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      The Early Days of Wien Airlines

      BY NOEL WIEN

      [AUTHOR] During the mid-1950s Noel Wien wrote a series of “looking back” articles for the Wien Arctic Liner, an inhouse monthly publication for the airline. Selections from these first person remembrances, slightly edited, follow.

      There was intrigue about the stillness of the air, and the frontier atmosphere of Fairbanks, which made me like the North from the day I arrived. For two weeks after we landed [on July 6, 1924; “we”, meaning Noel] we couldn’t find our way cross-country due to the forest fire smoke, but when it cleared, we were busy. People in Fairbanks took to the air quickly. They were hardy, willing to gamble. Ben Eielson had made a number of flights that spring before I arrived [for Rodebaugh’s Fairbanks Airplane Corporation). He had also started the Farthest-North Airplane Company the previous year, and had brought in an old reliable OX-5-powered Curtiss Jenny JN-4D open cockpit World War I training plane.

      Due to the interest created by Eielson’s pioneering, we had little trouble getting flying business to outlying mining camps. Livengood, sixty miles northwest of Fairbanks, a cluster of mostly log cabins surrounded by mines, was one of the best of the gold-producing camps.

      During the first season in 1924, we made thirty-four flights to Livengood, and in the summer of 1925, forty three flights.

      BROKEN WATER PUMP

      All went smoothly until mid-summer 1925. We had purchased a supposedly major-overhauled plane from Lincoln, Nebraska, one of the Hisso-Standard build-up headquarters. The engine worked fine on the flight to Livengood, but on the return a sudden shower of water erupted from the engine’s cooling system.

      I knew that because of loss of water, the engine would soon become so hot it would stop. We were about half-way to Fairbanks, near Wickersham Dome. I spotted a shelf to one side of the Dome which seemed like the only possible chance of getting down without breaking up or going over on our back. We were cruising lower than the 2,500-foot shelf, so I had to use power to get up to it. The engine was steaming plenty when I reached a landing approach.

      It was a fairly good landing place, and the airplane remained right side up without breaking anything. The problem was caused by a broken water pump; water stopped circulating, overheated, and boiled over.

      The two passengers and I walked to Olnes, on the Chatanika River [fifteen miles], over miles of miserable tussocks. One of the passengers, an old sourdough, had no trouble walking. The other passenger, an insurance adjuster, had flown with me for both business and pleasure. He was my first tourist, and possibly the first flying tourist passenger in Alaska. He wore Oxford shoes and was about to give up before we arrived at the Chatanika River.

      After one day of rest, I was ready to attempt another landing on Wickersham Dome. We had just hired A.A. Bennett, a new pilot, to help us fly one of the three ships we had [the two Standards and Eielson’s Jenny]. He was new to Alaska, having just arrived from San Diego, California, and was skeptical of going in with me. Our second Hisso Standard was not in shape to fly at the time, but we had Ben Eielson’s OX-5 Jenny in good flying condition, so in it off we flew to Wickersham Dome to retrieve the crippled Standard.

      The day was nice and I made a good landing, but busted a tire on a protruding rock. Knowing the landing surface was rocky, we had with us an extra wheel and tire already assembled. After replacing the wheel on the Jenny, we replaced the broken water pump on the stranded Standard, and re-filled the radiator with water we had carried with us from Fairbanks.