

GONE WEST
Mission, TX
Not long after I started working for Wien in 1965 where I was assigned as station manager at Umiat, AK, I had sent my wife to Barrow to deliver our second daughter. Anyway, we had a scheduled flight going through Umiat so I decided to take it to Barrow to see my new daughter and wife. When the flight, using a Beaver on wheel skis came in, the pilot wasn't feeling very well. Guess why? Party the night before. Anyway, off we go via Coleville which is a private airport on the delta of the Coleville River where it goes into the Arctic Ocean. Weather was medium to heavy snow with basically a 500 foot or less obscured ceiling. I am sitting right seat since there were no other passengers. Our Beavers had no rudder or yoke on the right side. Just after lift off, the pilot asked if I had ever flown and I said yes of course and that I had flown J-3s and PA-18s. He immediately hit the button on the yoke upright and swung the yoke over to my side and told me I had the aircraft. He told me to just follow the river (called IFR [I follow river] in many places in Alaska) and wake him up when we got there. Come to think of it, that is the same thing my CFI in Anchorage did on my first dual cross country from Anchorage to Skwenta with a stop at Talkeetna on the way back to ANC. When he curled up in the back seat he told me to do a T&G at Skwenta land head for Talkeetna and if I don't wake him up on landing at Skwenta, I will have passed that leg. I passed.

I dropped down to about 300 foot out of Umiat with maybe 1/2 mile visibility while the pilot curled up and went to sleep in the left seat. Needless to say, I followed every curve in that river but also knew that everything was flat for 300 miles in all directions, not even a tree or oil drill rig. I had a NDB for Coleville so had an idea of where we always were. Actually, it was really fun in a way after I got over being so scared and got used to a new aircraft and it was sure beautiful outside even with the snow but boy was everything white. Thank goodness for some open water at times to give me some reference points. When we got to the private Coleville airport around an hour later, I woke the pilot up and he made the landing. There we packed the aircraft with everything we could get in along with 3 passengers. I had no seat so laid on top of all the baggage and sleeping bags while keeping my eye on the pilot. I caught him going to sleep at least two times from Coleville to Barrow and was ready to jump across everyone to get to him if I had to but he always woke up before I needed to get there. The visibility was better by that time too. Thank goodness for a stable aircraft like the Beaver which flies by itself really if trimmed out right. Oh yes, it was really great to see my second daughter the first time.

Before that and when my wife said she thought it was time, I called in a company aircraft, the same Beaver, out of Barrow where they had canceled all bush flights for three days due to heavy icing. Before we went into the bush I had received considerable medical training including child birth and was supplied an extensive "first aid kit" by my doctor trainer which had about everything in it. Even some equipment to do some surgery in an emergency. Some to be used only by doctor approval via HF radio. I guess I wasn't really worried at all. Yah, sure, you bet.....And I have Manhattan Bridge for sale.

Anyway the pilot, the same one described above, said he would take the trip but with only light fuel and one nurse, no mail or cargo. He wanted to be as light as posable because he knew he would ice up.
When he got to Umiat, he really didn't have all that much fuel on board but he sure had a lot of ice. It took both of us 2 hours to chip enough ice off that Beaver so he could return to Barrow. The leading edges of the wings, struts, tail feathers and basically any forward facing surface was covered with maybe 2 inches of solid clear ice. Even the top of the wings had ice on them. That aircraft had to be very, very heavy on landing and I know when I watched him land that he was really moving and I suspect he was close to normal cruise speed on touchdown. I am not even sure the pitot tube was clear on landing. I know he spent a lot of time there working on ice. Just a typical bush pilot of the 50s and 60s I guess. Gave him 3/4 fuel and he was on his way back to Barrow. He had no problems going back and even less ice when he got there he said.
There is a photo of a Porter that he flew for us later in my the gallery. http://supercub.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=album87&id=aab

There is a book about Andy Anderson (my boss for many years), Arctic Bush Pilot by Anderson/Rearden (Epicenter Press), that has lots of stories like these in his early days of bush flying out of Bettles, Alaska.
 
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