AlaskaAV
GONE WEST
Mission, TX
One night, a security guard working for the Arctic Research Lab at Point Barrow was making his rounds when he got a bug up his you know what. He climbed in a C-185 which had the key in it and proceeded to crank it up. Since it was in their warm hanger, it actually fired up with no preheating. He got playing around and somehow he found the throttle and started playing around with it. Lots of noise and lots of fun I am sure. At one point, either he didn't know which way was in or out, he went to max power. No tiedown and of course and he didn't know where the brakes were. Goodby to two nearly new C-185s. At least he knew enough to turn the key off before he got out and ran. As I recall, it took 3 days to figure out who did it.
Resupplying of floating ice island research stations.
This story is about the Wien operations on contract to the Arctic Research Lab for their ice island stations.
Wien had a previously owned (sounds better than used) SAS 749 Connie (maybe photos later) tail number 7777G. At a point, some of the ice island stations were moving too far away from Point Barrow for the R4Ds to resupply so the Lab came to Wien for help. We used our DC-4, 940, as well as the Connie 7777G but never remember using our C-46s. Maybe with a little luck, I can got one of our pilots to talk about those trips in our DC-4.
I was not working for Wien at this time but held the position as assistant airport manager of the Point Barrow Airport which included the responsibility of refueling some aircraft on demand. Air Force fueled their own aircraft though. I really enjoyed talking to Max Conrad when fueling his flying gas tank on his pole to pole flight in his Piper Aztec.
OK, here comes that beautiful Wien Connie again....and they taxi over to the fuel pit. They are in no hurry since it takes lots of time to load and fuel. I knew the flight crew pretty well but spent most of my time with the flight engineer. I started the over wing fueling topside and he wanted all tanks topped off but with just a little in each tank at time from one side of the aircraft to the other and this went on back and forth to keep the weight even. I would have to leave to take care of other business at times. He didn't want a wing tip on the ground since lots of fuel were in extra tanks near the wing tips. When it got near the end, he went topside with me and he got on one wing tip while I worked on the other side while we jumped up and down to rock the ship. Every drop of gas??? You bet. We did that three times even after I thought the tanks were full. I must admit that the aircraft was one of the first that SAS used for their polar routes and had extra tanks. Unbelievable amount of fuel that bird carried.
I suspect on those flights they had enough fuel to fly close to the north pole out of Point Barrow, hold and make several NDB approches and return to Point Barrow with alternate of Umiat and second alternate of Fairbanks and sufficent fuel to make ANC if they had to. You bet, every drop of fuel.
The flight engineer told me in case anyone asked, I didn't know how much fuel was on board which I really didn't and didn't want to since I didn't know the size of the tanks. He than had lots and lots of cargo loaded. I suspect that aircraft was overgross by some very large numbers because they sure took a lot of that 5,000 to lift off. I never heard who had the W&B copy left on departure or even if there was one.
Out of Point Barrow airport, I have seen that aircraft make many 3 engine departures on ferry flights back to Fairbanks. The Connie was owned by one of our pilots but he hardly ever flew it for some reason.
At the same time at Point Barrow, I would always report airport weather on my shift as a licensed observer. For some special Wien Connie crews and when we had heavy drifting snow where I couldn't even see across the ramp at grand level, I would often climb up the passenger loading ramp to take the observations since it was about the same level as the cockpit of a Connie. This always shook up the Wien Station Manager since he could not see across the ramp at ground level either. What I could see on the ramp gave me a way to report exactly what the pilot would see on touchdown and runway ahead of him. I always turned the runway lights up to max also. I would report visibility unrestricted with very heavy drifting snow. This told those selected flight crews that at their level they could see everything but standing on the ground lots of restrictions from drifting snow. Perfectly safe operation with selected crews.
I would never do this with Air Force crews in DC-4s and 6s though and the local military knew why.
One last thing about Point Barrow. When I was assigned as station manager at Barrow for Wien and we were using the Point Barrow Airport, I spent a lot of time driving back and forth between town and the airport some 8 miles away trying to find a safe runway to land on durring construction. No roads of course so I was using our company Chevy pickup with 12 inch wide flotation tires driving the beach gravel. At the time, my wife and I were working as a team and we never had time to eat. Guess what? I made arrangements for our flight crews to have a special steak dinner cooked for them at the Air Force operated mess hall just so my wife and I, as well as crew, could have the cold lunches the airline put on board. To us, we had the better part of the deal because at least we could eat. Talk about fun getting a job done with a tremendous crew however later I had to fire my wife for insubordination and she loved it.
Enough about Point Barrow
Resupplying of floating ice island research stations.
This story is about the Wien operations on contract to the Arctic Research Lab for their ice island stations.
Wien had a previously owned (sounds better than used) SAS 749 Connie (maybe photos later) tail number 7777G. At a point, some of the ice island stations were moving too far away from Point Barrow for the R4Ds to resupply so the Lab came to Wien for help. We used our DC-4, 940, as well as the Connie 7777G but never remember using our C-46s. Maybe with a little luck, I can got one of our pilots to talk about those trips in our DC-4.
I was not working for Wien at this time but held the position as assistant airport manager of the Point Barrow Airport which included the responsibility of refueling some aircraft on demand. Air Force fueled their own aircraft though. I really enjoyed talking to Max Conrad when fueling his flying gas tank on his pole to pole flight in his Piper Aztec.
OK, here comes that beautiful Wien Connie again....and they taxi over to the fuel pit. They are in no hurry since it takes lots of time to load and fuel. I knew the flight crew pretty well but spent most of my time with the flight engineer. I started the over wing fueling topside and he wanted all tanks topped off but with just a little in each tank at time from one side of the aircraft to the other and this went on back and forth to keep the weight even. I would have to leave to take care of other business at times. He didn't want a wing tip on the ground since lots of fuel were in extra tanks near the wing tips. When it got near the end, he went topside with me and he got on one wing tip while I worked on the other side while we jumped up and down to rock the ship. Every drop of gas??? You bet. We did that three times even after I thought the tanks were full. I must admit that the aircraft was one of the first that SAS used for their polar routes and had extra tanks. Unbelievable amount of fuel that bird carried.
I suspect on those flights they had enough fuel to fly close to the north pole out of Point Barrow, hold and make several NDB approches and return to Point Barrow with alternate of Umiat and second alternate of Fairbanks and sufficent fuel to make ANC if they had to. You bet, every drop of fuel.
The flight engineer told me in case anyone asked, I didn't know how much fuel was on board which I really didn't and didn't want to since I didn't know the size of the tanks. He than had lots and lots of cargo loaded. I suspect that aircraft was overgross by some very large numbers because they sure took a lot of that 5,000 to lift off. I never heard who had the W&B copy left on departure or even if there was one.
Out of Point Barrow airport, I have seen that aircraft make many 3 engine departures on ferry flights back to Fairbanks. The Connie was owned by one of our pilots but he hardly ever flew it for some reason.
At the same time at Point Barrow, I would always report airport weather on my shift as a licensed observer. For some special Wien Connie crews and when we had heavy drifting snow where I couldn't even see across the ramp at grand level, I would often climb up the passenger loading ramp to take the observations since it was about the same level as the cockpit of a Connie. This always shook up the Wien Station Manager since he could not see across the ramp at ground level either. What I could see on the ramp gave me a way to report exactly what the pilot would see on touchdown and runway ahead of him. I always turned the runway lights up to max also. I would report visibility unrestricted with very heavy drifting snow. This told those selected flight crews that at their level they could see everything but standing on the ground lots of restrictions from drifting snow. Perfectly safe operation with selected crews.
I would never do this with Air Force crews in DC-4s and 6s though and the local military knew why.
One last thing about Point Barrow. When I was assigned as station manager at Barrow for Wien and we were using the Point Barrow Airport, I spent a lot of time driving back and forth between town and the airport some 8 miles away trying to find a safe runway to land on durring construction. No roads of course so I was using our company Chevy pickup with 12 inch wide flotation tires driving the beach gravel. At the time, my wife and I were working as a team and we never had time to eat. Guess what? I made arrangements for our flight crews to have a special steak dinner cooked for them at the Air Force operated mess hall just so my wife and I, as well as crew, could have the cold lunches the airline put on board. To us, we had the better part of the deal because at least we could eat. Talk about fun getting a job done with a tremendous crew however later I had to fire my wife for insubordination and she loved it.
Enough about Point Barrow
